What housekeeping did your Mum do that you never would?

[mrsmaidamess]

My Mum would boil her dishcloths in washing powder, stirring them with wooden tongs, for what seemed to be most of the day.

She would dry the washing on the airer, make it sopping wet with the water spray, iron it to dry it then air it again.

Ironing. I never iron.

My mum rinses everything before she puts it in the dishwasher too. She tries to do it at our house despite us telling her we are on a water meter...

My mum used to love her nets and loved soaking them in some sort of powder to make them whiter - hate nets myself so would never have any.

my grandmother
washes her kitchen floor (hands and knees) daily. (sweeps at least 4 times a day)

and twice a year lifts the lino and washes the bare concrete floor

My mad mother has taken to putting her dishcloths in the oven to "sterilise" them!?

I will never give up hoovering my garden I want my moneys worth out of my 2 expensive hoovers!Hate shoddy deck In spite of this my house is not ultra clean but I am so used to keeping things perfect for estate agents I do it automatic

Wouldn't dare hoover my garden - chicken poo would make the hoover stink!

Dusting.

Spring cleaning twice a year

She always seemed to be washing down walls... I never do that!!

Polishing silver cutlery

silver polishing sports trophys...

preparing fresh fruit and vegetables for the freezer

making wine....

making pickled onions...

Rinsing poo off nappies in the loo

Starching shirts before ironing, well ironing full stop really - I don't think I actually own an ironing board

ironing mainly, my mum used to iron bed sheets, towels, all kinds of things that don't really need ironing.

Brushing the cobwebs of the front gates.

Ironing everything including the individual doillies for each ornament.

Washing the lampshades.

Putting all the hob rings and things in the dishwasher at least 3 times a week (they're f**cked now)

Locking me and my bro in the garden in Winter so she could do all this

I used to be a bit anal like her, but to her disgust I'm now over it and am becoming a total slattern Yippee!

My nana used to sweep the pavements in front of her house, all the way down to the town square!

So glad to see so many fellow ironing refuseniks on this thread - I despise ironing, and despite being manually adept at many other things, my hand-eye co-ordination goes to pot the minute I attempt to wield an iron (thank you, feminist brain ). Cue burns and creases everywhere. DH does it (it's mostly his wretched stuff anyway).

My mum sweeps the pavements outside and moans at the neighbours to do it too, then ends up doing it for them and then putting everyones wheelie bins away too. Loon.

Lol@ all the way down to the town square. I have visions of that!

Gloss painting annually.

Why?

The skirting boards must be six inches thick.

polishes the fence. But she lives in a flat and only polishes her part of the fence. The rest looks shite.
Ridiculous

Goodness, this is making me homesick...

Mother - used to use the cat's paw test for the kitchen floor - if the cat appeared to be sticking it was time to wash it. And yet I remember being woken every Saturday morning to help with housework (unlike my brother)... and I used to be absolutely obsessive about which ever rooms I was given. I used to also have to brasso two brass steps in our victorian house and use cardinal polish on our red front door step. Not sure if they even make it any more...

I also used to clean up after my dad cleaned up after Sunday lunch.

Now, urgh. All too much like hard work.

My grandmother used to have a wash day - washing with tongs and then mangling everything (literally, not metaphorically!).. starching everything that wasn't moved out the way. Taught me the "right" way to clean knives, how to make cream and butter, and how to reuse everything. She used to darn her tights, use those that were hopeless for string, collect tiny bits of soap to make a new cake of soap.. oh it just goes on and on.. and I miss it.

Was just thinking of her today whilst I used yet more cling film, put a tablet in the dishwasher, and then used soda bic and vinegar for cleaning. It's a new thing, trying to avoid chemicals a bit (apart from in the dishwasher!).

Sorry, dribbling on now.

She stocks up the larder incessantly, buying multiple packets of those items she perceived in 70's as hard-to-get like chestnut puree or black olives referring to them as "iron rations". Her kitchen cupboards are still full of chestnut puree dating back 20 years.
Otherwise I think her only housework obsession is the reordering of the contents of the dishwasher, to fit that extra sideplate in. This gets more and more ocd as she gets older. She now takes everything out of the dishwasher and puts it all back "correctly", muttering.
Sideplates at all meals for what purpose not sure (moral probably), and two knives, which never ever get used.
She likes putting spirits of salts down loos in preference to loo cleaner.

Oh yeah, my mother, small woman in her 60s who lived alone, owned only one car, took no exercise and didn't often entertain continued to shop at Costco where everything is sold in massive bulk quantities! She insisted it was good value and she did often give away food to other relatives. She insisted that she couldn't possibly manage with in anything smaller than a large 3+ bed house, a 2 car garage and 2 large (American size) fridges. Sigh.

she boiled the hankies
does anybody do that now?
even my mum uses tissues now.

Darn the socks

i remember lots of ironing,
washing and drying, yes i think that was just a chore for the family to be involved in.
if i leave it on the drainer, things tend to fall off and break.

I'm afraid that we are a hanky household, so much softer on the nose. BUT I put them on a hot wash or a longer cycle, dh would think that I'd lost my marbles if he caught me boiling them.

I'm also a bit of a thrift-fan, but mainly because I'm a SAHM now and living on one income. That includes doing less housework as this means fewer cleaning products and less spent. Result !

My mother dispairs and the mantra "well, when you were a child...(insert freshly pressed socks for school/sparkling bath/knitted school cardi that my ds is missing out on)"

and i have thougth of another.
she would knit.
i wore a knitted jumper for school. and it was a bog standard comp

imagine that now?

I've been racking my brains here and all I can come up with is this:

She ironed (still does) pillowcases on both sides. Then folded in half. Ironed again. Folded in half again. Ironed again, so you had razor sharp rectangular creases on each side.

Which is weird, because her favourite saying when it comes to housework is "oh that's good enough".