Anyone have a house that is clean and tidy ALL the time??

[phoenixflower]

If so, how do you do it??? A few of the DCs friends always have very clean and tidy houses, even if you just nip round it is always sparkling.
Please share your secrets to success!!

It's bizarre, isn't it, how other people do that. I dropped in on a friend who was recovering from flu (2 children, DH away a lot) and she was mortified about the state of the house, which was immaculate except that she'd still got the Dyson plugged in.

I've no secrets, except panic tidying when I know people are coming, and chucking everything into my/DH's bedroom and forbidding the children to open the door.

Perhaps that's what everybody else does.

Sounds like me Goingspare. If anyone came to my house atm, I would be utterly embarrassed, the place looks awful.

Been writing my diss for a few weeks now. Kids were away for a week with DH. That was fine, but now everyone is home, things are getting worse! No washing done for a week so the pile is growing fast. Would prob help if DH did SOMETHING in the house but it?s not his thing. Ah well!

We do (I am told)...

We (mostly I) do a little bit every day:

• swish round the shower/bath/toilet/sink
• quick kitchen wipe down, sweep and mop
• beds always made as soon as we're up
• laundry - a load a day keeps it under control
• tidy up and put away things when finished with
• dishwasher run every night and emptied first thing

DH vacuums twice a week and deals with the rubbish/recycling. New towels and bedlinen on Mondays, and I do 1 hour of ironing and putting away on a Monday night.

I also have an amazing cleaner who comes once a fortnight to do a deep clean. Without her it would be a very different story.

No-one has seen the chaos in our cellar though. I haven't opened the door in at least a year

phoenix, have you checked out Flylady?

My place is always clean and tidy (except for a few draws and a giant wardrobe that has a lot of crap stuffed in it)...there are 4 of us in the house and we all are tidy (19 & 7 yr olds) We all share the house hold chores and we are all out of the house every day.
I do the big clean (about 3 hours) on a Friday when i get home from work while the OH does the shopping.
Between us we do about 1/2 hour cleaning and tiding a day to keep on top of everything.

I cant sit down in the evening until the place is tidy

Friends say I have a very clean and tidy house.
It is tidy because I hate things "out" at the end of the day- plus the dcs stuff is all in their rooms, and we are past the lego/Playmobil/little piece things.
I rarely venture in their rooms (once a week to change shhets) and just shut the door on them otherwise I would just get upset!
However clean is dubious- toilets done/kitchen floor swept- that's about it on a daily basis. I have no cleaner- my life would be easier with one, but I wouldn't trust them to do athe job as well as me (anal/controlling again!)

I think it's near impossible to keep a clean and tidy house all the time if you have young children....unless you have a cleaner or a very helpful OH who does his fair share of chores. Unfortunately I don't have either so my house is substandard the the majority of the time.

I have a 4 yr old and a 2 year old and I'm 40 weeks pregnant too and there is no way I can keep on top of everything. I tend to do the important things (the places people can see!) first and always do a load of washing a day to keep on top of it. My bedroom and ensuite are a disgrace though.
Even if I spent my life cleaning, tidying, washing etc I still wouldn't get to the end of it, there would always be something else to do!
I'm hoping as the children grow and can be given chores etc it will become easier to keep a half decent house....well I can dream!

chipmonkey- I've tried it in the past. Hopefully when I have finished all my uni work I will have more time for the house and will ne able to get it clean and tidy again. DH is moving the front and back gardens today so atleast that's something!

I'd love a cleaner but would be too embarassed to let anyone in to clean with the house like this!

Yes Flylady is brilliant. Slightly over the top, but makes the whole tedium of household management seem so much more manageable.

Without Flylady there is absolutely no way I would be able to work out of the home 4 days a week, run a small business from home, look after a toddler and keep the house nice, us fed and clothed decently, have time to get to the gym 4 times a week, spend time with family and friends and stay sane... I'd be constantly living in chaos, and feeling cross and resentful about it too.

I've found it very helpful, but I know some have found Flylady totally nauseating!

Craving croissants - Same!! I have a 4 yr old and a 3 yr old (on MOnday!! So like your 2yr old!) and am 37 weeks pregnant. It is hard, isnt it!! I found, as i am suffering from dizziness atm, that the toys re the hardest thing to deal with. I sit on the futon in the playroom and direct them to tidy - DS1 you do the lego, DS2 you do the cars etc. I feel mean but that is the ONLY way it is getting done as I am certainly NOT going to be bending down picking up 50 gazillion bits of tiny lego!!!!!! I feel your pain!!

In general though, for people with young kids, the most helpful tip I ever got was the 1 box rule..they are allowed one box out at a time and cant get anything else out until that one is cleaned up. It saves me LOADS of time! I cant remember who told me that, but honestly I want to KISS them!!

crazycatlady where/how is best to start with Flylady? It really appeals to me but I tried once before and couldn't get started with it - I wasted about 30mins potential housework time each day reading the bloody emails they send you for a start! I want, want, want to do it but can't figure out how!

The emails are a pain. I ditched those after about a week of being bombarded every hour .

The website is good, the bits I found useful were:

• detailed cleaning lists for each room (easy to delegate to a domestically inept DH)
• cleaning ONE room thoroughly every week and then spending one hour only each week doing a quick clean up around the rest of the house (she calls it a home blessing hour I think), basically I use this hour to vacuum, change beds, plump cushions, mop, tidy, dust and wipe surfaces and take bins out. Flylady's idea of setting a timer for this is a very good one. And promising yourself you won't get distracted or go over time.
• bathroom daily swish and swipe
• shine your sink (can't leave dishes festering and it is a quick job that makes a huge difference)
• decluttering - in 15 minute bursts only - more than that is overwhelming and will be procrastinated over. Don't take out any more than you can put back in 15 minutes.

Other tips, not flylady, but I swear by:

• microfibre cloths and a microfibre mop, along with a spray bottle of white vinegar and water solution, is the absolute quickest way of cleaning and shining all your surfaces and floors.

Anything to make household chores easier and less time consuming!

Crazycatlady - does your weekly home blessing really take just an hour? It takes me ten minutes just to wrestle the fitted sheets off our beds (only three beds) let alone put the fresh bedding on.

My house is never clean or tidy. Any of the time!

My friedn does. It makes me feel incredibly inadequate. However, her dog has just had 7 puppies. I cant wait for the peeing, pooing, rug-chewing phase! [evil cackle emoticon]

I discussed this with a friend last week - she was round my house, we are in the same line of work, we are both tearing our hair with no time for the house...

She said - on my deathbead I may wish I had gone to Nepal, or played with the kids morre: I won't wish I had done a bit more dusting.

That's a good approach in my book.

Like weegiemum, my house is never clean or tidy.

Because I have a life! I believe an overly-tidy house is a sign of a dull household.

Yep reality, one hour. But only because I give myself the hour deadline and work as fast as I can possibly go. Sometimes takes less if I'm really going for it. I'm usually very sweaty and cross by the end of it but then at least it's done.

Of course if I try and do it when alone at home with small toddler needing attention then it's a disaster. Either has to happen when she's napping, not there or being entertained by DH.

Ah, just noticed you're doing three beds reality. I'm only doing one, plus DD's sheet and grobag. Spare bed only gets done when we've had guests which is probably only once a month.

With three beds I'd probably not try to fit it into the hour, and just do it another day instead as I find long spells of housework just hideously dull. Short bursts not so bad.

I have just been to someone's house that is incredibly clean and tidy (I think that you could have eaten off the garage floor!)I didn't feel comfortable and it didn't feel like a home. I then went onto another that was clean, but it was lived in and relaxed-it was far, far better IMO.

Ours is quite clean, verging on immaculate.

There's no frantic running around here. People take us as they find us. And they usually find us tidy. Just the way we (both parents and consequently now both DCs) are, I suppose. It doesn't take any effort because it is just a habit now.

Isn't it hard work being untidy and not knowing where things are?

Our house is tidy because DH and I do it together and DT (age 6) have been trained to tidy up after themselves. DT1 now cries if his room is untidy. We both work so we have to work together.

We hoover whole house once a week and if required, living room is hoovered midweek, we put away things and make sure that everything has a place where it can be stored.

We clean kitchen everyday and make sure we wash up and put away each night. Similarly, DH gives bathroom and cloakroom thorough clean every week and I do top up clean midweek.

I wash about twice a week and iron on either Saturday or Sunday.

It is not difficult to have a tidy house if you are organised, work as a team and train your children to respect their dwelling and not treat it as rubbish tip.

It is hard work Quattro but if you have poor organisational skills and/or didn't have the correct training when growing up, you can end up in a vicious cycle where you don't tidy up because it all gets too much, then it gets harder again to tidy up because you can't find anything, even the sweeping brush!
Flylady is very good if you have sunk into that hole because it's all about developing good habits, which people like you have naturally.

Thank you for flylady tips, will try again!

We used to be untidy and not be able to have people round at the drop of a hat, but had a huge declutter a few years ago, stick to the rule that there has to be a place for everything, books, one in one out (which makes buying stuff a lot more thoughtful). Neither my dh nor I are 'naturally' tidy types, the opposite in fact. Basically, we now make sure everything is clean tidy and put away before we sit down in the evening. We also have a cleaner, which helps hugely. I try not to put anything down but rather put it away. It's a much much nicer way to live, for us. By no means is our house immaculate a la a hotel, in the daytime there will be kids toys out etc and life lived but it is to a background of clean and tidy pretty much most of the time.