And... How clean do you keep your house?
 

I live alone, so have only myself to please. I'll admit right up front that housework is not a priority for me. I'll let my dishes pile up for 2 or 3 days before I wash them. I do make my bed everyday and try to keep my living room free of clutter. Right now, I'm working myself up to do a thorough vacuming of my apartment. Is anyone else as laissez faire as me?

oh, more so. more so!

I do the dishes every morning, make my bed, straighten up.


real cleaning? Only when I can't stand it anymore. When it plays on my nerves. THEN i get down with comet, scrubbies and bleach.

Life's too short and all that. However, if I had the money, I'd have a cleaner in once a DAY. I've three kitties and a doggie and an 18 year old who thinks putting the paper on the roll is "bourgeois"- which drives me insane.

I'm a big slob. I'm better than I used to be, but a lot depends on my mental health at the time. I can step over a piece of trash on the floor for months.

As opposed to . .. what?

I was a slob. Then I hired a cleaning service. Now my house is cleaned once a week by a nice young lady putting herself through school. :D

I used to keep my apartment(s) very neat and clean. Always kept the floors washed and the furniture dusted. Bathroom cleaned and sheets changed every week. I was just one person and none of it ever took much time.

Then I moved to a three bedroom house. Out in the woods, in the mud and the crud and the sludge.

Oh, the place is still neat and orderly... I keep the bathrooms clean, the kitchen properly put away, and I vacuum regularly. But I hardly ever dust anymore, and the kitchen floor gets a really good washing only two or three times a year.

Mostly, if given a choice between housework and a nap, I'll take the nap every time.

;)

An entire family of slobs here. The house is just somewhere to keep stuff and sleep. but I'm working on getting better. On Thanksgiving I cleaned out "that corner" in the kitchen. I found receipts from 2001 among other things.....

Today, I toothbrushed some of the ledges on the cabinet doors in the kitchen. rest of the house is totally awful though. Can't see the floor in most places. or any other surfaces. basement is full, so is garage although that might change tonight because it's due to get seriously cold. In which case the front room will be full again. but that's fine as it's mostly one giant mud room with computer corners.....

Housework just isn't fun.

We have a beloved "fairy" (aka "a woman that does") who comes once a week. I :heartpump her! It's frightfully bourgeios (oh fnck how DO you spell that?) especially considering our household income is around GBP18,000/year (if that!) but we just do not love housework.

I used to think I was neat and clean often til I read y'all calling it not so clean with the amount I clean mine. :p I have a 5 yr. old practically living here (we babysit our nephew, hihi), a sister who believes cleaning is my job because she cooks, and a mother who is cashing in her "piety" filial chips (if there are a few dishes in the sink, the kitchen is a mess). I believe my home is clean enough but not as clean as I want it to be (unless someone can give me some uppers -- I read that ADD meds work wonders -- so I can constantly move!:D).

We have a maid in once a week and spot clean in the meantime.

I let dishes pile up and such but trash goes out as needed. Floors get mopped by the maid. Puppy pee gets mopped up my us right away.

My room is a disaster! I try to keep my filth from invading the other areas of the house. I spot clean everything else unless I am having a major cleaning day. I have definitely slackened in this area. ((((shame)))) (((guilt)))

I have a dog with 10 puppies in a kiddie swimming pool, in the middle of my living room. . . nuff said ;)

This is a major sore spot for me.

OK, here's the thing. I grew up in a messy house, with two working parents, and at its worst it could have been on that TV show "hoarders." At its worst, you'd have to clear a spot to sit down and watch TV. So I didn't really learn to do things properly from my parents.

Upon moving in with my hubby, though, I was suddenly inspired to tidiness -- well, at least more than before. And with practice I got better. He helped. Of course it also helped that we didn't have much, we lived in fairly small places.

When I quit my job in 1998 to take care of the little ones, I thought a woman who was home all the time had to do it all -- how DARE I not keep the place spotless if I wasn't earning an income? Of course that meant I was always struggling and never living up to expectations -- my own expectations, that is.

I did pretty good till we moved here, and I've just never really managed to organize this place. Don't know why. There are boxes we haven't unpacked - nice things, useful things, we haven't decorated properly, things are in places they don't belong, we have all kinds of crap to get rid of.

And then my mom died and now I have her crap, too. I am buried under a fucking LANDSLIDE of crap. I try to haul it out and get rid of stuff - I am sentimental but not "hoarder" sentimental - I just find that it takes a huge effort to box or bag it up and take it elsewhere. Especially when nobody helps. Especially when my husband looks at the stuff and says "oh, you're not getting rid of this, are you? It's a perfectly good [ ].

And because they are used to me being home and doing the work, nobody ever cleans a damn thing. They leave cans and wrappers and never pick up cat vomit and never scoop the boxes and think nothing of letting the dogs run around with muddy paws and fur all over the place and nobody ever sweeps or dusts or

I am losing my mind, I swear.

I am on a mission, during winter break from school, to organize and get rid of stuff. I swear we could get rid of half of our total belongings and not be put out in the least.

Sorry y'all. I was gearing up to bitch about this anyway, this thread just provided a handy vehicle. :)

Actually my house isn't that bad. I might even let you in, if you give me a day to clean it up first. ;)

Good question. "cool"ness factor doesn't include TP on the roll? MUST it be on the windowsill or ledge of vanity?? I'll ask him.

Why in hell do you make the bed? Don't you want the farts to dissipate before you get back in it? And you are going to get back in it, which means unmaking it again. What a waste of time and effort. :banghead:

According to Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson you are supposed to air your bed for a while before making it. She says to drape the covers over a chair while you shower and brush your teeth in the morning. That way the humidity you exude while snoozing can dry out and your bed won't grow mold.

Yes, I read books to find out just how bad I am at this homemaking thing.

Oh great, now you want me to shower and brush my teeth, too. :rolleyes:

Its such a dry climate where I live that a mold would be completely desiccated in about 5 seconds.

And Bruce, ALL housework is like that. I wash dishes just to use them over again and get them dirty. I sweep up the dirt from a plant knocked over by my kitten only to have her tip over another plant before I even put the broom and dustpan away.

That's why I hate housework. Its like that guy who had to keep pushing a huge rock up the hill. What was his name? Something like Sissiepuss?

About the same especially the bold part. It's good to see. That misery loves company thing. I thought I was failing because I am pretty sure I could do this task way before then.

I would be, but my wife keeps our house so clean it's been referred to as "sterile", "hospital like", and "cold". She literally can't sleep if she knows there is a dirty dish in the sink. We recently had a HUGE fight because she walked in the door and saw 2 or 3 crumbs on the floor because I carried a pizza box from the living room to the kitchen and didn't see them drop.

Dishes are done and put away after dinner, beds made in the morning, toys and the like should at least be picked up if not actually put away every night. The roomba is run daily. The cleaning ladies come every 3 weeks to really do it right.

She let you eat pizza in the living room?!? Is she crazy?!?

Yes, I am OCD when it comes to my home. Not to the point of being sterile or cold, but enough that I'm not tripping over shoes, or writing in the dust. Luckily PotR likes it clean too, so she does her share.

Jeezly crow! How can all you people afford to have housekeepers?!?


*wishes she could afford a housekeeper*

1. Housekeeper makes less than my hourly wage.
2. I'd rather work at my day job than clean my house
3. Work a little extra, pay for her to clean my house.
4. Housekeeper sends herself to college, becomes a brain surgeon.
5. Profit!

She wasn't home when I ate it. It was leftover pizza from the night before.

i care about tidy. jinx cares about clean. the damn weiner kids dont care about anything. pigdogs is right.

It's a matter of choosing your priorities. For us, our fairy is an essential. But if you want more detail ... our annual income for two people is around $24,000 (and that's not each!). I think what makes it workable is that the house is debt-free (:)). Beyond that we have the most basic TV package, we don't spend much on phone bills, we never buy new furniture, we spend perhaps $1,500/year on holidays, mostly buy clothes in thrift shops so spend perhaps $500/year on clothes ... I think those are probably the areas where we differ most from other people. On the other hand, a disproportionately large amount of the household income is spent on music, one way or another ...

And you probably don't pay for health insurance.

When I went back to college, I got a quote from a maid service. Granted, it was one of the famous "name brand" maid services, and a private contractor would have been cheaper. But there was no way in Hades I could have afforded that even once a week. And to be honest, in order to be effective in this place, we'd need it more than once a week.

In fact, I think when she toured my house she gave a super-high rate just to scare me off, because my house scared her off. :)

It scares me, too.

I have 3 nice mexican ladies that come in and clean from top to bottom, hitting every nook and crannie, including changing the water in the fishtanks. I pay them $110 for that service. That frees up 5 to 7 hours each month my wife and I can do something else with eachother or the boys.

True - I believe part of the tax and national insurance contribution I pay covers that for me.

Of course you do! It would have shattered all my illusions if you didn't :P


I am not a happy housekeeper. I have absolutely no routine. I make my bed shortly before I climb into it. I wash the pots and tidy up as the mood takes me. I hoover (vacuum) once in a blue moon.

[eta] I'd hate to have a cleaner. If I had a cleaner, I'd just end up doing more housework myself. I'd be one of those sad people who cleaned before their cleaner arrived, out of sheer shame. Also the idea of paying someone to do my house just feels wrong/weird to me.

That's the absolute truth Dana. I hate cleaning before the cleaners come but if I don't do it I can't find anything for 2-3 weeks. They will gladly put away anything left out, BUT they put it away where they think it should go.

Clean...ing? What is this cleaning of which you speak? :D
Seriously, everything is neat, dishes done, etc. Major overhaul/throwout about once a year. It's amazing what you find sometimes.

We only pay $80 a week. I take back some of what I said about Mexicans.

They still can't drive worth a tin ear though.

erm, $110/month. Actually about every three weeks. either way, it is well worth it. Those friggin Canadians I had before didn't clean worth a damn.

Yeah, but you should have seen 'em skate!

$85/week. But they're legal and pay all their own taxes.

Dana, half of what they do is enforce a little discipline on us, by way of us tidying up before they come to clean. But now, I can have a friend or relative over any day of the week without going into a major cleaning frenzy. It's helped my overall mood more than I can say. Back when we were doing a little cheeseparing to manage tuition costs for my husband, we gave up on many things we had come to expect -- but not the cleaners.

I got over the 'icky' factor when I realized that these are just as hard working, honest and honorable people as anyone else I know. House-cleaning is one of the few remaining lines of work available to unskilled women. They work with dedication and precision. If I hold them in esteem, how can I denigrate the type of work they do?

I do know what you mean, Dana, but I'm not forcing someone to do it ... and, no we don't clean, and scarcely tidy up before she comes. She cleans around the stuff we haven't moved! I told you, I :heartpump her!

Our house is usually very clean and uncluttered. But I like to pile paperwork, magazines, and books. It bugs the wife. 2 kids are out of the house now and are clean freaks. Girls use to show off my sons dorm room when they wanted to see a guys room that was clean. My youngest daughter is a slob. I fear she will never be married off because no one will be able to live with her slobbiness. Her room is a total wreck and looks like hell. I am not obsessive about my own stuff but I like it neat in orderly. My wife takes care of most of that and credit for any order in the house goes to her.

It is possible that your younger daughter uses room mess as a combination of territorial marking and physical obstruction, to try to increase the degree of privacy she has.
YMMV

When we moved here nine years ago i swore the first thing i'd do would be to hire a cleaner. Unfortunately, i still haven't got the place tidy enough to do so....

She has a room as big as our master BR on the second floor of a two story house with her own BR. There are two other bedrooms's up there. I think she has all the privacy she needs.

So are mine smartass.;)

*snicker* Privacy isn't about square footage, dude. You already know that, that's why you have keystroke loggers on your kids' computers. :) (I'm not saying she needs more privacy as a teenager, I'm just saying I guarantee you that she thinks she does.)

I haven't looked at that stuff in over a year, I think I forgot the password. That was more for my other two. She doesn't worry me like the other two did.

Yah, that's always the one that totally loses it. (j/k , I hope)