Cleaning my window air conditioner is part of my monthly home maintenance routine

I lived in a house with three other guys during my last three years of college. I could be untidy with my room and might occasionally leave out one or two dirty dishes by accident, but nothing I could do ever came close to the degree of neglect I witnessed from my roommates. No one ever wanted to take responsibility for the space we all shared as a communal home. This was in part because my roommates were all raised by wealthy families with maids who did every single facet of the housework. It took a feat of strength by all three of them to learn to do basic laundry for themselves, let alone even dream of preparing a home cooked meal. It was no surprise that most nights I saw take-out garbage piled on one of the three kitchen counters. When I finally moved out on my own, I took a 180 degree turn with my cleanliness with my living space. I became extremely neat and tidy and developed daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning routines. The daily and weekly routines are fairly simply—garbage, dishes, dusting, and tidying are done daily, whereas vacuuming, mopping, and bathroom scrubbing is done each week. My monthly routine is more extensie, in part because of the cleaning job I do on my window air conditioner. It has a removable filter that can be cleaned with soap and water and the tray that holds the filter in place gets cleaned with a special anti-microbial spray made for air conditioners and dehumidifiers. The spray doesn’t damage evaporator coils, which is perfect in this climate because mold has a habit of showing up after long periods of heavy use. The spray removes that in seconds with little fuss, returning my machine to pristine condition.

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