OS Cleaning Tips and Quick Questions...

Toxic_Lemon

dogstarheaven wrote: »

nope , i don't. i wished i had tho'. am so easily distracted. usually, i resort to reading/net when i'm in the house. the radio play's finished now, and am in need of getting out of here!

Good old paper and pen then.

4 sheets of paper, 1 for each week in a month. One room gets a good going over each week. Write down all that needs to be done over the 4 weeks and tick off when done. 3 hours per week to maintain. :T

bossymoo

Come to the flylady thread. I started a couple of months ago, and once you get on top of things it really does get easier!

zippychick

ive merged this with cleaning quick questions

ZIP

dogstarheaven

that sounds like a good idea, tho' getting down to achieving would be a task in itself. where do i start with each given room! the bathroom is the cleanest, followed by the front room and then the kitchen (albeit v cluttered). the bedrooms are a bit worse for wear when it comes to windows and surfaces being piled high with carp... i will start one tomorrow, methinks. today, rewarded my w/e with lots of fun, activities (3hr bike ride& 1.5hr walk) after been thru' a stressful week at work with overtime...

craigywv

dogstarheaven wrote: »

Since cleaning is the most hateful jobs in the house, i've resigned to finally sort out my 'differences' with it. problem is, i don't have a scrubbing brush and having checked out Wilko's at £2 and none in Poundland (or whatever this one's called!), I'd rather have a set of them or some which are a bit cheaper. Does anyone know?

Wear glasses normally for things I have to see properly but in the house, I don't but if they're on, I see dirt everywhere - it's not pretty, but i now need to get on with it. it's hard to do it on my ownsome (live alone).

the main task i think would be the skirting boards, and hearing so much about the infamous Stardrops (thought they were sweets before!) I shall arm myself with some of that in a bowl and going all over the house with it. I know it isn't the best of methods to start a new regime as i know it'll be better to do 'one room at a time'.

would it be better to swipe a dilution of stardrops on the boards or do i put it in a spray bottle for ease of practicality?

thanks in advance!

hi, i just checked ebay.... typed in scrubbing brushes set of 2 red ones buy it now 1.47 and 1.50 postage hope this helps.:)also hoover skirting boards , spray with a bleach and water in spray bottle leave it half hr damp cloth after that time and clean as a whistle.

dogstarheaven

got myself some Stardrops (concentrated, all round cleaner says on the bottle) for £1.25 and realised i had to do something about my blocked sink that i've not got round to sorting out over the past 2wks.. used a bit of Star to soak in, and flushed it with hot water... think it's done the trick...

afraid i don't use bleach, but i used mr muscle kitchen cleaner on the skirting, left for a few mins, and a couple of scrubs with a green scrubby (don't know how else to describe these!) and a damp cloth to remove excess dirt.

thanks for the tip about the scrubbing brushes.

Lazy_Liz

Hi, as well as the Fly Lady thread on here try the Fly Lady website www.flylady.net so inspiring

dogstarheaven

i've looked at that site before many moons ago (had a real prob with cleaning then, but am much better now thankfully) but i guess it's all a bit 'much' really all this guidance/support.. i guess, it's me being lazy and not so together that stops me from changing my life around (altho' i want it to change and be super organised like some 'normal' ppl can be). i will venture into the MSE version on here one day..

i'm really grateful for the support i got here.. it's just a lil' hard y'know starting out and making tentative steps to doing this right. tonight, when i got in from work, i had to sort out the dishes that were left over from today, and then did a quick wipe of the fridge and the surrounding doors that i noticed that needed cleaning. sometimes, perhaps once a week, i have a quick wipe of the easy stuff but generally, i tend to ignore the problem areas that are desperately in need of decluttering. does anyone feel like this and only do the easy, quick jobs around the house?

BitterAndTwisted

Yes, me. It's the quick wipes round to keep botulism at bay that makes me feel like I'm doing an adequate job. Except if you look closely you'll see all sorts of not good things lurking about. Like the inch if dust on the highest kitchen shelves.

Honestly, getting down to a bit of proper cleaning is too hard if the room is cluttered with junk on every flat surface. It's not good for your mind either imo. Get the place tidied and have a proper home for things to be put away or stored neatly and the cleaning becomes ten times easier. It's not possible to do a half-decent job if you've got to move piles of stuff three times to clean under them all. I know this from bitter experience.

I had a really good blitz at the weekend because I had people coming round on Sunday and I feel so much happier with my surroundings. I have promised myself that I'll try to keep it all under control and do a proper tidy up, even if it's only for five minutes, every day. It doesn't help that I've got a house-full of stuff. I don't know where it all came from but I sure do know where it went.

dogstarheaven

thanks for 'sticking by me' b&t, that's kind of you. i've never really dealt with this properly before and having it in black n' white on here makes it so real and important for me to do something constructive about it. as the weather's been so wet for me to go down to the allotment lately, i shall endeavour to do a bit more cleaning tomorrow morning. yesterday, late morning, i decided to do some washing up and also to mop the floors. that's a job that i try to keep on top of on a weekly basis. i've slipped up with the windows but shall do them soon, when the weather's more conducive.

having guests round in to the house certainly would induce me to bring the hoover out as the rug in the living room is black, so that shows up the dirt so quickly (plus doesn't help that the cat is moulting like crazy thesedays - yeah, yeah, i know.. still haven't sorted out a brush for him!) so that's another task to follow too.

re. the clutter... well, it's all over the house really. the kitchen is a state and lately, that was made worse so it doesn't bode well if i'm trying to do some indoor gardening in there too.. only this morning when i came downstairs to discover my pesky cat got on top of the cupboards at some point in the night and knocked one of my trailing plants down and the soil went into my 1wk old (3rd attempt in the last 6 weeks!) sourdough starter!!

don't get me wrong, i do take pride when certain areas are clean, say the bathroom which is the cleanest (weekly cleaned) and secondly the living room (the room which is least used in the house as i don't have a tv but friends come around weekly).. but you can kiss goodbye to the bedrooms upstairs and the kitchen is cleanish (clean in there more times than anywhere, but still looks messy!)

b&t: you mentioned the inch of dust on top of the kitchen cupboards - well, as i don't have an extractor fan, how do i get rid of the ingrained grease/dust on them? with my newly-purchased Star, can I use this on there? I bought a spray bottle today, specifically for cleaning!