What's the small detail in somebody's home which makes you think, "wow these people are very clean!"

[igotbills]

For me it's the bathroom mirrors being spotless or dust-free skirting boards

You'd be surprised! 😂😂😂

I went to view a house recently. It’s across the road from mine, open viewing. I was just curious when I saw the estate agent photos! Very small place, but perfectly furnished.

A lot of the fittings were the same as my place (kitchen, bathroom, just different dimensions). But, no clutter. Nicely-sized furniture. The best available items (posh coffee machine).

Young professional couple. No kids (suspect they are moving to a family-sized home). Any stuff they had (such as shampoo, meds etc) were in a cabinet. Not much out on display.

Clear countertops in the kitchen apart from kettle
Shiny sink and taps
I've never noticed skirting boards in any house I've been in

I can honestly it has never occurred to me to check under someone's sofa cushions. 😂

I have never come across a cup with a brown ring inside the bottom of it - surely as soon as you put them in water the tea/coffee comes off?

If you opened the cupboard in the tea kitchen at my work, you would get the shock of your life .

Like the OP, I too have stopped being friends with someone because of their house. I went to visit my oldest friend T, known her 35 years through nursery and beyond. She'd just had twins but I looked closely at the taps and there were water stains on the chrome. I walked out there and then and blocked that cow.

This. A lot of saddos.

Because it’s for sale! People are encouraged to declutter ahead of going on the market and often hide excess stuff in the car.

Cup stains (well the liklihood of the) is about water hardness. The harder the water, the tougher the stains

These threads just make me feel exhausted. My sister is one of these people. Her house is immaculate. All the time, it smells like a spa, nothing on the kitchen sides, no clutter nothing. However she is constantly cleaning, tidying sorting, mopping, sweeping. Constantly. She never stops. She barely sits down before she goes to bed and then in morning she starts again as soon as she wakes up. She's exhausting to watch and its exhausting to be a house guest. You feel worried about putting things down, or you own kids making a mess. They have very set ways of doing things, and if you're caught helping but not doing it right you will be given 'helpful tips on how to do it right' corrected. But as she's cleaning so often, you feel like you have to help because it would be rude to just sit around. It's an awful environment imo, and I'd rather a bit of mess and clutter and actually enjoy my life.

Hopefully nobody would ever check for this purpose 🤣 but incase your phone or keys fall down the sides

I would love to have a kitchen with nothing on the sides, I dont know how people do it. All our cupboards of full of either equipment or food, so we have a kettle, a tea caddy, coffee caddy, sugar caddy, coffee mate (OH loves this), then a toaster, then a little chopping board with things on that have got no home like some ACV that I cant fit in a cupboard because its too tall, gaviscon, a pestle and mortor. Then theres a coffee machine that no one ever uses (not allowed to get rid, working on that), then on the other side is a slow cooker, then jugs of utensils for the cooker, then oils on the other side of the cooker.

Where is all this stuff in other peoples houses that its not on show?

I have nothing on the kitchen sides (well, a vase of flowers usually). It’s achievable because I have a big kitchen, an appliance ‘garage’ ie cupboard with the toaster, kettle etc in, pantry & utility so eg coffee machine & microwave are in the utility.

Everything has a home and people are good at putting stuff away. I don’t keep stuff we don’t use, but also recognise that we have the space to have clear sides.

ETA: but tea, coffee, oil etc…I expect that to be in a cupboard. So I would get rid of different stuff (eg have fewer mugs to fit the tea & coffee in there) or store it elsewhere if it couldn’t fit the essentials in a cupboard.

I like a house that looks like the people who live there are enjoying life.

Again, why, though? It seems to be viewed as the ultimate lower-middle-class achievement, and it’s as weird as having ten ‘decorative’ cushions on your bed.

Ouch. Did you mean to be so rude?

because it’s how I & the people I live with like it. And the poster i was replying too was asking how, so I explained how it works for me. I couldn’t care less what anyone else’s house is like. You clearly do, or are unhappy & defensive about your own home. Which says more about you than me, hey?

In cupboards! I have what I will admit is a luxury of a huge kitchen with loads of storage, which I planned to an inch of its life, for practicality before aesthetics-the kitchen designer basically handed over his software to me 🤣the tea/coffee/mugs etc live in a corner carousel cupboard which is right beside the sink/boiling tap…I have a huge corner pantry/appliance cupboard which has electric sockets so the toaster lives in there on a tray and just gets slid out for use…chopping boards in a floor to ceiling cupboard right beside where I would use them, so the only extra effort is literally opening the cupboard door…I had an almost identical kitchen in my old house which I had also planned, and it absolutely worked for me, so I pretty much replicated it.

Oh hello me 🤣

Shhh @Lifebeganat50 we’ll give away our LMC credentials 😂

I enjoy my life precisely because my house is well organised! It’s not that I don’t own any “stuff”, it just all has a home…we fully renovated our house within the last couple of years, and it was done very much with this in mind…yes there are a couple of things I’d have done slightly differently if I did it again, but so far it’s 95% right and totally works…stuff lying about makes me really uptight…it also helps that we’re an adult household so slightly less of the kids leaving stuff at their tails like when they were younger

Why not? And I can’t see what makes an organised home LMC….I don’t have cushions on my bed as I’m too damn lazy to pick them up every morning 😂

And eggs, they're out on the work top too

My friend has a large kitchen family room that's tiled in white, plus a dog. It is always spotless. Even the corners never have a spec of dust. Her husband is a bit of a clean freak though and last time I was around he came downstairs with a cleaner's bucket full of supplies as he'd just scrubbed one of the bathrooms. There's never hair on the sofa or a dirty cup in the sink. And with three kids (two boys) their fridge is not only immaculate but only half full! Weird.
I come home and look at my house in dismay (doesn't make me drag out the vacuum however).

Light switches that are clean