Living, pt. I

Living - a note for all those who find living without mummy's care a tad difficult. And for those who just don't care.

Toilet/Bathroom

- After using the toilet (no matter if it's a weewee or a poopoo) WASH YOUR HANDS. If you don't wish to use the soap, don't but at least rinse your hands with warm water.
- When after pooing your poo doesn't go down with the first flush, wait a while for the water tank to fill up again and then reflush.
- When after pooing your poo is all over the bowl, use the toilet brush provided to clean to largest bits off.
- When after cleaning the largest bits of poo the poo is stuck to the toilet brush flush again and hold the brush in the water flow. This will get rid of the poo on the brush so that the next time someone takes it from its stand they won't have to use a poo-y brush to clean.
- When after pooing the bathroom smells of your poo, use the air freshener if one is provided. If not, there might be some matches, if this is the case, burn one of them and throw it in the bowl. This will get rid of at least most of the odours of your poo.
- Once a week or a fortnight use some toilet cleaner. According to the instructions (these will be on the side of every cleaning detergent imaginable!) pour some of the cleaner in the bowl, all around, leave it to be for a while (usually 5-15 mins) then use the toilet brush to brush the bowl all around. Now flush the toilet and again clean the brush in the water flow.
- When cleaning the toilet it would be a good idea to also wipe the dust and goo that gathers around the bowl (I mean the bits that water from flushing doesn't touch). If you do this whenever you clean the toilet it will save you from doing a very disgusting clean after a year of gathered dust and goo.
- When using the last squares of the toilet roll, REPLACE the roll. It doesn't require much.
- When you start using the last roll of the pack/notice the paper will run out shortly, BUY a new pack next time you go out.

- When after showering the bath/shower floor is all covered in your pubes, use the shower to float them down the drain.
- When after showering you find that most of your hair did not go down the drain pick them up and bin them. You can use a piece of toilet paper or similar if you don't want to touch them bare handed.
- About once a fortnight clean the bath/shower. This you can do using a special bathroom cleaner which you spray on the surfaces and then wipe out with a sponge or a cloth and warm water. This is especially important if your bathroom has bad heating and/or air conditioning. Again, doing it regularly will save you from being disgusted going to the shower and it'll prevent you from having to do a clean of loads of discusting goo/mould/whatever gathers in there. I suggest you also clean walls around the bath/shower, because they too get pretty disgusting after a while.
- Make sure you use your own shower gel/shampoo/other products. If you use someone else's without a permission chances are you'll only end up annoying them. AND especially if you're a student/are using a student's shower gel/shampoo/other products you'll cause them extra costs and they might actually be a tiny bit skint even if you're not. Especially if you haven't bought your own shower gel/shampoo/other products and have been using theirs.
- When in shower, if there's a shower curtain make sure it covers as much as possible preventing the water from going anywhere it's not meant to go. If you're in a bath it means the water should stay in the bathtub, if it's just a shower with a floor drain, the water is meant to stay as close to the drain as possible.
- If there's a bath mat, it is not there to absorb all of the water dripping from you after your shower. This means that you should dry your self in the bath/shower (obviously after you've showered). If you keep your towel somewhere in the near vicinity of the bath/shower this should not be a problem.
- If you do happen to water the whole bath mat, do put it somewhere to dry. If there's a radiator, that's good, if not, see if you can hang it somewhere.
- It is likely that the bathroom will also have a water basin there. This too, should be cleaned regularly, needless to say, I hope.
- Oh and, just as any other room in the house/flat the bathroom floor needs to be hoovered/mopped every now and then. It would probably be easiest for yourself to do it whenever you're cleaning the toilet/bath/shower. Otherwise it'll just look a bit silly, you know, a dusty floor when everything else is clean and sparkling.

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While writing this I realised that things that seem natural and obvious to me, actually do require quite a bit of thinking if you've not had to do any of this whilst living with your parents. I would like to say here that I'm very grateful for my mum that she made me do things, and also for my primary and secondary school teachers (and the Finnish curriculum) for being so amazing and teaching the practical as well as boring stuff like maths. I could go on about how we were taught to fight, clean, cook etc. in school. And this was for both, girls and boys, if any of you want to use that silly excuse: 'but you're a girl, you should know these things anyway'. - It is not a priviledge that comes with being a girl, it comes with being a human being!
[edit: they taught us how to quarrel fairly, we didn't have fist fights in home economy.]

In case some of my housemates actually reads this, I want to say that I realise I don't live up to these 'rules' myself. This is mostly because I don't feel that most of you realise how dirty our house is and I don't want to clean things up just so that after a day it'll all look the same again. If you seemed to care more (I know some of you do, but I refuse to name anyone) and actively did something to keep the house clean, I too would do my share. If you decide not to believe me, feel free to bitch about me as much as you want. In the mean time, I'm just waiting live with clean people. Make that a person.