Help me to like cleaning!

lindsaygalaxy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/Make-Me-A-German

pebbles88

lindsaygalaxy wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/Make-Me-A-German

Thank you my lovely

fashionlover10

I never used to mind doing the cleaning, until I moved in with OH.

Now it seems pointless as I know when he gets in he will dump his shoes by the front door, take his work clothes off and chuck them on the bedroom floor, dump his work bag and folders on the living room floor all whilst depositing bl00dy sock fluff all over the carpet.

My solution for everyday is make sure the house is clean but not necessarily tidy and if someone's coming over sit OH infront of xbox until I'm finished straightening the place up.

BritAbroad

Wow, lots of responses and no one telling me I'm a total slob yet! :j

I will definitely try out some of the ideas. A cleaner is not an option just now as it's horrendously expensive over here. When I had a cleaner in the UK it was about £9 per man-hour. Over here it is at least three times that. Our window cleaner in Blighty was £10. Getting our windows cleaned here costs approximately $400-$500 (hence why I've not had them done since buying the house)!

Our kitchen is open onto the living and dining rooms so any mess is on full view. The carpets are old and seem to cling onto any dirt, but it's too costly to replace them just now. Heating and aircon here is blown air, so it generates a lot of dust.

Ironically, the skirting boards are the one thing I don't tend to worry about - I think because they're chipped and need repainted I tend to ignore them. I have noticed that most of the rooms we've finished renovating seem to be in much better order most of the time - I'm not sure if that's because they're rooms we don't use very often or whether it's because they now work much better for us!

I have to stay at home tomorrow for the electrician, so maybe I'll get some good music on and just see where I can get going. We have people coming to stay for a month at the end of September and I'm already fretting about not having the place organised, which is totally ridiculous I know!

[Deleted User]

Ha Ha I'm the same - want it pristine hate doing it and feel overwhelmed.

I tend to do tackle it in different ways as I've learnt that a one day blitz is not for me. I don't stick rigidly to any one thing.

The first and most important thing for me is that the whole job is easier if the house is tidy so I've gradually learnt to try and tidy something somewhere. I try to do something usually 2 things in every room as I go eg put something back in a drawer and take something out and put it in its place in anther room and then do 2 things in that room.

I also have a 15 min rule for some rooms.

I also tend to find it easier to do one job all over the house rather than one room so I'll clean the mirrors and glass objects. Another time I'll do the lampshades and flick the duster over something else or hoover through but not touch anything else. That way I'm not getting everything out for one room.

For myself, I've learnt that moneysaving in kitchens and bathrooms is not worth it for me - however quick and easy and cheap the tip. I use wipes and anything else to make the job faster e.g. shower shine, bleach down the loo, flash mop etc. I also keep the flash mop in the bathroom and I have a stick hoover I keep upstairs mainly just for the bathroom. They are my ways of making it easier for myself.

A friend of mine used to get a cleaner in on her day off and they'd tackle things together which helped her get motivated.

I'd like to say I agree that people come to see you and not your house and they do but ... by the same token we've all been in houses where we haven't wanted to sit down. The answer tends to be Costa!

BritAbroad

Ha ha, I'm glad I'm not alone!

I do think if I could get rid of all the clutter it would be a lot easier. But with all the renovation work we're doing that's a challenge in itself. Plus I need to have a life as well!

One thing I do find frustrating is the granite worktops in the kitchen. I hate them, and even when they've been cleaned they never feel clean - it's as if there's a filmy layer left behind by the granite cleaners. I've tried umpteen different ones and they all do the same thing.

CupOfChai

fashionlover10 wrote: »

I never used to mind doing the cleaning, until I moved in with OH.

Now it seems pointless as I know when he gets in he will dump his shoes by the front door, take his work clothes off and chuck them on the bedroom floor, dump his work bag and folders on the living room floor all whilst depositing bl00dy sock fluff all over the carpet.

My solution for everyday is make sure the house is clean but not necessarily tidy and if someone's coming over sit OH infront of xbox until I'm finished straightening the place up.

AAAGH the infernal sock fluff! :mad: How do they have such fluffy moulting socks?! Mine never shed any fluff!

Anyhoo, I do one job at a time too, e.g. I'll hoover all over whilst I have the hoover out, instead of doing one room, putting hoover away, getting hoover out to do another room another time, etc etc.

I also have it that specific jobs are done on specific days. I know that if I just thought e.g. "Need to hoover sometime" we would keep putting it off and it'd never get done. So instead I've got days (and people) for jobs and for example, Monday and Thursday are Hoovering Days and it's got to be done then.

And I try to keep the place tidy by putting things away/throwing bits of carp out as and when I see/go past them, because it's much easier to clean when there isn't a load of nonsense spread around that you'll have to move out of the way. It bugs me when people say "Oh my house is messy but it's not dirty." I'll bet it is dirty, it's impossible to clean properly around loads of mess!

I appreciate some of that could be pretty difficult when you're doing the place up, is there any way you can pile some things out of the way in some cupboard for now, or something, or even start on decluttering whilst it's out so you won't have to put it all away again when you're finished the work?

BritAbroad

Well, I did start on decluttering a drawer today - was looking for something and found loads of paperwork that we no longer needed, so out it went.

Did plenty of general cleaning too, just can't remember what most of it was! Also managed to waste time doing some virtual shopping online - my Amazon wishlist is now massive....

Georgiegirl256

Lagoon wrote: »

Like OP, I'm a perfectionist, but a useless one. I don't feel comfortable unless everything is neat, tidy and in the right place. My issue is that as soon as there's a slight bit of mess, a build up of dust or similar, I shut down and can't deal with it. I feel overwhelmed, and things stop getting done. I know that if the house was back to a perfect condition I could keep on top of it, but sadly life gets in the way and things get messed up

That is me down to a tee! I always found it weird that I'd describe myself as a perfectionist but then struggle to keep up with housework sometimes. But after reading your post and a couple of others, I see that you can be both a perfectionist and a housework dodger! For want of a better phrase! Not dodging it on purpose, but because things build up and then become too overwhelming.

My house isn't a tip, actually, it's really very presentable, but I'm like you, I don't feel comfortable unless everything is neat and tidy, but when there is abit of a mess, things have built up, I too shut down and feel totally overwhelmed. Doing abit of physco analysis here, but I'm beginning to think, it's because we've got too high a expectation of what things should be like, that we're dooming ourselves to fail before we've even started.

I'm at home most of the day, so in theory, I should breeze through the housework no problem, but a lot of the time it just seems really overwhelming and the problem is, I just don't know where to start at?

We're like the OP, and have a lot of 'stuff', and just don't know where to put it all. We don't have much storage space, so I feel like its just getting moved from one place to another....and we've already had a massive sort out!

Before we go away on holiday, I'll have to give it a good top to bottom, nooks and crannies clean, as the MIL will have to come round to look after the cat, and believe me, she is militant about cleaning. The last time we were away, she made a comment to the DH about something or other, and then moved all my bits and bobs about in the bedroom. :mad: Gahhhh....I can feel the pressure building already!

This_Year

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

Before we go away on holiday, I'll have to give it a good top to bottom, nooks and crannies clean, as the MIL will have to come round to look after the cat, and believe me, she is militant about cleaning. The last time we were away, she made a comment to the DH about something or other, and then moved all my bits and bobs about in the bedroom. :mad: Gahhhh....I can feel the pressure building already!

I would buy some extreme sex toys/magazines and leave them not hidden at the top of a drawer so she would find them. Worth the money just to imagine her reaction!

She couldn't say anything to you or your DH as she would then have to admit to poking around in your stuff for no reason.