Not So Merry Maid

My in-laws had had their house in my city on the market for over a year while they had moved back to their previous hometown.  When the house here did not sell they were forced to move back against their desire to live here any longer.  And my desire to have them live in the same state, let along the same city as us.  My husband has always been the son who will do anything for his parents even though they treat him like crap and dote on their loser favorite youngest son like he is the second coming.  He is like a little kid trying to please his parents with good deeds and can never do enough to receive any sort of gratitude or love from them. 

When they announced their return and suggested we clean their empty house in preparation for the arrival of their furniture, my husband of course readily agreed.  Being the good wife that I am I agreed to help him.  We spent three and a half hours scrubbing their house that had sat empty for over a year and had been trekked through repeatedly by potential buyers who did not answer my prayers to buy their house so there was no way they would have to move back.  People even used the toilets and guess who got to clean those?  Nothing like months long dried urine on the floor to make your day.

But the kicker was having to crawl on our hands and knees to clean each individual tile on their tiled kitchen, entry and three bathroom floors because they never got the grout sealed so we could not use a mop like normal people to clean the floor or the grout would get wet, crack and cause problems.  No, we washed each tile separately, scrubbing our guts out because I do not believe they had EVER cleaned the floor since they had bought the house since washing the floor would have entitled them to crawl around on their hands and knees since they were too lazy to have their floor finished in the first place. 

When we were done that house sparkled like a new penny and looked better than even when it was completed being built and they walked into it brand-new.  My husband was sure we would get praised for all our hard work.  I was sure we wouldn’t.  I am sorry that I was right.

When my in-laws walked in and viewed their freshly clean home, my MIL took one look around and said to me, “So I guess you forgot to clean the baseboards and the spots off the stove then?”

That was all that was said.

And for the record the baseboards were cleaned except for the one side of the entry I must have missed and she spotted and I scrubbed that stove for a half and hour and couldn’t get the grime off the handle.  Then I realized it was just worn down from use.