Common Sense for Housemaids

by Ann Fraser Tytler

COMMON SENSE FOR HOUSEMAIDS.

This little book is intended to convey instruction with regard to a housemaid’s duties to the most ignorant in the simplest possible language. Many will throw it aside in indignation, and exclaim, “Does it require a book to be written to tell us that the drawing-room grate should be the first thing cleaned and polished, and not left till a room is swept and dusted, or that if the apartment has not been used for some time, and the carpet carefully covered up, it is better to leave it covered till the walls have been swept down, and the window-curtains brushed?” Strange as it may appear, such advice we have more than once found necessary; we therefore address ourselves to those who for want of regular training, and from not bringing common sense into practice, have fallen into similar errors to those here alluded to, and to a still more numerous race, who are every day leaving their father’s cottage with the desire to obtain a housemaid’s place, and would therefore willingly learn something of a housemaid’s duties.

A housemaid’s duties are various, and by no means easy of attainment; for she has to contend against a host of enemies—dust, soot, smoke, rust, insects of various kinds, and bad smells innumerable; let her, however, not be discouraged; all difficulties will give way before early rising, habits of activity, an acute nose, frequent open windows, and a teachable spirit; let us therefore proceed without further preface to give our best advice as to cleaning a house thoroughly after the six winter months of smoke and dust.

Let all the dusters and brushes which will be required, be carefully washed the day before you begin the work of cleaning. To sweep with a dirty brush will do more harm to a carpet than to leave it unswept; and a chair-cover, rubbed with a soiled duster, is injured in a way which no after-dusting can remove.

Let the stair-carpet be first taken up and folded to be beaten with the other carpets. If the family are absent, it is better that all the carpets which require to be beaten should be taken up at the same time and sent away, and all the chimneys swept before the cleaning begins. But if the family are at home, this should not be done, as the cleaning should then only begin in one room at a time, so as to occasion as little discomfort and inconvenience as possible.

Let the stairs be first swept down after the carpet has been removed, taking care that all the bed-room doors be previously shut. If the chimneys in the attics are to be swept, place a mat on the upper landing-place, and if the rooms have carpets, let the carpets be taken up in as many of the rooms as can be cleaned in one day: as the carpets in the upper rooms are, generally small, they are in most families beaten in the court below; the window and bed-curtains should also be taken down and well shaken and brushed below stairs, and the beds carefully covered up with a covering-sheet, well tucked in all round, that no soot may penetrate; then remove the tables and chairs into the landing-place, if there is space sufficient, turning the bottom of one chair down upon the bottom of another; if the landing-place is too small, remove them into one of the attics, and let this room be the last swept and scoured. As soon as the chimney is swept, let the soot be carefully collected, and the housemaid follow the sweep down stairs, taking care that he previously has rubbed his feet upon the mat, and also that he does not allow the bag of soot which he carries to touch the walls as he passes down,—this should be still more attended to, when some one chimney in a house may require to be swept at a time when the stair-carpet is not taken up; to have a handsome brussels carpet stained with soot is no light misfortune to a feeling heart, to trace the creature at every step is no pleasant journey.

The grate is next to be cleansed, and if polished with black lead, two brushes are to be used, one for putting on the lead, and the other for polishing. The fire-irons and fender to be scoured with emery cloth, and then rubbed quickly with a woollen cloth. All the articles required for the grates should be kept in a box for the purpose, and a coarse sheet should also be kept in the housemaid’s closet to be laid down whenever a grate is to be scoured: this may seem unnecessary in an attic room where the carpet may be shabby, or perhaps where there may be no carpet,—but the habit acquired is everything; where no sheet is laid down above-stairs, pokers, tongs, even dust-pans, are often put down on the drawing-room carpet, without a feeling of remorse; a well-trained housemaid would shudder at such a spectacle. The sweeping down of the cornices and walls should now be attended to. Let a pair of steps be brought into the room, and (taking care that they are stretched out to their full extent, so as to stand quite steady on the floor), let the housemaid, mounted on them with a long broom, sweep away the cobwebs and dust from the ceiling and cornices, sweeping also behind each window-shutter, and round the ceilings and shelves of the different presses in the room. The long broom should then be covered with a bag of coarse flannel, and the walls thoroughly swept down. After this has been done, spread a large sheet on the floor, and let the bedding be removed upon it and covered up, the frame of the bed thoroughly well brushed, and also all the edges and corners of the sacking bottom, where dust can lodge, and let the bed-posts and stock be well rubbed till no soil remains on the duster. Then with a feather or small hair-brush, anoint every joint and crevice with the following mixture:—

Put one ounce of corrosive sublimate into a pint of spirits of wine—shake the phial well, and keep it closely corked except when in use. Poison should be written in large letters on the phial, and great care taken to keep it in a safe place out of the reach of children.

Should the housemaid be called away, even for a moment, while she is using this mixture, let her not leave the room till she has put this phial out of the reach of every one. If the beds are kept free from dust, and every spring anointed with this mixture, there will be no risk of their becoming infested by those creatures which it is impossible to name, but which are very dreadful. Clothes-baskets from the laundress for this reason should never be brought into the bed-rooms. The clean linen should be carefully looked over below, and hung upon a screen before the fire, to be made thoroughly dry before it is put into the drawers or wardrobes. The dusting and anointing of the bed-frames being completed, proceed next to switch and brush the bedding—an old riding whip is an excellent thing for switching bedding or the cushions of chairs, as anything heavy and unyielding is apt to cut them; as soon as you have made the bedding free from dust, replace it on the bed, and cover all up with a sheet, well tucked in, leaving the bed-curtains to be put up, and the bed-linen put on after the cleaning of the room has been completed.