Probably won't make any friends...

Today I got up at 5:00 and worked for 5+ hours on rebuilding a house. The project is called "Rebuilding Together" and companies act as sponsors. The place I work had to find volunteers and organize the rehabbing of an individual's house.

I worked the morning shift and already the house is amazingly better! We painted the outside, tore down the carport and rebuilt it, replaced windows and trim, and that's just the exterior.

The inside was a different story. The owners were supposed to have everything off the walls, curtains down, and all the closets emptied before we arrived. But they didn't. The kitchen was completely filthy. We spent part of the morning cleaning all the walls, baseboards, and the kitchen from top to bottom. Then we painted, changed out all light fixtures, put in new appliances, and even replaced the flooring. This is all before noon!

I was exhausted when my shift was finally over at noon.

One thing I don't understand is how the house could have been as dirty as it was. The owner was there helping us, she was very able-bodied, not disabled, etc. She was simply poor but how does that translate to dirty? I realize I'm not going to make any friends with this, but I seriously just don't get it. It looked as if someone opened a can of pop and it exploded, dripping all down the walls. Instead of running to grab a rag like I feel like most people would do, the owner just walked away and never cleaned. (??? This is a question b/c obviously I don't know where half the crap came from on the walls/floors/etc).

The kitchen was gross-bugs in the cabinets, dirty dishes everywhere, etc. I'm glad we're able to help rebuild your home if you don't have the money... but why did we have to clean everything too?  We didn't have a lot of money growing up and I'll admit, our house wasn't very clean. I think about it now and get grossed out. I could never live in the house I grew up in. No way. One explanation is that my mom was a single parent to three hellians. The other explanation is that she was just plain lazy and rarely did I see her even attempt to clean. Nor did she give us chores or teach us that cleaning was important. It's amazing to me that my sisters and I are all clean people... I guess we got that from my dad.

It just bugs me. I love the idea of "Rebuilding Together"- that we are able to give someone a better place to live when they can't afford it. But I don't like when people take advantage of programs like this... or like we're going to leave and then if the person isn't willing to pick up after herself, our hard work will have been for nothing. I'm sure there are families out there who don't have a lot of money but have a clean house.

Rant over.

Kelsalynn