AIBU to ask for the slatterns of MN to come forward?

[MarianaMoatedGrange]

Inspired by another thread. I am a self confessed slattern. Would rather read a book or browse MN than clean to a rota. I wash dishes, do laundry and am clean in person, but happily coexist with cobwebs until they get quite bad (adds to the Victorian Gothic of my home is my reasoning).

I will have a cleaning frenzy every couple of weeks or so then subside back into lassitude, draped becomingly on my sofa with a book or phone (aka slobbing out in leisure wear or PJs with chocolate to hand).

DC grown into adulthood with various views on cleaning. Oh, I lived briefly with one man when young, then never again so it was and is entirely up to me how I lived. DC taught how to clean/tidy/cook, which they did age appropriately. One enjoys cleaning.

Levels of squalor never enough to incite interest from authorities - just vaguely smug looks from my cleaner, tidier friends

So, any more of you rota free, as-and-when sisters out there?

@CraftyYankee maybe give me his number to pass onto my partner?😂

I'm fed up of hearing 'this house is a mess' every time he comes home from work. It's not my mess it's the kids why should I follow them round collecting there leavings

This is why it's better to live alone, no one to complain and of course no one making additional mess! I think I'm a slattern because my childhood was super regimented. My mum ran the house like a military operation! Eating was always at set times, it never deviated from that. Dishes done immediately after. Up by 7:30 (8 on weekends!) and beds made immediately. As a kid I didn't spend one day just lounging in PJ's. Even if we were ill, you stay in bed and if you're well enough to get up you're well enough to get dressed. No playing in the living room, that was just to sit in for an hour day watching TV and not moving (so as not to mess up anything). I bloody hated it tbh! I remember the one time I tried to make her a mother's day breakfast she shouted at me for messing up the kitchen. Didn't make that mistake again! I swore when I had DC my home would be much more chilled. My DC were always clean, presentable and well fed but everything else was very relaxed.

I've cleaned ovens twice in my life and that was when moving out of rentals. It's an awful, greasey, harsh chemical job and I hate it. Anyway, the black stuff at the bottom adds to the taste of the food..

I’ve gone as far as buying oven cleaner, reading the instructions, buying heavy duty gloves, then giving both cleaner and gloves away. I’ve never cleaned my oven.

Born Slattine here😀

I'd love a frequently cleaned house ... but not enough to devote large parts of life to it. (A cleaner is top of my list for when I'm a millionaire.)

Dealing with the ironing pile:
Don't have an ironing pile.
Only iron what needs ironing when it is required. (It is 3 years since that last happened to me)

Slips into a negligee.... But as I don't smoke, it's covered in bikkie crumbs.

My People!!!!! I proudly call myself a slattern, cos she sounds like more fun down the gin shop. I said it in front of my DP's mum. She thought I said "slut" which I'm not. But housework bores the DNA out of me. There's always a book that wants reading or a DVD that needs to be watched again

I'm so bad that when my DP's DM met my parents, she said "Jim is the messiest person on earth" and my family chorused "oh no he isn't." If we lived together, we'd be buried alive in no time.

I only clean up the cat poo cos I can't bear the niff.

Dealing with the ironing pile:
Don't have an ironing pile.

So this. I've never owned an iron. I have a few clothes that could do with an iron but a) I have better things to do mostly wine and books and b) they don't look any different after you've worn them for a bit.

I have two cleaners who come twice a month. I loath cleaning, except when I'm very upset about something and then I find it soothing. I'm also a single mum to a very lazy teenage DS and a perpetually tired teenage DD who suffers from epilepsy. They are both hellishly untidy - I was never allowed to get away with such slovenly behaviour when I was a teen - but they are both meticulous about their personal hygiene, which I'm grateful for.

After years of planning and shopping and cooking meals for fussy children, ironing their clothing, XH's shirts, even the damned sheets, dusting, hoovering, etc, I think I'm burnt out. Oh well!

I would love to be a slattern but i just cant do it, i clean to the old Military march out standards, 5 year old cooker looks brand new, i still clean the skirting boards with a toothbrush every week and the lightbulbs are dusted every week also. I really want to say to hell with it all but i just cant, i could never ever go to bed and leave a cushion unplumped or a teaspoon in the sink. As goes for not making the bed properly every morning, i would be on edge all day. P .s pet hate is ring marks on the coasters

@Lowlandlucky I avoid ring marks on the coasters by putting the teapot and mug directly onto a plastic chair and cleaning the tea staining off the chair most years.
I don't recall plumping a cushion recently, and the nearest I get to making the bed is pulling the covers down to air it during the day.

Lowandlucky clearly this is not your thread. But if you want to take your cleaning disorder and apply it to my noncleaning disorder, you're more than welcome.

Sometimes I wish I cared more. But then I lie down and MN and it goes away. 😁

@Lowlandlucky I think you're in the wrong place! Skirting boards with a tooth brush weekly? What madness is this?

cleaning the tea staining off the chair most years.

You are people after my own heart. It's all too much, too dull, it needs doing again too soon. My house is perfectly hygienic but I don't faff about with stuff that doesn't need doing.

Another day, another opportunity to ignore the mounting dishes and unswept carpet.

**

Sitting on the sofa in my dressing gown, apparently working from home... watching my lovely robot hoover do his thing.

My young son added 'clean the house' to the calender on his tablet as a daily reminder.
No idea if he was planning to do it himself or if he knew his calender was synced to mine
I was getting daily reminders to 'clean the house.
Needless to say I ignored them all

👋🏻 hello laideeees
I fucking hate cleaning, sorry, I just do, I honestly think we still carry A small crumb of the idea that we are not proper Women unless we have a sparkly clean house. Sorry have got better things to do.

Despite needing to economise due to h deciding to leave I'm keeping my cleaner , I'm such a rubbish housekeeper. Grown up dd doesn't lift a finger unless told to either. Fortnight only but keeps it clean

Oh yay! Friend sometimes say things like 'I like a clean house' and I go: mmmm.
I like our home to be a bit lived in. Makes me feel cosy. I actually got rid of the cleaner because the judgeyness I attribute to her stressed me. Now we clean sort of to a rota. Tiny but each day. When we are sick or busy it doesnt get done. Its sort of tidy and cleanish. I like it that way. H grumbles occasionally

When my twins were born, some time back in the 19th century, a colleague gave me kindly advice. I was to let everything go, for a few weeks, and just concentrate on the babies. Because "the world won't end if you don't wash your skirting boards for a month". I was genuinely shocked to learn that one should wash skirting boards. The notion had never entered my head. (Decades on, I have still never done so.).

I may - MAY - hoover the house later. Or possibly not,

This made me chuckle: