On the way to becoming an obsessive, compulsive cleaner due to a dirty oven. My day started out quite well and early with a desire to clean out boxes in the storerooms that should have been cleaned out years ago but never had been. Boxes had been moved from country to country without ever being opened so this morning was going to be a Big Day. Two-pin plugs and extension cords I will never use again, small rubber pads to fix onto chair feet (do I really need ten lacks of them?) picture hooks by the dozen, bayonet type light bulbs that are now of no use to me at all, various cables long separated from the machines they belonged to and more filled my morning’s travails. It dawned on me that there are certain things I buy when I move without first checking if I have them already. Progress at last, I felt. Boxes labeled neatly were returned to shelves and I went back to the kitchen to make some lunch. My eyes fell on the oven inherited when I bought the apartment and which had once been turned on since moving in to have my spotless dream kitchen fill with a cloud of acrid smoke. It appeared never to having been cleaned before so I understood this was going to be a long, drawn out affair and it certainly was. Lunch of a tasty sandwich and a beer over, I embarked on the cleaning of the oven. Locating the can of oven cleaner, I read the instructions never having used such stuff in years. ‘Big D Oven and Grill Cleaner’ sounded easy enough to use so on went the yellow rubber gloves, and for good measure, a face mask the likes of which are often seen in Hong Kong at the merest sniffle of a cold. Having removed the bottom pan and the rack, and having covered the surrounding floor with newspaper, I warmed up the oven to 95’C or thereabouts as instructed and disconnected it. Holding the can upright, as also instructed, I sprayed the foam on evenly from a distance of about 8”. Now, I did not measure but used my vivid imagination for that one. I then left it for 3 to 5 minutes, or one quick cigarette in the dining room, before I proceeded to wipe the oven interior with a damp sponge. Well, some of the dirt had come off but obviously this was going to require several attempts to get it clean. Three sprays so far have removed about half the build-up of years of neglect but this will have to be done again several times to get it cleaned. I did, on the other hand, managed to get the base pan and the racks cleaned after much effort. On commenting to a friend over the phone that I was cleaning the oven, he said he never cleaned his oven waiting until it got too much and then buying a new one. No, that is not my plan now that it is half cleaned but I did think about it half way through the day. Back to the newspaper on the floor – I discovered this is not for the spray or the dirt, it is for the sweat dripping off you when you attempt to clean an oven in a tropical climate. Now it is time for a gin and tonic to restore all that lost liquid.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 11:59:34 +0000
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