To wonder why people can't keep their houses in a basic state of cleanliness?

[HarderToKidnap]

Disabilities aside, why can't people keep their homes basically clean?

I work part time, have a messy dog, a demanding toddler, am extremely lazy but my house always looks OK. You couldn't eat your tea off the top of the door frames but the kitchen surfaces are clean, floors hoovered, sofas plumped and inviting, toilet free of poo crumbs. It's easy and doesn't take long. So WHY do I go round to so many of my friend's houses and see they live in complete pits? Gritty nasty sofas that are horrible to sit on, filthy kitchens, poo smears and crumbs all over toilet, minging hand towels, floors covered in bits. IT IS NOT HARD to do the basics. I've just done a house once over and it's taken 45 minutes.

I understand not wanting to spend all day dusting your books or whatever but when people are coming over why wouldn't you want them to feel clean and comfy in your house? I'm not talking about people that physically can't do it because of illness or disability, but the rest of you? WHY??!!!

onesleep "Bit Fur Coat and no Knickers". I haven't heard that phrase in years!

People vacuum every day? Oh my goodness now I feel like such a slob, I do it once a week. Sorry to get back to the dog poo picking but I had a sleepless night thinking about it. If you have children, then letting your dog poo in the garden is revolting, especially if you don't pick it up immediately. I think that dog poo in your garden is below a basic standard of hygiene. I'd rather have sticky floors than a dog poo garden. I am the owner of both a dog and a toddler by the way. Dogs can be very easily trained to only poo at certain times and in certain places.

DH vacuums the living room every day. You have to when you have messy eaters

Hi harder, I want to hate you but I can't so is that YABU or YANBU?

Anyway, I agree that it's about making people feel welcome. Would you agree that an excessively sterile/tidy house can actually seem unwelcoming - as if a show was being put on/armour being put on?

Sometimes we think we are making people feel welcome but then we miss the point completely (like if a friend comes round and your child does something embarrassing and you end up show-disciplining the child and your friend never gets to tell you what was on her mind....).

As for judging - yes, toilets are perhaps an exception! But as for everything else, isn't life a process of getting over judging people? I used to judge women who didn't work after having kids .... I got over that.

I really enjoy my friends who have beautiful houses and beautiful clothes. I take pleasure in it. They, I hope, take pleasure in some of the things that I'm good at and the things I've done for them and their kids..... if they judge me on my house I'd just shrug (ok, unless faeces was involved...)

I'm actually very good at decluttering - adore it - so much I set up a Freecycle group and poor DH spent the next three years trying to find our possessions.

Declutting is fab because you make a permanent change. Cleaning is rubbish because you just start all over again.

Gritty nasty sofas that are horrible to sit on, YABU
filthy kitchens, - the table they sit at must be clean, not the surfaces
poo smears and crumbs all over toilet, - YANBU
minging hand towels, - Ooh can't decide....
floors covered in bits. - YABU BUT they are BU too because if they have a floor covered in bits you shouldn't have had to take your shoes off.

There are several things that make being tidy much easier though (apart from motivation/opportunities)- one is having appliances like a tumble drier (no washing hanging around all winter) and a dish-washer (dishes immediately go in this so none on surface). These make a huge difference, as everything is more or less off the surfaces, and it only then takes two min to wipe down or dust. Same with storage, if all your bits and bobs are in a drawer, clothes in a built in wardrobe, bags/shoes all in the right places, a quick hoover is easy. Old Victorian houses are the worst to keep clean in my opinion for these reason, they aren't as functional somehow as some of the less nice looking but newer ones with lots of built-in storage.

Ha ha ha ha at dishes immediately going in the dishwasher...

But at least you have a choice if you have a dishwasher! (I used not to put them in and leave them all stacked up in the kitchen and spend ages each night dealing with plates/crockery all dirty, before I realised it would be easier to just put it straight in the dishwasher and this 20 min chore could be avoided- even the children can help putting the stuff straight in or I get them to pass me the stuff to put it in).

Cleaning to some extent is a routine behaviour, and it has taken me most of my life to figure out how to do it smarter, not harder. I don't want a show home and have no chance of having one, but I am fed up of being too ashamed to have people pop in for an unexpected coffee, or my first reaction when people call to come over being a sinking feeling due to the level of dirt.

Yeah, but when our dishwasher broke we all just did the washing up straight away after stuff was used and the kitchen was so much tidier! The problem is, in order to load it I have to empty it.

I think you are being unreasonable to judge, as you can't really know what your friend will have done that day prior to your arrival. She might have had the best intentions to give the place a once over before your arrival, but something more pressing presented itself. Or she might have cleaned up first thing, only for others to then create a mess.

I do like having a clean home, and I would always make the effort when I know I'm having visitors, but sometimes life just gets in the way.

This weekend, I gave my house a really thorough clean - every room, floor, surfaces, behind furniture, skirting, walls, windows etc etc. While I was doing one of the bathrooms, (the last room to be done), the dog snuck in from the garden (before he could be towelled off) and got mud all over the walls and skirting of the first two floors, muddy foot prints all over the cream carpets of the first two floors/stairs, and bits of chewed up stick and general garden debris all over the carpet and kitchen floor, with half the contents of his water bowl emptied on the floor for good measure.

If a visitor had come at that point, they might have thought the house was a bit of a state, but the reality was I had just spent 5+ hours cleaning it! Had they come 10 minutes earlier, they probably would have thought the house was gleaming.

The problem [with dishwashers] is, in order to load it I have to empty it.

Exactly this. Which is usually fine but no fun with a 7m bump and low blood pressure ::swoons::

I hate and love the dishwasher. I hate the loading and unloading
I hate it when I leave the door down and it hits my shins. I hate it when I open it and steam hits me in my face.

But I love the fact I dont have to wash up so much I put up with it

Because it simply doesnt bother some people. A friend of mine manically sweeps the floor a couple off times a day but fails to notice that all the surfaces are disgusting. They leave things in random places - deoderant in the kitchen, 1/2 pint milk in the bedroom from this mornings tea but the floors, the floors are spotless! If I am honest I wish it didn't bother me but I am a bit OCD about a place for everything and everything in its place. I have to control myself when I go round. My SIL is also the same, all the edges of the carpets have mounds of dust, tea stains on all the surfaces, piles of old magazines with dust on. They don't care so I need to learn to not care!

DS2 did volunteer to wash up yesterday but he's three and it did more harm than good... the floor in the kitchen is much cleaner now though.

You see, in my house it goes like this:

Dirty washing up - need to empty dishwasher to be able to load it but
Clean washing up - needs to go in the cupboard but
Cupboard - needs re-organsing because we had to shove a load of stuff in it to keep it out of reach of DS2
Reorganising cupboard - can't happen because there is no space on the work surface to put anything because it is covered with washing up

Works for washing too:

Dirty washing - needs to go in machine but there is wet washing in it
Wet washing - needs to go on airer but there is damp washing on it
Damp washing - needs to finish drying so I can put it away but
Dry washing - there are approximately 8 loads to put away and they are severely limiting access to the drawers which have been filled with random items by DS2

Preciousbane my MIL does this but do you do that when you have been cooking and handling raw food? I have to wipe with spray after chopping chicken or any meat really.

Queen, my dog is very ill with liver and bile duct problems. He poos a lot and couldn't just go on our walks. Plus of course I pick it up if I see him do it but if I'm upstairs or out and he goes then I just do it when I next get round to it, which will be that day of course and definitely before toddler goes out or guests come round. Incidentally, why is dog poo below basic standards of hygiene but fox and cat poo, which most people will have in their gardens every morning, not?

I found out recently that my friend mops her bathroom ceiling

"I found out recently that my friend mops her bathroom ceiling shock"

daily/weekly or when she's doing a deep clean? if deep clean then it's a great idea- if daily/weekly then I cant see why- it wouldn't need done that often.

Mops her bathroom ceiling! What fresh freakery is this??

Well I'm not sure how often but she had shown her DH how to do it so I assume regularly.

I get why it would be a good idea wrt dust and cobwebs but I have never even thought about this. my bathroom ceiling must be manky

When I was a new bride I bought a thing called a Swiffer, which was a stick with a flat rectangular head on it that you could tuck softish, disposable cloths into to combat ceiling cobwebs.

I found it the other day when I was clearing out a neglected cupboard. It's been a long time since I was a new bride.

limited my mum used to refer to a 'swiffer' for cleaning the floors. always telling me I should get one. I assumed it was a word she made up for a flat headed floor mop. great to know she wasn't losing the plot and it actually did exist!