Charm School: How to properly guest-proof your home

This whole topic started with a thread on a forum. The thread quickly expanded to fill pages and pages with several hundred comments. Apparently, people really have an opinion about what goes into properly "cleaning" your house before guests arrive. The thread spun out into a bunch of ballyhoo about houses looking lived-in and how much pet hair was considered "unavoidable," but that is pretty boring so I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, we're going to talk about the more interesting aspects of getting your house ready for guests to stay in!

presents: HOW TO CLEAN YOUR HOUSE FOR GUESTS!

Step 1: Clean your f**king house

This is the boring one. You have to clean your house, dude. Clean the bathrooms, vacuum the floor, put away the worst of the clutter. Depending on who's coming, maybe load the dishwasher and wash the pots that have been sitting on your stove for two weeks. If your house looks like it belongs on Hoarders and people are afraid to touch anything (and they keep going to the gas station down the road to use the bathroom), they will judge you. Harshly. Clean it up, bitches.


Step 2: Make sure that all the places that SHOULD have soap, DO have soap

Maybe you like to do this weird thing where after you poop, you just walk into the kitchen and wash your hands there. Hey, it's your house; do your thing! But if you were a guest in someone else's house and you saw that they didn't have any soap in their bathroom, what would you immediately think? Would you assume that your friend just washes their hands in the kitchen? Or would you assume ...

I LET THEM TOUCH ME. I LET THEM TOUCH ME WITH THEIR POO HANDS!

Same thing with the shower. If your guests are going to be showering at your house, make sure that your shower has sufficient shampoo and soap. Conditioner is nice too, but that's not as important. Oh, you're deathly allergic to soap so you only use coconut oil and a washcloth to clean yourself? That's fine for you! But unless you feel like explaining that to your guests (while also teaching them how to use coconut oil and washcloths to clean themselves, since you haven't provided them with actual soap either), then guess what they're going to think!

EVEN AFTER YOU SHOWER, YOUR ENTIRE BODY IS COVERED IN A THIN LAYER OF FECES.

Own soap. Or your friends are going to think you're straight-up nasty and probably covered in poo.


Step 3: Put away your, ahem, personal cleaning products

Look, we all have bodies that don't necessarily cooperate with us 100% of the time. Maybe you have chronic hemorrhoids. Maybe you get a lot of yeast infections. Maybe you got one yeast infection one time ever. Maybe you have unusually smelly balls. Maybe you have Athlete's Foot and toenail fungus.

These things happen, and so we buy products to treat them.

DON'T LEAVE THESE PRODUCTS LYING AROUND.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

DON'T.

I don't know about you, but if I were having some, erm, 'personal health issues,' I would like to keep those to myself. This means making sure the Summer's Eve and extra-strength laxatives are not lying out on the counter in the guest bathroom. Just because someone is a close enough friend/relative to be invited to stay at your house, doesn't mean they are close enough to want to picture you cleaning your vagina or straining over a difficult BM. No. No, no.

Step 4: The walk-through

The final walk-through is critical. This is where you notice the things that your guests won't say anything about, but will look at you differently forever because of.

For this, put yourself in the position of someone who doesn't know you terribly well. They don't know your intimate habits and secrets. They have only your house and its condition to judge you by. Try to see your house through their eyes.

Will they open a drawer in your kitchen, looking for a spoon, and find this instead?

They will maybe think you are a killer or at least a little too paranoid, because you keep a machete in your kitchen drawer. Perhaps put this somewhere else for the duration of their visit. You can put it back in the Murder Drawer as soon as you hear the door lock behind your guest on their way out.

Will they go to take a shower and see your toothbrush in there? "Of course; I always brush my teeth in the shower," you say. Okay, that's fine; but please understand, most people don't brush their teeth in the shower. I have seen a toothbrush in someone's shower before, when I was younger and didn't understand that people sometimes brush their teeth in there. And what did I think they used it for?

Is the trash can in your bathroom sitting out in the open with five used tampon applicators and an earwax-infested Q-tip sitting right on the top of it? Maybe empty it, or, like, put some other stuff on top of it. Your guests don't want to picture you perioding everywhere while removing museum-grade clumps of wax from your ears.

If your guest realizes they forgot toothpaste so they open the top drawer in the bathroom to look for some, are they going to find your handcuffs, vibrator, and set of different-sized anal dildos?

Step 5: One last toilet-check to make sure your husband hasn't left a giant shit-smear down the side of the bowl

Men are f**king gross.


Step 6: Plant some unsavory items to keep them on their toes!

All this cleaning is exhausting! Why not plant a graphic porno mag under your guest's pillow so they know you were thinking of them?

"There will be pee!-- 38 XXX Tarts Tied and Tinkling" -- You're welcome, Aunt Shelley!

Why not install some suction cup mirrors in your shower at odd, inexplicable heights and angles?

Why not leave a copy of the Bible on the guest room nightstand, just to throw them off?

It's important to have a little fun, after all. I mean, these assholes made you hide your dildo collection in the closet. Payback, bitch.



Now, I realize this all sounds a little bit too involved. Some of you may have read through this and thought "hey, I don't like that I have to hide myself from my guests. My friends and family members love me for ME! I can't believe you think I need to hide all this stuff, like I'm ashamed or something."  Some of you might even try to get on my case for body-shaming, like we should all be proud of our yeast infections and toenail fungus.

But it's not like that.

I just really don't want to know about your poo-hands and your butt problems. Keep that between you and your doctor.