Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Kitchen cleaning Protocols

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

I agree with Muriel:  Do not expect that policies and best practices, no matter 
how well written or formally adopted, will be followed by all members all the 
time.  Or even most members, most of the time.  Cohousing is not the Marines, 
and a diverse residential community — mostly lacking in hierarchy, intensive 
training, and formal discipline — will not readily adhere to a regime of rules 
and regs.  This is not a “failure” of community, it’s just how life is.

On the other hand, partitioning maintenance of a complex space like a kitchen 
into micro-chores that get traded around on a weekly basis would seem to invite 
chronic gaps, errors, and partial incompletions.  At Cornerstone, we are 
experimenting with a “concierge” program  that assigns a specific individual to 
the care and feeding of a specific room.  This known individual is broadly 
tasked to maintain order, utility and cleanliness.  In the kitchen example, 
each meal team might clean up after the meal, but the concierge would be 
accountable for the space as whole:  What’s wrong with the microwave, why is 
the countertop cluttered with flower arrangements, do we still have a vegetable 
peeler, what happened to all the olive oil, are the pot lids stored with the 
pots? — and so on.  I say “would be”, because our program is still in the 
experimental stage, and we have concierge service for only a couple of rooms.

The fixed concierge program can have a couple of advantages.  First, if 
disorder strikes, the community knows exactly which member to call.  Second, 
unlike the rotating micro-chore system, the concierge approach offers honor and 
pride of accomplishment for a space obviously well-managed and under control.

So is maintaining a kitchen too much of a time burden for one person?  
Absolutely Yes, if the rest of the membership is totally irresponsible — if 
other kitchen users make big messes then walk away, expecting an adult to clean 
up after them.  Fortunately, I think nearly all members can be trusted to do 
rudimentary clean-up and put-away for their events.  After which, ensuring the 
kitchen is not degraded by entropy is probably a couple of half days a month.  
Which might be the major and only chore of just one member.

Is eight hours a month per person an appropriate time investment for keeping 
the community running?  That’s a topic for another day …

Thanks,
RPD

> On Nov 23, 2015, at 11:21 PM, Muriel Kranowski <murielk [at] vt.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Over the years I have lowered my expectations regarding kitchen
> organization. So many different people use the CH kitchen and clean it and
> put things away that it's a perpetual (and losing) battle to keep things
> well organized and to follow agreed-on best practices. Sigh. I suppose the
> same goes for food safety but I try not to think too much about that when I
> am enjoying a common meal. Maybe others have been more successful in
> imposing standards.
> 
> About the only practical advice I have is, LABEL EVERYTHING - what goes
> where, what goes with what, what is CH Kitchen property.
> 
> I should add that we do one thing reasonably well: We have an on-going
> Workshare task (done by one or two people) of coordinating CH cleaning
> (including the kitchen), which is divided into individual tasks that people
> sign up to do every week, such as "wash kitchen floor", "clean and clear
> out refrigerator," "kitchen laundry," etc. Some people sign up for a bunch
> of jobs when the 3-month signup sheet goes up, others sign up the week they
> want to do a task if there are openings. That way we can accommodate people
> who like a routine and people who hate it or have irregular availability.
> 
> These cleaning tasks need to be manageable - ie, don't load too much work
> into  any given  task or eventually no-one will want to do it, or will do
> it resentfully, neither of which is good.
> 
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 10:01 PM, MARION BROWN <merryoneb [at] me.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Hi all,
>>  As our common house nears completion we are preparing to coordinate the
>> set up of our kitchen and wanted to know how other Cohousing communities
>> handle their kitchen cleaning protocol. What procedures do you have in
>> place to insure food safety and to manage keeping the kitchen clean and
>> organized.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Marion
>> 
>> Marion Brown
>> PO Box 303
>> Belfast, ME 04915
>> 207-522-5348
>> merryoneb [at] me.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
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