Back in 2010, when I first began my adventures as a non-home-owning, globe-trotting work-wherever leading lady, I had a landlord come to do an INSPECTION of my nest!! It’s a regular occurrence when you rent your home, but was very new to me at the time.
I remember being betwixt-and-between about it.
The note attached to my door informed me that –
“apartments should be free of unnecessary clutter, recycling and trash. Refrigerators and stoves should be clean and in sanitary condition.
Bathroom toilets, tubs, tile walls, sinks and all apartment flooring should be clean and sanitary as well.”
The inspection would be carried out by the maintenance manager (which it to be expected) and the building owner (which surprised me a little).
What struck me about most about the instructions in the letter is that they felt they need to specify what appear to me to be standard levels of hygiene + maintenance.
In order to have my nest ready for an audience of any kind, I would usually need to do nothing more than a quick zoot round the communal areas, putting shoes/magazines and breakfast dishes away.
Were there really people in my building, exhausting themselves trying to clean up a year’s worth of letting-things-slide, in time for an inspection of which they were notified 24 hours in advance?
Apparently so.
I find that so very sad-making.
I can’t bear the thought of the stress of having deep-clean under the gun, so to speak.
Not to mention the almost inevitable self-recriminations that flow (been there, done that) when obligated to confront a pile of procrastinations in the form of an overflowing sink + a towering Mt Washmore of laundry.
Darlingheart, if this is you, know this. It really truly doesn’t have to be this way.
To be honest, I don’t actually care about the state of your house.
I’m not going to drop by to inspect your environment. (If I did drop by, it’d be to see you, not your house.)
What I do care about is what we’re all losing out on because your house gets in the way of ThatThingYouDo.
- I ache for the art that’s not been made, the books not written, the songs not sung,
simply because the surrounding-stuff has sucked all the creative juice out of sensitive souls. - I grieve for the fun not had + the naps not savoured
because of the disapproving presence of things-undone. - I’m dismayed that people take more guilt-trips about their homes
than adventure-filled road-trips to-and-from them.
I’m on a mission to create a world where homes are loved + lovely + deeply supportive of the dreams of whoever lives there. In my world, landlords have no need to inspect.
Know this, glorious one …
Your home is an energetic vessel into which you can either anchor your frustration + scarcity, or your abundance + dreams. As you do your work in the world, your home will be an ally or saboteur. Which one, is entirely up to you.
Whatever you imprint upon your environment is a reflection of you and will be reflected back to you.
“As within, so without”, as the saying goes. I believe it works the other way round too.
When you begin deliberately crafting your environment to reflect who you’re Becoming,
rather than who you were or even who you are now,
you begin to surround yourself with evidence of the future you want for yourself.
And in my experience, the Universe delivers.
It must.
Because that’s how it works.