OT--Rejected by my home organizer!
Aw, crap.
Today was my first day with the organizer I hired. I took the day off so we could work, and we had already scheduled another day on the 16th. I tried to clean a bit so things weren't TOO gross--and much to my chagrin I figured out where the "litterbox" smell was coming from--my cats had peed a LOT on the bottom shelf of my bookcase, and the bookcase REEEKED. I had to throw out a whole bunch of books, soaked the shelf in odor remover, dried it and covered it with carpet deodorizer. The bookcase is a total loss--I've had it 20 years, and it is from Ikea so it's had a long life. I covered the front of the bottom shelf with plastic, and I'll just have to replace the bookcase in the next few weeks.
So, I was already feeling a bit defeated when she got here. Very nice woman, very good at what she does, worked her butt off the whole day (taking only 10 minutes for lunch) and we got my bedroom basically done, and a start on the master bathroom.
When we sat down at the end of the day so I could pay her (close to $500), she told me she couldn't come back because of the smoke in the house. I did not smoke in the same room as her, but apparently between the smoke in the air and the dust she had trouble breathing. She was very nice about it, and apologetic, but I felt like I was going to cry. She is going to put out a query on the listserv for her organizer colleagues and try to find someone who can work with me.
Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't smoke. I do. And obviously, I can't blame anyone for declining to work under conditions they can't tolerate. But now I feel like I am back to square one with my squalor. If I felt like I could handle this unaided I would do it, but I'm still overwhelmed.
This probably sounds like just another whiny addict complaining. Aren't there any organizers out there who smoke? I just sent an email to another woman in my area (whose fee is less), and told her to give me a call if she can stand working in a smoker's house.