House cleaning

Today, Awesome Subletter Bryce and I donned our germsuits and plunged into the deep cleansing of the house kitchen and bathroom. ...Well, by germsuits, I mean that I was wearing sandwich baggies on my hands, and Bryce...well, he toughed it out.


I took on the kitchen, scrubbed down the countertops, microwave, floors, and de-moldified the extra fridges. I'm surprised the mold hadn't sprouted legs yet...it had sprouted just about everything else possible. I still need to scour the oven, which smells like grease every time it's used, but that will have to wait until maybe tomorrow.

Bryce took on the bathroom, and antibacterialized every porcelain surface. Hew Mun's mom later mopped the floor. I may go in and tilex the bathtub, that place is getting pretty raunchy. It's sort of sad that I have only stepped foot in the tub once all summer -- I prefer gym/pool showers! We also found out why the bathroom vent doesn't seem to do much of anything for the air circulation: it was encased in dust! Bryce vaccuumed the entire thing and the difference is astounding. The dirt/dust filled my entire DirtDevil, which I had just emptied out beforehand. I am sort of disappointed that we didn't take a picture of the vent before cleaning it. I want to get as much documentation of this dump as possible for if when I file a complaint to/against the landlord.

I feel like these are things that the landlord should have done before we moved in. But then again, it doesn't look like they've tried to upkeep this place in years. The paint is blistering off the bathroom ceiling (no doubt because the vent hasn't worked in years, until today), the windows are nasty, the kitchen tiles are cracked and the cupboards are circa 1965 at beat, and the sink should be recaulked because there are bulges of mildew pushing it away from the wall. When baking in the oven, it has to remain on "clean" instead of "cook", because it's stuck that way, and I just learned that only 2 of the stovetop coils actually work completely. The hardwood floors on the first floor are dull and completely worn out, the whole place needs a paint job, and I need to talk to him about properly fitting my windows, because I'm sure they're going to be noticeably leaky in the wintertime.

I am just waiting for the landlord to come into the house unannounced (as he's been known to in the past), so that I can use that as a starting domino for all these other complaints. However, first I need to take pictures, then contact him and wait for him to not work on correcting the mess. He and his wife claim that they cleaned the house before we moved in. How come, then, we need to do so much cleaning now? And, how come, when I moved into my room, I had to vaccuum the floor right away to get rid of obvious crumbs, etc.?

What amazes me is that the girl who set this place up for us had said that she had rented from these people before, so it would be no problem. ...And I guess they aren't a real problem... just like anyone else who is completely braindead isn't a real problem. Generally, I don't have a problem cleaning up or taking on extra duties, but a landlord needs to live up to his/her duties. Especially when they are renting you a dump and charging you like it's brand new.