How often do you (or your charwoman) scrub your front step?

[Coquillage]

Not a serious question. Just felt pressured to join in with all the how often do you shower, how often do you wash your towels, how often do you change your PJs threads.

It's been hygiene obsession week on Mumsnet.

Out of interest have you known anyone refer to a 'charwoman' since the 1930s?

Angst for arachnids does not hide your sluttish ways.

I used to redden the step before my mother visited. (Father always came too but he couldn’t give a shit about the step) She also gasps at how gleaming the chrome taps are and was amazed to hear I’d de-scaled all the chrome (we have a lot). I might take the piss and re-do the step before she comes next. Half term next week!

I don't own a step

All the ladies of a certain age can be seen scrubbing their steps and cleaning the pavements here in Belgium. Being a British slattern, I don't bother.

You have to be on your knees, scrubbing brush in hand, bucket of soapy water by your side, to get the full moral value.

With a large wobbly arse like her out of Tom & Jerry.

I remember the existence of donkey stones when I was a kid ... we used to get them from the rag and bone man in exchange for old clothes etc. How old that makes me feel!

I've never scrubbed a step in thirty years of home ownership.

You do realise that your char woman/daily/woman who does must be properly attired in a pinny/housecoat/apron and headscarf. Curlers and packet of woodbines are optional.

In the film Wild Rose they referred to the cleaner as the daily woman. And I think it was set in this century! Unless it’s a Scottish thing? (Set in Scotland.)

I don't have a front step, since the main door to my house is at the side. My last experience of step scrubbing was near my last house, in a mining village, when there was a very elderly guy scrubbing his front step, whilst singing hymns. House up for sale about a year later :(

That said i opened my tilt and turn bedroom window wide, yesterday, to shout down to DH to chuck next door's rubbish that had landed in our forget me nots back into their garden. That most definitely needs the services of a char woman. Gross.

I do mine few times a year. I jet wash as its easier but i do the garden at the same time. The door frame i do wipe down regularly inside and out.

@DontFearTheReaper I've never heard the term daily woman used in modern times, I was really surprised to see it in the film.

Never in 13 years🙈

Ginger and Reaper - hearing it in the film was really odd wasn't it. I thought it must be a normal term in Scotland. Loved the film.

Ive been in my house for 36 years never once cleaned the front door step, the rain does that.

Never cleaned mine, was going to recently as had a rather large sheep turd on it from an escapee, turned around for a second and the dog scoffed it lovely, so only been cleaned once by the charlabrador.

Here in New York City, if you own a house you’re legally responsible for the entire pavement in front of your house, right down to the kerb.

So, you have to plant and maintain the city-approved tree, fence it in with city-approved fencing, replace faulty paving slabs, clear the pavement of snow (you’ll be held legally liable if someone slips and injures themselves), sweep the leaves - and wash it down. Which you do at the same time as washing down your stoop. This is especially important in the summer when the smell of dog piss in the heat can be strong enough to make you vomit.

You soon learn which side of each block you do/don’t want to walk down each season. Some people really have no shame

We - somewhat randomly - call DD1 "charwoman".

Her real name is Charlotte and we called her "Char" for yesrs first, but i'm still a bit confused about how "charwoman" got going.

I'm finding this thread strangely compelling.

You have to be on your knees, scrubbing brush in hand, bucket of soapy water by your side, to get the full moral value.

Fuck that. The neighbours don't want to open their curtains to a generous view of my ample backside.

Maybe once or twice. We have an uneven, lowered step so when it rains heavily it floods which does a rather nifty job of cleaning it for us twice a year or so.

We recently stayed in the Four Seasons in Florence (lah di dah I know) and as part of the cleaning team they had a lady (maybe men too, but I only saw women) who would go round the outside of the hotel with a cloth and wipe the brick work on the street, the little crevices in the plaster work and the indentations of the cement every single day. I was actually dumbstruck.

7salmonI definitely think that used to be the done thing in UK too but not anymore. I bloody wish folk would take responsibility for their pavement here. Instead of leaving the snow to turn into sheet ice for me to go arse over tit!

My father can remember the women on the street "stoning" the steps of their houses. We are talking Manchester in the 1950's.

Isn't that what rains for?