Cohousing-L Mailing List: getting people to wash dishes and do post-meals clean up

[Pat Elliott (pdelliott43]

Like Katie’s community, we don’t have a problem at Wolf Creek Lodge (and we are 
seniors). We have three to four common meals a week including Saturday potlucks 
three times a month. On non-potluck meals, the team of 2 to 4 cooks also cleans 
up. Everyone buses their own dishes and helps clear the tables. Often diners 
spontaneously help out with the cleanup, especially if the cook team is small 
or someone on the team is frail (we have a 92 year old who is a great cook but 
can’t do the cleanup). At potlucks, folks just pitch in and do the cleanup. In 
three years we have always had at least two to four folks doing the cleanup and 
dishes after a potluck. Admittedly it’s often the same folks (I’m one) but no 
one grumbles.

Early on, I helped with clean up at every meal to be sure people knew how to 
use the sanitizer and otherwise followed what I thought were good (even if not 
“best”) practices. I still do that when a new resident is on the team or a team 
asks for help.

We have a Monday morning yoga class in the dining room and some of the folks in 
that class clear and sweep the dining room. We have a rotating schedule of 
members who mop floors after the yoga class so each member of that team only 
does it once a month.

Pat