'Blitzed the house from top to bottom...'

[NorrisToenail]

...'and it's only 10am'

How?! I see this so much on SM from friends and family, I admit I'm not very good at cleaning and probably take a hodge-podge approach but I can't imagine anyone cleaning their whole house in a few hours.

Is it me or aibu to think it's not possible?

😂😂

There's no defined meaning, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. It just means they've done what they wanted to feel satisfied with the state of their house, so they can move on with their day.
You can blitz your own place in your own way too.

I always take it to mean deep/thorough clean.. my house is so in need of renovating that even the deepest of cleans feels ineffectual (50 year old kitchen).. the smugness of people who have blitzed by that time in the morning is only surpassed by those who have taken the decs down and blitzed by 5pm on December 25th... good on 'em... it's never going to be my thing.

I should point out I do know these people in RL and they do have clean and tidy houses but they definitely are minimalistic! I have stuff. Lots of stuff and my dc have more stuff and dh has the most stuff. We're also chronically untidy. I'll never be that person!

It depends on your starting point.

I currently have a days worth of dishes in the kitchen and a days worth of toys and generic crap from 3 dc scattered around the living areas. I'm ignoring it all this evening. It will take me past 10am until that's done never mind doing anywhere else!

By contrast, if I go to my nans (3 bed) and help her clean then yes, I can pretty much blitz the whole house in 2- 3 hours. Including dusting, mopping, hoover, change her bed, bathroom scrubbed etc. But her house is spotlessly tidy and she's fairly minimalist. Cleaning her house is a dream!

Does your house feel untidy day to day, or is more just 'lived in' with lots of stuff?

Ours is fairly tidy most of the time, but with the odd clutter zone (one end of the dining room, the spare bedroom/my office) which is where all the stuff with no real home goes to die.

Not judgement, just curiosity. Our old place (a flat) was too small for us, and everything had to be completely tidy or it was a shit tip, there was no in-between - but here we spread out a bit more.

Yes it means different things to different people. I know people who hoover every bloody day but never seen to dust or clean their bathrooms!

If your house is already pretty clean then it's much quicker to blitz it.

Blitzing to me would be tidying, laundry, bathroom, hoovering, floors washed, dusting, change beds. It might take me 3hrs for small 3 bed.

Depends what time they start surely?

Who cares? I think there's more to life than living in a pristine home. I clean the kitchen and bathroom daily, change the bed once a week (sometimes twice), but everywhere else gets cleaned when I think it looks as though it needs it - sometimes weekly, sometimes more often, sometimes less.

I’ve got a two bed house with three toilets (two bathrooms upstairs, a toilet downstairs) and to do it completely top to bottom to a high standard would take me about 4 hours and that’s if I do nothing else at all for 4 hours so not doable most mornings!

My house is fairly tidy and clean as a baseline and we’re minimalistish, but it’s large. I can get the whole thing deep cleaned in about four hours but I’m not predisposed to beginning at 6am either. 😅

Depends how thorough you are

I cleaned the house in about 2 hrs tonight but was just dusting, hoovering, kitchen surfaces and oven top, cupboard doors snd bathroom plus a quick hoover of bedrooms.

Didn't do any pulling stuff out etc...

Depends on size of house and what you think of as cleaning.

I could clean my whole house top to bottom in 2 hours but it wouldnt include my windows, skirting boards, bathroom grouting, mirrors, inside kitchen cupboards or my blinds.

Hoovering, mopping and dusting in every room would be done tho and it would look clean, but it wouldn't be what I think of as a deeper clean, which would include everything in my 2nd paragraph.

That's actually a really good question. The truthful answer is that it is catastrophically untidy, but I have been untidy since I was a small child so don't really notice it. I don't think it's even the house size that's an issue - I had a 7 bed house when I was married, and that was a tip too.

the smugness of people who have blitzed by that time in the morning is only surpassed by those who have taken the decs down and blitzed by 5pm on December 25th...

If it's any consolation, it might seem as if I've taken the decs down and blitzed by 5PM on December 25th, but that's because I haven't managed to find them or put them up by that point.

This is very subjective, as is something like “clutter”. To me:

blitz = quick tidy up, putting stuff away and a quick hoover, dusting, wiping worktops etc. V superficial.

deep clean = inc skirting boards and scrubbing floor, cleaning windows, moving stuff from under bed and cleaning under it, sorting all drawers and chucking out/donating etc…

@meanypegs 😂I knew it! No one can be that organised!

It takes me a day to do a big room but when I clean, I really clean. So my bedroom I'll clean behind and under all the furniture, empty the cupboards and drawers, clean the window and the paintwork, use wooden floor cleaner on the floor, declutter as I go.

If someone says they've blitzed the whole house in a couple of hours, i assume they've cleaned the bathroom fittings and the kitchen sink and vacuume or mopped the floors. Maybe dusting as well.

@Trina90 your definition of deep clean takes me back to when I was growing up - my mum would deep clean every day would do under the carpets and behind the wallpaper if she could. If we having visitors (family members) she would go into extra clean mode.

This.

I am lucky enough to have been able to afford a cleaner for the last few years.
She is an absolute wizz and yes, I would say "blitzes the house" in under 2 hours each week.

Yes, when I am cleaning, I tend to get distracted, but some people are more focused.
Some people keep the house in tip top condition anyway.
Some people's level of "great, that's all done now" is going to be at a different point from other people.

I've never spent 5 hours cleaning the house, in one go, in my life. (I mean in all the decades I didn't have a cleaner). I've got better ways to spend my time.

A toothbrush and a cocktail stick? I’ve never ever used those for cleaning. Just confirming that I’m a slattern, I suppose.

They must have very small houses 😆

My house looks a bit like the blitz has happened in it and it is going to need a lot more than a superficial clean. I guess if people are cleaning every day it needs less doing because you are keeping on top of it all.

I have day dreams about doing this. DH and DD love stuff, stuff every bloody where. Cleaning anything means moving and cleaning the stuff to get to the surfaces the stuff covers. I so want to just put all of our belongings out on the street for people to help themselves to, and just start again from scratch.