Keeping on top of deep cleaning the house

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I'd say we're generally pretty clean & tidy

Our house is always (just about) visitor ready. We never let dirty dishes accumulate. We wipe the counters before & after every food prep.

We have a cat so we keep on top of hoovering due to her hairs.

It seems orderly. However i had yesterdsy off work & decided to deep clean our bedroom. Omg! Once i started looking at the skirting boards & the edges where the wall meets the ceiling, in the corners, behind stuff erc - seriously, the dust & cobweb levels were shocking

Today I'm tackled the bathroom. Again sink, toilet & bath cleaned v regularly but when I pulled out the storage unit for products! Again dusty, hairy, just generally filthy

I work full time, so does dh. We both do equal amounts of cleaning but somehow we're obviously not keeping on top of it all.

I don't want to spend all weekend every weekend deep cleaning! I need down time too

how do you all manage it?

Ultimately I want to enjoy my home tje way i love being in a hotel. I want to get it to that level & then keep it like that. I feel I'm missing some vital method or system..

We don't have a cleaner.

A home is not an operating theatre. I have cats so nothing is going to be immaculate. It's clean that's it. Id sooner have pets than an immaculate house. My childhood home was sterile and no animals were allowed. It was a hateful place.

I hire a cleaner weekly and once a year when I go on holiday I pay for a deep clean

Things like skirting boards, when I dust a room I start at the door and go around the room til I’m back at the door. First I use a long handled duster and go around where the wall meets the ceiling (do any high picture frames like this too). Then I use a damp cloth and wipe the door, the handle, the frame before moving round the room doing reachable skirting boards and all surfaces on my way around. Because it’s done regularly the skirting boards etc aren’t any dustier than anything else so it doesn’t take long, it’s literally just a quick wipe. I also use the long handled duster to go behind any heavy furniture although one unit downstairs and the kids’ kallax are now too covered in crap for this to be an easy job as it’s impossible to do without knocking stuff so it’s no longer a weekly job.

I do this because I grew up in a home where everything you took out was covered in dust and cobwebs and I just cannot stand the feeling of it on my hands! So I’d rather keep on top of it than have to tackle it later if that makes sense. It adds maybe 5 minutes a room on to my cleaning and I divide cleaning through the week so it doesn’t feel too bad.

Our house is far from immaculate though. Two long haired cats and 4 kids don’t help. We also have far too much stuff. There are definitely grimy areas (and despite the skirting boards being mostly dust free you still get stuff build up in the grooves that the quick wipe doesn’t tackle). My cupboards seem to need sorting weekly and some of the kitchen ones could definitely do with a good scrub out, vinegar bottle rings, spilled spices, crumbs etc

You don’t notice those things daily and it won’t be doing you any harm so I wouldn’t get worry - deep clean occasionally when you have the time

we do make sure we take turns cleaning differnt things because we do tend to see different things so that also helps - for example I always run the duster under the bed ( hard floors) and he does the shower screen more often

It really is! My neighbour started an argument over our boundary hedge last week, because apparently me having 'only' cut it twice this year isn't good enough for her and I'm not to let any leaves from my side go onto her's, like I apparently always do! Over the years, I've wasted my time off work cutting it more often than it needs to be done, to try to placate her. She had the cheek to tell me because I'm young I should be doing more, even though I'm quite a keen gardener and do a few hours most weeks when the weather is decent. I also run my own business and have worked 51 weeks a year for the past 14 years, but she told me I don't work fulltime! 10 years of living next to each other amicably and this is the hill she chose to die on.

She was out there at 8am this morning cutting the hedge again. I've been sat with a coffee, browsing Rightmove and shortlisted a couple of lovely houses with lots of land and no neighbours!

I was responding to what another poster said about her neighbour - maybe have a go at them. I wasn't the one who said she was "a miserable old coot".

And yes, I would judge someone who picked at the neighbours because they had weeds and didn't cut their grass.

Thanks. We've used Farrow & Ball eggshell on on the woodwork & emulsion on the walls. Both matte finish & it looks great. We have an old house & love this paint (despite the cost!)

This topic is very polarising. As I've said a few times now we're busy people with jobs & friends & university aged dc & elderly parents. We have a cat & busy social lives & we love to travel & see the world.

As we emerge from the fog of the child-rearing years when the house was constantly busy with all the comings & goings & full of dcs friends & toys etc, we're entering a new phase now where we have the opportunity to tackle things that have been on the long finger.

From September last dc will move out to university accommodation & it'll mainly be just me & dh here.

We'd like out house to be a place of calm & relaxation when we get back. Over the past year or so we've been slowly de'cluttering a lot of the detritus of dc younger years - hobby stuff languishing in the utility room, art work still on a cupboard door etc. It was hard to start (cue Mamma Mia slipping through my fingers scene 😪) but getting easier as we see our beautiful grown up house emerging again.

I had a notion that if we deep cleaned/ spring cleaned as we tackle each space then it might be easier to get into a quick routine with it to keep on top of it.

I honestly don't care if my neighbour wants to spend every working moment doing house work and gardening. She just has to keep her nose to herself and not try to dictate what other neighbours do with their homes and gardens. I've never tried to tell her what she should do in her own home or been rude about how she chooses to spend her time. I judge her for the way she speaks to others as though she's superior because she doesn't have any weeds in her garden and for assuming that's something other people naturally aspire to! It would be equally rude and out of order for me to tell her to leave her house once in a while and get a social life. She literally can't comprehend that people have different preferences on how they spend their time and different standards of housekeeping.

haven't found one yet!

Probably the old style tracing paper stuff, but I think I'd rather put up with the dust!

yup me too. I do think that modern loo rolls are dustier than the old soft ones, of say 20 years ago, used to be in order to be sure that they are flushable

We have a cleaner op that’s the only way. She Deep cleans one room every week. Yesterday she moved the beds, did the skirting all around and did under the beds. She does a bedroom per week among the other stuff. I like my home to be this level of clean. However I cannot do it myself.

I’ve found Andrex is the worst for dust

I have a large house and large family so this is important to me too. I don’t think I do deep cleaning very often but I try to focus on certain rooms to get them into decent shape before starting another room. They key is not having clutter and good storage solutions

I have a daily/weekly system where I do the same things on a loop throughout the week to keep on top of it, this avoids massive weekend cleans. Deep clean wise, every few months.

So do I but its also the softest I think

I see, my bad.

Totally, no need to expect others to live up to her expectations.

Sorry, I got the wrong end of the stick.

We all have a different tolerance for dirt, sadly I am someone with an intolerance for any dirt combined with a hatred of cleaning. In my experience trying to lower your own standards is more stressful so I have a cleaner who comes once a fortnight and her role is mainly to do a good bottom out of any rooms that I think need it and to clean the inside of windows. (I find smeared windows actually painful to look at)

The light housework I can do easily ,myself with a feather duster, cordless Dyson and a quick flick around the bathroom. The cleaner costs me £80 every time and it's well worth it. I would if necessary forgo other things to be able to afford it.

Of course it also helps if you have a husband that is house trained.

Has anyone tried the who gives a crap loo roll. I’m tempted. I might email and see if it’s dust free.

Has anyone tried the who gives a crap loo roll. I’m tempted. I might email and see if it’s dust free.

Both you and dh do a deep clean once a month - improve your weekly clean. We do a spring clean every season.

I'd never heard of deep cleaning before Mumsnet and am convinced that it's bonkers.

@Ethylred Really!? I grew up knowing about this concept of doing a deep clean of your home periodically throughout the year. And that was not only before Mumsnet, it was before the internet too.

It’s not a new concept or phenomenon
I mean, it’s what happens at the end of a rental tenancy if that helps? Deep cleaning is cleaning the places you do not usually clean daily, and so it more in depth.

if you live in the same house for years people usually occasionally pull out furniture or appliances to clean behind them now and again. or get their carpets or sofas cleaned

In the olden days, they'd beat the rugs and hang clothes in the sunshine for a refresh.