Be honest: How much time do you spend on cleaning?

[HappyLittleAGR]

I’m really fascinated by the time people report. I spent 2-3 hours this morning on just one of the living rooms and the kitchen (course, there was a lot of dishes backed up. Gross, I know), and I could do that everyday and probably still not have a sparkling clean home, what with the dogs and the tornado of a child I’ve created. I’ve heard people say they only spend like 20 minutes a week on cleaning tasks and I just feel like they’re lying or trolling! Surely even if you lived in a studio flat, it would take longer than that to clean it ? And maybe people don’t count all of the little things people do habitually, like making the bed and changing the sheets, or cleaning up after dinner, or wiping the sink when you’re done in the bathroom in the morning… And maybe some people don’t have to mop so much if their house is mostly carpeted ?

What do you think?

3 bed house, two of us living in it, no kids and out most of the week at work so not a huge amount. I do about 20 mins a morning before I leave the house, plus a couple of loads of laundry a week and hoover and mop once a week on top of that.

Yes it’s a quick release one so press button and it’s off

Surfaces wiped down after every meal - nope, just the key bits.
Hob - only if it was a disaster, if not I'm fairly tidy and put the hob cover over the odd spot.
Clean toilets - each person deals with real mess.
Vacuuming belongs to the robot if we get it clear.

Basically I do less cleaning because I ... Do less cleaning?

Surely you understand that not everyone does the same as you?

I do game my week plan so that the messiest cooking precedes the cleaner coming, but I'm not generally slopping muck everywhere at every turn.

None, I have a handy house husband to do it.

Probably only a couple of hours a week.
Mainly just tidying, quick wipe down in the bathroom, kitchen surfaces when they get used. My house looks quite clean and tidy on the surface but its best not to check the corners or skirting boards coz I never bother deep cleaning.

TBH most of my time cleaning comes from spot cleaning the floors as I have a dog with dementia who is no longer house trained.

Definitely not 20 minutes!!!!!! The problem (I realised this when trying to clean the house for a massive get together Recently) is that I spend so much time picking stuff up, putting things away etc that cleaning cleaning doesn’t get done enough and then the place has to be scrubbed (4 kids (2 teens 2 kids) a dog and a cat here, I work 30hours out of the house, dh 2 days wfh 3 days in house). Most of our mess accumulates on the way out of the house or when we just get in

I just double things up in small bursts, so I rarely actually feel like I'm doing cleaning at all. 5 mins here and there, sprinkled through the day.

Like: while waiting for kettle to boil (multiple times per day), empty dishwasher/get laundry on/hang laundry up.

Have a shower, clean shower once a week at the same time. Or clean toilet before having a shower.
Clean teeth, clean sink once a week at same time. Ditto mirror.

Cooking something (also always from scratch), whilst waiting for it to cook, clean up kitchen, stack dishwasher, wipe down surfaces, so it's done by the time dinner's ready.

I don't dust or hoover that often, but without children or animals, and being shoes off indoors, it doesn't really need it. Going to get a robot vacuum soon as well.

I work full time, and have lots of hobbies, and friends I want to see. Plus, cleaning isn't fun. I don't live in squalor, everything is clean and tidy, no issues.

The one cleaner we had would spend 6 hours at our house. I didn’t care how long it took her because the price was fixed either way, so it was up to her.

I don't think of dishes and laundry as cleaning, they go in a separate box in my mind. I must spend 2 hours a day on food shopping, food prep, clearing away, keeping kitchen decent and laundry.

Other cleaning - bathroom, hoovering, dusting, sweeping, mopping - about 1 to 2 hours per week probably. We don't have any pets.

No cleaner. Three storey house. No idea how long I spend. Don't like cleaning so mostly it's as I move round the house- clearing or cleaning what jumps out to me that I've got time for. I live with 3 other untidy people who don't notice / care about the mess so there's never a time when everything's sparkling, especially since we mostly don't have people to the house anymore (other than dds' boyfriends / friends who are blind to it all as well.)

Some things I do as part of my routine - I empty the dishwasher and do any washing up / clear the draining board before I go to work. When I'm in the bathroom I clean or tidy anything obvious. Washing is put on when the laundry basket is full. Once a week I try to clean floors/ hoover everywhere (other than my dds' bedrooms and DH's office). And occasionally I go all Kim and Aggie and do a thorough clean of one room - top of list living room, then kitchen, then bedroom.

We could afford a cleaner now but I feel most of what needs doing is tidying and putting away and I'd have to do that anyway. Cleaning is quick when everything's clear.

I spent a couple of hours earlier doing the whole house. That will be it for a week except for basic things like wiping kitchen sides and a mid week hoover

All this faffing about with cleaning the shower is exactly why I have curtains instead of screens (that and I hate the feeling of being trapped inside a glass box).

20 mins a day, 30 mins at weekends

Basically none. Maybe 5 mins a day, though I do some tidying and a weekly ironing session. I spend about 1.5 hours a week earning the money to pay for my half of the cleaner.

I have a cleaner who does a total of 4 hours, but this is literally cleaning surfaces! Yesterday she did 7 hours and deep cleaned, however, my kitchen will have to wait until next week.
On too of thw regular 4 hour clean, I probably do an hour per day. I vac/sweep every day, dishes, rub down the kitchen work tops and cooker, tody away shoes and kid stuff left allover. And also spend around 3/4 hours per week ironing. My house still never looks clean and tidy (unless people are coming around!).

You spend 2-3 hours per day on the kitchen and the living room??? Do you have a food fight and/or eat off the floor? I clean the whole house in 2-3 hours.

I wouldn't regard most of this as cleaning, peelings etc being cleared up are just done as I go along cooking - it takes literally seconds to put the pile in a bin and to me it's part of cooking not a separate task of cleaning. I don't have a dishwasher so I do spend time daily on dishes, but wiping down the surfaces and hob at the end of the dishes takes a couple of minutes at most. When I had a dishwasher I didn't regard loading and unloading the dishwasher as cleaning but rather tidying (and tbh it's generally something I'd do whilst cooking so doesn't add any extra time anyway).

I wouldn't count laundry as cleaning - housework yes, but to me cleaning is a separate task to laundry. Dog poo being picked up again is just done as it happens, takes seconds and I wouldn't add that time onto cleaning.

I don't have young kids which means I don't have to hoover or clean the bathroom daily, once a week is fine. So for me my weekly cleaning is dishes daily and a weekly clean of my home which takes a couple of hours at the most. When I get a dishwasher again my weekly cleaning will be literally my weekly clean. It is honestly beyond me how long some people take to clean rooms, I do think some people just work really inefficiently. My mum for example will spend a whole day cleaning two bathrooms and they won't look any cleaner than they look after I've spent half an hour doing them (I actually often do bits she doesn't like cleaning out the fan).

Well, probably at least an hour daily with regular cleaning tasks in the kitchen, but I’ll do 2 or 3 rooms in my house each day, and that takes 2-3 hours. That way most of the house gets cleaned well weekly.

I'm like you. Completely rubbish at cleaning but since I'm a sahm it falls on me so I try my best. I think some people are just more efficient with their hands than others.

It's also hard to think about what to do. I tend to always vacuum, do dishes, laundry but for the rest I don't have any routine so it's when I see it/think of it.

I love cleaning, weird I know. Bit of OCD too. Can’t settle if the house isn’t spotless. Me, adult DS and 3 cats. Two hours a day minimum, often three or four.

I wouldn’t say I’m “rubbish” at cleaning, I’m just very thorough and tend to get distracted with other tasks while I’m working. And there’s a lot of factors that make my house really dirty (my savage child, the dogs going in and out of the house all day, we live out in the woods where there’s just a lot of dirt, DH wearing his shoes inside, etc.)

Not much. I generally clean up after us. Probably about a hour in the evening once all the kids are sleep.

4 bed house.

I do have a cleaner though. So we just tidy after ourselves. The children help as well. They share unloading dishwasher while we load. Everyone takes turns doing the laundry. Other then cleaning up after meals etc usually works out they everyone does one other thing a day.

I tidy as I go and clean kitchen surfaces, loos, showers and sinks after use. The house gets a full clean once a week from our cleaner.

I spend quite a lot of time tidying up child-related clutter and putting laundry away etc. Actual cleaning not much as we have a weekly cleaner. She does floors, proper hoover and mop, sink, hob, cupboard doors, surfaces, toilets, shower, bath etc. So between visits it’s mostly just cleaning kitchen surface for food prep, the robot hoover trundles around every day, toilets get a quick clean when needed, dishwasher loading and unloading, cleaning up spills.

Between DH and I maybe 20 mins a day of actual cleaning max. More for other tasks like tidying toys away, putting clothes in drawers, etc.

About half an hour a day and probabky 2 hours on a friday doing a full clean. We have a 4 bed, but my husband does half the cleaning. So it doesnt need much!