What does a deep clean mean to you?

[Rainsdropskeepfalling]

I read so many threads where posters discuss their weekly 'deep clean'. This puzzles me but maybe I have the wrong idea.

For me a deep clean is take the curtains/blinds down and wash them, dry, iron, dust and then wipe down the walls with a damp cloth, skirting boards, coving etc, clean lampshades, lightbulbs, dust everything, vacuum everything including the crack between the walls and the carpet, move all furniture, wash cushion covers etc, clean windows inside and out. Kitchen would include cleaning the oven, caustic soda down the drains, washing machine and tumble drier and the equivalent in the bathroom.

This isn't something I'd do every week. So I've got the wrong idea.

Can someone educate me?

@mathanxiety I think I need a jet washer, though it's possible a flame thrower would solve my problems.

😂😂

It is a recent invention. It seems to me it is a hobby for people with too much time on their hands. No one died if every floor is not super clean and there is a bit of pet hair in the corners.

Also it usually involves filling your house with some nasty chemicals

😂

Well, my sitting room has yogurt up it and most of the hall has mud scrapes. I should probably think about it. Maybe next year.

But I may just paint over it

@pelargoniums

please continue to post - I'm having a right good laugh!!

I’m with you OP - what you’ve described is a deep clean to me too! Although I only vacuum the curtains, because it costs too much money to send them to the dry cleaners and ours can’t be machine washed. I do spot clean the walls, and touch up with paint where the walls are too mucky (ie stairways where hands are put on the walls). I only do a deep clean once or twice a year though - usually spring and just before Christmas.

Things like cleaning the skirtings, vaccuuming the edges, cleanjng out cupboads, cleaning the sink holes and drains are done more frequently though.

@LoveBluey my mother literally was on her deathbed demanding her DH to squeegee the shower, get the dustbuster on the skirting boards and vacuum the bedroom. Cleaning was her obsession. Very sad as he just wanted to sit with her. Insanity

Agree 🤣. I find 🏌takes a full day one day a week with coffee and cake afterwards.

Wow I have never cleaned the curtains. Maybe done the skirting boards two or three times in my life. For me a superficial clean is when you hoover, mop floors, wipe surfaces etc so everything looks clean on the surface. A deep clean is when I empty cupboards and clean them out, pull out the sofas etc and clean underneath.

Deep cleaning is skirtings, lampshades, move stuff to hoover sofas etc. inside windows, cobweb removal ideally done monthly.

Yep, I consider what you've listed a deep clean.

I tend to do these sorts of things maybe 4 times a year. They definitely don't need doing every week.

I think the people who you see posting about weekly deep cleans are probably exaggerating normal weekly cleaning like hoovering, cleaning the bathroom etc.

I do a lot of what’s been mentioned and I also vacuum our mattress when I strip the bed . I have a small dedicated vacuum for it.
(I have a dust mite allergy.)
Shoot me now!

NB: To avoid confusion dust mites are not bed bugs. The latter are completely different species.

Hoovering the ceiling! I KNEW there was something I wasn't doing! 😅

I don't think I've ever deep cleaned. Obviously by MN standards I live in total squalor and I'm probably surrounded by clutter as well.

To my mind there’s three levels

1. keeping things ticking over
2. cleaning that removes dust, finger marks, cuts down on dust mites and chases away spiders
3. end of tenancy type cleaning.

when I hear “deep clean” I’m thinking level 3, but I think anyone who deep cleans every week is probably talking about level 2.

I don’t do enough level 2 cleaning, and I have slob vision so I don’t actually notice the finger marks until I do and then I hyperfocus and end up scrubbing with a metre square area with a toothbrush instead of just doing a general level 2 regularly.

I have to wonder how much time men spend/waste talking about this stuff, never mind doing it!

I'm going through this deep cleaning now on the final clean of my late DM's house before it was sold. She never bothered with any of that stuff, she thought it was beneath her and sneered at those who did bother.
The house is disgustingly dirty. No wonder there are moths.

Half the carpets have been eaten, so I'll be fumigating as well. So yes my version of a deep clean is wash walls, woodwork, tiles, tops of cupboards, wood floors washed (but I'm not polishing them), inside and out of cupboards, inside windows, lampshades
What spurs me on to do this is having moved into a house where they had left it absolutely spotless for us. It made such a difference - both to how the house looked and how we felt not having to clean up years of someone else's filth.

I think the sneering in this thread is is really unpleasant actually. Live how you want, but don't sneer at others who choose to be different to you.

I love this thread. My favourite bit so far is the poster who has an actual tomato on her ceiling 😄

DP and I work full time, 1 DC, 2 furry pets. We have a fairly rubbish cleaner who just about keeps it acceptable with a fortnightly surface clean but I have to attack stubborn things like soap scum rings on the bath and build up of pet hair in corners that she never gets rid of properly. Don't have time to try to find a better cleaner and she's nice and better than no cleaner at all.

We have "touch up day" (which provides lots of opportunities for rude innuendo) when DP goes round the house with leftover paint from when we last decorated 5 years ago and paints over grubby kids' handprints on walls, splatters from tea and wine etc. That's about once a year.

I have aspirations of having a spotlessly clean house and I even own a vax power max carpet shampoo machine but i rarely get chance to use it so it's gathering dust too.

I know I would be more relaxed and happy in a super clean tidy house. It's just not achievable. Don't get me started on washing and drying of bedding and clothing.

Years ago I used to take 2 big laundry bags of bedding and towels to the launderette for wash, dry and fold. It was about £12 and well worth it. Tried that again last week, 3 bags full this time and it was £27.50!! Won't be doing that again.

Deep cleaning my kitchen would involve taking everything off shelves and cleaning, extractor, tiles etc.

Lounge would be under sofa cushion hoovering, cleaning skirtings, cobwebs on ceiling etc.

so not weekly by any stretch but more often than once a year.

Deep clean =

a) something commercial kitchens do
b) something councils or other landlords have to do between some tenants
b) something done by some householders who are not me

I do do most of the things on your list but I wouldn’t tackle them all at once. I’d notice x is looking a bit grim and really blitz it.

Sounds like my late parents house too. My mum used to sneer at people who kept their houses tidy and clean but at least their kids could bring friends home.

I'd like to say that motivated me to be house proud but we still live in a fair old tip, it's no badge if honour as far I'm concerned and I would love to live in a tidy pristine house. It's ok enough for the kids to have their friends over though, especially if I have an hour or two notice before.
Generally though it builds up for a while until I notice one particular area is pretty grim and then 'deep clean' that bit to the nth degree. I suppose I project clean/sort rather than consistently surface clean everywhere..

i have many thoughts on how I might spend retirement.

Deep cleaning is not on the list. I would need to be scraping the bottom of a bottomless barrel before extra cleaning made it onto my ToDo list in retirement.

Deep clean / spring clean is room by room moving all the furniture so you can clean all the skirting boards, damp dust everything, lift everything off surfaces so you can clean properly, wash all ornaments, wash the curtains, clean the doors, door frames, coving, good hoover, beat any rugs, the list is so long - basically clean everything in the house and the house itself.

Oh and you start from the top of the house and work down.

I’m 66 and I’ve never washed a wall.
Like a previous poster said, deep clean to me is cleaning soft stuff nor skirting boards etc
”Spring cleaning” as it used to be called goes back to when “ housewives” had to clean soot and coal dust off everything.
You have my permission to skip most of it in this day and age.