to think everyone has become obsessed with cleanliness

[palamino]

i have been reading other threads, eg frequency of changing towels/pyjamas/sheets, frequency of cleaning house/bathroom/toys. I must be a complete slob, towels changed weekly, pyjamas changed weekly, sheets every 2-3 weeks, house cleaned once a week. I don't squirt everywhere with disinfectant multiple times each day, if food drops on the floor briefly I would not automatically throw it away, and I have never minded the DCs getting mucky. We are the most healthy family i know, the house never looks dirty or untidy (apart from teenagers rooms-i just shut their doors!!), i am definitely not into this obsessive cleaning lark !!

No there isn't any cutting back. It takes mere seconds to wipe the bathroom down after you've used it in the morning for eg. Do that every day and it doesn't register on any time eating scale but the bathroom stays clean.

That's just one example. Keep on top of everything and do it as you go then you don't spend much time at all cleaning or tidying so plenty to do other more interesting things

I apologise for using the term OCD in an earlier post. I should have said OTT. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

But the mere seconds do add up surely? Seconds to wipe this. Seconds to load that. Seconds to pick up stuff that's in the wrong place. Yes, I can see it may not register consciously, because the habitual cleaner isn't thinking about it.. But surely one cannot claim that the activities I listed above don't take any time at all? (Or perhaps in the magical world that is Mumsnet all those cleaning seconds do disappear in a sort of puff of pastel smoke...)

Well I'll tell you what. Me yesterday spent more time playing a game than I did cleaning because the cleaning took no time at all. I do have the luxury of working 2 jobs at crap hours though so my days are free.

You don't add up seconds for chores up.. you add up the deep cleans that REALLY eat into your time because you don't want to spare literal seconds peppered throughout the day I couldn't live like that and I wouldn't make my kids live like it either.

Imagine.. kids having to put up with used clothes, dirty beds, grime encrusted floors and then their mother being unavailable for hours because she's cleaning for company coming? I'd rather do it my way.

My house is very much a 'scratch and sniff' kinda place I couldn't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks or what anyone else does.

Happy Christmas

Marianne - I bet you watch lots of TV. We haven't got one, we have plenty of time to clean house and play games then as once house clean the rest of the time is for playing/ reading/ etc.

People I know always say ' how do you have time to keep nails manicured/ paint pictures/ read novels/ have leisurely dinners, and yet work full time.' Well we get home at 7pm. And then have 7pm- midnight to do these things. Friends get home at 7pm, put kids to bed, then sit and watch TV for hours until bed

Artandco there are one or two programmes I watch. (University Challenge) But I prefer reading, writing, crosswords, Scrabble, card games. A whole evening of TV would drive me insane. I also like cooking - one domestic task I do enjoy. Perhaps because it feels creative - and family members are all appreciative.

I agree op I think its the ads from cleaning companies adn now children are getting nasty illnesses as they are not being exposed to germs like they used tooo. and we are filling our homes with very toxic chemical.

After a close family death I also cleaned like a lunatic, it helped and was calming and makes you feel you are doing something...

Surely this thread just shows that we all have different standards? I cant see the need to get all up in arms about it!

I have low standards with the house (a bit of mess or dust doesnt bother me and I only do housework once a week as I find it dull; this is also how my mum was about it).

However, I have high standards for personal hygiene (shower every morning and bath or wash before bed, wash clothes mostly after one wear and wash sheets and towels at least once a week; and have instilled this in my children, too).

Swings and roundabouts, folks.

MarianneSolong Fri 19-Dec-14 08:16:35

Interesting we have some one like that in our family, very cold but tons of cleaning, obsessive too about dirt, filth, mentions it a lot in conversation....makes you anxious to be around, scared to do anything in house...also sees cleanliness as a way of being vastly superior to other people...

I also have noticed some of the most militant cleaning people I have lived with or worked with, take great pride in their cleanliness lots of busy wipe ingand so on then.......

Take the most foul old sponge from the sink, where its been sat in water for god knows how long....mulching in its own germs and then wipes the rim of several cups at once with it....and puts in back....thiknng as the visible dirt has gone the cups are clean.

{yuk]

No there isn't any cutting back. It takes mere seconds to wipe the bathroom down after you've used it in the morning for eg. Do that every day and it doesn't register on any time eating scale but the bathroom stays clean

So true...I can clean the bathroom in 7 minutes if pushed for time, that includes cleaning the sink, bath, toilet, floor and mirror. I think of chambermaids in hotels as my inspiration, they must clean bathrooms in a couple of minutes they have so much to do.

Yes I am a loser by the way.

Ah thanks for that Elf. I think the people who have lived with it/encountered it at close quarters, do know how uncomfortable it can be.

I feel really sad about it in some ways. It's incredibly hard to eat a meal at my elderly mother's house because she is so on edge, and because of all the comments about crumbs, cleaning up that will have to be done etc. It comes over as rather covertly aggressive. (Look how much mess you're making. Look how dirty you are. Look how much trouble you've caused. Now I'm going to have to wash that tablecloth. Now I'm going to have to get the dustpan straightaway and go down on my hands and knees) So I always go away feeling upset.

However, because she lives some distance away, it is necessary to eat a meal with her. Sometimes we do take her out, but there are other issues - all the things she won't eat - that make this equally problematic

Yes some people have issues. But others just make cleaning one of their priorities

I sometimes think I clean far to much. It's only recently I stopped changing mine and ds's pj's every night, and only using towels once before washing. I do change bed sheets every 2-3 weeks though. Think because my mother was such a clean freak when I was growing up, she's given me an odd view of how clean a house should be. I realised I was getting obsessive when a day came a few months ago, when I had just scrubbed house top to bottom and brushed/mopped floors and went outside to eat a pork pie as I didn't want to brush and mop floor again after! Was sat on the back step eating then had a lightbulb moment of little voice in my head shouting at me "what the fuck are you doing?! Catch a grip!"

Have been a lot less freaky about cleaning since then. It didn't help that my best friend had started calling me Monica (as in from friends). Sometimes stupid amounts of mess that wouldn't bother any else still make me feel a bit twitchy (few crumbs missed when brushing under tv, crisp packet left beside kitchen bin instead of in bin etc) but I've been training myself to have a cup of tea and ignore it (until I need to brush whole floor again, am taking rubbish out to big bin and do a quick look around for stray empty packets etc). I feel a lot less stressed now.

I think SOME people who struggle with it like to sneer at others who don't, to make themselves feel better. Don't mean anyone here particularly but happens a lot.

To avoid having to clean like a maniac there are several ways to make your house cleaner and safer without doing too much.

1. Use plastic chopping boards, different colours for raw and cooked meat, veg etc. and put them in the dishwasher every time you use them, you can get them cheap online, a pack of 4 or 5 colours for a few quid. Also i swear by the dishwasher, saves time, washes really thoroughly even in little grooves etc. and drys everything very hot to kill bacteria.
2. Lino and tiled floors are easy to mop over quickly, real wood floors are warmer and can also be wiped/mopped to make them more hygienic, laminate floors if sealed properly can be cleaned, but generally the joins swell and harbour dirt so after a while they are about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. Carpets are almost impossible to keep really clean, so try to design your living space without them if possible.
3. Next time you decorate a room, use washable or wipeable paint, usually acrylic emulsions are best for walls and acrylic gloss or varnish for woodwork, they are a bit dearer, but to save some money use "own brand" paints, mostly they are as good as the brand names and will look better for longer, even after repeated wiping, to make your paint more hygienic add antibacterial paint additives that contain silver ions such as Silver Shield Antibacterial Paint Additive, these will prevent germs from multiplying with none of the adverse health or safety effects that fungicidal additives may have.
4. 5 and 6 will come when I've cleaned up after the kids !!

former I worked as a chambermaid for a while and picked up some good tips, such as using the used towels from the bathroom for cleaning and then chucking them in the wash. Saves dirtying cloths and more towels etc.

Although bearing in mind that hotel rooms get cleaned every day they don't ever really get dirty so unless you ARE doing it every day than a chambermaid clean isn't always quite good enough. Plus they usually do surface cleans rather than properly getting under things and rarely dust and I usually find certain areas of hotels such as window ledges etc dusty and grimy where they have been neglected long term.

I've taken to cleaning the bathroom whilst DS is in the bath to save time and the need for a deep clean is less urgent. Which is useful because I don't have the time to do them any more!

But I don't want to look for washable paints or antibacterial stuff. My DCs aren't at home now but even when they were little, I just kept a sensible approach to cleanliness but didn't feel it was that important as long as they were warm, fed and happy. My house got grubby and untidy at times but I used to blitz it every now and then. I never changed their pj's or nighties every day unless they had a sweaty night or spilt stuff - they had a bath every night so why would I?

There wasn't so much 'beware of the germs' being pushed down our throats at that time and we've all survived!

Yes on the dishwasher, I just shoved everything in there! but not the children

If it makes you happy cleaning your house to within an inch of it's life, that's fine, but just don't let it take over your life like those women on that programme Obsessive Cleaners or whatever it's called.

My living room carpet really needs hoovering everday i don't im a sahm but far to knackered, busy, unmotivated to clean all the time. And with 4 dirty little sprogs its like playing catch up all the time.

From personal experience I have to say how much I enjoy changing my clothes, bathing and generally caring for myself.

There was a time through no fault of my own when I had very little sense of personal hygiene and it meant constant skin infections, mocking, bullying and conflict with people who were close to me.

What I have read in the original post seems quite normal and well balanced. I think most of the time we are influenced by advertising which presents an ideal that is far from being ideal and we are all different.

It was was me who started the thread about the pyjamas. DS is now wearing them for a few nights before washing, DH read the thread and has come around so now we're all being a bit more economical with the amount of clothes we wash.

Have to say though, we do have one of the most economical washing machines on the market and we use natural, biodegradable soaps, so it wasn't guilt that drove me to make a change, more frustration at the sheer amount of laundry drying all over the house on wet days.

I have a friend who claims she spends up to four hours a day cleaning her (small) house. And is proud of that. Even if I had the time I wouldn't have the inclination to ensure my house stayed that tidy...

I think PainterDecorator's post might help resolve the dilemma that MarianneSolong is talking about. A low-maintenance, ergonomic household will take less time to clean.

However, that simply isn"t a solution for the 9 million or so people living in the UK private rented sector, where tenancies are relatively short and insecure, so people are not able to invest in their floors and walls (indeed, it would be stupid to do so) and are, moreover, always a little unfamiliar with their own home, whereas it always takes a while to develop a really good, and really subconscious, cleaning routine.