Quarantine in Shanghai – Day 6 Area Cleaning

One week into quarantine with no housekeeping, I had to keep the place clean myself.

Rise and Shine

5am has become my regular wake-up time. As there’s nothing much to do and no disturbances in evenings, I woke up at 5am everyday. I tried to sleep in for the weekend but work up the same time nevertheless on the Saturday morning,

The Room

Let’s take a closer look at the room. There’s plenty of space for one person. The bathroom is an open concept area with a large bathtub that I made a mental note not to use. The doors of the bathroom and toilet have been removed to simplify cleaning and disinfecting after we move out. I can see residue marks of disinfected on the walls. They must have just came in and sprayed the whole place down.

I got a message from a friend that was in quarantine in Huangpu the same time I was in Pudong. He sent me a photo of his room. And all of a sudden, I was happy with the room I got.

Daily Routine

The breakfast selection was really limited, so I either skipped it or just made myself one of those noodles in a cup and some fresh cut fruits. It is important to get into a routine so that there’s still some tempo in the daily grind. If not, you would quickly realise you are stuck in a confine space and that can be depressing very quickly, especially if you need to be stuck in here for 14 days.

I have worked through 24 bottles of water right about Friday (Day 5) and they promptly replaced with another carton with any charge. By the end of the quarantine, I would have worked through 3 cartons of these water. A lot of plastics has been used, but unusual time needed some unusual measures. Yes, there was some mosquitoes in the room and I have asked for a repellent.

Temperature Control

The orientation of the room meant that the afternoon sun will start shining into the room at around 11am and raised the temperature for the next 4 hours. As I have off the AC, I needed some form of ventilation.

It took me the first few days to figure out how to cool down the room while letting some natural light in during the day. You would need the heavy curtains to block most of the sun during that 4 hours, and then opened it all up in the evening to cool down the room to a comfortable 22˚C.

Area Cleaning

They did not provide any area cleaning equipment, so I have to resort to mop the floor with wet wipes I brought from Singapore. It may sound silly, but it was better than leaving the place dirty. The amount of dust that accumulated over the week was quite substantial given that I offed the AC and used an opened window for ventilation.

Now with the room cleaned and the bedsheets changed, I can finally relaxed to catch up on some entertainment. It meant watching three live streams at the same time from the computer, mobile phone and the TV while texting the family and friend.

The first weekend was not that difficult to bear given the “housework” that I did. Another day gone towards the end of quarantine period.