House Cleaning for House Swapping : The Towel Lesson

According to experienced house swappers, when problems do occur in home exchanges it is usually because the two parties have very different definitions of the words "clean and tidy".  This fact can be a little intimidating. You know what it is like when you have someone pop over and suddenly you realize how dirty the kitchen floor is? Before they set foot in your house it was perfectly clean, but once they arrive, the floor immediately transforms and is suddenly covered with bits of toast crumbs, dirt, and coffee splashes. Hosting a home exchange feels like that, except multiplied by forty. You have to add in the complete viewing of your bedroom,  garage,  linen closet and the insides of all your cupboards too. And unless you put a lock on it, that one room in your house you designate as "the messy room" where you stash all your piles of stuff will be available for everyone to see. You won't even be around to make up an excuse. In a home exchange, there IS no excuse. You brought this one  on yourself entirely, from start to finish. 

I discovered something while getting the place ready for guests here. You need to start big and then go down to the details. Sounds obvious, doesn't it? The kitchen needed painting -that's big. Buying a new carpet for the master bedroom is another big one too. Ditto for getting the back garden organized and replacing the old lawn chairs that were falling apart. Solve the big problems early and leave all the details for the end.  Details are just too easily disrupted by your family's normal day to day routine.  For example, last week I spent way too much time folding all our towels  into a lovely, absolutely perfect pile on the linen closet shelf. I congratulated myself on the Martha Stewart-ish way they all lined up and thought how nice it would be for our guest to help himself to a towel from such a handsome assortment.  Today I peeked in there and discovered they were all missing. Every single one had been used  and were now all in the laundry hamper, damp and waiting to be washed and folded once again.  I had forgotten that our normal day to day routine includes using up the clean towels in the house. So tomorrow is our last day before we go and it will be detail day: vacuuming, dusting, bathroom cleaning, and of course, towel folding.