While we are in Turku, we stay in one of the guest flats of the university. When we received the conditions of the flat, we were asked whether we would like to use the cleaning service (30 Euros for one visit). First I declined the offer – after all, we are normally living in Switzerland which implies that you have to regularly clean the flat, the hallway, the communal basement, the playground and so on (unless you want to annoy someone). But then we were told that if we denied, we wouldn’t have access to the vacuum cleaner. The access only comes with using the cleaning service. I still haven’t figured out the logic behind that.

Since we have a small baby that just started crawling, we thought a vacuum cleaner might come handy and we decided to have our flat cleaned twice a month just to get access to it.

When the cleaning ladies came the first time, I wasn’t informed about it and they kind of caught me with my pants down. Almost literally, since I had just finished my morning shower. So they came, they cleaned, I felt pretty bad because I hadn’t had time to clean the dishes from the evening before, and they left again. As soon as they were gone, I noticed that they locked the cupboard with the vacuum cleaner. When we called them the next day, we were told that it is not common to let the guests vacuum the flat – they had bad experiences with it. Again, I am still trying to figure out the logic here. The only experience I can think of after using a vacuum cleaner is that the flat might be cleaner than before.

Anyhow, we got the key to the cupboard when we explained that we would like to clean more often since there are so many stone chips on the streets due to the snow. And, ironically, I have started to clean the flat before they visit because I feel really bad if they come and the flat is dirty.

Today, they came again. Which was fun, because the little one is always in a really good mood when the flat is being cleaned (I wonder why). They cleaned, they left. And just now I noticed that they took my pillow. I think I give up trying to find the logic here….