So sick of housework!!

mum_of_lewis

Im sure i have posted before about this.. so please excuse the rant! lol. cupboards are bursting at the seams with stuff that oh just seems to acquire(sp?). It drives me bloody mental! but he cant see what the problem is, I have just finished a 7-3 shift came home and the breakfast dishes are still waiting to be washed.Lewis pyjamas lying on the floor no where hoovered etc etc. I had a major shout when i came in but nobody bothers. im working 8-8 tomorrow then off till next monday. What will my days of be spent doing? Ironing, washing,changing beds etc. Im sick to the back teeth of it! My oh thinks i have ocd but i dont i just like things neat and tidy.I should not spend 4 days off cleaning but i do? oh thinks you can do a house from top to bottom in 3hrs. It always takes me much longer.

Thanks for listening,I feel better already!

Janette xx

Person_one

4 days?!! How big is your house?

CH27

How big is your house?:eek:

mum_of_lewis

this sounds bad,2 bedrooms,living room,kitchen,bathroom and hall.

Person_one

mum_of_lewis wrote: »

this sounds bad,2 bedrooms,living room,kitchen,bathroom and hall.

Erm, relax a bit. Unless you have the world's messiest family members you're cleaning imaginary dust for a sizeable portion of those four days!

Emmzi

*nods* 3 to 4 hours will do it! Unless you are in fact Anthea Turner, perfect housewife..?

Gigglepig

If it takes you 4 days but OH can do it in 3 hours, why can't he do the cleaning and you can take care of another task that you can do more efficiently?

Alternatively, hire a cleaning lady, and spend the 4 days on something else? Some people like to do all their own cleaning, while others rather work a bit extra to afford a cleaning lady.

Gillyx

I understand where you're coming from, how difficult is it to put things away after you have finished using them?!? Dirty bowls in the sink annoy me specially when we have a dishwasher.

Ishtar

Sounds like we have a similar problem OP. One pair of hands tidying, numerous pairs of hands making a mess....have you tried the flylady thread over on the Old Style board? It's a great way of getting back in control.

Unhindered by anyone, I can clean a three-bedroomed house from top to bottom in just over half a day. Not an intensive deep clean, but a good tidy, dust, hoover and polish, bathroom and kitchen. It's everything else that gets in the way....(small) people wanting a drink/a snack/a nappy change, etc, etc. Not to mention them being behind you making things messy just as soon as you have tidied it.

I work two evenings a week and can leave the house with a perfectly tidy kitchen and fairly untidy living room (kids toys) and can come back to all the worksurfaces completely filled in the kitchen, a whole load of mess on the table (from dinner) and a living room floor made completely invisible by the chaos.

I'm only out for two hours.

madtrekker

It really shouldn't take you all that long to keep on top of the housework. We have a 3 bed semi (our room, baby's room and spare room / study, lounge, kitchen-diner and bathroom) and I probably spend no more than an hour a day tidying and cleaning etc., plus a bit extra for laundry.

Have a look at the Flylady thread on old-style for some help organising tasks. I follow this but fairly loosely to suit my own routines.

Here's my rough routine:

Kitchen-Diner
Each morning after breakfast I wash and wipe up and wipe down worksurfaces (just a quick clean-up).
On Mondays, I don't work so give everywhere a bit of a longer clean (pull out and wipe over & behind small appliances, give the hob a good scrub, wipe tiles, wipe down cupboard doors etc.). I also give the floor a good hoover (including down the side of the washing machine etc. and use the duster brush to do the skirting boards etc. and mop the floor. The sink gets its weekly scrub and shine and the bin is cleaned.

Each evening after dinner, we wash and wipe up then while OH baths DD, I wipe down the worksurfaces and dining table, wipe the hob if needed and most days hoover the floor as a quick once-over as it seems to always have crumbs on it!

The fridge and inside of oven gets a good clean once a month and doesn't take too long as I try to clean up major spills as they happen. Freezer is defrosted approx 3 or 4 times a year.

Lounge

The floor gets hoovered most days as I whip round after hoovering the kitchen - just a basic run over the middle of the room which takes 2 mins at most. Toys get tidied away each evening before DD goes to bed. Everything else is put straight before we go to bed. Once a week it gets a more thorough clean (lift rug and hoover underneath, hoover skirting boards, dust surfaces and blinds etc., plus put any lingering "stuff" where it belongs.

Bathroom

I wipe down the shower after each time I use it (using an e-cloth to wipe the glass and tray and tiles that get really wet). The sink and taps get a wipe each evening before I go to bed - takes a few seconds after I've cleaned my teeth. The mirror is wiped probably every other day as needed. The toilet is bleached twice a week. Once a week, I give the toilet a good scrub and wipe, hoover and mop floor, properly clean the sink, bath and shower and dust the windowsill (the shower cleaning is done while I'm in it while I wait for my conditioner to do its stuff). Approx once a month I squirt a bit of bleach spray on the grout / sealant in the shower as needed to keep mouldy bits at bay.

Bedrooms

These get thoroughly hoovered and dusted once a week. Things get tidied away before bed. If the floors need a 2nd hoover during the week, I run the hoover round quickly while it's upstairs (e.g. after hoovering landing).

Hall, Stairs, Landing

Hall gets a quick hoovering most days as I hoover en route from kitchen to lounge. Once a week I'm more thorough and take the hoover up to do the stairs and do the landing as well. Surfaces get dusted, as does the paintwork / skirtings up the stairs.

For all my "once a week" things, I try to do one area each day, usually on weekdays to leave my weekends free. This is either in the morning after breakfast (on days I don't work) or after tea while DH is getting DD bathed. I do the bulk of the laundry at the weekend, plus a few bits as needed in the week. I generally only iron once a week - Monday evenings while I watch the tv!

I doubt I spend more than 1/2 hour doing the major cleaning task for each day, plus another 15-20 mins in total wiping around the kitchen and bathroom / running the hoover around downstairs as outlined above. The key is to tidy up as you go along so that you're not having to spend ages trying to find the things you're meant to be cleaning!

make_me_wise

Some doctor on tv this morning said the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.

So I looked around my house to see all the things I'd started but hadn't finished.

Then I finished off a bottle of vodka, a boodle of baileys, a botle of wum, a pock of prunglies, 1/2 chesecke an a bocs of chocletz.

Yu haf no idr hooo bludy fablus I feeeel noow