My house is spotless from top to bottom

[upandmumming]

Now how the bloody hell do I keep it like this?

I do this every 5/6 weeks, blitz every room, I mean every little corner every appliance all bathrooms all floors hoovered and mopped so the house is like a show home and I tell myself right now you've done it, all you have to do is keep it like this, which will never take more than just putting away what you're doing and doing a little tidy in every room before you leave it

Yet within 5 days the house is a bomb site again and I just feel grim and it all gets on top of me until it becomes unbearable and I snap and spend another whole day cleaning and the cycle repeats

So anyone wiser than me - how do I maintain this?!

I do this and then it all gets messy at once. Maybe draw up a timetable so that you do a room or two every week so that you always have some nice space.

If you're the sort of person who sees cleaning as a chore and boring, it must be much harder....

It is a chore and it's boring. My sitting room, kitchen, dining room and bathroom are cleaned once a fortnight by professional cleaners. They don't do the bedrooms as it would cost more and I'd have to waste time tidying up beforehand.

MN is truly a revelation sometimes.

I was brought up in a house like this.

doesnt make for a fun childhood tbh.

the only advantage was at the start of the pandem, we were bloody good at handwashing and keeping on top of cleaning stuff.

I actually managed to maintain this quite easily- I just got my husband and children to move out

Won’t be so easy with a baby either I’m afraid, depending on babies temperament and sleep schedule. Mine is 4months and will only sit by himself for 10/15mins at a time so enough time to fill the dishy and washing machine and maybe fold some clothes. He only cat naps during the day for 20min at a time(can’t complain tho he sleeps alll nyt) so that’s usually enough time to feed myself throw in a toddler after nursery and weekends lol lucky my sister takes the baby once a week wen toddler is at nursery so I can catch up with stuff.

You could try the organised mum method to keep on top of it daily

i can hoover daily to as mine has lights so baby jst watches as I go anout

I've found the way to do it is to make yourself a list of everything you did today, and turn it into a rota. You've probably only actually spent a max of 5 hours today blitzing it, so you've only got 10 half hours to do let's say every fortnight.

Take out the things you know you do every few days anyway, and only include the things you do when you do your blitz.

So for me, every other Monday is lounge, dining room, hall and landing. Hoovering isn't part of this as it gets done every few days regardless, but I tidy any mess away (and actually tidy, don't just move into another room), dust etc.

Kitchen gets a day every week, bathrooms get 2 (we've got 3 of the buggers).

Now the problem doing it this way is the house is never spotless because you're always a week off from doing part of it. But it's significantly cleaner as a starting point when you do need to do a blitz, and it takes less time overall as theres less dust around overall because you're getting to it more quickly.

There is zero satisfaction in cleaning something that doesn’t even look particularly dusty, yet.

I don't understand people who enjoy cleaning. I can understand satisfaction from having a clear out, I quite enjoy that, and I quite like doing laundry (at least the clean bits!) for small kids because I generally really like choosing and organising their clothes and it's nice to see them and organise them and fold them etc when I remember the joy I had in choosing them.

But the everyday tidying, hoovering, dishwasher/washing up, wiping things down..... no, I will never enjoy those things and I will always resent that they need doing every single day.

You are me. However now I have three kids, a dog, a cat and two kittens I can never manage the big clean so I live in a state of unrest knowing how much needs cleaned but being unable to do it all so maybe one room looks ok and the rest is hell. I’m just trying to come to terms with it. I get that light happy feeling on holiday in a nice clean house😂 I declutter constantly but kids have toys!? And imaginations and. If they want to use playmobil, blocks, Lego and what ever other crap to create a game so be it. I sound more chilled than I am! 😂😂

I don't understand people who enjoy cleaning.

I like the results. Along the lines of "tidy desk, tidy mind".

Yes, but if you clean all the time you don't see the change. I wait for a big mess and then clean.

It can be quite overwhelming and difficult to get going when a house gets really messy though. I do agree it's lovely when you finally clear up a pigsty room though.

Houses are meant to be lived in and so therefore they will look ‘lived in’! I clean my kitchen and bathrooms once a week. Hoover once a week and dust and mop when it looks like it needs it! I tidy up as I go but my dh and I both work full time and spend our weekday evenings doing more work or ferrying the kids to various extra circulars so no time for anymore and I’m too cheap to pay someone to do what I can do anyway!! My house looks pretty normal I think!

"There is zero satisfaction in cleaning something that doesn’t even look particularly dusty, yet."

It's also more work at the end.

Many spotless houses are welcoming.

"It can be quite overwhelming and difficult to get going when a house gets really messy though. I do agree it's lovely when you finally clear up a pigsty room though."

Yes, I suppose I meant a bit dirty rather than really messy. Tidying up is very difficult mental work whereas cleaning is quite easy.

Make your bed every morning
wash up, tidy kitchen, fill dishwasher wipe down work tops sweep floor every evening after tea
just give the front room a quick tidy before you go to bed.
really helps

Also try and have a clear out before baby arrives

Tidying up is very difficult mental work whereas cleaning is quite easy

I agree and this is why I personally wouldn't have a cleaner. Once everything is tidy, wiping the kitchen sides, hoovering, cleaning the bathroom, takes 5-10 minutes per task. The hard work is the tidying which isn't a cleaners job. If I could get someone to change my sheets, do my dirty dishes and tidy up my crap, then yeah I'd hire them! But if I have to do all that then the actual cleaning part is easy!

I would love to follow this. This is a really good way of looking at it. I find it so
Depressing how much time I spend clearing/laying/wiping/clearing same fucking kitchen surfaces

One of the advantages of a cleaner for me is it forces me and the rest of family to tidy up. We pay them to clean. If there’s stuff out then she can’t clean. It’s once a fortnight but keeps things in check.
Less stuff definitely. I need to clear out our cupboards. If your cupboards are messy and overflowing you leave stuff in side or it takes effort to put away.

Google "the January cure" and sign up for it. They do them all year round, not just in January. For 30 days you do one small job a day which will help you keep a different area of your house tidy. I did it years ago and I would say I maintained it for about three years. I need to do the cure again now though.

^ agree with this, I keep my home clean & tidy as I enjoy being in it more that way! (No kids helps a lot)

People I know who have clean homes spend time cleaning them (or pay someone else to), those that don’t don’t- there’s nothing more to it than that

Now that your house is spotless, I would also suggest something like TOMM to maintain it - BUT - make your own schedule vs following someone else’s

Tomorrow your house will still be clean so that’s the perfect time to think about the schedule (& def split this with your DH)

I would think about:

• how much time realistically you think keeping your house clean takes (3-4 hours a week should be plenty for a standard 3 bed house)
• when you are prepared to do it/your style? (Do you like the results of a weekly blitz, do you want to break it up into bits over the week?)
• and then list out the chores:
• daily - wiping up surfaces after use in kitchen, giving bathroom sink a quick wipe, sweep kitchen floor if needed, dishes, laundry (unless you save it all for weekend)
• weekly : basic clean of most rooms (tidy/dust or wipe surfaces, vacuum/mop)
• any deep clean tasks (under sofa etc - whatever you did today I guess)

Then chunk that into what works with your schedule

Mine is:
Monday: kitchen, utility & put bins out
Tues : nothing (go to office)
Wed: clean bathrooms
Thu: nothing same as Tues
Fri: clean office & living room
Sat morn: clean bedrooms, change beds & hoover stairs (& catch up on any missed jobs - often this is mopping all the floors in 1 go as I think it is more efficient to do it that way)
Sunday- not cleaning but prep some meals for week /work out what to make for the other meals

Laundry - when I have a full load it goes on at night or morning, I peg out for a break & then do the mop heads, cloths etc on Sat when I’ve ‘finished’ for the week, and sheets when I change beds over

I generally do some housework around 3pm as a break and/or about 5-6 when I finish my WFH workday .. If you decide on this method I would pick 1-2 specific slots that fit into your own schedule/with the baby

The other thing that helps is to do some ‘deep cleaning’ on a regular basis (eg a couple of 2 hour chunks a month) so it never gets overwhelming. I would eg clean under furniture, skirting, wash fridge shelves etc

I don’t always do everything on the list (eg if ill, unusually busy, have evening meetings etc) but this gives me a rough ‘template’ so I’m not wasting time I could just blitz some jobs in thinking what to do

I’d love to spend eg 45 mins on the different days, or more on Sat for example BUT with having a plan even if time is tight I can focus on the most important bits on each room and it never gets too bad

The ‘bit every day’ works when you are home more, when I was in the office 5 days a week I did the Sat morning blitz

Also, I find if you regularly clean all of your home every week that skipping the occasional task (eg not hoovering one week) doesn’t really impact things that much