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Ugh! Every time I see a home get a makeover on HGTV, I'm say to myself, "Why them? They're just gonna' mess it up again!!!"
Every Saturday, my mom would do a deep cleaning of the house. She (or our cleaning lady) would get on the floor and scrub the tiles and remove any group. The house should smell like bleach and cleaning products on Saturday morning.
ETA:
This isn't possible when you're a kid and you're forced to go to your aunt's house who smells like smoke but keeps plastic covers on her living room furniture.
That's awful for the kid, for sure. I suppose it is a learning experience though. How not to live in your house.
I think a lot of it has to do with yes, two people working. But I don't blame the women - I blame the men for not helping to pick up the slack. Women CAN"T do it all and should not be expected to. If both people work then both people need to take care of the house. Typically, guys couldn't care less if things are messy or dirty unless it reaches catastrophic proportions. Then it becomes a case of whoever cares more has to give in and do it. Another option is to pay for someone to come in and do the heavy cleaning - mop, vacuum, clean the bathrooms.
I'll be honest and admit to being a little jealous of how people can summon up the willpower and energy to clean every day aftera hard days work. The minute I walk in, I just collapse on the sofa and eat dinner!
Well, if it makes you feel any better - I don't work full time outside the home.
Now - when I DID, my house was still clean, but I didn't enjoy cleaning it nearly as much! And I did a lot more of it on the weekends. It's a lot easier to keep on top of things when you're home a lot, of course!
I think most people clean their place only for company. And these days few people have company compared to how our society was more than 30 years ago. For details, the book "Bowling alone," published in the late 90s. An update: People are glued to their smartphones in all the lines, waiting to order food, waiting for their coffee, waiting to check in their baggage at the airport, and maybe waiting for their turkey.
I really do think this society is less social. That is a shame.
So by being less social, why bother picking up after yourself. What really "rustles my jimmies" is when I see paper towels strewn all over the floor at the gym when I get there at the opening time. I guess those same people who just are pigs in public must be extreme pigs at home.
My theory on this, for Stay at Home Moms of little kids at least, is that children these days spend most of their days indoors (especially this time of year) and therefore must have a bunch of cluttery stuff to occupy them. When kids stay indoors all day, messes happen, fingerprints and toys get everywhere and striving for perfection can seem exhausting when the next mess is seconds away. There is also an expectation that you must never let younger kids out of your sight, meaning focusing attention on hardcore deep cleaning daily is not always possible, or other things are more important.
In the old days when most women were homemakers, they often wouldn't see their kids until dinnertime, so their houses probably weren't as devoted to entertaining their children. Fewer toys, fewer messes, more time to keep things clean and tidy. Easier to meet the expectation of a good housekeeper.
Well, I guess I’m going to be the slob of this thread. Because I hardly EVER clean.
I live alone, in a 3BR, 2 ½ BA house.
I drop clothes where I want. (I have clothes in the DR table, hanging over the back of chairs and on doorknobs.)
And leave dirty dishes where I want – in the sink or on the counter or table.
If I uses scissors, or tape or whatever I may leave them out.
I won’t say how INfrequently I change my sheets.
The only thing I clean weekly is the toilet.
So, no......no one could just drop by my house. But my friends know this. (I usually go to their houses.)
I need at least a half-hour notice...and even then I just tidy up the public areas. (mostly by taking everything in those areas and just carrying them to the various bedrooms, drawers, and closets) And of course I have to remember where I put what. ARRGHH.
I do a THOROUGH, top-to-bottom, stem-to-stern cleaning once a year, for when I host a reunion weekend of 3 college friends.
Outside of that -- I clean the dishes, sinks, floor, carpet, bathroom...when it gets to be too dirty even for ME. But clearly MY threshold of when I feel I really need to do something about it, is waaaaaay beyond someone else's...dare I say 99% of others.
My clothing hanging on the door knob or on the floor, and dirty dishes aren’t bothering me, so for the most part I don’t see the need to go bother them.
I’ve told really good friends if I ever get taken to a hospital from work or an accident and you have to go into my house to get something for me – that is what you’ll find. You WILL be shocked. But don’t think less of me for it. I’ve already told you how bad it might be.
Why don't I clean more? I don't have to and I don't care to.
I watch that "Horders" show (the German version) or what ever it is called in English so that I don´t feel so bad about my flat.
If I had more time I might tidy up more but really I don´t spend much time at home. Work till 17:30 go to the gym or for a run or bike home at 21:00 or later mostly. cook, eat and it is about time for bed.
Weekends I spend less time at home. If a girlfriend is coming over I can have my place cleaned up in like 45 minutes though.
I've often heard people say that household habits skip a generation. That's certainly true in my family. My grandmother (who was a rich family's maid before she married my grandfather) was a "wash the kitchen and bathroom floors EVERY DAY" type of house cleaner. My mother, in rebellion I suppose, is exactly the opposite. She's not tidy, she's not clean. Now that she lives with me I spend my life cleaning up after her. She can't make a piece of toast without getting crumbs in two rooms.
I remember when I was a kid walking over to my grandmother's (she only lived half a mile way) just to feel the peace and serenity of her clean, orderly home. She had a lovely garden and fresh flowers in the house. She cleaned up as she cooked and did dishes as soon as dinner was over (no dishwasher). I never saw one of her beds unmade unless she was in the middle of washing the bedding and turning the mattress. I learned from her how to clean properly. I love the smell of bleach because it makes me think of Grandma. I'm not a stay-at-home homemaker, so I can't duplicate her results, but she's the standard I strive for. I walk through the house every night before I go to bed and put everything away and I make my bed as soon as I get out of it. I'm not a clean freak but order and general cleanliness keep me feeling sane. Living in chaos creates mental chaos for me.
It isn't against the law to have a messy house. Housekeepers have always come in all varieties. If someone you know lives in a home that is dirty to the point where you feel uncomfortable, don't visit.
There are all sorts of people in this world, you know? And how you grew up has no bearing on others' upbringings.
Glad to see someone this post. My house at it's best would never 'pass' most of the posters ideals.
It has clutter. I like having projects and I don't want then tucked away in some drawer. I like them in a box next to my favorite chair with all the yarn I need and all my notes. I write stories and the computer is in the living room so I can watch tv AND use the computer, and my story notes stay in another box next to the computer. When I use a desk its messy. I like my things our where I can find them. I don't care if someone else would say its 'cluttered'. I find it useful. I don't put things away nightly if I'm busy on them, just add them to the pile.
If you don't like this then fine. Don't do it. Don't say I should do things the 'right' way. Mom tried. She'd tell me to clean up my room since there would be stuff piled all over the place. She'd come in and the stuff was in small boxes lining the wall. So it was organized. I did projects then too. She surrendered.
My sil has been on a cleaning binge. She's using a bleach spray and I won't go to her house since I'm ALLERGIC to bleach. It leaves some of it in the air when you use it for some time. My throat closes up. She seems to always be obsessing about something, bugs (Oklahoma has a huge supply of them at any season), dog hair, cat hair, and I find her obsessing tiresome. No wonder she's tired since she's out to seal all of it out.
I think the concern that we are feeding the super diseases by all this panic over super clenlieness is right. Our bodies are made to react to small things, like ordinary germs, and develope ways to fend them off so they may learn to fight of major things. I'll bet if you look at people who don't so super hygene and don't worry if their kids get dirty, and don't make them go wash immediately, have much better immune systems. We survived living in huts and dirt and not wasting water on washing and while some adjustments are okay, this attempt to make everything sanitary is doing exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to.
Consider the average lifespan. Way back when, a few hundred years or or more, if you got to about twenty you had almost the same average lifespan to look forward to as in our time. The idea that everyone died young is wrong. More women died early because they had constant pregnancies. Children might die of a number of illnesses, but if they made it, they lived about as long as people today. And this holds even when people lived in what we'd call highly unsanitary living arraingements.
So, if you really like you house super neat, go for it. Don't tell people who don't care for that idea that they should too. Its a personal choice, and if more homes are messy and less than sanitized today then its because we've taken that as a real choice.
You should be comfortable in your home. It doesn't matter if someone else things its too 'cluttered'.
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