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Original poster

To wonder about the fetishisation of cleaning?

277 replies

Skelligsfeathers · 17/03/2022 22:36

Cleaning and housework used to be just that. A necessary evil which most people did but didn't enjoy.
Now however, it seems to be a hobby almost for some people and the standards expected of people's homes seem to be insanely high.
Endless videos on social media of people pouring multiple chemicals into already pristine sinks. Grown adults getting excited about cleaning cloths and different fragrances of disinfectant.
TV shows where people who are obviously ill with OCD are paraded as being somehow morally superior to others because they spend hours every day cleaning already clean houses....

I just don't get it.
Is it all just another way of making money?
Or is it saying something deeper about our society?

OP posts:
inmyslippers · 18/03/2022 07:46

Each to their own but I find it soo tedious and boring. My life goals are to comfortably earn enough to pay someone else to do it

GeodesicDome · 18/03/2022 07:48

I like tidying but I hate cleaning. My house looks immaculate if you squint.

FTEngineerM · 18/03/2022 07:50

@NurseBernard you obviously don’t frequent Instagram cleaning #’s because there are quite a few male cleaning influencers.

Crazykefir · 18/03/2022 07:50

I grew out with a mother who fully embraced the womens movement and had a great social life= messy house.
So I like having a pleasent environment so friends can visit.
It should be about balance like everything in life. I agree it's all about sales, everything was grey a couple of years ago now it's all out.

tigger1001 · 18/03/2022 07:51

@fairylightsandwaxmelts

I think the whole idea of control and no hobbies is somewhat patronising.

People generally come out with stuff like that because it makes them feel better about why they don't like cleaning.

You might have a point about the hobbies comment, but given the number of people on this thread alone who have said they feel in control when they clean I think that's a fair comment.
FTEngineerM · 18/03/2022 07:51

I also agree with the pp who said it had been going on decades. My great grandson mother used to use a piece of slate (iirc) to shine her front step every morning. Cleaning and being proud of your home isn’t new.

Weekendtobegin · 18/03/2022 07:53

I think it's just the modern way of advertising.

Before you'd have a woman mopping up muddy paw prints or mess from kids with a bucket of flash.

These days it's all done on Insta or YouTube. They are selling you a lifestyle.

They are appealing to a certain group of people, I don't really think it's anything new, just that with social media it's easier to reach your audience and there are different ways to do it now.

oblada · 18/03/2022 07:53

I am not really on social media or watch TV programmes like this so I am not sure of the extent of this trend however I'd suggest two reasons:

  • we are losing the connections with our neighbours and elders and so are turning to social media for basic day to day advice.
  • we live is a world where we have constant worries about the future, environment, wars, illnesses etc and cleaning obsessively is a form of control. It makes us feel in control of our immediate environment and allows us the forget the lack of control over the bigger picture.
Original poster
Skelligsfeathers · 18/03/2022 07:53

@implantreplace

* I just don't get it. *

You don’t get that people are different?
How odd

Gosh, what an interesting contribution to the discussion! Thanks so much for your thoughts.
OP posts:
GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal · 18/03/2022 07:53

I can't get my head round people enjoying cleaning. To me it's like enjoying...vomiting. Deeply unpleasant but sometimes unavoidable.

I clean my house on a weekly basis (fuck doing it daily, although dishes, laundry, etc are unavoidable) because I don't like living in a dirty one, but I do so resentfully.

GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal · 18/03/2022 07:57

@RowanAlong

Interesting how some people can see it as meditative or calming or enjoy the repetitive nature of it. Cleaning enrages me as the worst kind of necessary but time-wasting exercise, that is never complete, appreciated, or enjoyable.

Yes! This is it exactly! No matter how much you do it's never fucking finished, and nothing ever stays clean for more two minutes. Angry

fairylightsandwaxmelts · 18/03/2022 08:00

Yes @tigger1001 sorry - I was more referring to the hobbies thing, and also to the people who have commented saying you must be bored/boring to enjoy cleaning.

It's just yet another way of building yourself up by putting other people down.

Curtilage · 18/03/2022 08:01

Before I joined Mn the sole person of my generation I knew who was fanatically houseproud was someone I knew through a toddler group when I lived in the Midlands— I really liked her, but she was pretty messed up, and had caved to her husband’s desire to have a child on the caveat that she never worked again, which meant she cleaned the house for about four hours a day, exercised the rest of the time, and had two daily meals of liquidised raw vegetables so that she could drink almost all her calories.

5128gap · 18/03/2022 08:02

I dislike the way it underlines cleaning as a women's thing. I may be wrong, but I don't think there's a male version of Mrs Hinch, and I've never heard of a man make a hobby out of cleaning.

Original poster
Skelligsfeathers · 18/03/2022 08:02

I know in the past, women spent an awful lot of time cleaning and doing housework but a lot of that was due to the lack of labour saving devices. I am a child of the 70s and my mum had to handwash terry nappies. That alone must have taken hours!
Do you think if women of the past had had the means that we have, they would have spent the same time? I find that difficult to believe.
The clean doorstep thing was definitely judgement and based on social standing, when everyone knew everyone.

I think the perfect house thing has coincided with the incredibly high beauty standards fashion. Young women now seem to be expected to maintain enormously high standards of personal appearance. Eyebrows, nails, fillers, contouring, waxing etc
I think it says something interesting about women's place in our society.

OP posts:
FleetwoodRaincoat · 18/03/2022 08:03

I don't think anyone has an issue with homes being clean, but it's the over-cleaning that's so pointless.

I have only one friend who's like this and it drives me nuts. Having to stand outside in the rain removing my shoes, not being allowed to eat in the living room, constantly bombarded with the smell of plug-in air fresheners...

My house is tidy, a bit dusty but clean. No need for all the other crap.

fairylightsandwaxmelts · 18/03/2022 08:03

@Christienne

I find being organised and on top of my housework really helps me to feel relaxed and in control

This isn’t a criticism as I feel the same… but I wonder how many men feel ‘relaxed and in control’ when on top of the house work?

I know quite a few. Both my dad and my FIL enjoy cleaning and love a tidy house.

I just think they don't put publicise it as much because there's still that belief that housework is womens work and that it's not "manly" to enjoy cleaning and tidying.

Fedupbuyer · 18/03/2022 08:06

Tidy house,tidy mind in my experience.

fairylightsandwaxmelts · 18/03/2022 08:07

I think the perfect house thing has coincided with the incredibly high beauty standards fashion. Young women now seem to be expected to maintain enormously high standards of personal appearance. Eyebrows, nails, fillers, contouring, waxing etc

I don't wear make-up, have never had my nails done, cut my own hair and shave in the shower Grin

I think both of those things might be a trend on social media but I suspect in reality many people with clean homes don't do the whole perfect beauty routine too.

BigButtons · 18/03/2022 08:10

I hate cleaning. I do it but I hate it. I wish I was one of those people who loved it.

RJnomore1 · 18/03/2022 08:11

The two women I know well who are obsessive about this sort of thing both gre up in dirty, abusive homes. Mess and disorder triggers their memories. It’s a way of them keeping control (and for both of them it well precedes social media). Actually I also know a man who is the same. And I totally get them.

It’s the idea that cleaning is a hobby that baffles me. It’s not, it’s part of life. There’s a whole world of exciting things out there to learn, see and do and people are obsessed with zoflora. It’s also not really physically healthy, all the chemicals and no chance to maintain your immune system. It’s baffling, performative and I suspect in some cases a way of feeling superior?

LakieLady · 18/03/2022 08:11

Most women of my mother's generation were at home, and they did the housework every day, very thoroughly if I remember. They took a lot of pride in doing this job well . You might think they didn't enjoy it, but I'm sure that many of them did, just as people today enjoy it.

My mother was an exception then. She hated it, and would do the bare minimum to keep things at an acceptable level of hygiene. She would dust occasionally, and hoovered most days, but she only hoovered because we had a German Shepherd that moulted copiously for at least half the year. Their bedroom and the living room were always cluttered with books, newspapers, and bits of mending, embroidery or sketches in progress. Dust was ever present and you could always find a cobweb or several if you cared to look.

She was scrupulous about sinks, the bath and the toilet though, and kept the kitchen worktops clean. We were brought up to clean the bath after using it as soon as we were big enough to reach the far side of it.

I find myself following in her footsteps.

Bagelsandbrie · 18/03/2022 08:13

@5128gap

I dislike the way it underlines cleaning as a women's thing. I may be wrong, but I don't think there's a male version of Mrs Hinch, and I've never heard of a man make a hobby out of cleaning.
There’s a programme on TV called Filthy House SOS where the two cleaning obsessed presenters are both men.
PenStation · 18/03/2022 08:16

If it’s so good for mental health then why don’t more men get into cleaning? My working class female relatives who don’t work are all obsessed without exception.

FoxyFoxyLoxy · 18/03/2022 08:17

I hate cleaning. So I pay someone else to do it for me.

My main issue with it is all the plastic and the chemicals, and the disposable wipes, and disposable everything else.

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