Adulting Decrypted

S-6 E-5 Keeping it Clean

• Roscoe Allen, Ashton Allen, Gideon Allen • Season 6 • Episode 6

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In this episode we talk about the mental and physical aspects of keeping a clean area.  Some tricks on how to keep the home clean, the car clean and even the toothbrush clean.  

When is the last time you cleaned something?  Are you like Ashton do you love one chore and find it rewarding?  Share with us what it is.  

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Dad:

What other things that you might not think of?

Ashton:

One that is always like a question that they asked us in high school a bunch of times was like, what do you think is dirtier your phone or your toilet seat? And it was always, of course it's the toilet seat. And they're no, it's the phone. Cuz you touch it and you never wash

Dad:

it and you're Ew, that's gross. Yeah. Good one. I like that. Yeah. I've, I not wipe, I, I wipe it down every now and again with my sleep, but I imagine that's not clean either. No, no.

Ashton:

I like that. That's a good one. I think what we can do is we can just dunk it in some soap, water and call goods. Yeah. I don't think that's what you're supposed to do. Oh, no. And then some rice

Dad:

I have a personal question. Gideon, when is the last time you cleaned your toothbrush?

Gideon:

Cleaned my toothbrush, like with the power washer.

Dad:

Maybe in the dishwasher or just took your time. I've took a, took a second to, to, to, to rinse it better than normal.

Gideon:

I don't think I've ever cleaned my toothbrush. My toothbrush is the thing doing the cleaning.

Ashton:

Interesting

Dad:

thought, huh? What about you, Ashton? Let's ask you a different question. Okay? When was the last time you cleaned your beard brush? My beard brush.

Ashton:

That's never, I mean,

Dad:

do you even do a beard brush?

Ashton:

Some guys do on occasion. I, I have one. I've used it. I generally just use a comb cuz it's the first thing I reach. Gotcha. It's

Dad:

okay. It does. Good enough. When's the last time you cleaned your comb

Ashton:

again? Never. Never. Actually, no, that's not true. I know I've cleaned a comb, but I don't have a date

Dad:

on hand. Yeah, but it's been a while. I can go back. Same, it

Ashton:

was it yesterday? Okay. No, no, no, no. It

Dad:

wasn't yesterday or it wasn't within the last maybe two months even. Oh geez. Now

Ashton:

I'm gonna have to think about it. Okay. Give me a second. We'll get back to the podcast in a second. Let me, let me go through my, Daily planner. See if I've got comb cleaning

Dad:

in there. Anywhere you go. Prob you probably don't. No. But today we're gonna focus on, it's a little bit of cleaning, but which is really closely related to emotional health. I didn't know if you guys knew that or not.

Gideon:

I mean

Dad:

Yeah, I could see it. See it, yeah. Research done at Indiana University in 2000, there is a direct relationship between a clean house and better mental health. Cool. Yeah, I found it pretty interesting. Welcome to Adulting Decrypted, where we prepare young adults to be independent powerhouses for life. I'm Roscoe the

Gideon:

dad. I'm Gideon, and this is Ashton. Yeah, it is.

Ashton:

Yeah. You know. Yeah. You already know

Dad:

who it is. So I kinda wanna go through the the four things of cleaning. Why is cleaning important? What items to clean a cleaning schedule, and what if we have an unwilling roommate, spouse, et cetera, that, that we need to deal with. And I'm looking for some, maybe some tips and tricks on that one. Mm-hmm. So really the first one is why is cleaning important?

Gideon:

I mean, I just know for myself it's really nice to be in a clean environment and know where everything is. Cuz after, after being messy for a while, you start to just get annoyed all the time. Cause you're like, where is this? Where is that? And like having to step over

Ashton:

stuff and whatnot. Yeah, I have to think about it a lot because, I've heard that before. You know, keeping clean helps you stay mentally healthy. And I've tried to keep my rooms clean and I think I've noticed a difference, but then I always have this question what's the difference between a creative space and a dirty space? You know, a lot of times, especially at the U, the engineering group of us, We have what we call our creative spaces It's this creative little space. It's what it is. It doesn't have to be like super clean, but I do know, like I have a little desk that I work at When it's dirty, I don't work as well.

Dad:

It's an interesting concept creativity. It's kind of a beast of its own and how you get into that zone and how do you get there. But here's a, here's a thought. What about in your music rooms where your instruments are stored? Is that a clean space or is that a creative space? It's a very clean space. Yeah. And And why do you think that is?

Ashton:

Well for us, we want to keep the gear nice. Really perfect. You just take care of the gear because everything was new once.

Dad:

Yeah. And, and you probably feel better about it when you go in there and you're the gear's in good shape. Yeah. I know. If it's damaged, I know where to put it. Freeing yourself with that emotional burden of breaking stuff that you've paid for or having to go in and deal with stressors of stuff being broken. Yeah. So on a creative space, I would. Challenge you that Yes, a creative space, I think can have a little bit of, not clutter even, but just where you're brain dumping and your building and you're designing makes sense in the rush of it. But when you're done, right, when that project's done, if it's one hour or if it's five days when it's done, that you take that time to clean it out. I'm done with a project, I put it away I'm clean and I get to move on. Yeah.

Gideon:

Yeah. And I think it's it's really important to remember, cause I know I definitely do that in my own, in my own room at least. I'll spend a day doing something, some sort of project, and then the trash and leftovers is left out until a month later when I'm oh, this, this has been annoying me. And I didn't really

Dad:

realize it. Yeah. That's interesting that it was annoying you, but you didn't realize that I liked that. Yeah. So there's a mental health and I think it's, I think it comes back to the fresh starts, the coming in and being able to go, okay, that's like when we leave for, for a trip up to the cabin or we go somewhere. I love to drive home and the house is clean versus. Coming home with all the crap that you took with you, and now you have to figure out how to put it all away. That's the worst part of a trip right there. And you've got dirty. I found it as you guys have got older, mom has established the cadence that as soon as we pull in the driveway, everybody pitches in and we all put everything away versus we let it set for a day or two or linger.

Gideon:

Yeah, I know for a fact when we pull in the driveway, the truck is getting emptied unless it's

Ashton:

midnight. Doesn't change the fact that it still sucks. It does. Yeah, it

Dad:

does. And, and, but the next day when you wake up, you're like, oh, wow. The truck is already clean. The house is clean. I can find all my stuff. Yeah. And, and we're talking about houses, but I would venture to say the same is true in a car. You know, that's one place that people come into my space. I would like it to look nice and I feel better when it looks nice. Let's go to physical health. We don't have to look far back to where we were dealing with Covid Not far. What, what was the rules on Covid? You're washing your hands too. Like the alphabet song or happy birthday. Yep. Twice or something. Yep. So there's a physical health as well. You know, I don't know that any of us have been in A home or houses that are physically gonna make us sick. However, if you think about it, if we just cut chicken up for dinner and mom didn't take time to clean it off, to sanitize it, would we get sick? Yeah, yeah. There, there's chances get very high at that point. Yeah. You watch some of these hoarder shows where people are stepping over pizza boxes and they're, you know, they're getting around stuff. There's, there's gotta be a physical, not just a mental, but a physical sickness that can happen

Ashton:

oh, yeah. Well, I, I remember. One of my first places I lived in, in college my room was getting a little dirty. It had been a busy week, and I, I was like, oh, I'll deal with it later. But I was like, I'll do my laundry now. And so I took my laundry down, down to the laundry room and one of the doors was open. And I looked in like one of the person's rooms, doors was open, looked in floor to ceiling newspapers and, and just, you know, a television sitting on top of all that empty wrappers, everything. And it was super gross. And so I was like, you know what? I can commit to cleaning my room right now.

Dad:

I'll go get that done. you start getting worried about physical health issues, right? Yeah. Because if you've got that much stuff in there, it, it can lead to that. So just, we're not trying to shame anybody. That's, that's not our intent as a podcast. No. It's just to bring up that, that we should keep our places clean. So now let's talk about what items, and that's kind of the toothbrush, right? There is a real. Physical health element to not having a clean toothbrush. It's not necessarily the top of it, but if your handle has got dirt, if it fell on the floor, if your hands weren't washed last time you touched it, you know, you could be putting bacterias into your body. Toothbrush is one thing. Hair combs, they talked about that they can build up germs. Not that I deal with that. Yeah, it's been a long time since I've used a brush, but cleaning out the old hair and, and the old stuff out of there. Clothes. You mentioned clothes. Anything else that seems random that people might not think about? Cleaning? Oh, something random. Here's one for you, just to get your mind's thinking. Dryer vents. So one thing is you empty the lint right when you're doing laundry. And we had that on our laundry episode. Yep. But what about the dryer vent shoot? Gotta keep those clean. Yeah, they say about once a year you should be cleaning those out. Really good. Because of the fire hazard. What other things that you might not think of?

Ashton:

One that is always like a question that they asked us in high school a bunch of times was like, what do you think is dirtier your phone or your toilet seat? And it was always, of course it's the toilet seat. And they're no, it's the phone. Cuz you touch it and you never wash

Dad:

it and you're Ew, that's gross. Yeah. Good one. I like that. Yeah. I've, I not wipe, I, I wipe it down every now and again with my sleep, but I imagine that's not clean either. No, no.

Ashton:

I like that. That's a good one. I think what we can do is we can just dunk it in some soap, water and call goods. Yeah. I don't think that's what you're supposed to do. Oh, no. And then some rice

Dad:

Oh, rice and then some rice. Yeah. Yeah. Good. That's a good point. That's why, a dishwasher. There's traps inside dishwashers that catch food that you need to open up and, and, and clean out. So if you're new to an apartment, it's a good thing to think about. Has my dishwasher been cleaned? And a good way to do just a dishwasher cleaning. If you're gonna move into an apartment the first time, you're gonna use the dishwasher. Use some vinegar. In it cuz your normal dishwasher, laundry detergent won't, doesn't break down the, the soap suds and some of that grime. So they recommend vinegar. But look at your, type, your brand and do some research and they'll have suggested cuz the vinegar might not be good for some, some appliances. That's just what I've

Ashton:

used. Yeah. Well, and speaking of appliances, like generally all the appliances are good to keep up on microwaves, ovens fridges, if you're glad you brought up fridge. Yeah, go ahead. Tip. If your fridge smells bad, first clean it. But then a lot of fridges will have a, a scent that won't leave if you're, if you're having that sort of problem. And something that works really well is just an open box of baking soda. I don't know why that works, but it worked. Our fridge at my most recent apartment smelled really bad and I had heard that tip and I was like, I'll try it. Put it in there, and it worked. So there you go, you have that problem. I hope that helps.

Dad:

That's a great pro tip. Thank you. Yeah, and a car is another one that, that I mentioned before, but. You can always use an air freshener, right? If you've got a smell that's lingering even after you've cleaned it out. Yep. But I'd make sure I take out sweaty gym socks. Any clothes from a gym trip. You know, those kind of things need to come out food wrappers. So it's, yeah, it's a good idea to actually even wash your gym bags every once in a while. You know, these aren't all the time that you have to do these things, but you just look at and you start to feel that thing's funky. You know, that might have been a little while. Let's, let's run it through a wash. It's probably not a bad thing. It's actually, maybe you should wash your backpack. That's a thing. That's an interesting concept. I know Gideon had to,

Ashton:

you had to wash your backpack?

Gideon:

Yeah. I had a protein shake incident and I had to pay for a new Chromebook. And threw away a lot of my papers. Oh yeah. No, it was

Ashton:

really bad. So how did you wash it? Did you just hand wash it

Gideon:

or what? I so I took everything out before. Right. And then I just, I took the hose and literally just like sprayed it off.

Ashton:

Oh, there you go.

Dad:

Yeah. And some, some of those items can be dry. Ran through a washer. So to answer your question, I think it's probably a good idea. Yeah. Thank backpacks. Cool. Are we good? Any other random thoughts of what to clean? What to clean. I mean, yeah. That, that might need to be

Ashton:

cleaned. You could, I can clean anything. Yeah, if you really

Gideon:

wanted to. And, and I know vacuuming is like a really like stereotypical cleaning, but I normally, when I clean my room, I don't vacuum my carpet, but I just know it's like, it's important to remember to,

Ashton:

to vacuum type, you know? And that's funny cuz. Not that I'm thinking about it. I think vacuuming is the only cleaning task that I really don't hate. I think vacuuming is like super therapeutic cuz you just get to see all the things go away and the sound of like as it's like sucking up all the crap. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna have to go

Dad:

vacuum. That's a great reminder. Thank you.

Ashton:

I'm just over here like, oh, I want to go back. I can

Dad:

see the joy. You would, you would be sad if you got, if you, if we got a Mari, not a marimba. That's what you put. Aruba Arba. Yeah. Ar Oh yeah. No, it takes away all the

Ashton:

Vacuum cleaner. I wanna, I wanna be like, Mrs. Do fire, just like man, black woman. You know what I mean? I like it.

Dad:

You know what I'm talking about? Was that Gideon's Gotta, we gotta show Gideon that clip with

Ashton:

Robin Williams. Okay. Have you seen his phi?

Gideon:

I think so.

Ashton:

You would know. Okay. Yeah. It's

Dad:

an old Robin Williams. He dresses up as an old lady. Yep. So he can see his kids. Yep.

Ashton:

He, his wife Kick is, his wife kicks him out. I remember. Feels a wanted ad.

Gideon:

I think I remember seeing the movie, but it was a long time ago,

Dad:

So here's a pro tip that you talked about, and this is kind of the cleaning schedule going on to number three. Everything that's, it's more helpful if we can get in cadences of stuff, right? A good friend of mine, Susan, she had Monday as her cl big cleanup day. Like that was the day that she just knew she wasn't gonna book other appointments, and she spent Monday all day doing. All of her cleaning and then on and clothes. And then on Friday she'd do another batch of clothes getting ready for the weekend. And she did that all while her kids were little, cuz she's like, look, Monday's just the day that I know no matter what, I've gotta get all that done and then I have all this extra time in my life to do other stuff. Do you guys, have you thought much of weekly schedules or do you have anything you put on a cadence and it could be no. Well,

Ashton:

cadence wise, yeah. I am doing my best to get better at just taking care of something when it needs to be taken care of. So you brought up our practice dreams earlier. We have this saying called clean and green, and then there's also 20 different rules of percussion that is like posted everywhere. And, and one of them is, is like if you break something, tell someone about it. If you drop it, pick it up. And so I've been, trying to apply the, if you drop it, pick it up sort of thing. So like if I. Had like a glass of water at my desk. It's gone. Take it up, put it in the dishes, fill it up again. Do something like that. If I do my laundry, just fold it cuz a common habit that I have is, is I'll do my laundry. And I'm like, I don't really wanna do it. I'll leave in the baskets and all a sudden my clothes will be dirty. I was well, I can't put the dirty clothes on the floor, so I dump the clean clothes on the floor to put the dirty clothes in the basket. I still don't want to do my laundry. So, I've been trying to amend that by taking care of something when it needs to be taken care

Dad:

of. I love it. Cuz you've almost made your job harder by not doing it. Oh yeah, totally. I remember when I was in college, I would wash my whites first so they could dry first, and then as I stood there by the washer to come pick up my next batch of clothes or as I was waiting for my next batch of clothes, I could hurry and fold my. Take care of those real quick. And then when I got back to the apartment, it's like, oh, I only have a little bit more to do to be done. Right. So it's almost like motivation to be like, oh, I wanna be a hundred percent done with this project. I'm 50% in.

Ashton:

Oh, that'd be great. My, my brain is like, There's still so much. I'll do it later. That's where mine likes to go.

Dad:

That's fair. Well, and that's why I think if we get into cadence and we know what clean means to us, it's gonna make a big difference. Cuz if you go, Hey, done with laundry isn't washed and done is folding.

Gideon:

Go ahead. I'm pretty sure we've said this before, but it's it's kind of important to remember too, the example that you used Dad. She, like Mondays were her huge cleaning days. But then I also think it's, it's fun to remember if it takes less than a minute to do the rule, to do it right now, if you thought of something and it takes less than a minute, just do it.

Dad:

I love it. You know, cuz that's what I put down at my, my, my last point on here is a good rule. Once clean, don't leave a room, an area until you put it back how you found it. Mm. Right, exactly. Because if you, exactly, if you have that minute mentality and you're like, oh, I'm gonna leave this room. Oh, I've still got my cup that needs to go with me, I've still got the tape that I brought up last night to do a project. And you take those with you, chances are that you are, your room stays clean. Yeah. That's weird

Gideon:

cuz like, you feel even better when you do it, even though it takes you no time whatsoever. After you've put them, let's say you've, you've put your dishes back after you're Yeah. Okay. Okay. The military talking like clean not clean, but, but make your bed every morning, ever. Just, just the fact that you've done something. Makes, makes you want to do more.

Dad:

I love it. Oh good. Good reminders. Yeah. So big fan of a cleaning schedule, a laundry schedule. This is the day I just do it. And I like that, that we could block it out and then have the cadence to do the deep stuff. Like, oh, blinds still need to be done, baseboards need to be done. You know, maybe that's every six months or whatever that cadence is

Ashton:

also, oh, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I was gonna say also if you, you bringing up blinds and baseboards made me think of this. When you move out of an apartment, like if you're renting, you're gonna have to deep clean everything anyway. I just had to do that. All four of us were moving out of a place at the same time, so they wanted it super clean. So if you're doing those sorts of things as it goes, it'll, it'll be. Easier to get that final clean and keep it clean. That was not our case. Did you get

Dad:

your cleaning deposit back?

Ashton:

In theory it's been sent, but Okay. Good. Maybe it reminds me I need to text them again and ask. Good. Yeah. Stay on your landlords, ladies and gentlemen.

Dad:

One, and leave it clean if you want that money back. Right. I mean, that's, if you don't care, you don't care. Right. It's kind of twofold. I liked your point of saying, Hey, if you're, and it would be a good reminder. Before you let a roommate move out, you know, they're like, Hey, I'm moving out at the end of the month. Say, cool, we're all gonna spend. Tuesday before you leave, doing a deep clean right or whatever that that schedule looks

Ashton:

like. Another pro tip with that one is don't let your landlord's contract contractor who's checking to see if you're cleaning everything up. Don't let him catch you. Putting a couch out on the front lawn cuz then you'll have to figure out how to take care of it. We had this massive sectional, it was huge, it was, that's awesome. Eight foot this way, two foot like sections on either side, like massive. And so it wouldn't fit down the stairs. We were twisting it, breaking it, busting it. We're oh yeah, we've almost got out salon. It was the last piece we needed to move. And the contractor's Hey guys, how's it going? Hey, who are you? And he is like, oh, I'm just the guy checking on people moving out. Are you guys moving out? We're like, Yeah. Cause we didn't have any way to put it. That's awesome. So we just said it on the lawn and had he not seen it, we would've gotten away with it. But the next day we got a text from our landlady and was like, if that stays, you have to pay for it. And we're like, okay, we'll take care of it. We arranged someone to take care of it and then the next morning when they went to go take care of it, someone had else had already taken it. Said free. Yeah. There's an amount of free stuff that you can get in Salt Lake on the side

Dad:

of the road is crazy, so just drive by there at the end of the end of the month, especially end of semester of school year. No, really?

Ashton:

Yeah. Those medians are all full of crap in the college area that are just free. Oh yeah.

Dad:

It's a good idea. Oh yeah. There you go. Another business idea

Ashton:

we'll talk about. Are you about that Terry fans can go's hunt those down and sell it. I love it.

Dad:

The last thing I wanna talk about, number four is unwilling partner, right? So you're in an apartment and you do have that person that doesn't want to clean, could be a, you know, or you're married and your partner doesn't want to clean. What are, what are some tricks or tips that you guys can think of that might help the listener? Is there anything that comes to mind?

Gideon:

I think part of it is what you said earlier. When you said if you're moving out, you just tell'em, you're like, Hey Tuesday, we're deep cleaning. And let'em know beforehand. Cuz I know like even if I don't have plans, if somebody comes up and is like, do this, I don't want to. But if I knew beforehand it's I know this is happening. It's fine. It's, yeah.

Dad:

Good. I like that.

Ashton:

I think for me, I. One of the things I think is good advice is don't have a hypothetical argument with yourself. And what I mean by that is like, say you get home and there's a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink. And it's obviously your roommates about what, whoever that, that's who left that stuff in there. And then all of a sudden what I tend to do is I start talking to myself and I imagine this conversation where I'm like, Hey, Rumi, the dishes aren't done. And the roomie's like, well, you didn't do yours. And then I start having like this full fledged argument in my own head for five minutes. Where I'm getting nowhere and it's not healthy or helpful, and then I go up to the roommate and I'm like, or, so then you have two options. Instead of doing that, you can either just take care of it yourself. If it's like a one, one off, like sometimes it's good to just do that stuff for other people or if it's like something that really bothers you. Like say something. Don't just have that argument inside yourself. Just be real with people. Don't be mean, but like, if it's something that bothers you, like tell'em. And people, most people are pretty chill. They'll be like, oh yeah, my bad. And they'll fix it.

Dad:

Thank you. I appreciate that. I think you, you hit on two, both of you guys hit on powerful things. One is tell people in advance, so they're not surprised by it, what the expectations are. And then the other one is, when you're holding somebody accountable, don't go through their argument before you have the argument. No. Like you said, you walked him and said, Hey dude, do you mind getting your dishes? Oh yeah, totally mine. Yeah. It's probably not even gonna be an I spaced it or I got involved on a text or, yeah. I didn't even think about it. I dropped it and walked away. Used to my mom taking care of him, whatever. I think then if you have like an unwilling that somebody that's not willing to work with you sometimes share this episode. Talk about the mental health advantages. Explain that. The, the different definitions of clean. I think Doc we had him on earlier, he talked about it earlier and he talked about that clean and green Yep. And what that meant. And he shows you guys early on what does that mean? So if you're just starting a, a roommate, you're going into a new apartment, it's a time to start fresh. Hey everybody, we're gonna all clean our own dishes. Cool. Ashton, you good? Yeah. Getting you good? I'm good. Right. So you get that commitment from'em so that everybody knows. Hey, how's a good way to call you out, Ashton, if I just tell you, Hey, you didn't do your dishes. Yep. You're good with that? Yeah, right. If I need Gideon, do I need to tell you a different way? So you're having these dialogues, you're having this conversation so that you have the conversation before it's a problem, right? If it's a spouse or a significant other, I would really encourage you to spend time with them at their place. At the place they were brought up at, and just make sure that you guys agree on what's clean, and that you're gonna be in sync with that.

Ashton:

The other thing to avoid like you, when you want to get in sync with someone, or if you find yourself noticing a lot that something is dirty or gross and it bothers you before you have the conversation with someone because. A saying that a mentor used to say a lot was it takes a very, it takes an awfully thin pancake to make a one-sided pancake. Yep. And the point is, there's not a one-sided pancake. Like everything has two sides. So if, if your roommate's doing something that's bothering you, chances are you might have something that's bothering them. Don't go in aggressive, be like, Hey, you didn't do this and I'm amazing. It's not helpful. Take it from a place of, Hey, you know what, this is something that's not working for me. Okay, cool. Thanks for doing that. Is there anything that I can do? You know, hit it from both sides so it doesn't always feel you're trying to change people because people don't want you to do that.

Dad:

It's not fun. Well, you know, you can really go back to episode three, how to get what you want, and then probably. Probably one, two, and three because it talks about the art of relationships, right? We talked about, I feels, and I, and you know, and how do I feel with feedback that are of season six. So, yep. So some pretty relevant close conversations we've had about'em that would help you adult. Here's, here's the challenge I give to you, the listener, and to all of us, is to really think about what clean means to us. Set up a little bit of a schedule that we're comfortable with and focus on. Clean and green, or leaving a place clean when you leave. Let's go adult.