To think it is easy to keep your home clean?

[Ohwell14]

Providing you are able bodied obviously

I find it easy because I've got a big house and a lot of storage. So all the crap gets shoved into drawers and cupboards.
I also enlist the kids (6 & 3 years) to help with cleaning. They do the sinks, mirrors, windows, strip the beds, dusting.
And I have a trusty roomba to vacuum when we're out.
It's not easy if you have a lot of toys or baby stuff combined with lack of storage and high aversion to dirt or clutter.
Mine is clean and tidy but I don't like clutter so I deal with it.
I don't, however, judge other people if their homes aren't as "clean" or "tidy" as mine.

I think if everyone in the house isn't doing something from around age 4 and the adults both doing as much as possible it won't work. We have a rule nothing after 9pm.
6.30am - take it in turns to go to the gym
7am - one at home up. Wake kids. Boil 4 eggs. Put kettle on. Puts tea in the slow cooker.
7.30am - sweaty one in the shower. Kids get dressed.
7.45am - Other adult in the shower. Kids downstairs after making bed. One loads dishwasher while other scrapes plates, other hoovers rug.
8am - Kids brush teeth downstairs, everyone leaves for school and work. I eat my breakfast then leave.

4pm - first kid home. Cleans one window a day. Empties dishwasher. Gets homework done.
6pm - me and other two kids home. Tea done. I do the dishwasher.
6.45pm - I eat my tea while the other two do their homework with me. Put my stuff in the dishwasher.
7.45pm - DP home. he puts them in bed/ they have showed. Before they go to bed they bring their washing down and lay out their clothes for the next day. Also pack their school bags and put by the door. So does he lay out his. He puts a load on and hangs out. Irons and folds.

• Meanwhile I get tea out of the freezer for the next day, do younger two pack lunches, put away the ironing, wipe down the bathrooms. Hoover the hall stairs and landing, rinse off shoes/ footy boots etc of mud and put with school stuff.

8.45 - he has his tea, while I wash the slow cooker, have a shower, get in pjs. He puts his plate in the dishwasher then has a shower. Then we sit and watch telly for an hour or so.

Weekends - mornings taken up with sport/ church. Come back. Have lunch. After lunch we spend an hour hoovering bedrooms, changing bed sheets and stripping, Declutter and take to charity, booking all school stuff in, putting away online shop and making up bags of food - raw they cook in slow cooker- and freezing sandwiches for packed lunches. Wiping the stair banisters, and dusting. Afternoons wevdo stuff go out watch a film etc and we order food Saturday night (or get a few pizzas) and Sunday night we just have a quick tea like chicken burgers and chips.

Sunday night we spend an hour getting uniform and clothes for the week ready. Everyone has five hangers for five outfits. Make sure you've got tights, socks, towels in gym bag etc.

House generally kept on top of this way.

No! I find it really hard to keep it clean. Kids all out of the nest but we have 5 cats (yes, five) and their is never enough time to keep it clean - it's an endless battle of paperwork, washing, cat bowls, dishes and clothes. We have lots of space - but it still gets untidy. It's not filthy - but it's d do not clean - I feel like I need one whole day a week to stay on top of it and I just don't have it with working full time, commuting, cooking from scratch, washing, getting ready for Christmas, errands, relaxing, keeping fit and socialimg occasipnally - I constantly wonder how other people manage it all! Please help me solve the mystery!

Clean yes. Tidy no. I clean around the mess.

Between the cleaner and DH my house is clean, so yeah pretty easy for me

Yeah it's really easy. The cleaner comes when I'm at work and bingo it's clean. Before that working and having a toddler in a house with 3 bathrooms was flipping hard work. I have better things to do than clean so i pay someone else. Id rather 'waste ' my money than my time

I dunno. What's the view like up there on your high horse?

No.the unfortunate truth is kids can wreck in minutes,what took hours to clean
Handprints all over wall/worktops,spilt drinks,dropped food mashed in
DVDs on floor,clothes scattered,bed full of crumbs & brown marks. Nesquik anyone?

Nope. It's difficult. Small flat so not quite enough space for everything, two full time jobs with long hours, one toddler, not local so visitors come for the weekend (3 of the last 4) so hard to catch up then, and dh is working at least one day a weekend for the rest of the year. Only enough room to dry two loads of washing which takes days so we can't blitz it all, I'm struggling and ill in first trimester pregnancy so not contributing much to the cleaning anyway and meal plans are out the window, plus keeping up with extras like regular mold scrubbing when it starts to appear on the walls. But you carry on being smug.

Clean yes, tidy no

Say that to a person with depression.

I have a large(ish) family and I work at least 15 hours a day (closer to 20 at this time of year). I think I could probably have a very tidy house, but I already have so little time for sneering at strangers on the internet and that's sooo important, don't you think OP?

Sorting food (meal planning, shopping, putting away, prepping, making/cooking, cleaning up from, etc) takes the most stupid amount of my time. Probably 3 hours a day minimum

3 hours every day?!? That's a huge amount.

Even worse case, longest to make breakfast (porridge - we like it over cooked so smoother) takes 15 minutes to make/serve and 5 to fill dishwasher. Lunch is sandwiches or similar, again 15 minutes to make and 5 to fill dishwasher which is then put on. Dinner is variable but doesn't take over an hour for 90% of the time and 20 minutes cleaning afterwards. So a max per day of 2 hours and often much less.

DH has cleared out the loft to decide what to pack and what to chuck.

Not a chance, this weekend!

Exactly lol

I think maybe you mean it's easy for you to keep your home clean. I'm so happy for you.

Me? Not so much. I have 13 month old twins who've learnt to escape from any and all enclosures, chronic pain and fatigue, and floors that look like shit withjn half an hour of a proper cleaning. And white gloss kitchen cabinets. And a black mosaic tile shower in an area with insanely hard water (all pre existing when we moved in by the way!). And two cats.

So no. Definitely not easy to keep my house clean.

I just can’t be arsed. I work long hours, dh works long hours. Long drive to nursery and back.

I don’t have an hour a day to spare, and if I did I’d spend it playing with ds. Or doing something more relaxing/enjoyable than housework.

The house is quite big, and it’s clean enough. Bathrooms and kitchen done almost every day, everyone has clean clothes and clean sheets. That’s enough for me.

OP, you’re equating your worth with how clean your house is.

I ask you again, @ohwell , do you have a PHD?

If you have children under school age you can have a otherwise YABU.

Yabu as it will be different for everyone.

We both work ft and have lots of cats and a toddler. We do bits each evening and quite a lot at the weekend but it’s never perfect. At times it is bloody appalling!

Hoping to find a cleaner in the new year as that would help massively.

I work 45hrs a week travel 8 hrs a week, 1 ds 13 (bedroom smells like something died) 1 dd 8 glitter shite everywhere 1 dog 1 cat dh works 50hrs week my house is a tip most of the time, grew up in obsessively clean house and always felt guilty as couldn’t live up to it ( Mum worked full time single parent to 4!!!) just diagnosed with hypothyroidism and permanently fucked, but finally accepted who gives a shit we are happy enough 😇

R2G I’m slightly scared or in awe. Not sure which yet. How did you ever get everyone so well trained? Does anyone ever rebel? How long does it take for the kids floors to disappear when they’re playing in your house? Do you ever ever say fuck it and lie on the sofa with a glass of wine instead?

Not for us.....3 kids, a puppy, frequent visiting kids. Busy me and DH and we'd both rather play/talk/go out at the weekends with the kids than dedicate hours to cleaning. We have partially solved the problem with a cleaner twice a week but house definitely not what I would consider clean and tidy!

Aye, it’s easy enough provides that you wanna wake up an hour or two earlier than normal to get a wash on, go to work at 7.30am, arrive home at 6.30pm, not sit down with your kids, then when they’re in bed spend another hour or so cleaning. Not to mention not doing anything on your one day off because shit needs doing. Dead easy.

What's the point of a post like that, apart from an obvious attempt to shitstir? Away to your scrubbing with you. Boring...

Maybe you just cant see the mess from up there on your high horse?!!