My girlfriend’s problem with a collection of plastic shopping bags and open cardboard boxes full of Internet printouts, old letters, bills, receipts, free magazines and newspapers has been growing over the past few years. She has been unemployed for well over one year and during that time I told her a couple of times, she should devote some time to throwing away her old paperwork and taking it to a paper recycle bank. I told her this is just creating problems for later and will result in more and more work in the future. She obviously didn’t listen to me. Or rather she kept all her time occupied with her job search etc.

Anyway while I was back at my home, she got a new job and a new apartment. She had friends and family to help with her move. The new apartment was newly refurbished and from the photographs I saw looked excellent. It contains brand new fittings and kitchen equipment. You would think it should be paradise.

Well the apartment is smallish and the main living room is now filled with up to 40 boxes and plastic shopping bags. I moved back in with her a few days ago. I noticed that although my girlfriend hasn’t been living here that long and despite her telling me how much housework she does, the floors are thick with dust. Yes, really thick.

Within a short while, my nose started to constantly stream. I stopped it with what remained of my old hayfever tablets left over from 1 – 2 years ago. Anyway yesterday I had to buy a new packet of hayfever tablets. The one from yesterday must be slightly wearing off now and I have a very occassional running nose at the moment.

Anyway yesterday I got the vacumn cleaner out and cleaned almost every room with it. However I can’t clean the main living room as it is full with almost 40 shopping bags and cardboard boxes. I really don’t have the patience for this room. Not only that, but the surfaces are covered in old receipts and opened parcels.

So where did all this dust come from? Well it seems my girlfriend knows a woman who is a natural healer and this healer told my girlfriend the apartment is full of ghosts. To get rid of the ghosts, my girlfriend should burn incense every day. Yes, every day. Even my girlfriend thought this would be a health hazard, but she continued nonetheless. Worse than that, the instructions where to make sure incense gets in all the corners!

I can’t get over how stupid this “advice” was. As the dust was all over the floors, it must have got into the bags and boxes full of paperwork.

I am just shocked. How can this natural healer woman but so stupid as to tell someone to burn incense every day? Doesn’t she know this will just fill the apartment full of dust. Vacumn cleaning can be fast and easy, but when all the surfaces are covered and the place is full of open shopping bags full of papers and contents, you end up with a mess impossible to clean.

Obviously my girlfriend isn’t going to fix this mess. What should I do? Put on a safety mask and googles and clean out the bags? Well the old papers need to be thrown away, but my girlfriend wants to keep them.

The only thing to do is to see how my nose holds up over the next few days. If it continues to run, then I will have to leave. But I am stunned over over stupid this natural healer woman is. I can’t believe it.