If you work full time and your house is clean

[TheEarlofButties]

How? Is there something you sacrifice? Educate me **

this!!

So not my case now but back in the day ( and I didn’t work full time till kids around 8 )

hard and fast - Friday evening did not start till it was done. Tired? Don’t care we get it done

things that helped
smaller house
not a lot of stuff
everyone not just me
Aldi shop during one of DDs classes that I had to drive her to anyway
Don’t stand still waiting for a kettle or hovering over the pasta when you can wipe a bench or empty the washing machine

Clean up as you go, I plate up my evening meal and wash up before I eat it, then a quick kitchen reset.

I make myself do half an hour when I get in from work regardless of how tired I am.

Get up early on WFH days to give things a really good clean before I start work

My house isn’t big which does help …

I have reasonable but not super high standards and a cleaner. The house is hoovered once per week by the cleaner. bathrooms are cleaned once per week by the cleaner. Towels are washed and beds are changed once a week partly by cleaner and partly by me. If anyone makes a mess they broadly sort it by rinsing out the bath or shoving some bleach in the loo or picking up the thing they dropped or whatever.

The kitchen floor is swept up when there are visible bits, as and when it occurs. The kitchen is wiped down and cleaned after every meal as part of the process of cooking and clearing. Laundry is done and put away as part of the process of doing it.

Stuff gets put away as it's used, there's some general mess of shoes in the hall, toys or blankets on the sofa, but not loads. It's more like things are out, being used. If someone leaves, say, a half done jigsaw or the detritus of an art project on the dining table, I leave it a while and eventually clear it back to someone's bedroom.

The kids rooms are a lot messier as they have a lot of things "out" they are doing, clothes all over the floor - so what, really, they tidy when it gets too much. The younger one, I swoop round before the cleaner comes so she can get to the floor.

I really don't feel that I ever "clean" - I just tidy up any messes that are there. The house isn't pristine but is hygienic and usually someone could come in at 10 mins notice for me to tidy a bit and it would be fine.

If I didn't have the cleaner though!!! it would.be a full 8 hours per week extra for me. She does 6 hours which includes ironing and washing the bedsheets and is generally much faster and more efficient than me.

I live alone and work full time and either the house is a mess or the garden is a mess. They are never tidy at the same time.
Im too knackered to do anything when I get home.
I make sure the living room is always tidy in case anyone comes round unexpectedly but thats it.

I work 32h, have a cleaner for 3h per week, clean up as I go and iron while watching tv after small children in bed.

still isn't spotless

I have a cleaner. Without her, my house is clean enough (although I have pets and a dirty job), but with her, it is immaculate!

Reduce the amount of stuff you own. It's the one thing that will make the biggest difference, otherwise you will find you spend loads of time tidying and it still looks messy.
My second piece of advice is to get a cleaner (but again, only once you've decluttered, otherwise clearing up before your cleaner comes will be a nightmare).

He’s a typical 16 year old (I work with very challenging teenagers!) so his priorities are not aligned with mine, no matter how much I yell at him. The pocket money being contingent upon jobs being done correctly and on time seems to be working. Find the motivating factor. But the sheer awkwardness of my house (seven levels, eight flights of stairs) means it takes much longer to clean than our old house. So I’m going to get a cleaner after Christmas. As a present to myself. We stopped after the last one didn’t show up three weeks in a row, giving almost no or zero/after the fact notice. And my pets are a bit annoying as the cat will make a dash for any open door and the dog hates most people so had to be taken to my mum & dad’s or sent out with the walker, adding to the exorbitant cost of a cleaner where we live.

Everything has a place. I don’t keep clutter. Boxes go straight into recycling and I sort post straight away (mostly junk mail). There’s a cupboard for cables and charging stuff and a drawer for keys, pens, post it notes etc.

We also tidy every day. We clean the kitchen surfaces after we cook. We wash and dry dishes (that aren’t going in dishwasher) after eating. We empty the dishwasher before going to bed.

I do laundry every day, so the baskets are close to empty.

I change the bedsheets and towels on Friday evenings. I also tidy our bedroom on Fridays if there are clothes on the chair (or any clutter).

I clean the kitchen, downstairs toilet and my bathroom every Sunday morning. I fold laundry every Sunday morning and put it all away the same day.

We have a cleaner once a week, but she was off for a month over the summer (and is off sick this week) and I prefer to have the house to myself! When she’s here I want her to deep clean (and iron), not tidy.

I think keeping on top of chores every day helps enormously and having set days for certain tasks.

I think most houses I visit are cluttered. People keep piles of envelopes and shoes and coats and toys their kids don’t play with. Maybe they don’t see the mess, but it would annoy me if I were my house and I wouldn’t be able to sit down at night until it was sorted 😂

P.s. after you’ve done a massive sort out, it doesn’t take that long to keep things tidy. People say they struggle for time or would prefer to spend precious time with their kids, but I can clean a lot in 30 mins (perhaps 1.5 hours on a Sunday morning). So many people stare at their phones doom scrolling for longer than that. I think “no time” is an excuse for most.

Only recently I’ve started to get it under control (and it’s not even ready for visitors etc clean!!) and it’s hell. The kids help now with chores and I clean every spare minute and I honestly don’t know that it’s worth it- I clean/ tidy/ organise any spare time I have and it’s become a joyless hobby when I could be spending time with the kids or have an actual hobby

I just clean as I go? Out the house for 60+ hours a week.

clean the bathroom whilst I’m in there
clean as I go everywhere else

i reslly don’t understand the drama around cleaning tbh. Two teens, two cats… and my house is still clean and “visitor ready” 100% of the time.

Don’t live with men or kids.

Your quads and glutes must be extraordinary

luckily I work from home, so straight after I finish work I just crack on. If I sit down, I don't get up again!!
When I worked in the office full time, I spent 6-7 hours on a Saturday blitzed the house top to bottom.
For me, it's just a routine/habit to get it done.

This is all really helpful. I have bought a robot vacuum and scheduled a family meeting to divvy up some chores.

I’m thinking about a cleaner but I think our main hurdle is that my husband doesn’t care about a clean house and I’m reluctant to pay by myself and then resent him messing it up. Also can’t get rid of my golden doodle who is the main mess maker.

No way in hell would I do this

Tell him it does matter to you and because he cares about you, the cost of the cleaner comes out of the household budget.

Live alone.
No man.
No kids.
No pets.
Im a minimalist as well i own very little.

The cleaner comes out your joint account. Why would you be paying for it?

I work FT and my house is clean and tidy but I don’t spend the time on it some of you seem to. Someone posted they get up 3 hours before work to clean, how can this be necessary every day? I clean up things as I go and then a couple of hours on a Sarurday. That’s it!

It doesn't matter if he prefers to live in filth, it's a household expense like the electricity bill that comes out of the joint account.

Decluttering is a big part of it. I constantly have a charity shop bag on the go and if clothes get too small and aren’t suitable for Vinted, they go in there. Vinted sales get an end point, I don’t keep them for months on end hoping for a sale. If school ask for items, I try and find something to donate. Not hang onto stuff just because.

Children are asked to help. They are mostly post toys so obviously that’s a big one, but clothes go away/ in wash, rooms are pretty tidy. Not perfect, but ok.

Cleaner every fortnight does the bathrooms and mops but I go around each night and straighten the place up.

I like to do little, like 15 min a day and then blitz Friday after work with music on full so I deserve the beer😂 if we don't go out
I am also surprised at the hours. But then it's just two of us (Dh would most likely have house cleaner than me tbh. I am naturally messy so had to fight it with rules)

Yes we have a cleaner twice a week but you still have to clean as you go- it’s just a lot quicker and easier if the baseline is nice and clean.