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

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

We don’t have problems with kitchen cleaning anymore than cleaning in general. 
And we have few problems with that because we have a regular crew that cleans 
every 2 weeks and likes working together. We have a person who keeps track of 
other maintenance items to be done on workdays.

I declutter our common house and have since we moved in with the construction 
crew still in residence. It was a mess. It’s so clean now, I sometimes feel we 
need to mess it up a bit.

Beyond wiping countertops, the organizing is separate from the cleaning and 
maintenance. 

The kitchen needs to be organized and things away where they belong on a 
regular basis — at least once a week. At first I did it at least 3 times a 
week. The kitchen person will complain that the cups are in the wrong place but 
that’s in a pantry that is otherwise very well ordered. 

This makes it visually clear that there are places where things belong, and 
keeps them there. And sets a standard. People eventually absorb it. If things 
are always out of place, the basic arrangement isn’t working. Once in the wrong 
place, things don’t walk back to the right places by themselves. Once people 
start spilling coffee and not cleaning it up, that becomes the standard unless 
it’s corrected.

When we have had a kitchen person who arranges shelves so there is plenty of 
room and aside from nesting bowls and pans, things are not stacked on top of 
each other haphazardly it has stayed that way. If someone looks in a pantry and 
sees a mess, they aren’t going to spend any time looking for the right place 
for what they are putting there. If they see a neat, uncrowded space, they will 
think twice, at least.

This goes along with the research that there is more crime/bad behavior in 
neighborhoods with more litter. Littler breeds disrespect. (Controlled studies.)

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org