Please be gentle with me...I feel like a slob

[MyGhastIsFlabbered]

I've never been any good at housekeeping. When I was young my parents never really did above the bare minimum so I was never really shown how to do it.

As a result my house is generally in a state of complete carnage. I don't tend to notice until it's really bad, then I panic and don't know where to start.

I'd love to be better at it but I don't really know how to start. Do people have a weekly schedule that I could take tips from? At the moment I'm out at work 3 days a week and live at home with my fiancé and 3 kids (10,10 & 7)

A lot of people on here use the method of focusing on one room a day and it works well for them. But if there's a huge amount to do you may want to approach it differently. When my home starts getting messy I try to use a day to blitz like crazy and organise everything (as a single parent to a one year old who's very clingy so it's a challenge) and then keep on top of it by doing a bit every day. It's hard work and I'm normally cleaning and organising for at least 3 hours a day! But that's everything like washing up, sorting laundry, cleaning out pets, etc. No idea if any of that may help you but I hope it may!

Also get your kids cleaning too! They can help loads!

I like the other MN idea, which is to set a timer for 10 minutes and just for that 10 minutes, do as much tidying/cleaning as you can. Then stop (and sit down with a coffee!).

I do the always pick something up when you're going around the house and put it in the right place. I tend to pick up 2 or 3 things when I'm going upstairs/in another room and put them away on the way. Works for me because it's just become a habit now and isn't too much of a pain to do.

I loosely stick to the organised mum method. There's a "messy house bootcamp" that lasts a week, to whip your house into order, then a standard plan to keep on top of things.

Have a massive declutter and then invest in storage solutions. Place for everything and your house won’t be messy.

Decent storage that you can put things in. One room a day. So kitchen one day, bathrooms & downstairs loo another etc. My dcs are older now but they still helped when younger. They’d help tidy their rooms, strip & make beds. I got into the habit of tidying up at the end of every day before dinner & it really helped. Not too many things out at the same time. I’m naturally a slob but I’ve got better over the years. We got burgled years ago. When the police came over they were horrified about the state of my room. Who did I know that hated me etc. They hadn’t even been in it as it was locked

Does your fiancé expect you to do it all? Does he not notice the mess?

I’m on a fb group called Team Tomm- have a look at that- it’s 30 minutes a day, with a different room each day, so cleaning doesn’t monopolise your life. It doesn’t have to be you who does the 30 minutes either .

How bad are we talking OP? People have very different ideas of mess.
We love the timer trick and do as much as you can in 10 mins, working clockwise round the room back to the same point. But if your house is filthy, I would do a room a week, 10 mins a day on that room at first.
Have non negotiables, such as never go to bed with washing up not done and surfaces wiped. Never get out of bed without making it and putting dirty laundry in basket. I found TOMM on you tube quite inspiring, I like watching vids while I clean!!

Agree with the poster who suggested the organised mum method. Start with the boot camp. Despite its name it’s something that the whole family can join in with.
I find lists help me. I like crossing off completed tasks.

Get a robohoover. We previously had en eufy and it was great, we've got a more expensive one now and not sure it's much better. Not having to vacuum will cut out a lot of time.
Oh and I know they are frowned upon here, but I use antibac wipes for daily wipe downs.Not great for the environment but means you can get things clean quickly without any faff.

The organised mum method also has an app Team Tomm where you get to tick off all the stuff you do each day.

When cleaning bathrooms I run showers till it’s really steamy & squirt whatever cleaning products I have as much as possible. Leave for a few minutes & then rinse & wipe down.

I sympathise, I used to be crap at cleaning, partly because I didn't know how, partly because I lived in a place that wasn't suitable for my family.

What helped me was to Listen to the 'A slob comes clean' podcast.

Also I try to make sure I do certain things every day E.g. clean all toilets, sinks and bathroom mirrors, clean kitchen, hoover or run the robot hoover, run the dishwasher (a couple of times if necessary) and make my bed. The kids also make their beds.

I also use an app called Spotless that helps me remember when I have to do things.

@Franticbutterfly just out of interest, what do you mean by lived in a place not suitable for your family? I sometimes wonder if a different type of house (excluding a mansion!!) would be more suited to family life and therefore easier to clean! How did you make it more suitable if you don’t mind me asking!

You’d be very welcome to join us on the flylady thread gast - that’s another system, lots of people use elements of various systems like TOMM combined with it.

Whatever you do though it’s ok that it won’t get magically better overnight. Every positive step is a good one.

The kids are old enough to help too. We’ve instigated a chore chart in lockdown and although we now have to change it again as eldest is back at school, gradually building up (started with one task a day, now have three) has worked well and they generally don’t complain at all because they know what’s expected of them, rather than us springing tasks on them IYSWIM.

I totally sympathise with not learning stuff as a child, I am learning as an adult after growing up with hoarders who would, confusingly, yell at me sometimes for my messy bedroom :o. So it’s important for me to teach them what I didn’t know at their age and we are sort of learning together. The chart is helping all of us as it’s writing down tasks that I may otherwise forget about for weeks 😳 - this reminds me to do those things too. Also, although they don’t do an amazing job when they have their turn, I remind myself it’s 1. teaching them adulting skills and 2. far better than it not getting done at all!

The very first thing you have to do is a massive declutter. You'll never get a handle on keeping tidy if your house is filled with useless crap. Get some bin bags and boxes and be brutal.

I'm another Team Tomm - Organised mum person. It'll talk you through boot camp (big initial declutter) then a cleaning schedule. I followed it roughly for ages but recently caved and bought the app to follow it more exactly.

Have a read of the original post on the flylady thread mentioned above - I tried her method years ago and found it good. Also scroll down to where the poster mentions starting with 'babysteps'.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3925556-Fledglings-in-Flaming-June-The-June-2020-Flylady-thread?pg=1

I think I might need to revisit this myself

Can't your fiancee show you what to do if you weren't shown by your parents? Hopefully your fiancee isn't as equally hopeless.

Or could you google?

The more the merrier grenzen :o

@MyGhastIsFlabbered We used to rent a house that wasn't very user friendly, in that it had no entrance way you walked in and the stairs were right in front of you and the front door almost hit the stairs it was such a small area, the living room to the right, the kitchen to the left. The bathroom was downstairs at the back of the kitchen, there was no storage, and there was damp everywhere which meant that the furniture couldn't be pushed to the walls. The house just didn't feel homely. It felt stop heavy (small rooms, small
Windows, high ceilings) and claustrophobic.

When we moved to another house I started to find things so much easier, despite the fact it was smaller (we had obviously decluttered, although I've never been one for having loads of stuff) it felt easier to manage and I think it's because the house was brighter, more airy, no mould and mank to contend with. I think I just struggled to polish a turd, the house seemed to present so many problems all of the time. I know this even more as we now own a more spacious home and have renovated most of it and the rooms I have gutted and then designed myself are a million times easier to keep clean.

Same here.
Here's my action plan for getting under control-

Start with the kitchen. Do the washing up and drying until there's nothing left to do.
Have a sit down and congratulate yourself.

Same day/ next day - put 'stuff' away.
Then hoover.

Then look up TOMM on Instagram etc. She has daily lists of what to do. Doesn't take long and gets on top of things.

If you can afford it employ a cleaner for a once off then do that, and then start with TOMM.

@Franticbutterfly funny enough that's how I felt in my old house. It was an old terrace and I felt like no matter how much I cleaned, it never really felt 'clean'. In reality, the whole bloody thing needed gutted out and redecorating. It was a 100 year old house and the kitchen and wall paper looked that old. But it was a rented house.

Now we're in a new build and I don't feel like I have to clean half as much as I used to in the old house. It feels fresher and cleaner. We also had a ruthless declutter when we moved, which also helped.

I was also a child of hoarders and my parents did the bare minimum. I've gone to the other extreme and it's only recently I've been able to chill out about it all. I don't like the organised mum method, it's too much 30 minutes every day AND then all the little daily jobs like dishes, washing, hoovering etc. I much prefer a blitz once a week which hubby does on his day off while I'm in work. Then the daily kitchen wipe down, load of washing, dishes, toilet wipe down etc.

I use a mix of Flylady (bedtime and morning routine, laundry done daily) and A Slob Comes Clean- there is a book and a blog, and her method and mindset change really helped as I don't 'see' the mess till its too late. But I didnt get on with her laundry day plan, as I need the routine of every day for that. She also has a decluttering book which again is so helpful. DH and I split chores so his responsibility is dishes, bins, recycling and clearing up after meals, he works full time and I am a sahm so we have balanced things around that, with a view that I am a sahm to look after the kids more than to do the housework. We do the bare minimum a lot of the time but gradually are getting better!