Not realising how much cleaning a house takes?

[Hahaha88]

Growing up our house was always clean and tidy. Sunday was cleaning day and we'd all have a job, the whole house got hoovered, dusting was done, bathroom cleaned, beds changed and bins emptied.
It wasn't until I was an adult with my own house that I realised how much extra cleaning my mum (single parent, not sexisim) must have done when we were at school etc. There are so many cleaning things I didn't realise I would need to do! Like cleaning kitchen cupboard doors and drawers, inside the fridge, house doors, light switches, skirting boards and windowsills etc. Aibu in not knowing about all this? I don't even know how people keep on top of it! I feel like it takes so much effort to keep the place nice.

Having a dog means I spend at least an hour a day cleaning. She deposits mud on every skirting board. I have to vacuum / wipe them every day.

I thought having a dark blue painted kitchen would hide the dirt. In fact every time she comes in from a walk it looks like Edward Scissorhands has been at the cupboards. In fact it’s streaks of mud.

Then there’s the chewing and the hair.

Good thing she’s cute.

Cassimin I’m trying to go on that method but I’m struggling to dedicate like an hour chunk in the morning to clean before leaving the house.

It usually takes me 30 mins to do laundry and empty the dishwasher in the morning and preparing some ingredients for dinner... I can’t spend more than that.

And evening is clearing up and cooking time and so I struggle to get time to organise anything at all unless I’m staying home with the kids and so I do everything on the weekend. 4/5 hours in one go

How do you make it work for you with that many kids ?

@Jux when I first started going out with DH 25 years ago) his mum used to empty all her kitchen furniture into the dining room (or outside on dry days), clean everywhere, then put it all back once the floor was dry. That was once a week, at the weekend (she worked FT).
Since she retired, she's far too busy for all that malarkey!

It's threads like this that make me grateful for my tiny 2-bed! If my house was any larger i wouldn't cope!

In my head I'm a tidy person and I'm definitely a clean person. The state of my house drives me mad most days. I just feel like I live with two really messy little children. They are 5 and 2 and I actually think it's the 5-year old that is worse. She seems to be so naturally messy and leaves chaos wherever she has been.

I grew up in a hoarders house so just don’t know how to clean, when to clean, what to clean and how often.
So my skirting boards get done 3 times a week - which since this thread started I realised isn’t normal

Reading this thread while baby is napping, should be doing housework but lying on the sofa instead

I posted that far too quick. My mum and dad have a very tidy house and they always seem to have had control of the house and it's always been tidy clutter free and clean. Where is I just feel like I'm constantly chasing my tail. on a weekday we get up and we have breakfast and cups of tea and get ready for the day I take my eldest to school. I come home with the youngest and usually try and wash the pots and sort any washing. Then I try and spend some time with my little boy and then it seems to be lunchtime and more pots. I try and pick all of his stuff up and put all the clothes in the wash basket and pick everything up off the living room floor that the kids have used.I have a black carpet so it needs even every day in the living room otherwise it just looks embarrassing to be honest.so yeah I try and Hoover as well and then it's time to go pick my daughter back up.then it's tea time and well some cooking the kids usually get loads of toys back out my daughter gets hurt stuff out her uniform just seems to end up on the floor. we have tea and then the kitchen is a mess again and the living rooms a mess because they have been playing and the tables a mess because she's been drawing.

I try my very best to wash up after tea and usually it gets done but my partner works quite far away. he doesn't always get home until 8 at night and if I'm bathing the kids and getting them ready for bed or reading with my daughter, I sometimes don't wash up before I put them to bed. sometimes I end up falling asleep just after they've gone to sleep because I'm just so tired.my partner will do a bit when you get home but then I end up with the majority of it the next morning.

I managed to do my bathroom once a week and I clean my toilet daily. I try and mop the floors once week as well and change the bedding. but honestly I never find the time to just do things like clean the windows or scrub skirting boards and stuff. I feel like the basics just always have to come first so the bigger jobs just end up being left for months.I'd love to just take absolutely everything out of our wardrobes clean the wardrobe inside and then rearrange them.but I'd literally never get a couple of hours to do that because I've got the toddler here. keeping him safe takes up most of the day because he's just into everything and if I take him upstairs with me he will just destroy whatever room he's in.

I wish I knew how to keep up with it and I wish I had some sort of skill to have a spotless decluttered home.I have even tried to look at it sun Mrs hinch website but I just feel like a failure when I come off it.I feel there's a very fine line between having a nice tidy home and doing something a majority of the time which doesn't allow you to have much time to do anything else. So I guess until the kids are older I'm living in this mess

Sorry for the typos. I used my microphone. I really should learn to just type it but it takes ages lol x

@Snugglemonster84 you sounds very like me! Agree with what you've said.

robot vac helps keep the hard floors clean enough during the week that the house doesn't 'feel' dirty, and then we do a proper clean at the weekend. Both of us and it still takes most of a morning on Sunday. Its never ending really.

Cleaning my home is much like painting the fourth bridge ...once I get to the end I’m starting all over again

Those saying they only clean skirting boards annually .... I have to do mine weekly but it might be because we have pets 🤷‍♀️

I like to live in a clean & tidy environment so it isn’t such a chore. A clean fresh home makes my heart sing 😊

@EvilPea Yeah that sounds a bit much to be honest. Without a dog I would do the skirting boards every 3 months or so.

I don't do inside the fridge, house doors, light switches, skirting boards or windowsill ever hardly at all. We clean bathroom/toilets, change sheets, hoover/mop, empty bins once a week. Kitchen surfaces are frequently wiped, but apart from that it only gets blitzed when we're having guests round.

I was brought up in a household where housekeeping was a (highly) competitive sport.

I realised I'd gone a bit far when my mother advised me to drop my standards. I think she felt I was making her look bad. . .

Skirting boards, doorhandles and light switches are weekly, daily for the toilets, bathrooms and kitchens.

And my oven gets cleaned weekly.

I've just had five weeks sick as a dog, barely able to get up for most of it. We all appreciated how the house usually is a bit more after that!

My standards have been the same regardless of work status - same happened when I was working full time, just at different times, and of course, DH did a lot more then!

I do window sils and the fridge about one every few days because the fridge seems to get manky and the wind sills get so dusty. Also the dog likes to put his front paws up there to look out the windows 🙄. The rest I would do maybe every few months. Not that hard really.
Obviously bins, beds and dusting gets done quite regularly.

Skirting boards are always weekly, not daily!

I hoover and steam mop every day though. Bathroom, once or twice a week.

We keep the kitchen clean on a constant basis - so anyone can walk in and start cooking/baking something basically. There may be washed dishes on the drainer drying but generally we leave it with dishes washed and surfaces cleared/wiped always.

We now have a chordless vacuum, do tend to hoover any downstairs spaces once they are dirty and I have put away the sweeping brush in favour of hoovering in the evening after dinner. Upstairs, I’ll do if it needs it.

I clean the bathroom weekly, more often if it needs it. Actually, I clean it once a fortnight and the cleaners do the other week in the fortnight when they come in for the regular house clean.

We keep on top of laundry daily.

But things like dusting, skirting boards, cleaning out cupboards, washing windows etc are on a “needs must” basis. Often quite far spaced needs...

It’s funny I was only thinking today about how much cleaning my mum must have secretly done when we all lived at home (my mum and dad both worked full-time but she did it all). It’s now I have my own house and married with 2 small children I realise how much there is and unfortunately I’ve fallen into the same trap as my own mum, it all falls to me or we live in a pit!! It gets to the point where it’s easier to just do it all yourself than to try making a man who just doesn’t register that certain things aren’t done by magic or fairies!

It’s a never ending task, I swear our house will only be properly clean and tidy when we come to sell it and I make everyone move out until the viewings are done and the thing is sold!!

I’m on the opposite end as the house I was raised in was always a mess!

But then I was raised by my (young) Grandparents and there were three of us (siblings) constantly making a mess when we were younger so I think my Gran just gave up on having a perfectly clean house and did the jobs that were a necessity. She never got my brother to clean or tidy though but insisted me and my sister got stuck in.

As a result my brother (mid 30’s) lives like a pig, I’m in the middle area of not quite pristine but clean and tidy enough (I have four cats and twin toddlers so I mainly battle food stains and cat fur/muddy paw prints) and my younger sister is extremely fastidious with cleaning.

I do despair at the jobs I don’t manage to get done as regularly as I’d like - but only a little bit in the back of my mind as usually it’s a win if I can have the pots washed and clothing/bedding washed AND PUT AWAY (sorry about the caps there, DH is a sod for taking his clean washing upstairs but never actually putting it away ).

Skirting boards get a quick hoover whenever I can actually have the hoover out without DD having a terror stricken meltdown - which isn’t that often at the moment - thankfully we have hardwood floors so I stick to a broom and dustpan/brush most days 😂

Depends how fussy one is. As I rent I try to keep on top of those sort of jobs. Otherwise I wouldn't bother as often because I'm not really all that fussy. One of the things I don't like about renting.

@PrettyyGood you’re deluded. Tip some bleach around whilst you’re at it. Hopefully you’re not under a metre of water whilst you’re doing it.

I care what happens to the planet, but you just carry on with your not giving a fuck. Unfortunately there’s not ‘just one‘, eh, there’s lots like you.

@Youhedge calm down! It's fine if you went to live in a hovel, I'm not judging you. Much.

Actually apologies I can see you have a cleaning issue.