Sludge Water

Five Times! I steam-cleaned Tallulah's carpet FIVE TIMES in the past two days and I am still getting thick gray water.

Actually, I take that back. At what point can you no longer call something water? Because I went beyond that. I'm still getting sludge sucked up by the steam cleaner.

Housecleaning for me is generally a comedy of errors. The first time I steam-cleaned Tallulah's room, I borrowed a steam cleaner that a friend had bought at a garage sale.
"I bought it from my neighbor. They assured me it works great. No, I haven't used it, but it'll be fine," I was told.
So I used it. And the first couple of minutes, I thought the black streaks it was leaving behind were just part of the cleaning process. By the time I had gone over the entire room, it was zebra striped with dirt. I had to rent a different machine to get the stripes up, but the carpet has never really recovered.

Tallulah's room is the only carpeted room in the entire house. It's possible that I have no idea how to maintain a carpet because no one I know has this type of problem with stains and dirt stripes and ever-regenerating steam cleaner sludge. In fact, a friend of mine who has wall to wall carpeting has a philosophy of "I'll clean it when I tear up the carpet to refinish the terrazzo." She could not pick out a steam cleaner from a line up. And yet, does her carpet have stains all over it like mine does? Can you see the most common traffic pattern written in dirt? No. My carpet might as well say "Walk here" in dirt, it's so obvious.

This non-carpet cleaning friend is an extreme. At the other end of the extreme is my friend who regularly gets on her hands and knees to scrub the floor with a baby wipe at other people's homes. (usually the non-carpet cleaning friend's home) I know everybody has different cleaning tolerances. We all feel like we straddle the line between "everything's pretty acceptable" and "I can't believe we live like this." I like to think I'm a moderate in the housekeeping category. Sure, when Tallulah first started crawling, I had a hard time deciding who ended up with more cat hair at the end of the day, her or the cat. And I made jokes about making her a onesie and matching knee pads out of swiffer sheets. But then I cleaned up. I vaccuumed and mopped on a semi-regular basis.

So renting the steam cleaner to clean the carpet of the room I'll be putting my new, pristine baby in-- this is normal. But when I started getting sludge, I felt a bit manic.
"I'm going to keep steam cleaning until the water comes up clear!" I declared to my husband. And usually my husband would be the voice of reason and say something like, "Well, why don't you do it a few more times and then see how you feel. You are 36 weeks pregnant, after all. You may not need to steam clean for the next three weeks."

But Kent has an odd fascination with the grossness of life. For instance, sometimes we use ear candles. Ear candles are for ear wax and buildup removal. They're cones: you stick one end in your ear and light the other end on fire. It creates a gentle vaccuum that sucks the crap out of your ear. You extinguish the fire when the candles is still about three inches long and then-- this is the part Kent loves-- you can unroll the candle and look at all the gunk that got yanked out of your ear. It really is fascinating. He loves to see just how much gunk he can get in one sitting. And he got the same way about the steam cleaner.
"You should totally see how long it takes to get clear water! Look at all that dirt!"

After the fifth round-- sixth on the high traffic areas-- I got really tired. And instead of feeling tough and determined when I was dumping the sludge, I started getting weepy.
"Why, why is our house so gross?" I asked my husband, sobbing, as we surveyed the slowly drying, still stained carpet.
"I don't know, baby. What's that smell?"

That smell? The one getting stronger as I type? That would be the smell of mildew. I am never cleaning anything again.