To find the trend for cleaning on social media equally horrifying and fascinating?

[Rabbitjam]

Apologies if it has been brought up before.

I'm finding myself scrolling through instagram looking at hinchers and zoflora addicts. All these identical grey and silver houses. Everything bleached within an inch of its life. Some women (they are predominantly women) spray their beds with dettol every day. Furniture sprayed with zoflora and fabric conditioner (which apparently can make it less flame retardant). I don't live like this, my house is clean and fairly tidy but hardly on that scale. I simply don't have the time for a start.

I can't imagine the impact on their health breathing in all those cleaning products, but also on their mental health- it seems obsessive for some, taking over every aspect of their lives.
It also irks my feminism.

Of course though it is instagram so not necessarily "real life".

What are your thoughts on this?

From what I have seen it is chasing a feeling of completion and satisfaction. We all know how nice it feels to have finished something and sat back and appreciated it. That is what this is. It’s achieving goals. I see some people on FB absolutely fixated on running times and constantly running and beating goals etc. It is not dissimilar but involves chemicals I agree. So the other side of the satisfaction is things smelling a certain way. Smells of CIf do not linger long and you become accustomed to fabric softener so your brain has to keep smelling new and stronger smells to recognise them. I can sometimes smell my washing when I come home but 9/10 I can’t smell my own house at all. So this is why I think

I think it's weird to obsess with cleaning, there's so much to do in real life. I always keep a tidy house, wash kitchen counters down when ever I use them and use a carpet sweeper downstairs daily. But I only clean the house once a month, from top to toe. I couldn't imagine doing it all of the time. Over cleaning cannot be good for childrens immune systems, as children need to be exposed to some germs. My children are 9 and 6, and we are rarely ill. When their friends are off due to viruses, mine are usually okay. For example only my youngest has felt ill (for one day) once this year.

My neighbour is obsessed with cleaning to the point where I actually see her spraying her drive with weedkiller daily, no matter the weather. For the past ten years she scrutinizes the drive and sprays maniacally, for so long. She has just been diagnosed with cancer of the throat/ lungs. Bless her. I honestly dont think that breathing in all that weedkiller on a daily basis, has helped.

If someone loves cleaning enough to have it as a hobby- fine; we all like different things. But the obsessive, repetitive chemical bathing of things that are already clean I just find a bit much, and the spraying of fabric softener everywhere, too. I have sinus problems and eyewatering amongst of zoflora just make me feel very sick and send me to my bed with severe headaches. Couldn't comment on decor, we have a lot of white here, which some wouldn't like!

What bothers me is the hinch haul hoarding. People are free to spend their money on what they want but buying cleaning products the way rappers buy Gucci seems to address a different psychological need than occasionally taking advantage of a multi buy or always buying in twos, or even people who purposely bulk buy everything for convenience. I think it's more about the shopping, a low budget way to "splurge" but it can quickly become an addictive habit if you don't control your spending or just go by the fact the individual products are cheap and not consider your over all spend. Storing them must be hard, too.

Fwiw, other than when I shared a flat with someone messy who didn't clean at all- so I compensated and did a clean every day to counterbalance the neglect- I clean properly every 3/4 days or if the need arises and wipe kitchen surfaces down daily and keep the loos clean. New housemate and I are much tidier and do more things to keep the place as clean as possible in the first place. We do dust but could be more thorough with nooks and crannies, too. I think we have the balance right (clean enough to live in, not so sterile as to damage the immune system) although I'm looking at using less chemical sprays and I'm being stricter with myself about wearing rubber gloves as I used to forget. We're both neat and tidy, too but not obsessive. We've got ironing & laundry baskets out in our kitchen atm and they're put as well out the way as possible to free up floor space but no one will die just because they're on view!