Can't be arsed doing housework

[HettyMeg]

I am just back at work four days a week after mat leave, husband works full time.

I do not want to spend our weekends cleaning. I want us to spend time together as a family. We are both burnt out every eve from working and having young child.

The bare minimum gets done - bathrooms wiped down every couple of weeks. Hoover downstairs once a week, upstairs once every several weeks (!). Wipe down kitchen surfaces a few times a day, as I'm still a germaphobe despite my slovenliness. Washing is mostly dealt with.

However we have dispensed of dusting, ironing and the floors are not mopped regularly.

Am I being unreasonable?

Washing up’s important. Do that every two or three days.

Apart from that, do as little housework as possible.

Yanbu.

Keeping the house immaculate is thankless, pointless and unrewarded.

I clean the bathroom once a week. Sweep probably once a week. Kitchen is wiped down weekly, properly cleaned every month? Mop the kitchen / diner every month or something. Dusting probably monthly. DH vaccumms probably once a month. Washing up is daily and non negotiable. Never iron. Kids always have kids clothes and mostly homemade food.

It's fine.

Sounds like you're doing most of what is actually needed. Bathrooms and vacuuming daily/several times a week really isn't necessary, you're basically cleaning something before it's had a chance to get dirty. Our kitchen floor is almost never mopped, just vacuumed and it doesn't look dirty and it doesn't matter if it's not clean enough to eat off, because we don't do that.

How much of this is your DH doing? It shouldn't all be down to you.

For those who never mop or only mop their kitchen floors once a month, how can you in good conscience then let a crawling baby crawl all over that floor, sticking their hands in their mouths (as crawling babies do)? Or even an older child play on that floor? Especially if you have pets too! 🤢

Because when they go to cafes, or soft play, or outside anywhere, or into the garden, they are on non-freshly cleaned surfaces! What I find worse is people wearing outside footwear into the house, that makes me 🤮 All footwear gets removed on the doorstep and left on the little rack, helps keep the floor acceptable without endless cleaning!

make your house as minimalistic as possible. Get a robovaccuum cleaner and set it whilst you’re out.

Do housework together - it’s more fun. Set timers.

I haven’t ironed in years.

@CactusBlossom Exactly, re ironing! :-)

As Quinten Crisp once said, after 2 years, the dust doesn't get any deeper!
Relax, nothing wrong with your current regimen.

I spend a lot of time cleaning and decluttering - probably too much time really, but if I have a messy house then it really affects my state of mind. If my house is in good order, tidy and organised then I feel I can face the world better somehow.

The one thing I don’t manage to keep on top of though (through sheer lack of time) is the garden, so that’s in a bit of a state.

Persevere with trying to find a cleaner. We used to have ours come in on a Friday so house was clean when we got home for the weekend and we could spend time with DC and doing respective hobbies without guilt.

Similar here: DH works full time and also odd hours some evenings and weekends and is not interested in cleaning. Because of this, instead of sharing housework we have a weekly cleaner. It's a necessary budget item in our household.

She hoovers, does the kitchen, changes the sheets (on one bed, as it's just the two of us), does the bathroom, mops, and puts on one or two loads of laundry. Less frequently she cleans the oven. She also irons some of dh's work shirts.

I work full time and I tend to clear my home office desk (I wfh two days a week) and the dining table every day. I sort out the kitchen every few days, and I do a load or two of laundry once a week or as needed (less often than that).

We have a baby due in Dec and I'll stop doing my bits for the first few weeks, I'm sure. Then I'll have to figure out a new way forward that involves sorting out the baby stuff. We'll keep the cleaner, though!

If you can't find any independent cleaners (who are available) you should try going through a cleaning service. Unless you are really remote I would expect you can find a service that will send someone out to you.

You will need to agree all the expected tasks and how often they get done. If you have any preferences of how something is done, make that clear as well.

If you can't afford a cleaner, set up a daily schedule of small manageable tasks (one a day, every day) and set a 20-min timer (or 10-min if that works better). You'll get faster in time. And make your partner split the tasks with you!

I would have thought that cleaners would be one of the services that some people have to cut back on due to the cost of living crisis, so it could be that you will be able to find one who's available, doubly so if they're looking to up their hours to increase their income to help with meeting their own bills.

What do you class as deep cleaning OP?

Dishes - do one batch every evening and put away
Laundry - put a load on before bed then hang it out/move to tumble dryer each morning
Vacuum - run round the house on your day off (don't move furniture)
Ironing - stop. Hang and fold stuff as soon as its out the dryer/off the line.
Beds - change the sheets every other week on your day off
Mop - do on your day off

The stuff allocated for your weekday off (vacuum, mop, alternative week bed change) will take an hour tops.

And the dishes and laundry (daily) should be done by both you and dh.

It's about just being smart and tactical isn't it? There's housework and housework.

I do washing up and day to day cleaning every day (hoovering, wiping surfaces, putting away stray clothes etc) and a more rigorous clean once a fortnight (I have a cleaner every other weekend.)

There's a balance. I don't want to live surrounded by grime and mess but I also don't have time or energy to live in a show home or to be cleaning behind furniture every weekend. It's about making it work for you.

I do one or two jobs a day so by the weekend it's all clean. I just can't live in a mess surrounded by laundry. It would make my head explode

Thumbs up to the 'while the baby naps' brigade but we have three... or rather, twins and a toddler who has dropped his nap.

Any helpful tips for parents with more than one perfect napper on schedule?

Do things as you use them- so swipe around the sink with the nail brush as you wash your hands- the water is already hot and there, then.

Anything dry is not growing germs. So work surfaces need to be kept dry, food prepped on chopping boards. The surfaces don't need bleach and spray all the time.
Cloths however need regular changing as they grow bacteria and spread it round the kitchen.

So work smarter, not harder.

Agree. Just has to be done.

Oh goodness I don't even have your excuses and I have two large Maine Coon shedding machines but I only get round to vacuuming once a week (wait, did I do it last week even )?
I really only do a proper clean when expecting guests, and the 'oh it will take an hour' turns out to be more like at least three.
The liquid soap bottle just fell off the downstairs loo sink and I could see the mark from it!

I live alone and rarely have visitors. I do the minimum, kitchen and bathroom, hoover once a week and only dust the dark furniture, cant see the dust on the light wood ! Rather be reading my book

Totally with you OP. A few tips that we have found stopping the house falling into total disrepair:

Clean the bathroom when DC in the bath and wipe bath down quickly when needed.

Fold and put away clothes while they play in their room after their bath so you can still chat and play.

Limit eating to one room to stop crumbs and mess in several rooms.

Have a basket bottom of the stairs for crap that needs taking upstairs. No one to go upstairs empty handed.

If a job takes less than 60 seconds, do it then. Rise a cup that you have just used etc.

I have to agree with this. I work and have a small child too and I just try to clean as I go along and do bigger tasks ie cleaning oven or hoovering upstairs on days off. I totally understand how exhausted you are OP but I honestly can't imagine only cleaning my bathroom once a fortnight. Plus the linger you leave it the longer it takes to clean. I wipe down my bathroom every other day and it only takes about ten minutes. The anticipation is always worse than the actual task.

Who irons?!

really does anyone iron anymore?! And if so why?!!

genuinely curious!

YANBU OP. That sounds like a similar amount of effort to what DP and I do, and we don't even have children.

The endless cleaning tips in this thread miss the point. I know how to clean. I just don't want to think about it beyond the bare minimum. I'm happy being a slattern. I take care of hygiene and do not care - not one little bit - about neatness.

We host enough that most big cleans can be done just before guests get here and it's fine. And a lot of other work can be dealt with by cleaning up spills etc the minute they get made, or preventing messes from being made in the first place.