Natural Neat Freaks and Their Messy Mates

The types who have the easiest time keeping things clean (not necessarily clutter free, but clean) are the practical, detail oriented Classics and Funs. The messiest types are the big picture thinking Organics and Smarts. Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms being the worst. And yes, I am an Organic Freedom and my husband is a Smart Freedom, and have you seen my blog The Lousy Housewife? Enough said. And my sincerest apologies to all those Organics and Smarts who, despite their natural proclivities, actually do manage to get off their butts and clean their house.

I bring this up because while Walter & I groove together with our levels of mess, my brother and his wife are housekeeping opposites who have still been able to make things work without an almost daily housekeeper. My brother Patrick is an Organic Freedom and his wife Becca is a Fun Freedom. Patrick is a big picture thinker who also doesn’t prefer to organize his outside world, whereas Becca pays attention to details and so their house is clean. But when Patrick was single, he bordered on being a hoarder. Seriously, he fit the clinical criteria on many levels: Rodent and pest evidence, an appliance that hasn’t worked for more than six months, and about a year of unopened mail for me that he’d moved with him from the apartment we used to share.

Oh and his first dorm room?? Kelly and I walked into it on a visit and it wreaked of rotting food. Patrick had assumed the smell was just lingering B.O. from his roommate who’d left school. We assured him that B.O. rarely smells like rotten food and opened his roommate’s abandoned (and unplugged) fridge to discover he’d left food (dairy) in there.

But this weekend when he hosted his family for dinner at his apartment, Becca who was at work, wisely texted him, “Hide the walnuts (from the kids)” Unfortunately, she was too late. My beasts had already gotten to them (picture mini bits of walnut shells everywhere) and Patrick, someone who living on his own had two disabled air conditioners blocking the door to the porch and had his clothes hanging on the door jamb to his bedroom because there were no closets, actually got out a little hand held and vacuumed up all the nut shells. Right away. Hours before his wife got home. (Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms take note of his move, immediate action is the surest way it’ll actually get done. Postponing often means forgetting … for a while that is!)

Now, they’re about five years in and I think Becca’s work on him is pretty amazing. She’s gotten these results with positive reinforcement. It’s nice living in a clean house and because a clean house is important to her and he loves her, she is worth it, so it works. If they were just roommates, then I can just see the nut crumbs still laying there, driving her crazy (or she would’ve cleaned up another mess, yet again, resentment growing.) Now, what happens when you’re both like Patrick, i.e., nobody in the house cares about the ‘details’? Go ahead and check out my blog to see. Yes, we don’t fight about crumbs, but, well, it WAS my children who made the nut mess in the first place, so you get the picture!