I'm 63 and Japanese. 12 Things I Removed From My Home After 50 — Americans Still Keep Them

📖 Get Emiko's Cleaning Book, the whole house written down, every mix and every minute: LINK IN BIO OR SCAN THE QR CODE ON THE SCREEN I am sixty-three, and at fifty-four I rolled up the long rug in my hallway, because one wet morning it slid out from under my foot. Tomorrow morning, go and lift the corner of yours, and look at the line of sand along its edge. You bought every rug, every bottle, and every shelf in your house for a good reason, my dear, and you are not getting worse at keeping your house. Your house has only grown heavier. In my mother's house in Japan, the floors were bare from wall to wall. WHAT A HOUSE ASKS OF YOU AFTER FIFTY: Every thing you own asks you to lift it, to reach it, and to decide about it every time it is in your way. After fifty, every lift is a bend. A house must grow lighter as you grow older. THE TWELVE: 1. THE LOOSE RUGS. They slide, they grind grit into the boards, and you stop lifting them to sweep. The bare floor stands in their place 2. THE BOTTLES UNDER THE SINK. Fourteen bottles, the same five jobs. Five plain powders at hip height and one spray: 1 teaspoon sodium sesquicarbonate in 2 cups warm water 3. EVERYTHING ABOVE YOUR SHOULDERS. A chair is NOT a ladder. Everything you use lives between your hips and your shoulders, and nothing breakable goes over your head 4. THE HEAVY CURTAINS. Thick cloth drinks dust, cooking, and damp and never gives it back. Plain cotton you can lift off the rod yourself, washed with the sheets 5. EVERYTHING THAT MAKES A SMELL. A scent only lays a second smell on the first. Two windows across from each other, ten minutes every morning 6. FABRIC SOFTENER AND DRYER SHEETS. The waxy coat keeps water out of the towel. Snap and hang. To bring towels back: ½ cup oxygen bleach powder, half your usual detergent, NO softener 7. THE BIG DINING TABLE. A large flat surface in a quiet house becomes the place where you leave things to wait. A table for four, and the folding table from the garage at Thanksgiving 8. THE BED SKIRT AND THE BINS UNDER THE BED. The dustiest floor you own, hidden from your broom. Open floor, vacuumed straight through once a week 9. THE BIG SET OF POTS AND PANS. Most people use three. One pot, one frying pan, one small saucepan, on a shelf at waist height 10. THE PAPER. Catalogs and magazines shed dust, hold damp, and house silverfish. Open your mail standing beside the recycling bin 11. THE FLOWERS THAT NEVER DIE. Every silk leaf is a small shelf of dust. One small vase with something real, and when it fades, it goes 12. THE BIG SATURDAY CLEAN. Dirt has an age. Five minutes many times a day, the stove wiped while still warm, the sink dried before the light goes off THE HONEST PART: NEVER empty the old bottles into one bucket or pour two down the same drain, because bleach with an acid or ammonia makes a dangerous gas. Keep one washable rubber-backed mat where water falls, because a wet bare floor is slippery. Open windows in the driest hour, and keep them shut on smoke or heavy pollen days. One thing a week, not one weekend. NEVER lift a heavy table alone. WHY NOBODY TOLD YOU: a plug-in scent with refills ($24), fabric softener ($13), dryer sheets ($9), under-bed bins ($32), a non-slip rug pad ($19). Ninety-seven dollars. The easiest thing in your house to clean is the thing that is no longer in it. A thing that is not there never needs a cloth. Tonight: go to your hallway, lift the corner of the rug, and look at the line of grit along its edge. Then tell me in the comments how many loose rugs are in your whole house, bath mats too, the one thing your mother kept that you have finally let go of, and how old your house is. Not one of them goes unread.