Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re:Cleaning the Common House

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

At Doyle Street we do a combination of things. We hire a team of
professionals to thoroughly clean the dining/sitting room and the ch
bathroom once every six weeks. And about once every four or five months, we
have the carpet professionally cleaned. The cook and the assistant cook do
the cleanup after each common meal including vacuuming the dining sitting
area.  There is a committee responsible for cleaning the workshop (but I
believe it has usually been a committee of one.). An individual is assigned
to keep the laundry room clean. Another individual adult is responsible for
tidying up the kids' room and he usually enlists the aid of whatever child
or children are available to help him. To all intents and purposes you can
see that the daily maintenance of the common house is "one of many jobs
people choose from." We are a small community (just a little smaller than
Two Acre Wood, Marty) so many jobs are done by an individual that in a
larger community might be handled by a committee. 

Cleaning stuff that get's done occasionally like cleaning the oven is often
relegated to a work day task. We have a work day once a month, and each
adult here commits to work on three a year. 

Joani Blank
Doyle Street  and Old Oakland Cohousing  at Swan's Market *
       *move-in now projected for end October!