MOVING HOUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1937, Page 19

MOVING HOUSE

UNNECESSARY FOREBODING

DISCOVERY OF NEW WORLD

"Generations of good housewives have defended .those domestic upheavals known as 'spring cleaning' and 'cleaning down for Christmas.' They still do, as though moved by some vague instinct, although the vacuum cleaner has in theory removed the necessity. There is a kind of fierce joy about these upheavals which are safely carried on withii. the four walls of home'," states a writer in the "Manchester Guardian." "The removal, similar though it is in many respects, has no defenders. It is contemplated only under some form of economic or social compulsion, like the transfer of the money-bringer to another place, the real or imagined obligation to 'live-up' t» an improved social position, or some form of acute unpopularity among neighbours,, or even local tradesmen, it has been said. It is looked upon from afar with grave forebodings, ringed about with imaginary difficulties, viewed with the eye of a genera] who is defeated before his battle is begun through slieer pessimism and the dislike of having to take up a new position. ' Flitting, to use an excellent North Country word, which is the 'flyttning' of the Scandinavians to this day, is not popular. "Of course. aIJ that does not make a complete case for tearing up the old roots,, but surely the going into a new world at the other end counts for something as well. The rooms are differently arranged, the decorations are a complete change in colour and scheme, the old curtains have become dustsheets and new ones are gay in the windows. ' There. is the minor adventure of adapting yourself to the new house, the finding of new shops, the meeting of fresh people. TROUBLES AND TRIALS. "You-,will argue that' this is all very well,' but, strong in your memories of the once.wbM you had to remove, that it does not outweigh the many troubles and trials of removing. What about finding mice in the new house when you" have ,got there? Well, there is always poison, cement' tdf stop up the holes, and a cat is not hard to get. Besides, those-mouse-tails you-found were really shavings from a' piece of insulated wire left by' the electrician, you remember! ' There were stair-eyes to put infor. the rods,'and. you got them all- crooked. ; ' ' "You should have made yourself a wooden gauge the width of the steps and marked whe.v the eyes should be fixed, using.it on" every step. There was the need of a fevy simple tools like a hammer and screwdriver, and they were no) to be found for three days. You should have put them all in one box, kept it till the last thing to go into the van at'the old house, and so ensured thai it would be. the first thing to come out at the new. "I admit there is much to be said against it. But it is not an annoying constitutional perversity that makes me.appoint myself counsel for the defence. It is. that I regard a flit—a plain, honest flit, be it understood, not a moonlight one—as an adventure, the. discovery of a new world.. "A removal is much more effective tlian a mere spring or Christmas cleaning, Jor the scrubbing-brush gets into the remotest corners of the house which stands empty, bare, and'exposed, the decorators 'wield their- paint and paste brushes to your command freely and unobstructed, and plumber and joiner cannot leave sawdust orbits of solder on your best carpets and linoleum. As for the broken clothes-airers, crazy saucepans, piles of old .papers, and all the things that have been kept with an incredibly slender hope of their "being useful sometime," out they go to the dustbin or into the hands of some jackdaw of a neighbour to whom all things are, at any rate, things. Utter remorselessness in such matters comes only under the stimulus of a flit. "KEEPS YOU YOUNG." "You will point out that if you go to a house with an attic, apart from the fact that attics are grossly unfashionable though extremely" useful, you have no stair carpet for the attic stairs. Perhaps not, but why not stain the whole of the steps to remove the look of bareness until such times as a stair carpet becomes financially feasible? Sadly you will point to your bookshelves all nailed 'and screwed in place; but why do not you go in for simple shelves piled on top of one another and held apart at each end at book height by square or oblong blocks of wood one inch wide, making cheap and easily removable and extensible bookshelves which usually adapt themselves to another house without much difficulty? "It is no use. I submit that nothing can overcome the psychological - case for an occasional removal. I am tempted even tc claim that it keeps you young, for it freshens your outlook by .contact with new places and new things, and it makes 'a call upon those qualities of youth which welcome some measure of change in the world—qualities which so easily atrophy as the years .-go on and the roots grow deeper and deeper lhto the subsoil of a limited social field. It is expensive? It certainly is, especially if you get to one of the few districts in the country where the electricity supply happens to be on a low voltage like 100 and you have to change or convert all your electrical equipment. But then, all beauty treatments are expensive."