Deep cleaning my new house with my mom

My partner was lucky enough to find a travel trailer in excellent condition. It had been used once a year by the first owners, when they stayed at the fairgrounds, and then taken on one camping excursion by the people who sold it to us. We’ll clean it, but we don’t need to. It was basically a well-kept hotel room.

The Handbasket has a more rugged history, and it’s spent a lot of time in the great outdoors, where there be dirt.

Today, our goal was mostly just to eliminate as much of the smoke odor as we could.

I wanted to start with “regular scrubbing.” I’m reluctant to haul out an ozone generator if i don’t have to, because while i understand they’re effective, they also cost money and have unwanted side effects.

(My partner kept bringing up that the biggest drawback is that it’s fatal if you walk in and breathe the air too early, but i don’t really find that a problem because i know not to walk in and breathe the air too early. Like, that would only be a problem if i didn’t know it’s a problem?! So it’s not a detractor for me. No, it’s because ozone can deteriorate substances other than the one you’re hoping it will break down, and i don’t want to lose seals/finish/etc. that i don’t know is susceptible until it’s too late.)

This photo is unremarkable until you learn that particular rag didn’t get wiped across the top of the refrigerator or under the table. It’s from the inside of the bathroom door.

We did discover a leak, which i’m sure the prior owners didn’t know about. It’s subtle and you’d never see it if you didn’t pull out the overcab mattress, which i did because i’m going to use that area for storage, not for sleeping. I’ll talk about that more in another post.

We were as thorough as we had time for: we took apart the fan housing and my mom washed it and the filter, in the hopes it would help remove more cigarette residue.

Watson will sleep anywhere i set his palanquin, so i popped it under the table in the dinette and he hung out with us while Mom and i listened to ’00s emo and scrubbed the ceiling, cupboards, windows, and appliances with vinegar and Mrs. Meyers.

And now i need to tell you a story about stink beetles.

My family calls them all “Stanley” because my mom is the cutest woman on this blue planet of Earth.

My mom used to be so afraid of stinkbugs that if one flew onto her, she would scream like a silly cartoon housewife. We made fun of her about it for years, because she was always demanding we come catch stinkbugs that had gotten into the house, then release them outside. (My family doesn’t kill things just because we can. After the gross political stickers, the next thing from the Handbasket to go into the trash was a fly swatter.)

Anyway, my mom has hated stinkbugs for 20 years, and then one day, she texts me photos… of her new pet stinkbug.

Apparently, she found it in her kitchen on a flower arrangement, so she put it outside. The next day, she found it again. So she put it outside once more, and then she rediscovered it among the flowers. It was January, and she felt too bad putting it into the cold a third time, so she let it stay… and then she decided she would feed it.

So she started making little tiny salads for this bug, and a little habitat he could hang out in so he wouldn’t fly around in the house and get lost (or land on her and make her scream). She named him Stanley the Stinkbug. Eventually, more of them showed up, and she realized they were coming in on the fresh flowers she was buying for the kitchen windowsill. So then there was Stanley 2 and Stanley 3, because she couldn’t tell them apart.

And now they’re all Stanley… including this one:

When i opened up the dinette to take photos of it (i’m going to pull it out and hopefully someone will buy it since it’s in such good condition), i found a Stanley! And since Stanleys are a beloved part of our family culture, it’s the second time i’ve been pleasantly superstitious about the Handbasket–the first being that it already had the name i planned to give it written on it.