Ashamed but asking for help!

[VintageGardenia]

This is very embarrassing but I have decided to ask if anyone can advise me on how to "keep house". I have only one child, and a small dog who's quite clean, and our house is always a complete mess. I don't really like housework - vacuuming, dusting etc - and it hardly ever occurs to me to do it. Then someone comes round (or I see a photo taken in the house) and I realise the stairs are dusty, there are piles of papers all over the dining table, my desk is a spaghettibowl of cables, biros, DS drawings, books I'm reading & Beano free gifts.

I would love to live in a clutter-free, clean, bright, clear atmosphere but I don't know how to start achieving it. (OK obviously I could get off my fat a* and get the hoover out) I'm looking for VERY BASIC advice e.g. you need to hoover once a week and defrost a fridge every fortnight, bleach the loo once a day or whatever.

Ermmm ... any ideas? Thank you. Or perhaps there is a handbook about? I don't mean how clean is your house with recipes for counter cleaner made out of a spoonful of yoghurt and some cornflour or whatever - more a sort of minimum routine.

Eeek. Perhaps I should have changed my name...

I'm really really bad and usually have a cleaner to muck us out once or twice a week, we still live in squalor but it's slightly less environmentally hazardous squalor. Unfortunately nobody wants the job for long, it must be utterly soul destroying for them .

Is it an option, get someone in for an hour or two?

i think VG sould be banished from her own thread because she owns and uses an ironing board.

FlyLady gets on my nerves (not least because 'FLY' is apparently an acronym for Finally Loving Yourself....barf).

My routine is minimal, but it keeps the house looking very acceptably clean.

On a daily basis:

Open curtains and windows for a good blast of fresh air.

Unstack dishwasher first thing in the morning.

Tidy away breakfast stuff as soon as poss.

Ditto lunch and dinner stuff.

Keep an eye on 'debris' which forms - bits of clothing etc. Pile them at e.g. bottom of stairs and tidy them away when yu go upstairs.

Roughly tidy toys when kids are in bed.

Wipe down kitchen surface, cooker etc and sweep kitchen floor at end of day.

Other stuff:

Monday - hoover upstairs including skirting boards and stairs

Tuesday - hoover downstairs including behind/under sofas etc

Wednesday - clean bathroom and downstairs loo.

Thursday - Dust upstairs and dining room

Friday - thoroughly clean kitchen (wipe the walls/cupboard doors/fridge, scrub the bin, polish the sink...basically do all the bits that might get overlooked on a nightly basis). Dust sitting room.

I spend no more then half an hour a day on these bits.

Hope that helps.

PS - I do however have an unsightly pile of paperwork, despite my best intentions of keeping of top of it.

My plan for avoiding housework backfired on me this morning. Decided to leave the mess and take 2 DDs swimming. Five mins into swim someone in the pool (not my kids) decided to do a poo (yuck) so had to bail out and come home. Goin to get stuck into cleaning now.

Hi SC, why does the acronym ?Finally Loving Yourself? make you barf? Although I must agree in that I think FLYLady is rather ?apple pie? America, but if it helps it has to be a good thing for the disorganised surely. I am starting with it to see if it helps me.

From what I can tell, you seem to have a similar approach to her though in terms of routine.

Can't believe that people really hoover more than once a week and clean the loo every day.

Also, ladies, ditch the bleach please!! It's awful for the environment and stinks! Try a nice bleach free loo cleaner and smell the difference.

Good tips about decluttering though....DP is buying me a filing cabinet to sort my desk into to - may need more than one actually.

im guessing laundrylover doesnt have 4 males using her loo, leaving it for more than a day or two isnt pretty!

VG, I could have sritten your post, (but my excuse is I have 2 boys...)

Flylady really doesn't work if you have to go out to work. Not unless one is prepared to go to bed at midnight

SAHMof1 - if I have to explain then there's no point in telling you

FMV, I can see how FLYLady would be nigh on impossible if you work, because it?s about morning, afternoon and evening routines. Just when would you do the afternoon routines?

SC, I really am beyond help

are we supposed to be saving the planet and not using really aggressive cleaners all the time?
A slattern writes....