To asks which bits of your house never get cleaned?

[TheOddity]

I consider myself pretty clean and tidy but MIL has unearthed some areas that are obviously my blind spot this week:

• freezer drawer in fridge (all frozen up)
• washing machine drawer (not black but a couple of mouldy bits)
• mop bucket (again not filthy but some ingrained dirt was in there)
• bottom of cleaning cupboard floor
• cobwebs in kitchen corners

Do you have any areas in which it never occurs to you to clean? I want to go check if I have more!

I only clean what I can see so never move furniture etc to clean under/behind it. Top of the fridge is probably pretty disgusting too!

OH vacuumed under our bed last night.

Only did 'cause we were putting on a new mattress.

Was last done, last time we had a new mattress, 7 years, no 8 years ago. . .

Never used to clean under my sofa. In our house we currently have a hard floor in the living room. Under the sofa is a trap for dust, toys and cat hair. Oooh the cat hair!
We'd been here a year before I realised. It was two inches thick and looked like a massive beard. Now my technique is to take the end off the hover and just shove the tube underneath and wait till the sound of crud rattling up the pipe stops.
I have never cleaned the top of a door in my life.
I forget to clean the cobwebs on the ceiling a lot. I remember about every other month.
We did hire a window cleaner. They came once, haven't seen them since. Windows now looking quite grim again.
I don't clean the pipes behind the sink and toilet either. They are grim, but the bathroom looks like it was fitted by someone who really was all thumbs so its lost in the general grimness of the room. We have the same boxing in plans as other posters have mentioned - when we get around to a new bathroom! Sigh.
I get someone in to clean my oven once a year.
I don't dust. I put the fuzzy brush on the end of my Hoover and waft it around the bookshelves. Dusting makes me sneeze. Anything more than that is accomplished with a baby wipe and a spray of febreeze. If it smells like I've cleaned then it covers up the fact it's only been a half assed job.

My mum once asked me why I hadn't cleaned the inside of my kitchen bin.
I clean the inside of the lid. Anything more than that... no.

Several years ago I had a workman in and when I got home I found black feathers in the bathroom (of all places) but no sign of body/guts/legs. After searching for days everywhere I couldn't find anything, workman hadn't noticed - I assumed bird had escaped (they'd had doors and windows open).
About 4-5 years later - and I had cleaned behind things etc in that time (honestly)- I walked into my bedroom to find a dessicated blackbird sitting in the middle of the floor - cat had obviously found it somewhere. We hadn't had maggots/bluebottles/nasty smells - to this day I have no idea where it was...
(only place I hadn't looked was behind the boiler - which is in a cupboard in our bedroom - the door was open (often is) but gap is less than an inch... )

Under the sofas, we got new ones recently and when I moved the old ones for the first time in aages there was massive dust bunnies, little toys, forgotten dvds, a broken laptop and even a festering mini egg, lovely! Also, under the fridge has never been cleaned, it's a big american thing though so it would be too heavy for me to move.

The top of the bookshelves, judging by the cobwebs I noticed this morning! Skirting boards and door frames too.
Many years ago I had a technician come out to fix my gas cooker. He commented on the gunk on the floor behind it and I said 'I guess you must see that quite often', he said 'no madam, most people clean behind their cooker'.
I still don't think I have ever done so unless I was moving house.

lucky at the idea of skid-testing loos in store!! Alternatively, I'm sure a question to the sales assistant probably wouldn't be well received (or answered usefully) anyway!

Dear god my MIL spotted a couple more before she left:

"That grouting by your sink needs a line of bleach"

"I dilute bleached your dish cloth as it was grey. Do you only wash it and not bleach it? "

"You hang your washing out in a very slapdash way. The clothes shouldn't be folded over the peg, just pinched on one piece of fabric and all inside out."

Dust bunnies behind telephone table.

Just wow.

Where do I start? Living with a farmer, two kids under 5 (no3 on the way) and a log burner, there is generally our fair share of hay, straw, dust, bits of wood, crayons, blue tack etc on the floor, I try to keep on top of everything but it's easier said than done, bathroom and bedrooms are always clean as is the living room but the kitchen and laundry room can be a different matter!!

I pulled all of the sofas and chairs out to hoover behind the other day and they weren't as bad as expected. Ignore your MIL of that's all she can find I think you're doing pretty well!!

Yep, have horses and dogs and 5 kids at home, so have a house full of dog hair , mud , hay , straw , and random diy shite all over the place . I do my best , and everyone has maintenance chores to do, but all the windows need cleaning and I dread to think what behind the radiator looks like .

I have a very dated and badly designed bathroom and the spot behind the ancient toilet always gathers horrific amounts of dust, hair, and the odd pube just for maximum grossness. Cleaning it requires sticking my head down between the toilet bowl and the bath so obviously it nearly always festers for longer than it generally should. Bleurgh.

Next mumsnet campaign needs to be better toilet design. Maybe they can do a mass sacking of toilet designers, a bit like the inspectors?!

I cleaned under the washing machine recently for the first time since the utilitybroom was built...12 years ago .

and that only happened because I flooded the utility room while trying to fix the washing machine

We have recently sold out house so more or less everything got cleaned in preparation for sale. For quite a lot of it, I was thinking 'I don't think I've ever cleaned this before'. I consider myself to be a lazy cow have a healthy disregard for housework.

I used to clean like ohtheholidays, even in rentals, because my mom did. The one time we owned a new build, I was on top of ALL the details for the first 5 or 6 years. But then, we lived overseas for 3 years and rented it out. Nothing was trashed, but 3 years of being Cleaned by nice graduate students from DHs department meant it had been kept respectably tidy, but not cleaned in the way of a houseproud homeowner. I had a baby in those three years so in the next 3 years it never did get a deep clean until we were getting ready to sell.

Weirdly, all those years I was a WOHM I largely maintained my DM's rigourous schedule and to do list, cleaning on nights and weekends with Dh and DDs. But I have been a SAHM since my 3rd was born and household chores are mostly done on an 'as noticed' or 'company coming' basis. i keep things tidy, but I dont clean, like the tenants. Which I didnt do when I was a tenant. I cleaned my oven regularly in rentals, but not this oven I own.

everywhere

Argh: toilets! BEWARE:

I have been shopping for them recently. the most streamlined always seem to have the non-standard toilet seat, and hidden fittings. Hidden fittings means you have to put the seat on before the toilet is fixed down, and must dismantle the whole thing to replace the toilet seat, assuming when the need arises you can find one to fit.

I really like toilets that hang on the wall, it seems like that would reduce a lot of cleaning trouble, to washing it down and then mopping the floor. Not lots of cramped areas you have to get down on your knees to reach to hand wipe. Anyone with experience want to tell me their bad points?

Consider myself to be quite houseproud but just ran my finger over a lampshade...a lot of dust! That's my morning then...dusting lampshades

I just HATE the look of wall hung toilets (they look like an overweight person wouldn't be safe) iyswim . In fact I HATE the look of modern bathrooms they look like a collection of boxes. (I'm looking through a catalogue atm because we're having our ancient one redone.)

ppea you just aren't lazy enough .....I think look vs practicality/ease of cleaning and choose the latter every time! I agree wall hung toilets look precarious ...but would choose anything over unnecessary dust traps.
I am having an identifit boxed in style bathroom - no gaps, no pointless ledges/gaps/nooks ... due to laziness with a generous dash of cleaning hatred ...
Imagine the dust that accumulates on the top of a high cistern, and having to get a ladder out - and dusting/removing cobwebs from wrought iron Victorian style bath legs - cleaning under the bath full stop when it can behind a panel and ignored...(actually I have insulation around my bath to keep the water warm longer - so have to have a panel)
We moved away from them for a reason ...same reason why we progressed to fitted carpets and fitted kitchens...

I prefer the look of the shaker style kitchen doors...but I have smooth ones lived in too many rented house and know the little ledge bit is a haven for grime - in the past I have dug out years old grease/sauce splashes from them with a cocktail stick..guess would/could use a steam cleaner now -but actually less hassle not to have them at all... and don't start me on the pointlessness that are plate racks...look nice but I know from experience are dust/grease traps...
But then each to their own ...we all have different priorities - if you can be bothered (or employ someone to do it for you) - why not go for look... just not for me!

Your MIL sounds like a delightfully rude guest.

The area behind the PC is my particular bete noire of cleaning. A jumble of cables, chargers and random technical bits encased in dust and grime with significant risk of "what have you done to the PC/back ups etc?" should any attempt be made to deal with it. Doesn't stop me but it's a once a year job if that.

unlucky I know what you mean but the dust doesn't notice much, I prefer pretty style to boxes anytime. I have those curly french kitchen doors which I immediately painted paint (they were dark brown the colour of the beams) which i'm still thinking about painting white (they're very high up ). I actually like scrubbing up or repainting the white paint! I don't do it much though!

We lived in an Edwardian house and ripped out all the boring plain doors etc. that were put in in the 70s, it looked amazing when we finished and we're now in a medieval house, we're gluttons for punishment!!

I don't have help now either, the dcs have gone

Oh god the area behind the telly is horrible too Tread all that spaghetti. And in the hall by the receiver for the pcs.DH works from home so we have far too many tecchie bits and pieces. it's mad.

Ahhh you see those cables behind the telly/computer should be all boxed in
I have a telephone extension cable that is in a loose coil hidden behind a cupboard in the hall...it has been there at least 6 years and gets a vague run over with a hoover every few years months when I clean behind it. It needs to be shortened but long term plan is to move the telephone socket it is attached to so don't want to cut it off just yet...
It is truly vile -covered in 'stoor' (a word my Scottish friend used that seems so accurately descriptive - old thick dust - the kind that is almost sticky) - one day I will uncoil it and clean it and then put it in something that can be more easily cleaned...
(Actually one day I'll sort the room out and get rid of it altogether and hide the cable behind the skirtings not attached it to the top like we have all the way up the stairs -another dust trap!)

You can buy all sorts of plugs that do away with the need for a lot of the spaghetti now, though they're expensive ,but the annoying thing is I don't know how to recycle the old wires and if I don't get to them first dh keeps them 'just in case' We have bags of them AAAAAH. Is your looped effect wire coiled specifically? (at least it's behind a cupboard ).

That's a great word I'll use that, "spoor" brilliant!