I like your wife’s/girlfriend’s sense of cleanliness and organization…at least it is better than having a girlfriend/wife who absolutely doesn’t care, leaves dirty laundry all over the place, never cleans the house, wants to go out to eat restaurants all the time, and thinks that keeping a tidy house is a waste of her time and wants to get a maid instead…
I actually like a woman who likes to take a little more control of the house and shows care to make sure everything is neat and tidy…
Well, I’m sure you meant to say it’s a joint effort, PaD! No reasonable man would have your expectations unless he were making an equal contribution, right?
Ironman, if I am reading this correctly it seems as if your so has a few quirky rules in an otherwise laissze-fair approach to housekeeping. A few a agree with: separate pans for breakfast and dinner is standard in any good kitchen. Having meat smells in your pancakes or scrambled eggs is awful. As for slippers, I think that is too much. I rarely wear slippers in the house. Like you, I prefer to mop and keep the floor clean. My wife has adapted to this somewhat.
My wife also has a few quirky requirments (such as the cord on the hair dryer has to be wrapped around the handle and umbrellas have to be folded properly) but otherwise she too will make piles and let things sit for days and is not overly fussy about dust and grime. I am super clean and have had to work on her for years to get her somewhat close to my standards. She helps with the basics and I alone do most of the close cleaning (the stuff that really keeps a house clean) like scrubbing kitchen walls and the stove, cleaning blinds and exhaust fans, and taking things down to dust (like all the books in a bookshelf once in a while), and moving furniture when vaccumming.
As for rags, I tend to throw mine out every few days. Too much bacteria in Taiwan and boiling or bleaching them is a hassle.
In a way, being on Forumosa has made me realize that many of my wife’s traits are not personal flaws but characteristics bred into people by Taiwanese society. However, I am also grateful that I learned this years after marrying so that I stuck to my guns in the initial years and insisted that the house would be cleaned to a higher standard (by both of us). My wife is actually quite contemptuous now of most taiwanese household’s standards of cleanliness.