[Blindtlk] Keeping House Independently

[Gary Wunder]

Hello, Christine. I see you have gotten lots of advice on this particular question, so let me add just a couple of things.

Nobody starts out doing this perfectly. One of the things you can do is learn to test yourself. When I started to vacuum, one of the frustrating things was that I would miss spots. One of the ways I worked out to improve my skill was to take a roll of dimes and distribute them throughout the room. The key, of course, is to know how many dimes you're starting with. I would then vacuum the room, first going north to south, then east to west. Then, though it was a dirty job, I would go through what the vacuum cleaner picked up, removing and counting my dimes. Yes, I know I was dealing in dirty money. If I didn't come up with a number of dimes that I started with, I would walk around barefooted trying to find them. I made special note of where they were. Very often they were close to a wall or close to a piece of furniture. So, I would pay special attention to those particular areas.

I try to use devices that employ suction, whether I'm talking about carpet or wood or tile. I don't want to create a pile of dirt that I then have to find again and again. If I find that piece of dirt, I want to suck it up then and there.

I also agree with doing one's cleaning while barefooted. It isn't foolproof, but it is helpful. A sighted person shaves his face and then looks in the mirror. A blind person shaves his face and then touches it. This tells me that being systematic isn't quite enough and that we need some other technique to verify what we are doing. For me having 2 feet works pretty well.

Now, having said all this, I think that having a sighted person come in from time to time and look at what you've done is a good idea. I am not good at cleaning glass. I can touch the floor to see if it is clean, but the very act of touching a mirror will mess it up. I think the mirror is still better for my having cleaned it, but I think visual observation is great when you can get it.

Like many blindness techniques, all of this requires practice and a little bit of thinking about how to test oneself on techniques being used. I know you'll do great.



-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Christine Olivares via blindtlk
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 11:49 AM
To: Blind Talk Mailing List
Cc: Christine Olivares
Subject: [Blindtlk] Keeping House Independently

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to get your opinion about keeping house independently. I used to have someone come in once a month just to help with things I may have missed, but I am debating whether to do this still or not. I did get some rehab training with cleaning, but I am not the best at it. My main hangup is using a broom, as I just can’t figure out how it is done. I just invested in a Swiffer so I hope that helps.

I was wondering if you keep house independently, or if you have someone sighted come in once in a while to make sure things are kept nicely and are not dirty. Thanks so much for your thoughts.

Christine
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