OMG, I need your help!

[Satsuma1]

My house is rarely spotless, but up until recently it's been pretty clean. A combination of a clingy toddler (tearing the house apart and dropping food everywhere) and returning to work part-time has resulted in an untidy and dare I say it, dirty house.

Anyway, I discovered MOUSE DROPPINGS on the kitchen floor today! Only a few, but it's really shocked me and I've spent most of today cleaning.

How do you guys keep on top of things? What's this flylady thing?

We can't really afford a cleaner, especially with me going part-time, but if it became totally unmanageable we would consider it. I'd like to really try and do it myself though, so all tips gratefully received!

Erm....don't you need to kill the mice that left the droppings or did they get walked in on someone's shoe?

Traps ready and waiting!

well i have a friend who lives by herself no children, and she found mouse droppings in her oven OVEN .....

Just checked, no droppings in the oven (thank goodness!). I have visions of being nominated to appear on 'How Clean is Your House' if I don't get sorted out quick smart.

one has to question how they got in there? and there were fresh and cooked ones, ooh yuck!!

i think mice can get in quite easily (to the house i mean) so i wouldn't be to upset if you've found them and you say you lo is dropping food.

Just lay some traps and hope for the best

We live in a bungalow and I have the kitchen door open a lot, especially in this weather. We have had a mouse once before, but we were having building work done so it wasn't really a surprise.

I guess that it's the fact that one has been attracted in, as they don't come in if there isn't any food. I suspect my lack of housekeeping has meant it feels it's onto a good thing.

Everything is clean now, but I need it to stay that way!

I work four days a week, on the day off I try and do all the laundry and the bins / nappy bins (relatively easy with the baby, I can't really do much else with him there) then on a saturday morning I do the bathroom and hoover / mop basically do it all but not to "excellent" standard, once a month I do a complete deep clean.
After work in the week I try and keep everything put away, basically when I walk out of a room I make sure everything is put away that is meant to be, this is how I keep on top of things - the baby helps as well (at the moment anyway).
I clean the kitchen after every meal so it is always neat and tidy. I hoover the kitchen and living room after baby's tea, it takes 5 minutes and he runs after the hoover turning it on and off.
What it means is that when i got to clean it is just the cleaning and not a lot of time putting things away.
If I don't do this maintenance then it would completely overrun me.
I like living in a tidy house, thats the reason I do it, it all depends on what you can live with.

also, we had mice last november, its just a fact of life don't freak yourself out about it - traps are great.

satsuma do you have a dp/dh. If so then housework (imo) is a joint venture, especially if you both woh.

Anyway, my tips:

Start off with a ruthless declutter. This creates more usable storage space. It also gives you less stuff to tidy up/dust/put away. Do a mini declutter once a month minimum, it soon builds up.

Do one or two jobs every day in addition to the "every day" chores. e.g. today I cleaned the shower thoroughly. Yesterday I washed 2 bathroom floors and changed our bed etc. Do one load of laundry every day (if you can make a full load)

Cut down on ironing. If you have a dryer then put t-shirts etc in for a few minutes and then take out immediately and hang up.

Simplify meals unless you love cooking. This will cut down on washing up. We eat a lot of simple salads, baked potatoes, pasta dishes etc.

satsuma, cookie, carrotsandpeas, cremeegg - what a lot of foodie names on one thread.

we had mice come in through a tiny hole in our understairs cupboard.

for a month we kept finding dead mice in the kitchen and shouting at the cat for leaving them there (assuming he had brought them in from outside) then we realised they were coming from under the stairs, pinching the cats dried food and then hiding behind the dresser

We had a mouse too. It was feeding off the bits of toast DS1 had fed through the gas fire so it was remarkably well fed.

i completely agree about it being a joint venture, my trouble is he would do it but not to MY standard and I can't fairly impose this on him.

Definitely agree with folding after drying, no ironing needed.

I've also recently started doing a meal plan for the week, its brilliant if a bit stepford wives, mainly it means I don't even have to think about what we are having or buying stuff for it, I just look on my plan and do the shopping for it accordingly once a week. I hate DH asking "what are we having for tea" = again he would do it but it would be a big palarvour (sp). On the plus side its also helped with me losing some weight as I plan the low-fat meals.

Personally I can't do the clean one room a day as I like to have a full clean house at least for a couple of hours.

carrotsandpeas my dh does the jobs that I don't like/that I don't have high standards for. This includes emptying bins, emptying dishwasher, hoovering but not thorough hoovering iykwim. I do no gardening whatsoever, he does that.

I guess we all do it how it suits us. I love the idea of a whole house clean for an hour or two, but am just too lazy/unmotivated for it to happen regularly.

We've had mice too, they can come in through the tiniest holes. We set a trap in the kitchen and caught a mouse the same night. Then the next night & the next. Then we realised they must have been coming in to get the chocolate we'd put in the trap (apparently chocolate's what mice like most). So, if you set traps, be sure to block up any holes as well. Your house doesn't need to be spotless - just clean enough.

we have regular arguments because he wants to recycle everything but if theres been raw meat in it I just put it in the normal bin, I tell him there's no way i'm washing out manky blood coated containers.

Oh the outside is completely his responsibility - I couldn't give a damn about that.

I blame my mother, she is a cleaning freak, trouble is I always think of the things she would do in the house like regular skirting board cleaning, feather dusting the ceilings ha ha thats never gonna happen as a regular. (one day i'll think back to this post feather duster in hand)

I have given up ceiling dusting, indoor window cleaning and regularly dusting of light bulbs.

My mother (thankfully)hates housework herself. Is your mother the type that irons bras etc?

I agree with you re the meat containers, yuk.

oooh isn't it the quote about mice 'it's not what they nibble it's where they dribble' refering to the fact that they have no bladder control at basically wee wherever they go like a little trail

It's the time of year I'm afraid, early summer and late autumn the mice arrive. If you have a really good clean and search out their nests (under kickboards of kitchen cupboards are a fave), you'll get rid of the buggers. Otherwise, borrow my cat! He loves eating mice.

Lots of great suggestions, thanks guys!

The strange thing is that the last time we had a mouse we saw it quite a lot. This time we haven't laid eyes on the culprit, so it does make me wonder it it's coming in and out rather than living in the house.

Last time we spent ages trying to catch it in a humane trap, but it just ate right through the plastic and escaped. This time it's straight for the lethal one I'm afraid.

Meant to say that DH does do what he can, but he's doing an MBA as well as working atm, so is rarely home until late and when he is at home he's studying. He's just about to break for the summer though, so no doubt will be doing his bit (with a bit of whip cracking from me!).