How often do you clean your house?

[Wigglesworth]

Be honest, I clean every week, my DH thinks I clean too much and I am insane. I think once per week is normal, he was a student (dirty creatures LOL) and I think his standards are fairly low TBH. What do you do?

im a total slob.
i tidy most days but rarely clean.

All this constant cleaning is frankly unnecessary - remember that it isn't great for the environment (all the energy consumed in heating more water and running hoovers twice a day, not to mention all those toxic chemicals in household products) and it isn't great for immune systems either (lower immunity to germs if you never encounter any, plus the effect of too many household chemicals). ANd, most of all, it mostly wastes women's time because of this idea that cleaning is what women are for.

My god I could never do the amount of cleaning you all seem to do.
Washing floors every day?? You have to be kidding me. I deliberately got wooden floors in our kitchen/dining room because they are fabulous at hiding the dirt - as a result I wash the floor probably once a month. Of course I sweep up after each meal and sweep up in the kitchen 2 or 3 times a day, but that's because I can see the dirt. If I can't see the dirt, I can't see the point.
As for bathrooms, it just seems crazy to clean your baths and sinks that often. I rinse the bath out after we use it and that's it. It gets a proper "clean" about once a fortnight, if that. Why do I need to splash all those chemicals round all the time? Don't get me wrong - I like my house to be tidy and spend every evening tidying up toys, putting things away etc, but clean? I would just rather spend my time on other things than waving a duster around every day. Maybe watching MadMen at the same time as posting this is making me bolshy - all those 1950s women, yuk.

hear hear

I do the usual everyday, quick clean tidy of kitchen/bathroom, quick flick of duster in bedrroms and then hoover through. Don't seem to ever get it looking really tidy though. Another thing i never seem to get round to is a weekly 'good' clean. I tend to have to wait till i get a free weekend and then go cleaning mad, but this is just 'as' and 'when'. Wish i could do it once a week but work seems to get in the way!

Well, i have only got a small house, so to do i mentioned above is actually quite quick, i could probably do it in an hour/hour and half if i got myself going! So its not long really! Its the big clean i would like to do more often that i really do!
I used to have horses, quite a few years ago now and i was like you, in the fact that i spent far more time on them than bothering about cleaning. Doesn't really matter, i don't suppose, whatever makes you happy!! I certainly don't feel like a hamster due to the cleaning but i do due to the running around of the kids and the school runs etc.,!

Oh fecking hell - this aspect of home dries me mad i over clean or go studpidly slobbish. So here what I absolutley stick to now:

Clean throughout on Monday dust n hoover everywhere inc door frames and skirts that you can see. Clean bathrooms X2 good n proper. Mop kitchen floor

Daiy: tidy - put things aways its much easier to clean, hoover as and when downstairs only, bleach down loos, laundry every day. Cook meal + dishes. weekend DH helps.

Top up clean on Thursday light dust, use wipes around bathrooms

I Have a small house and it's very cluttered. My kitchen is about 4 metres by 3 so gets cluttered really quickly. I used to leave washing up the dishes until the next day when I needed the things to cook the next meal but I am really trying hard to get it all done before I go to bed on the night I have cooked it.

Dusting every day is not something I will ever do, and hoovering generally gets left for a couple of weeks.

What do you mean by clean?

I have a cleaning rota (I love it) and do different things each day. Clean bathroom 2x a week, hoover upstairs 2x, hoover downstairs daily, change beds weekly etc etc.

Impressed with those of you who do bathrooms daily! Mind you that's my least fave job so twice a week is a major ask for me

Most of these jobs don't take that long y'know. I timed myself once doing a quick daily hoover downstairs (in response to an MN-ers query ) and it took me 7 mins.

Quick and esy tips about cleaning.

We have an absolute rule in our house. No shoes or pets are allowed past the back door.

You wil be amazed how much cleaner your house is - if you do not bring muck in it wil not need cleanng up.

Another tip. Use kitchen roll and bathroom spray for a quick midweek bathroom clean. It does not take long and shines to a lovely sparkle.

Final tip - clean the shower while you are in it.

Thanks all, I have a 6 month old DS and I hoover twice a week downstairs, clean the kitchen and bathroom (including mopping) once a week, dust once a week, washing everyday, have a dishwasher (best thing I have ever bought), ironing when I can no more than once a week though. I clean the bedrooms once a fortnight . I just cannot find time to do it all as well as cook, shopping and spend time with DH and DS. F*ck knows how I will cope when I go back to work.

I would say, if you spend more than a couple of hours a day (absolute maximum) on housework, then you need a hobby or a job, because you are wasting your life. Housework is not important. Doing lots of housework means (unless you genuinely enjoy it and have a bit of a fetish for it, in which case fill your boots and best of luck) that your life is empty.

Aside from washing, dishwasher and generally keeping on top of the kitchen, I do no more than 3 hours a week cleaning. At the absolute max. We have quite a large victorian house too.

So far since Monday I have hoovered under the sofa cushions, hoovered the living room, downstairs hallway, stairs (2 flights) and upstairs landing. Thats it. The bathroom hasn't been touched since last Friday. Tomorrow I'll probably do a bit of dusting and mop the kitchen floor.

Sometimes I don't hoover upstairs for weeks at a time. We're all very healthy and happy .

If I was expected to clean more than that then I couldn't be a sahm any longer. I would feel too resentful.

I do one room a day, but do try to do kitchen and bathroom daily, doesn't always pan out but do those at least every other day. I don't/won't spend more than an hour a day

We have a big Georgian house which is wall to wall carpeted everywher inc. bathroom and kitchen [bleah]. I have great difficulty cleaning and hoovering because of ms and can't afford a cleaner. DH is supposed to do the hoovering and he does it about every 3m!

Yesterday, I hoovered one room which made me scream with pain, but I did it. This morning I have just hoovered another room.

I have decided that I am going to try to do one room a day (except bathroom because the bloody pile is so deep I can't get the hoover to move on it at all). I am regarding it as a form of exercise which I hope will strengthen my pathetic wasted muscles[pathetic attention-seeking emoticon]. But dh will have to carry the hoover upstairs for me as it's too heavy and I can't pick it up, huh.

Jux - that sounds bad.

Have you thought of getting the carpets taken out and just having the floor boards sanded and polished. Old Georgian houses often have elm floors that are beautiful when sanded and polished.

You can put a few rugs down for comfort but the wooden floors can then be easily cleaned by running a damp mop over them spraying them with a plant spray bottle full of dilute floor soap which is available for parque and polished wooden floors.

It will certainly be easier than lumping a cleaner about.

I'm with all the minimalist cleaners - do the rest of you have REALLY messy, dirty families?

If it ain't dirty, it don't need cleaning!

Or are you just OCD

thanks ABetaDad. That would be wonderful, but dh likes nice carpetty-cosy-softy-woolliness for his toes![aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah]

He has actually got sick of the horrible 'carpet' in hte kitchen and is talking about replacing it with lino - hurray! We'll see what the boards are like then.

In our last flat I asked dh if we could take up the utterly vile filthy disgusting extremely old kitchen carpet, because dd was crawling then and I couldn't watch her all the time. 4 years later, the carpet came up!

I know I should have recycled it but...

Was so fed up of cleaning plastic feeding tray and chair , day in day out,morning/lunch/dinner and the thing still looking tired and slightly tomato stained that after the two children thankfully grew out of it I put it on the bonfire.

It felt good

Wow - I am a slattern (and proud of it)

Tidy up as I go
Do a load of washing most days
Dishwasher on every day
Wipe kitchen surfaces every day
Ironing x 1 or 2 a week, depending on what has been washed.
Clean whole house once a week (dusting, clean sinks, basins, loos, shower etc, vacuum all floors, wash floors in kitchen/bathroom/loo/hall).

We don't have pets though, and never wear outdoor shoes in the house. If a lot of stuff gets spilled in the kitchen/dining room, then I will sweep/ mop it up as needed, before the general weekly clean.

Jux, I am appalled at your husband. Never mind his ickle tootsies, what about your MS?

Am on your behalf. You probably don't want me to be but I am. That is shocking.

I have 2 horses so i am not at home all day (horses are 10miles away) but i try to do a bit a day. My new years resolution was to make sure all the washing up is done before i go to bed, and i am now trying really hard to make sure i get one load of washing on and hung out everyday (we are getting a tumble dryer soon for use during the wet weather) Its amazing how much of a difference it has made actually. I find i am more enthusiastic about cleaning when there isn't loads of washing up by the sink or an overflowing laundry basket. My dd has just learnt to walk so impossible to do much when i am on my own with her.