That's Disgusting

Well we did our good Samaritan gig for the holiday season, last week, we moved that furniture our friends had bought for their daughter, with our stock trailer to her home in Ft. Sask. just north of the city. We left here about 10 am and got to their place shortly there after.  Loaded up the stuff, which turned out to be a bit more than just furniture....let's see, there was a sofa, love seat and chair....a bike, several bags of clothes (recycled) and a box of blankets. I have to admit that when I saw the furniture I nearly gagged...it was one of those suites that your grandma might have owned...now don't get me wrong, a floral pattern on furniture can look quite lovely (ie: sue's) light, springtime-ish and clean.....but this stuff, they had bought for a song from the guy that runs the gas station in town, his mom moved into the nursing home and they were selling the house....and I guess it is a testament to how desperate this 30 yr old mother of two is that she was tickled pink to get it...but it was indigo blue, purple and pink flowers on a very beige, nearly toffee coloured background. with the big rolled arms and the frilly skirt along the bottom...gag.....

I said to R that I hoped she had some nice quilts or blankets to cover it up with...

so when we arrived there the first order of business was to remove the old sofa...and wooden walmart rocker from the house....which the guys did....now J is a small statured man about a foot shorter than R and slim...so moving furniture with R was made more difficult because of the difference in height...J tripped on a small step in the sidewalk going up to the driveway..and fell on one hip while his end of the sofa came down on his other hip...hahaha  he was a bit uncomfortable the rest of the day but I guess he is in his mid sixties...so we should have been a bit more sympathetic....I think the sofa would have been only half as heavy if she had vacuumed it out...because when they took the cushions off of it it was filthy dirty...I mean filthy... It made me want to wash my hands and I hadn't even touched it....hahahaha  there was dried up cereal, fruit loops and cheerios, and such, candies stuck to the bottom of the cushions, dead bugs, and general filth....I could tell our friends were a bit embarrassed and the young woman did confess that her vacuum had broken over a year ago....ewwwww.... but R and I later discussed it and we both had to ask ourselves....what the hell was the matter with borrowing a vacuum from a friend or borrow your moms...or something, man, it's just a lame excuse for being lazy...on my way to the bathroom before we left I had to pass one of the kids rooms and the carpet that was visible at the doorway was filthy too.... our friend said they had bought their daughter a new vacuum for Xmas....I say, not a moment too late...

This is not the only friend we have with cleaning issues...our long time friends are hoarders....yes I said hoarders....we helped them move from the farm to their new place near the city, and it took me weeks to recover from the trauma...so much stuff in the house that there were just paths to the sink, bathroom and kitchen table...no other rooms were accessible...really...they had to climb a pile of clothing and jackets to get into their bedroom.which in the 20 years we have been friends we had never seen the inside of ...and after the first two years of being friends we no longer could sit in  the living room...it was full and overflowed into the kitchen...when we packed up their crap and stuffed it into a school bus...to haul to the new place we were aghast at the mouse turds on the kitchen counter and it made me nearly vomit because we had just had dinner there a few weeks before..... when we walked on the empty kitchen floor, your shoes weren't really in contact with the linoleum...it was like walking on a layer of rice kernels, that's how bad the mouse shit was on the floor...and they knew they had mice...because there were chunks of mouse bait and some of the turds were blue and pink, the same colour as the bait...hahaha....I swear .... I came home and fanatically cleaned my house for weeks afterwards...even if it wasn't dirty... I also couldn't help myself from editing....you know...going through everything we owned and getting rid of the things we didn't use or need....that wore off after a few weeks thank god...but it has been nearly three years now since they moved and we had hoped at first that moving into a bigger place away from their family would give them a chance to start off on the right foot again but sadly...their new place is filling up with crap again...now it isn't so much garbage but, piles of fabric (she's a quilter), books, food stuff and laundry and general clutter...they are both to blame...one being as bad as the other for just piling stuff on the floor beside their chairs...the kitchen area is again cluttered with piles of food boxes and cans of stuff, fabric and that kind of stuff to the point where there is just a path from the front door to the stove...but she has to lean over to reach the stove because there are pots and pans in front...on the floor...the counters are covered a foot deep with cookie tins, pans, and what have you...and I don't think she even owns a broom...that was one thing we noticed when we moved them, we never saw any cleaning products, brooms or mops.   She hadn't been able to clean in that house for so long I think she just forgot how...sad isn't it.    We love them dearly but they frustrate the hell out of us...they don't think there is anything the matter with how they live...he even brags about it being homey....and that our house is cold and sterile...hahahahaha   what ever...I could never live like that...and for all my parents shortcomings....I can honestly say that never, ever did we live in a filthy hovel...ever...both my mom and dad were tidy people...and they instilled that in us kids...besides if anything sat around too long without being used my dad traded it at the second hand store for something we did need...

so back to moving our friends used furniture....we now have a harshly used sofa and wood rocker on our stock trailer waiting for the day the dump opens here...(only one day per week) so that we can take and be rid of it.
But we are committed to returning to  her house to help her and her parents move her to a new rental house...at the end of Jan. Let's hope she has used her new vacuum cleaner and things are a bit less gross...because even with a broken vacuum cleaner there really is no excuse for living in filth. Really people...