Charlotte, my sympathy to you and your son on your tragic loss.
Your in-progress cleaning crisis may seem small in comparison, but is still very important and vital and immediate to you. Many hurrahs to you for all your hard work so far; your magnificent progress; and your good sense in taking some time off to see your relative, celebrate your son's birthday, and rest up from your Herculean efforts!
A few suggestions:
- In addition to listing your own free stuff on Craigslist; check (& keep checking when you get a chance) the "free stuff"category for plastic bags & tote boxes, and whatever else you need. You might even put up a list of stuff you needed under "wanted" - you never know who might be needing to get rid of what.
- Label, label, label. Label everything. To make labels on the cheap, I just use a permanent/"Sharpie" marker on masking tape. (When I want to be super-nifty-neat, I'll use scissors to cut the ends of the masking straight & square.)
- Plastic tote boxes, especially smaller ones, are often available at thrift stores for cheap. They won't match, and they'll probably need to be cleaned, but they will hold your stuff. (Do be sure to label them
). One of the sturdier ones should work for your tools, if you don't happen across a suitable toolbox while you're at the thrift store.
- I have all my many rolls of contact paper in a straight-sided wastebasket (which may have once been one of those pre-popped popcorn tins). It keeps them together, holds them up like a (not especially pretty) bouquet, and I can easily see which one is which. If your thrift store happens to have one of those tall plastic totes meant for storing wrapping paper, that's good, too.
- If you find totes big enough, use them for things like the air mattress pump & the sink faucet (and label them
).
- For roaches: baking soda works much like boric acid, washing soda, etc., and is cheap and non-toxic. Clean everything you possibly can, of course, and put as much stuff as you can into sealed bags & plastic boxes. They're not cheap, but you can get giant ziploc bags: the XXL is about 2 ft wide by 3 ft deep, and was around $7-8 for a box of two at my local Target when my apts had a bedbug infestation a couple of years ago.
- I also suggest roach motels for a couple of reasons: they're comparatively inexpensive and they can hold
a lot of roaches. Once you get a time for the CPS worker to show up, if you pick the old roach motels and put out a new set just beforehand, the CPS may see that you have roaches (I've never lived in the South, but doesn't
everyone there have roaches to some degree?), but will also have this clear visual evidence that you are on the case and actively fighting the roaches.
- For your living room rug: once you've gathered up the big tufts by hand and vacuumed it once or twice, try running a damp paper towel, a lint roller, and/or some of your dog-grooming tools over it. Tedious as all-get-out for a big rug, yes, but those will get stuff that a vacuum never will. (But vacuum again anyway, as your last step.)
- Another option for your LR rug, if (and only if) you'll be able to afford it after the start of the month, is to take it in for a professional cleaning. That way, it'll be out of the way for the next week or two, and you'll have a gorgeous clean rug when you do pick it up. This can work with your dry-cleanables, too, but only if you will be able to spare the dough in April.
- For stinky-pee stuff, when my sister had an old incontinent dog, she used cheap white vinegar followed by baking soda. Wipe up any liquid/mess with paper towels, spray area with white vinegar, scrub with stiff brush moistened with household spray cleaner, then cover in baking soda. When the baking soda is dry, vacuum it up. Repeat as necessary, but smells were almost always substantially reduced with one application, and even the worst may have taken four or five.
- If you decide to tackle the oven, you can do almost the same as above. Wipe up as much as will come easily with paper towels, spray the inside of the oven with white vinegar, then sprinkle/toss baking soda onto the surfaces. Turn the oven on for an hour or so (unless - did you say it's not working?) and let it sit overnight. You can vacuum the dry baking soda out of the oven, or use a whisk broom, then wipe down again with paper towels. Repeat if necessary, until you're down to a couple of stubborn spots that will take hand scrubbing with more baking soda and a stiff brush. Or else quit as soon as the oven has reached some reasonable level of non-disgustingness.
I hope some of this helps. Keep on taking care of yourself, taking care of your family, & then taking care of your house.