Most cluttered houses aren't very clean.

[FindingMeno]

All that stuff in corners, on surfaces, under beds.
There's not enough hours in the day to clean the stuff you can get to, let alone anything in the deepest darkest recesses.
Right?

Can i wonder who actually gives a shit and how backwards we have gone to have reached a stage where women are earnestly discussing how clean their houses are? It's like the women's liberation movement never happened and utterly depressing.

How do you clean an untidy house?

I can't stand clutter - life is so much easier when everything has a place to go. Much easier to keep clean.

Why do you care?

When my children were crawling and toddlers I kept the floors clean. They are grown up and have their own homes and families. I still have cleanish floors, but an interesting display of cobwebs overhead. and probably some wildlife habitats behind my bookshelves.

There's clutter, clutter and clutter.

Uncontrolled hoarding where there's no tidying, rubbish disposal and nothing is accessible for cleaning become health hazards with accumulating grime and potential to host pests.

Having corners/ edges/ less used rooms where the main living spaces are cleared and maintained, but less used spaces cleaned more intermittently are rarely a health issue. A bit of dust is generally of no harm.

I like stuff. I like ornaments, books, sports equipment, a wardrobe full of clothes etc; there are minimalists that would call it clutter. I might have to move things to clean/ dust sometimes, but while my house is no minimalist show home, it is a happy, healthy place to live. Many neurodiverse people need their possessions visible as a prompt to compensate for poor working memory so "clutter" can be practical (clear desk policies in workplaces can be ablist and detrimental to productive work)

Very minimalist, ultra clean homes are not necessarily healthy places to live in. Our immune systems need to be stimulated by "dirt" and benign environmental microbes in order to work effectively. Excessive cleaning products and air fresheners can be bad for our airways and skin. Mixing cleaning products can be dangerous. Excessive cleaning can be wasteful of resources, energy and polluting. Obsessive cleaning can be a symptom of poor mental health as much as a compulsive hoard.

The range of normal, healthy levels of housekeeping is broad and neither extreme is desirable.

Depends what you like, surely? I honestly loathe those sleek, stark, shiny homes. Mine has plants and ornaments and books and paintings and throws and cushions. It's definitely not as clean as the former type, but it's clean enough for us, and it feels like home.

Lost the office to DS for GCSEs, A levels and three years university work. He's finally left after getting a job. I've been decluttering for a week, two hours a day. What a job. It's now sparkling, still a bit cluttered with his degree work books, it's a funny shaped room one wall all windo, opposite wall door and huge bookcase. Two filing cabinets, easy chair desk, office chair. Two archive boxes. I'm not happy with the Mish mash of Oak and IKEA but it's functional now.

Found 12 phones, 3 tablets, two kindles and two lap tops. I've Also a big bag of chargers, USB leads and myriad other bits of technology I can't fathom.

Of course you are right, it would take forever to clean a very cluttered house and no one has that time.

But that doesn't mean a somewhat cluttered house isn't clean enough to be a healthy, hygienic and useable home either.

My sisters is, she cleans a room each day to keep on top of it, it means each room in her house gets a decent clean once a week or so. Her house is immaculate........far cleaner and tidier than my far less cluttered but slovenly home

Daily Mail scouting for stories again then?

Posters all seem to have their own definition of cluttered. My house is a little untidy but generally everything can be moved to clean. My parents however. I grew up thinking it entirely normal that you could only use one seat on the settee, there is a bookcase which is rammed with books and then a 3ft pile of books next to it, their bedroom door won't close because there is stuff in the way, are just a few examples. They desperately need new carpets but to clear the room would be nigh on impossible.

A bit of stuff isn't clutter.

My house is cluttered and not that clean 🤷🏽‍♀️ I’m not that bothered and as I live here it’s only my opinion that should matter.

I think it greatly depends on your view of ' dirty'. Our house is cluttered, (I'm trying my best to declutter, but with 2 toddlers and a baby on the way, it's no easy task!) and our house cleanliness has definitely suffered for it, but it's by no means 'dirty'.

I think you are right in most cases. There are a few exceptions.

One of my friends had a foster child who loved to scatter things. She kept some kitchen drawers available for him to pull things out of. Several times a week she would pick it all up and put it away and have a good clean. Much of the time it looked like a bomb site, but it was actually clean.

I don't think many people live that way, however.

God the decluttering movement is like some sort of cult! Every thread on here about cleaning is filled with cries of “de clutter”. If it works for you, great. I like my things and if my house isn’t operating theatre clean, I don’t care!

Pat yourself in the back and feel happy!

A bit if dust isn't 'dirty'.
There's a happy medium between a grubby house and a cold and sterile one.

Normally I'd agree with you OP, but DMs house is quite cluttered, but clean as far as I can see.

There's no dust or grime on any of the piles of books and other crap, multiple ornaments, tops of pictures, or piled up kitchen surfaces. Skirting, windowsills, floors, light switches and bathrooms all look clean too.

She's retired and lives alone apart from the dog and I'm guessing that she keeps up with a routine of doing a bit every day. She also decorates quite often so will do one of kitchen or living room each year and upstairs bedrooms on rotation, so I guess each room has a big deep clean as part of that.

OTOH, our house is less cluttered but permanently dusty and grimy because whatever we do, we just can't seem to get on top of all the dust and without that, nothing ever looks properly clean.

I frequently marvel at my MIL ability to keep her house so clean whilst simultanously having so much clutter and tat (holiday trinkets) everywhere, especially as she lives an extremely busy life.

So it is certainely possible to do cluttered and clean, although a lot of the time cluttered and dirty do go hand in hand.

YANBU.

Less clutter = a cleaner house.

Yes I agree, I hate clutter and see lots of ornaments and 'things' as dust gatherers or objects in the way of being able to vacuum properly. But that's for my house, I don't care what people do with their own homes.

And why do you care? What is your point? Don’t you have anything better to worry about?

My mil enjoys cleaning and her house is VERY cluttered. It's also extremely clean to the point where she doesn't like kids visiting as they "mess things up".

MIL’s house looked perfectly clean and uncluttered to me too until we stayed in the guest room with my very asthmatic DD. Found crazy amounts of dust and dead insects under the bed, behind furniture and on top of the wardrobe. MIL was mortified. Unless you have a reason to deep clean every nook and cranny like we do then it’s easy to miss some dust, clutter or no clutter.