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?

General clean - dusting, bathrooms, kitchen top, hoovering - every day. Good clean (cupboards, doors, bins, woodwork, cooker & fridge etc) once a week.

georgimama - I am feeling the same.

jux - is there any way you can persuade your husband of the really desperate need to have your home modified (i.e get rid of carpets) so you can live more comfortably?

Sanded/polished wood floors are quiet modern and to be honest carpets are an almost uniquely a British obsesison that foreigners cannot understand.

Surely floor tiles in bathrooms and kitchens and polished wood floors would be a real help for you to do the cleaning.

Oh dear.

Georgimama, you're right, I don't want to be on my behalf, and you really shouldn't be. And neither should you BetaDad, honestly. DH does do a lot of stuff - he completely cleans the kitchen inc cooker, surfaces etc every Monday. He cooks during the week if I'm too tired. We go shopping together every day, and if I'm not up to it he'll go alone. He will put dd to bed, help her wash her hair, and all that sort of stuff if I'm not up to it. He brings me cups of tea in bed. He drives my mum to all her appointments - many and varied! He just has a thing about carpets and his toes! And doesn't hoover often enough (but it takes him all day, when he does do it).

I shouldn't even be trying to hoover, and he does try to stop me when he catches me at it. It's just sometimes he's quite busy and we're both getting old, and really, I don't do that much and I still live under the delusion that I'm OK, and I want to be OK so badly that I will do things in spite of myself. This new hoovering idea I've had will probably go by the wayside because my back, arms, legs etc won't let me do it - probably. But just think how fantastic it would be if it worked.

at bleach down the loos every day. Do you KNOW what that does to the environment?!

I would love to have a house that's visitor-ready at all times, but I'm not prepared to be that committed to a hopeless and one the face of it unimportant cause.

Also at the woodwork and cupboard cleaning. Once a year in this house .

We're all happy, healthy and busy with other stuff.

my god am so slovenly. Actually I was worried I diodn;t do enough, now I know I don;t! Good to know its good for my lo's immune systems. Shit I'm so lazy (must admit I usd to be alot more fussy before dc's.) Bleach th loos every day? Once a month!

I seem to be cleaning all the time but my house is always very messy! Drives me up the wall!

soon2be, know how you feel and the only way I can keep on top of it all is to have NO clutter. It is my answer to everything. We have 4 girls and a relatively small house so the only way to cope is to keep only what we need. Everything else goes!

Well I am now sadly going to sound like an Anthea wannabeeee... so I apologise in advance.

Take one room at a time - one room a week if you can manage that. Get lots of black bags at the ready. Put aside anything that hasn't been used or looked at in 6 months. From that pile take out anything that doesn't have any sentimental value (i.e. photos/letters/jewellery etc). If you don't really love it put it aside. Bag it all up, and get rid of it that day or you will be tempted to bring half of it back in! Recycle as much as you possibly can.

This applies to clothes - any you havent worn in the last 6-12 months can be recycled.

It is honestly true that if you havent used it within 6 months or so it is unlikely you will use it again.

It can be so hard to do this initially - we become so attached to our possessions that we feel we are losing part of ourselves if we let it go. But once you start getting rid of the clutter it is such a great feeling, almost as if you can begin to breathe more freely. Very therapeutic.

I find it hard to de-clutter. I like to do it when I get the chance but I find we USE everything. No, we might not NEED it - as in, we can survive without it but if we use it then how can we throw it out? But, we have really too much stuff to keep the house tidy. We don't have anywhere near enough space, especially in the kitchen, which I find really hard.

If you use it then that's different. Maybe you need to look at storage options? What kind of things are you talking about - utensils or breadmakers etc? Those kind of things take up loads of room!

I try to just keep on top off it, the odd day doing barely anything. By bedtime the house is about as clean as it can be, bar jobs that are weekly/monthly like windows etc.

Cleaner comes and proper cleans for 2 hours a week. Rest of the time I do the dishes/surfaces in kitchen twice a day, and a general tidy twice a day. The rest if the time I spend staring at the intimidating mounds of laudry which my family seem to produce.

Everything Wheesht - Our kitchen has one top cupboard and 2 bottom (including one with sink in) and 3 draws. How the hell are you meant to fit all food, crockery, cooking equipment, utensils, cleaning stuff, medical stuff etc all in that? We are renting so can't do any drastic changes and don't have much money to spare.

I also know we are overflowing with toys, but I am a childminder and mum so it is hard not to be. We have sorted through them all and only kept what gets used but there are still loads. Takes over my house!

Jajas my horses are on diy livery but the owner will give them breakfast or tea for me if i am going to my course (tuesday mornings) or stay and play with dd (wednesday mornings) It helps a lot. I just make sure i give them an extra haynet the night before. But the rest of the week i'm up there twice a day. Usual routine is:

Get up, breakfast etc
Go to horses about 9/9.30
Feed and turnout if weather not too bad (dd stays in the car with a book)
Go home have a cup of tea and hang any washing out/put away
Lunch
Play with dd
Back to horses, muck out, hay, water, exercise (if possible) and put to bed with dinner. DD sleeps in the afternoon for about 2 hours in her carseat, so while not ideal, it works out fine. If she doesn't sleep then comes out in the buggy.
Get home and do hoovering if downstairs and can keep an eye on dd. When dh gets home i can do dinner, and any little jobs i need to do that day. Most housework will get done on a saturday.

Wheest I can understand the getting rid of clothes if you haben't worn them for 12 months - but SIX?! Surely the seasons haven't changed enough by then? You are very keen! But I agree with you in principle. I have a black bin bag of clothes ready to recycle later.

It has just occurred to me that I spend far too much time reading these 'how to clean your house threads' when I should actually just be cleaning the house

Me too fruitstick!

Provincial, yes you are right. Was really talking about the kids clothes when said 6 months as, unless you are keeping them for passing down to younger children, they will not be used again. I don't have enough clothes really to not be worn for 6 months .

I reckon, unless you feel unhappy or down because of the state of your house, do what you feel happy with.
I did the flylady thing which imposes a kind of time-management approach, so you only do a little bit of everything everyday. There are longer 'missions' which you can do, but I gave up before I got to them. I don't know if I would do it again because it did seem to focus on setting up routines for the morning, afternoon and evening, which didn't really fit in with the way my day works, but the time limit on cleaning is great.
As a result I do have a few bits I try to do everyday (note try), but it depends how much other stuff I have to do outside the home.
Sometimes I find housework depressing so I wouldn't do it those days.
But have some particularly messy areas I keep clean everyday: by the front door where the shoes/bags/coats end up, in the kitchen where the letters and junk mail seem to end up and under the table where the crumbs/playdoh etc... ends up.
I spend about five minutes a day cleaning the loo, sink mirror, floor etc in the bathroom (DS pees everywhere everyday). Bleach loo once a week, would feel guilty about the pollution if I did it more.
Hoover couple of times a week, damp dust a couple of times a week for about ten minutes at at time
Do endless laundry every day, hanging out folding blah blah
Shop practically every day for milk and 'bits'.
Recycle stuff two or three times a week, washing out stuff peeling of labels etc...
wipe kitchen surfaces (2) once or twice a day.
Give stuff to charity shop once a fortnight, part of effort to rid self of old baby toys.
clean kitchen floor weekly, but spot clean if I drop anything, sweep when required.
Washing up endless, but I wash up as I go apart from dinner, when whoever cooks doesn't wash up. No dishwasher
put washing up away once a day in the morning, the rest of the time it sit draining on the draining board. I stopped drying because I read it was unhygienic - yippee!
This is a pain because I tend to wash up as I cook, whereas my DP makes the biggest mess ever when he cooks.
I agree that if you are spending more than an hour or two a day on housework then you either work in a hotel or could do with a bit of a work-life rebalance.

And here was me imagining you as incredibly fashionable wheesht!

Oh but I am provincial

(And if you believe that you'll believe anything - sitting here in my pink, fluffy, fleecy dressing gown cos am absolutely freezing!)