Cleaning house efficiently

[Theothername]

If you’re good at housekeeping, or a professional cleaner, would you share some tips.

How do you size up a room? Decide what to prioritise and what to leave? Is there a logical order? Are there things you won’t house because they make cleaning harder?

I’m such a faffer, and I have a feeling I’m making difficulties for myself. I was never taught housekeeping skills. I have two teens and I’d like to impart some skills before releasing them into the wild!

If it feels too obvious to type, that’s probably exactly the advice I need!

Dust first, vacuum after. Start at top of house and with your way down. Sweep kitchen floor before mopping. Do you mean this kind of thing?

Also, the more stuff you’ve got out on display, the harder it is to dust and clean generally.

I'm a cleaner. After a general clean,the things that stand out and what my clients will notice are shiny mirrors and gleaming taps,cleaning pictures on the wall,a sparkling sink and work tops and cleaning the windows. Hoovering and dusting aren't always that obvious.
Sometimes I clean their front door if I have time.
A clean kitchen floor finishes off my job.

Make sure rooms are tidy first. Try and get the habit of putting things away and keeping rooms tidy. Then it's easy to dust and hoover the rooms and clean the kitchen. Be methodical and complete one task before moving on to the next. I don't do everything in one day. I spread the tasks out over the week as that works for me. If there are three of you divide up the tasks. Ones dusts, one hoovers and the other does kitchen and bathroom. Mopping the kitchen is last always.

The ordinary mum method has these guided cleans on Patreon that are very helpful for people whose mind wanders! She gives you prompts on what to clean when and a soundtrack the rest of the time.

Clean skirtings are what make me think a house is clean (mine is not)

It's easier to clean a tidy and clutter- free home.
Then have a weekly plan.
Do a bit each day.
Have regular de- clutters.
Employ a monthly window cleaner.

I wonder this myself OP.

I have done a good bit in the last week like dusting skirting and pictures and I have cleaned the windows.

What's the easiest way to maintain though? I mean it's not possible to do every room every day so a different room each day? How often do people actually deep clean the bathroom or mop the floors? I generally clean the toilet every day but deep clean the whole bathroom once or twice a week. Same with kitchen floor, it is swept every day but mopped once or twice a week. I feel like this is not enough even though its all I have time for.

I wou make sure the vacuum cleaner is picking up efficiently. Change the filters, clean it out, and teach your children how to do this.

I'd also recommend looking up The Organised Mum Method

I’ve always wondered why people spend hours a week cleaning. We have a four bed detached house and spend 2 hours on a weekend cleaning. One week we do upstairs (including changing the beds) and the next week we do downstairs. A deep full clean.

We then do 15 mins each a day also. I tidy (everything gets put away apart from a few nice decorative items around the house and kettle/toaster on worktops) and bleach the sinks and toilets (3 bathrooms). DH wipes down the kitchen worktops and sink, empties the kitchen bin, empties the dishwasher (we stack it throughout the day) and hoovers downstairs.

No shoes in the house and the floors rarely get dirty, if anything gets dropped it gets brushed and wiped (wooden/tiles floors) or hoovered and shampooed (carpet) straight away.

Everyone always comments on how tidy and clean our house is, but as I said we don’t spend a lot of time on it. I believe it’s a case of keeping on top of it daily and a bigger clean weekly.

The other thing is, skirting boards get hoovered with the little brush attachment whenever the floor is hoovered, I’ve never considered skirting boards as a separate job from hoovering the floors!

I've always wondered what the little hoover brush is for, seriously !😶

Great advice here! Thank you

to be really systematic you could go round cleaning each room in clockwise direction.

That’s interesting because some of those are the things I don’t always get round to. Can’t remember when I last cleaned the front door.

I’ve lived in a house that was very easy to clean - lots of unfussy flat surfaces, and nothing textured to grip the dirt. I could clean it top to bottom in an hour.

Mine has too many unnecessary grooves, far too many glass surfaces, floors that broadcast every speck of dirt. I stupidly thought an anti slip coating was a good idea on the kitchen floor not realising that it would trap dirt in teeny micro divots. We have tables with awkward legs, too many corners, and awkward end spaces where the hoover doesn’t fit. The sofa (pale fabric of course) sits high enough off the floor to lose stuff underneath, but not high enough for a robot hoover.

The square footage of the two houses isn’t massively different but the time this one sucks out of me is ridiculous.

Three waves of cleaning:
First wave: tidy
second wave: clean (get rid of debris and physical dirt by wiping surfaces, sweeping, hoovering etc…)
Third wave: disinfect (not generally needed in most situations in households but I might disinfect light switches/ door knobs etc… if we have had a sickness bug in the house)

Give products dwell time if they need it. For example, my all purpose cleaner’s instructions say to let it sit for up to five minutes, I do this and it breaks down a lot of the dirt for you making it an easier job.

If not sure where to start, start on one side and work round methodically (clockwise/anti-clockwise whatever you want).

A few minutes is better than nothing. I use ‘dead time’ as well eg waiting for microwave/ kettle to boil, put something else away or clean a surface if it is needed etc… it makes a difference as over a day/ week, those minutes add up.

Sorry, posted too soon.

in terms of working out what to prioritise - the eye likes clean lines so for example living room, get rid of anything that doesn’t belong, clear off a big surface eg coffee table and wipe it, plump a few cushions, hoover floor. Looks a million times better!! Open windows to let fresh air flood in for a few mins makes a huge difference too.

I use the Tody app to keep track of what needs doing when. I hate the idea of doing a 'big clean' every week it whatever and prefer to do a mix of different, smaller tasks each day.

I also think having some basic cleaning supplies to hand in multiple different places around the house makes things easier.

How dirty a house gets depends on how it’s used. Two small children at home, especially if not in nursery, adults WFH and pets will Be dirtier than a house with 2 adults who are office based.

We don’t allow dirt to build up to level that requires hours of cleaning, we clean the most used areas as we go along and this is how we do it, as the op asked.

DH wipes down the kitchen worktops and sink, empties the kitchen bin, empties the dishwasher (we stack it throughout the day) and hoovers downstairs.

He does all that on 15 mins?

And why are you bleaching sinks and toilets every day?

Yes sometimes less than 15 mins. If you do it every day, tidy up as you go along these jobs take a few minutes each. We also don’t keep stuff on the worktops except a few decorative items and kettle toaster, less stuff = less stuff to clean and move around to clean.

Well I pour some toilet cleaner down the toilets and wipe the three sinks with some antibac spray and a cloth! I do it because it stops dirt building up and takes me less than 2 mins to do 3 sinks and toilets. We regularly have guests staying and I like them to be kept clean!

I am another who doesn’t understand bleaching the toilets and sinks everyday.
It’s terrible for the environment/ water life and why does the toilet pan need to be disinfected?

Don't have clutter anywhere and always put things away when finished with them.

I open my bedroom window as soon as I get up and air the bed, before I leave for work I make the bed and close the window.

I clean the kitchen countertops and sweep the floor after dinner and straighten cushions etc before going to bed, I clean the ensuite sink after removing makeup (a quick wipe).

A full clean once a week - bathrooms, change bed, dust, vacuum, kitchen and mop. This takes about 1.5 - 2 hours but I never leave a room untidy. Little and often covers the garden.

My biggest tip is to live alone, clean up after yourself and you'll never come home to a mess. I actually don't know how anyone who works and has children manages, laundry and cooking alone would be like a second job, nevermind cleaning.

Declutter, declutter and then declutter some more. The fewer things you have in a room, the easier it is to actually clean (vacuum, mop, dust and wipe down surfaces). Otherwise you just waste time moving piles of clutter around, rather than actually cleaning.

I’d clean the toilet everyday in an ideal world. Bacteria grows and causes illness and stench, so I would love my basins and showers cleaned too. I don’t have time so it tends to be every few days here. Hoovering is the same. Several times a week makes a noticeable difference.