1 week to make house significantly cleaner - help!

[Curlewwoohoo]

I had my oven professionally cleaned today and I was honestly embarrassed! I didn't realise how bad it was. It took 2.5hrs and the guy was really going for it! This made me look around and I suddenly see how grimey everything is. I've just been skimming along the surface doing superficial jobs. Now I'm worrying the house is actually grim, and my dad is coming to stay on Sunday - I've not seen him for a few years. His wife did once famously buy me some CIF cream bleach when she was here...I don't want a repeat! So I've got a week. H is away. Kids are mainly in clubs. I'm working from home so can do things in my breaks and more in the evening. Tell me all your tricks. Things I might not think of. Particularly things I can put in the dishwasher or washing machine!

God I had my double oven cleaned - it was disgusting! - and the guy was here an hour. It is sparkling clean and just trying to keep it clean now. I last had it done just before lockdown and will never leave it that long again. The professional clean is £65 and I could never get it as clean myself so money well spent.

Clean bathroom cupboard front - this is a bastard of a job, it's almost like a wooden blind? I don't know what to call it.

I think it's probably a louvre door.

Top tip, if you need reading glasses to read, you need them to clean too., that’s the voice of experience.

.Book a carpet clean. We have a dog, haven’t had the carpets cleaned in 5 years. They needed doing! Also, in the long term, can you afford a cleaner.? Ours keeps on top of things in 2 hours a week and leaves us time to do the other stuff.

Wash cushion covers. Spray and wipe over paintwork on doors and rails going up the stairs, clean mirrors, all windowsills, all skirtings, cobseb everywhere with long brush. I was shocked how bad it looked when I looked in my spare bedroom that had been left clean as there were cobwebs and dust everywhere.

Vacuuming makes a big difference.
If you can get all clutter in a big box or black bag and put it out of the way for now, in the attic or elsewhere and deal with it another time.

Oh dear, maybe I’m not the right person to ask. That’s terrible advice , hide it 😂

Do you have a bin in your kitchen? Often that gets messed

Prioritise anything with the potential to smell a bit off. So take out the filters on the cooker hood and clean them, and the insides of the hood. Old grease can be a bit whiffy. Keep windows open a lot. Change all the beds in the house, including mattress protectors and pillow protectors. Give them all a good hot wash. If there are pets, wash and deep clean all their stuff.

Clear the clutter! Go through each room and collect a bag of things to donate, and bag of things to throw away. If you have cabinets and drawers, use them to store the things you want to keep (but don't really need to look at). It makes it much easier to keep clean - just a quick swipe and the surface is clean again.

Especially in the kitchen - having things permanently out on the side means they build up a layer of sticky grime that attracts dust and makes it harder to keep clean.

Put EVERYTHING away in the cupboard/on shelves. At most, have your microwave, toaster and kettle out, but don't fill up the surfaces with sauces, oil, pots of utensils, etc. Maybe I am militant about this because I have such a tiny kitchen, but I do not allow ANYTHING to live on the work surfaces. My boyfriend seems to think the ketchup lives on the work surface, pushed to the back. IT DOESN'T :)

ETA: get rid of things you've been "meaning to get round to fixing" if that time frame is more than six months. I recently donated a load of blankets I'd been saving with the vague idea of turning into a patchwork quilt, and a "really useful" load of cardboard boxes, and a box of attachments from the mixer I inherited from my nan. I didn't need any of it - someone else can make use of them, but it isn't going to be me.

Todays extra was I cleaned all the dining chairs and washed their curtains. All I had time to do.

Luckily things are pretty well organised and clutter is not out of hand, also all the bedrooms are recently decorated and tidy.

Best way to make progress - delete mumsnet. DH doesn’t look at his phone and the amount he achieves when cleaning is mind blowing. He just gets to work and caries on going.

Mess begets mess - to the point advice from my late aunt. If you have piles of things waiting to be put away or miscellaneous items on kitchen surfaces, coffee tables etc then people will just add to them. My PIL were our case study - if there were books, mugs, pens and paper, slippers abandoned in the living room they would leave their own clutter lying around. If the surfaces were clean andnthe room uncluttered then they wouldn't leave magazines, train tickets, jumpers etc on the furniture or floor.

No it's not like this. Its organised and tidy and the level 1 cleaning is done regularly. It's the deeper cleaning that's not been.

I actually do agree with this, I purposefully left my phone upstairs!

Wipe down all your light switches and door handles.
wash your walls and doors. Especially the hallway walls as they can get grimy.
bannisters too.
use sugar soap.

Get a feather duster and dust the ceilings, hanging lights etc.
Hoover mattresses and under sofa/ chair cushions.
Wipe all doorframe, skirting.
Buy a steam cleaner to do in between tiles and all those other tedious bits

Oo a steam cleaner might be an idea for the awful bathroom cupboard doors, I might ask around see if I can borrow one.

Mould and mildew remover in bathroom. It’s amazing. I even sprayed it in my window tracks and whatever was growing there it ate through!!

The 2p coin trick for hard limescale.

I've a cleaner starting this week. I've had back and hip issues for two years. Fingers crossed I'll be having the first hip done in the autumn.

Everywhere has got so cluttered and grimy. Husband is a terrible clutterer in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom. Worktops and windowsills. His bits and bobs pile up ditto his correspondence. I'm on two walking sticks now so I've caved and bought six huge packs of wet wipes because I can no longer carry buckets of water and cloths. He tutted at me about the environment 🙄. Me and my zoflora linen fresh wipes are making headway though. My oven is desperate though.

I used to deep clean the whole house every spring and autumn. Now I skim. Two dogs and a cat don't help.

Good luck @Curlewwoohoo

But does the same not apply? Areas of the house gradually accumulate dirt, dust, stale smells etc in a way that you don't really notice until you look closely. Work out what or where those areas are and target them as others have suggested below. Then make a deal with yourself to prevent those things from getting ignored again. I spent what seemed like ages at Easter blitzing our shower screen and tiles to get rid of black mould and limescale - now cleaning it takes hardly any time because I'm preventing the build-up in the first place.