There is no clean and there is no dirty

Clean and dirty, in terms of home cleanliness, do not actually exist. They are terms that refer to a very specific, and individual rubrics for judging whether or not a space or an item is normal or disgusting, and these are both personal. For example, in my home office, would you know that it is acceptable to have a mug that has not been washed for three weeks, but that it is not OK to have a spoon, even a freshly washed one, anywhere?

No, you would not know that. Why would you?

Would you know that it is OK to have a bit of hair on the ground on a Friday, but not on a Monday? Again, no, you could not know that. That is because you do not know what is normal for me.

Institutions, on the other hand, must maintain a very specific definition of cleanliness. At McAlister’s Deli, for example, when closing down the restaurant for the night, the instructions were not to just “clean up.” You had to mop, wipe down all of the counters, refill napkins, wipe down parts of the drink machine, etc. There was a checklist of everything that you had to do in order to declare that you had “cleaned” and that the restaurant was likely in a “clean” state.

When I was living in San Francisco, I chose two roommates for my apartment that turned out to be very bad fits. There were some critical errors that I made during the application process, like valuing how enjoyable our conversation was (over wine), vs. actually knowing anything about them or their living habits. That was a mistake.

I remember asking one person, who I ended up asking to live with me, what she did about cleaning. She said that “if she saw something was dirty, that she’d give it a clean.” Days into living with her, I realized a couple of things. 1. This person never (or very rarely) saw anything dirty. 2. Someone who likes to clean will not leave it up to chance. They will have a plan. They will have a method. They will have a routine. And when they’re moving in with someone, they will ask that person how often and how they clean.

Was she a slob? Yes. Was I a neat freak? Yes. Because these are relative terms. Slob means someone who’s normal is disgusting to you, and a neat freak is someone who calls you a slob. Everyone wins.

The moral: Talk about your normals.