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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask how many hours you spend on house work each week?

79 replies

LightsPlease · 21/12/2013 14:21

I watch obsessive compulsive cleaners on channel 4. They spend so much time cleanings and although I know its an illness it makes me feel a bit bad about my own cleaning for some reason (that I dont do it enough even though dont really have anything to compare to lol).

I spend about 12 hours give or take a week on cleaning and tidying. Is this alot or a little im not sure.

Also it said on the show that 1 in 4 people have fecal matter on their hands :( .

Its made me even more funny about touching things!

OP posts:
MrsAMerrick · 22/12/2013 07:29

If you dont include shopping and cooking, then dh and I probably spend about 4 hours a week. He does washing, makes packed lunches, we share ironing and then we do cleaning at weekends. dc fail to do their own bedrooms, we do rest of house. dh does more than me but I do almost all the cooking.

Longdistance · 22/12/2013 07:42

An hour a day doing various things, and then on a Saturday morning my dh does a blitz for me whilst I have a lie in, which is nice. He didn't used to do much, but I've had words, so he does this.

Usually, he'll blitz the kitchen, Hoover the stairs, tidies, organizes the bathroom, sorts out some laundry and ironing.

Joysmum · 22/12/2013 08:15

Depends what you call housework?

If it's just basic cleaning and I worked straight through, I could do a cursory basic clean of the house (quick wipe round with not too much care) in about 8 hours, just the very basic weekly tasks though, enough so I'm not embarrassed to let people in and to stop us dying of botulism! Then there's pet care on top which I don't count as housework.

However the most time consuming jobs are general tidying, laundry and ironing (ironing alone is 3 hours a week), shopping, meals. I also do the other regular too that need doing less often like gardening, washing down the woodwork, windows, mirrors, fridge, oven, cupboards, checking over the cars and topping up their tyres, oil, fluids etc, weeding out DD's clothes and room, helping with homework, playing with DD, being read to etc and I need to be home for childcare.

All in all, I reckon I only spend about 4.5 hours a day doing those things if I averaged it out.

Then in addition there's the fairly irregular jobs that sporadically take lots of time to do like decorating (just taken me a whole week of full time hours so approx 40 hours to redecorate a couple of bedrooms plus I did all the decoration and shopping for furnishings of our loft conversion).

I also do the regular weeding through the house so we don't get a build up of junk, I do the tip runs, all the ongoing repairs and maintenance I'm capable of.

As a SAHM, it's my job to do everything I'm capable of to limit hubby's household chores as he works long unpredictable hours and is often away. That way our time together is quality family time. There's no way on earth I do anything close to the huge numbers of hours he does so why should he have to to do anything? Even so, so he still will if he sees something needs doing. He also appreciates that when he has days off, they are pretty much days off but that's balanced out because I don't have days off, I just have days where I can do less.

MummyPig24 · 22/12/2013 08:33

I don't know how many hours, maybe 2 a day? That includes making beds, sorting washing, tidying toys, hoovering, dusting, bathroom cleaning, floor mopping, pet care, but I wouldn't include cooking in that. So some days I might spend 2 hours, some days I might spend 1. It all averages out but it doesn't rule my life. If I can't be arsed then it waits till tomorrow.

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