No one has ever accused me of being an obsessive housekeeper.  I keep things “clean”.  But please never try to do a white glove test anywhere in my house, and do not expect to be able to “eat off of the floor”.  So, I’d personally expect this to the be least of my worries, but what’s with the dirt in Italy?

Don’t get me wrong.  Italy is not dirty.  Our little town, quite to the contrary!  It’s extremely clean.  I swear the trash must be picked up daily.  We live in a condo and there are community bins out along the Viale at very frequent intervals, and an assortment of recycling bins within easy access.   We have separate bins for paper, and “mixed” for cans, plastic and glass, and recycling bins for batteries, all within easy access throughout the town.  And they ALWAYS seem to be empty!!!  We hear the street sweepers in front of our building multiple times a week.  We never see trash lying around, and dogs are well picked up after.  Here are the closest bins to us (as seen from our veranda).  There’s a large metal trash dumpster, and a blue paper bin.

But the dirt on our floors in our apartment is incredible!   I suspect part of it is the fact that I’m used to a much drier climate, and while you would think that dry means dusty, I think that dirt in a more humid climate behaves differently.  I’ve always heard of “dust bunnies”, but I had no idea what that meant until I moved here.  It’s as though the dirt catches a little moisture and then clumps together into these airy, wafting bundles of joyful dirt.   That’s about an 8″ tile, and one room of dirt after about 3 days.

I’m a barefoot person.  I like walking around in my bare feet or just socks, and in Colorado I could even walk around the front yard, or back on the deck without the bottoms of my feet becoming noticeable dirty (at least for a short period of time).  We had some carpeting, and mixtures of tile, vinyl and hardwood floors, and walking barefoot in Colorado I never “felt” dirt under my feet.  I do here. The soles of my slippers are even dirty!

So, I mop the floors a lot more than I ever have in my life.  You still can’t eat off of my floors, and dirt still accumulates on my socks and slippers, but I feel like a daily wash of the floors is necessary.  I see a robot vacuum in my future again!  If anyone has a scientific explanation as to why these tile floors seem to attract so much more dirt, I’d love to know!