Is it time to start cleaning house yet?

PSD is like my kids' bathroom.  No, not because it's full of crap. And not because people keep peeing all over it.
 
PSD reminds me of my bathroom, because it's been a long time since it had a good cleaning.

Nobody wants to go in there.

Unfortunately it's quite common for me to go too long between deep cleaning my kids' bathroom. With how busy life is, I will just do a quick clean up, wipe down counters, scrub the toilet and call it good.  That's how things are in PSD right now. See a problem? Sweep it under the rug. Need to look like you're taking care of things? Just invent another administrative position. Schools are failing left and right? PSD wants to do a quick-fix cleanup and move on.

Today I did a real deep clean of my kids' bathroom. Yep even Alice has to clean bathrooms once in a while.  It had that awful little boy pee smell (sorry is that TMI?) that is hard to get rid of, and I knew it had to be really scrubbed down and bleach the heck out of everything because it was getting out of control. I confess, I was starting to get use to the smell. It was becoming our new norm. Thankfully though it got bad enough that I knew I had to get in there and do the hard work of cleaning things out and not just cover things up.

When you go that long between really deep down cleaning it makes it THAT much harder to get the smells out and make it look really good again. And while you're down on your knees scrubbing up the urine, you see things you didn't even realize were there. You start noticing all the stuff that's been ignored. It's gross and NOT pretty, and soon nobody wants to use that bathroom anymore. You can't just hide everything in the drawers, you have to take the trash out, wash the rugs, and scrub the hair gel off the counter. When you get down and really scrub the floor you notice all the stuff that was easily ignored when you were standing up.

Saundra's Throne

PSD is a really stinky bathroom. Everyone knew there were problems, but when we took a minute to look at the issues, we saw the dirt went a whole lot deeper. There is grime here that may never come out. We may need a complete remodel. Now I'm not saying there is nothing good here. The shower still works. There is a functioning toilet (sure you have to jiggle the handle a little, but it's livable). And there's this amazing contraption called a "sink" where fresh water magically pours out any time of day and any temperature you want! It's pretty cool. Most of the world doesn't have one of those! But the truth is, it still stinks. And not just a little. It stinks so much that some people don't want to go in there anymore. They are going over to Richland and Kennewick to use the bathroom. And that's just sad.

So before we have to call in a Haz-Mat team, can we just get in there and start cleaning? Can we just fix it? Can we stop making excuses for how it got so stinky and just accept that it stinks and clean it up?  Can we be honest and say how much it stinks without hurting each other's feelings? Can we not argue about "Why didn't teachers tell us how stinky this bathroom was sooner?"

When my little boys pee all over the bathroom floor (and believe me, they do!), I don't blame my little girls for not telling me sooner. When my little girls complain about the pee on the floor, I don't tell them to just step over it. And I certainly don't make them clean it up. You know who I make clean it up?  The little boys who did all the peeing in the first place, the little people who have stunk up the place!

In summation:
PSD = my boys' stinky pee bathroom that you have to keep clean daily.

Now let's get busy.