Cleaning House
 

Every fortnight or so (and by 'fortnight' I mean two years) I go around and clean things that I don't usually think of cleaning every week, like, oh, baseboards and window ledges, blinds, walls, the basement...etc. I did this today and I wonder: how have I managed to elude anthrax, SARS and the plague when I have such a dirty house?

I like to think I keep a relatively clean house, but, holy-joe! Owning three cats was definitely a mistake and the kids cannot be helped. BUT! How does all this crud get here? I always wonder--am I a slob? 'Coz my house never looks like The O.C. OR like I have ever, ever, ever had a maid. Because I haven't. Had a maid. Ever. This seems like a miscarriage of justice to me. I really could use a good maid.

So--really, how clean is your house? Is your grout clean? Are your outside gutters clean? Is your laundry room clean? Are the tops of your washer and dryer lint-free? If they are--I really hate you.

You clean every week?

I thought this was another colonoscopy thread ... sorry.

Prior to moving, I had dust HIPPOs. We'll see how long I can keep up with this place. But, it's just me...so no yellow carpet in the bathroom. No cat hair pillows to be made. Shouldn't be too bad.

By 'every week' I mean every four months. Or, five.

I have a little reminder program that I set up, that tells me when to clean what. Scrub each bathroom every 3 months, clean the ceiling fans every 6 months, dust once a month, etc... but I have them all staggered so that I end up with about one chore or so a week. I don't ever have to think about it, the computer just tells me what to do, and I never have to spend more than maybe 15 minutes at a time on cleaning.

Does that make me a freak? I have a system for cooking dinner too...

you are my worst nightmare.

do tell, I could use a similar program if it would help me get out of the crisis management I live under.

Hmmmm...I'm a bit of a clean freak. I clean my house most days which includes sweeping and vaccuuming the floors. Wiping over all the surfaces for dust. Tidying my husbands incredibly messy office (I don't know how he messes it up when he only spends a couple of hours per evening in there). I usually wipe over the bathroom basin and tub but only use cleaning fluids on those surfaces once a week. I clean the toilet at least once a week. I wash all the sheets etc once a week. I also push all the cushions back properly into the couch.

I don't get dust bunnies thank god! Both me and hubby get the sneezes if there's much dust around.

Then I do the yard.

Under the house is a disaster area at the moment though. We're going to build in part of it, so since we moved there's a fair bit of stuff just chucked anywhere till we do the reno.

Grout? I don't have any grout..
Outside gutters? What are these "gutters" of which you speak?
Laundry Room? Mine is a 200 year old basement. It's a scary as you can imagine. Although I do keep my lint in a bag...

My house is SO dirty right now. I hope to have it clean in time for the holidays, but I might have to pen the kids and LJ in the yard to keep it that way.

I *used* to be a super super clean freak!! Think OCD on crack! I couldnt sit down of a nite time or go to bed unless the house was in *display house* order.

Now with the two little kiddies living here, I have given up.

I dont get how we are all gone from 7.30am till 6pm and the house still gets trashed...I still havent figured out how to get the crayon off the walls or the yogurt off the roof.

Some people live and breathe by FlyLady ... I say flylady can go eff herself.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Ducknuts and jinx--i think i love you

I used to do flylady, although I was never hard-core enough to wear makeup and shoes (couldn't grasp how that made my house cleaner either), it really does help. A maid would help a lot more I imagine.

I used to have a really nice tidy little cottage.......then I ran for local government and started a degree and it all went tits up so to speak.

I have learned to be comfortable in a mess now....it's the only way. Every so often it all gets too much and I go on a cleaning frenzy...but never if there's an essay due!

I'll bet any one of you cunt's that no man will tread on this thread! waddya say?

I'm just praying Stacy doesn't flash us her toilet again...

ooo-I miss StacyV--in a rather ambiguous way...

I liked her---she hated me. Was V. weird.

In a word No. I have a sign on my fridge that states. "If you write in dust, please don't date it."

Dollars or Pounds?


I do most of the house-keeping/cooking/washing at home. What really pisses me off is the total inability of the Current Wife or Wicked StepDaughter to load the dishwasher from the back. Yes, I know it's a not the end of the world, but......

But hey, my dishes are clean. Dotty licks each and every one for me. :bolt:

lol! well, I guess that's an idea too.... just leave 'em out for our five cats to lick clean.... and they would, too, given half a chance....



(although, finding a horizontal surface free enough might be problematical....)

you think I'm stupid? Pounds!

Anyway--can't believe your cardigan charm cannot overcome? Even with leatherette buttons?

Kinda hot, no?

I can stand the heat......

The things I use, get dusted. The more often they're used, the more often they're dusted. ;)

With 9 indoor and 2 indoor/outdoor kitties, every flat surface is dusted by them;
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...nthefloorc.jpg
I only dust the tv and shelves they can't get onto. I like to sweep the kitchen regularly and mop about once/week. I vacuum almost daily, but with this many kitties, I need to.
I also try to just pick one or two chores so I don't feel overwhelmed. For the most part, PUPA (pick up put away) goes a long way towards making a house look tidy.
hh

Au contraire, girly-girl. I spent a goodly portion of my Sunday afternoon scrubbing toilets and putting in the make-it-blue tablets, taking out trash, loading the dishwasher, pulling gacky hair out of the bathroom sink plunger/stopper dealie, and other minor domestic chores. Next weekend, I will sweep and vacuum the hardwood and furniture.

I do domestic. I'm a *real* man.

Holy shit. We're gonna read about you in the Strange News column in about thirty years, aren't we?

Hell, I'd have elevendy sebben cats, too, if I could.

I am very concerned about the blatant disregard for cleanliness displayed by all of you.

Don't you know that germs can kill you? You need to spend more time cleaning and less time surfing the net. Just imagine how clean your house could be if you spent your cellar time cleaning!

If you all left to do your housework I could then sit here and talk to myself all day long.

Hi Gurlz, I am a house husband, I cook everyday, I do laundry every week, I clean and dust on a daily basis, and find the time to work 6 hours a day. I do all this between 5am and 6 pm. So Bri don't think that us XY types are incapable of housework, I do this so keryx and I can do better things than house work when she is off.

Oh, you just might! I feel like a cat-lady in training...
Honest, I don't go looking for them, they seem to find us on their own quite well enough. Though I must say all but one were a rescue from a desperate situation and Hubby brought home more than half. Not a LOT more, but definitely more than 50%.
I find that with this many kitties, I have pared down my home and don't have a lot of little knick-knacks of clutter and most things are put away to keep the kitties out of them so the house looks tidy.
hh

Brianna, what do you do for a living?

Does that mean I hafta stop eating blue (bleu) cheese?

But wait, my friend just told me she was going to stop cleaning the dust bunnies because those little bunnies are going to help her baby not get asthma.

I'm sooooo confused . . .

Well I hope not. There's nothing nicer than I good bit of blue cheese. ;)

My wife cleans whenever she gets stressed which I manage to cause for her on a regular basis.:rolleyes:

Before my last surgery we had made arrangements with my parents to come help out with the kids, my wife and parents don't exactly get along. Her first thing to clean when stressed are the hardwood floors, Sweep then mop. I swear she wore the floors out in the weeks leading up to that event, she must have done those floors at least 5 times a day not to mention the bathrooms. She cleans those every couple of days, when stressed at least once a day sometimes more. Needless to say the house was sparkling by the time my parents arrived.

You are no mere mortal.

(Do you have a brother?) :)

Why do you ask?

I always seem to curse gravity.

Drat.... I wish all those those nasty dust bunnys would just fly out into space. lol

Well, when I lived with my grandmother I cleaned the upstairs every day. After dinner I would do the dishes and clean the counters and whatnot, but I rarely sweep and mop. I would do all this so my grandmother didn't have to, because she has a really hard time getting around and staying on her feet for long. I still clean the kitchen every day I go over there. That is the only room in the house that gets filthy every day.

But now that I live in an apartment with my SO, I don't clean nearly enough. I usally do dishes once a week, and that is only because the cat food is on dishes. We hardly ever (i.e. a few times a month) eat there so it doesn't get dirty. And our vacuum cleaner is broken so I can't vacuum unless I bring my grandmother's vacuum cleaner home with me, and that is usally too much trouble. But I try and tidy up (the pick up and put away method) at least every other day. If I didn't you wouldn't be able to walk without stepping on something... my SO thinks the floor is a hamper. :thepain:

because i don't know.

i clean the whole house and do all the yardwork on saturday. once a month i pay a lady to do the shit i don't do like ceiling fans, baseboards, scrub the tile. every six months a guy comes and washes and squeegies all the windows. if i let a little clutter gather i get bad and let it all go to hell, so i have to keep everything straight daily, or i'm hosed. no dishes in the sink overnight - ever.

lookout just redlined all the single babes man-o-meters.

Not to mention the unsingle ones!

I can't go to bed unless the dishwasher is loaded and running. I like to get up to a clean house. I also clean before I leave on a trip so we come home to a clean house.

Seriously - i'm moving!!

The men over there are hot AND do house stuff.

Gotta spare room lookout???? :D

Oh.

I was an X-ray tech for 8 years and an RN for 11. Now I am a f/t student and I work at the Uni, too.

The biggest portion of my nursing career was occupational health; the last four/five years of nursing was in psych--a field that flat-lined me pretty completely. I don't know how wolf stands it, but she does.

Before I moved in July, I had things in the back of my closets and under the bed that I hadn't seen in years and had totally forgotten about. There were 5 of us crammed into a 1,300 sf apartment with very little storage, so every available surface (walls, corners, underneath) had shelves, tupperware storage containers, etc. covering them. Clutter like that is terrible to try to keep clean. I couldn't have reached the baseboards unless I had a crane to move the furniture straight up (since there was no slide-it-out-from-the-wall room). So I did a major overhaul before I lugged it all to the new house. Out went the clothes I (and the kids) could no longer wear or were dusty/out of style. Out went all the books I had read (except the 200 or so titles from my favorite authors), out went the broken knick knacks that I was going to fix (some day), out went all the tupperware with no lids, out went all the tapes that I had listened to death. I flooded Goodwill.

We moved into a much bigger house and I refuse to cram anything into a closet or cover every available inch with a shelf or cute little table. We have hardwood floors, so I dust mop it every day and wet mop every 3rd day. I use the good wood polish about once a week and swipe a pull-out polish cloth over the cherry furniture every other day. I never leave dishes in the sink. The ceiling fans got cleaned when it became cold enough that they weren't needed anymore. With a toddler, I keep all knick knacks (I have a lot from my travels around the world) up high or in barrister's bookcases. The bathrooms have drawers for brushes, appliances and cosmetics, the surfaces get scrubbed on the weekends. My laundry room gets cleaned every week, including the washer and dryer tops :p . I wipe down the cabinet fronts and doorjams every couple of days (or when I notice fingerprints on them).

Overall, my home is pretty clean, I like to think. I don't stress the toys being scattered around or project messes as long as they are all picked up before bed each night. I like to 'live' in my house so I don't expect it to be Home and Garden's tidy and clean at all times.

Stormie

huh.

seems like it would be a bitch to be accustomed to RN money, and then go part time, and have kid(s) all at the same time. my hat is off to you. what are you learning to be?

Dust bunnies are your friend. The hair generated weekly by the illustrious body of T'Pau, Queen of the Universe, is equal to her weight. But by wafting to and fro over the wooden floors, they incorporate much of the dust and debris and then collect in various snag-points, such as under the computer stand or behind tables. Then all I have to do is go around occasionally and bag them :blush:

Thanks.
It's a tight fit but we seem to manage. We don't eat out like we used to, that's for sure. I made great money working the kill-you shifts (7p-7a) but had no life outside sleeping and working. I'm much happier now and my kids are MUCH happier. We have a relationship now! And, I no longer feel the need to burst into tears at random moments so that is worth something.

I'm an English major, so, I guess I'm learning to be a...drain on society? ;)

lol T'Pau must be a long haired cat then. I mean I've never known a dog to want to be royalty. The police maybe, mounted and otherwise but I too have a long hair main coon who thinks that stuck together dust bunnies are part of the food chain and he is the imperial king. :blush:

My sister-in-law was telling me that the Engrish teacher jobs are starting to go unfilled. You looking to get certified or selling the Great American Novel?

Certified.

I think the Great American Novel has been abused enough. I DO enjoy lit. crit., though. Who knew?

Are you kidding me??? I bust my ass in MY house!! I am currently fixing all the eff-ups from recently evicted ex-wife. That entails sanding walls flat (she'd paint instead of wash) skim coat with spackle, sand and then repaint. That is for the whole house. I'm replacing damaged doors and reinstalling new cabinets/drawers in the kitchen (she freakin PAINTED them too and thought it was nice) even a blind man can see the drips and shit all over. OMG - I have been cleaning and scrubbing everything for three weeks and I'm not even close to being finished with any of it cuz the sanding creates more of a mess than the three cats she left behind. Ugghh, a mans job is never done. :rolleyes: Although I am workin my butt off - the place is starting to look nice - I'm just very impatient. I want to get all the new furniture and stuff in, but I can't till the work is done.

Oh - Yes I am very OCD - it all HAS to be right. Then it's easy to keep it clean.

I pay someone to clean for me once a week. She earns what I earn per hour, and believe me I'd rather work two hours at my job than clean my house ... Does that make me a Bad Person :worried: ?

Nope. Just a person with priorities who knows what they do, and do not, want to do.

Out of interest what is it you do for a living?

I work in a shop and earn £6.50 per hour.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: limey is living my life!

I don't know why I didn't think of this! I could get someone to come in and clean while I am at my shop job on Saturdays! I would also take the drop in wages just to come home to a clean flat.

For sheer gross-out value, here is a photo I took of my flat at the beginning of this year. This would have been about an hour after I started cleaning - I started at the door. Oddly I hadn't really spotted the danger signs that perhaps all was not well with my mind at this point.

Wow. You need to post a current picture so we see how much better you are now.