How do you clean your house?

[jitterbug]

I feel sexist asking this question in this forum - but I figure I’d get the best answers!  I’ve had a cleaning lady for most of my adult life (cleaning house was the only thing my husband and I ever fought about, so we solved that by hiring someone else to do it!). But our cleaning lady of the past 10 years quit about a year ago and so my husband and I have been splitting the duties fairly equally.  It’s takes us 3 hours total for a 2800 sq ft house.

But today I did it by myself and thought there must be a better way to do this!  Do you clean room by room - or duty by duty?  Meaning…do you mop, dust and clean the toilets in the master, then move to the kitchen, then the living room, etc.?  Or do you dust the whole house, then sweep, then do toilets, etc?

And curious if you have a favorite product or tips to share?

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Hi! 
I have daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning lists. 
I can post them if you want me to. 

[jitterbug]

Feb 4, 2022 21:52:22 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Hi! 
I have daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning lists. 
I can post them if you want me to. 

Hmmm….I only clean every other week!  (We’re empty nesters).  Of course I clean the kitchen as needed,  but otherwise I like having the whole house looking good at the same time.  But I’d love to see your lists!

[Sam_2.0]

I try to deep clean at least once a month. With three kids to chase after it's often messy, and I end up cleaning their messes often (especially the bathrooms and kitchen).

If you can, get a robot vacuum! We have a Shark ion and it's wonderful. Our house is split level so I have to carry it around at times, but even just having a space vacuumed can make it feel so much better.

I did a mega purge of every room in our house over the last year. It takes us all 10-15 minutes total to actually pick everything up. We do that as our nightly reset. Dishes and laundry run every night when the electric rates are cheaper, and both get out away while I chase after kids in the morning.

Usually my little boys make it so that I have to clean the bathrooms at least once a week. I don't make a schedule, I just clean up after them as needed we don't typically store things on the counters, and we keep Magic Erasers in the tub/shower so those get cleaned when I am in there.

I can't keep on top of it all though. I end up dusting the fans once every six months or so, and I can't tell you when I last washed the windows that are covered by blinds. Our house is on the corner with a decent amount of traffic so those are always closed. I am looking at hiring a cleaning service here soon to help out with that stuff

[laterbloomer]

I do a combination of the two methods you mention. I should say we use a combination of those methods, ISO and I share household duties. The kitchen is done daily of course. Actually my bedroom is too. I get stressed when my bedroom is a mess. The bathroom, vacuuming and dusting are done weekly on the same day. It takes no more than 2 hours. We each do our own laundry, about a load of clothes a week and bedding a couple of times a month. Mopping is about once a month, usually right after the vacuuming. In between I randomly do some purging and organizing when I have 15 minutes or half an hour to kill. I do the grocery shopping every Thursday. ISO vacuum packs tthe meat portions after I get home.
I've picked up some good tips from flylady.net

[alabamagal]

Interesting topic. I think you got some good replies. I have been through house cleaning with kids. (2 boys, oh the stories about their bathroom).

Now we are 2 adults in a 2100 sf house. Sometimes when I hear about people cleaning their house for hours and hours I wonder about what I am missing. Maybe I have a minimalist house with low cleaning standards?

We try to keep up with things on a daily basis and minimize weekly cleaning.

Floors - I LOVE my hardwood floors, have had them in last 2 houses. We have a Roomba that takes care of floors (my husband is robot supervisor). He usually sets it up to run when we are gone. We recently added dog 3, dogs 1and 2 are big shedders, dog 3 is tiny so not sure how much she added, but dog hair is a big issue. We do weekly floor check for areas Roomba missed (maybe 5 minutes?). Kitchen and bathrooms have hard surface floors - some type of vinyl tile, I don’t care for the look, but easy to keep clean. I use wet Swiffer as needed, maybe 5 minutes each. We have carpet in 3 bedrooms, but they are small, maybe 10 minutes total.

Dusting -use Swiffer products, but mainly we don’t have many surfaces that need dusting. We removed 4 sets of dark built in bookshelves when we moved in to lighten the space and reduce surfaces for Knick knacks. Think I can do all dusting in 10 minutes.

Kitchen is cleaned daily. I rarely do anything weekly.

Bathrooms -we have 2 small bathrooms, DH has 1, I have the other. I can do my bathroom in 10 minutes. DH does his. Biggest time saver for me is that I have a basket on my vanity that I keep all daily use items. For cleaning I just pick it up and wipe down the entire vanity.

Task I dispose is changing beds. Well I don’t really change them, just take off sheets and wash them. Actually it is putting them back on that seems to take most time. We have 2 beds that are used daily, I alternate weeks for washing. There is a bed in 3rd bedroom that only gets washed after guests.

I don’t include laundry in my cleaning time. It is done weekly. With only 2 of us, I usually do 3 loads a week. I don’t miss the days of 3 kids at home, but I always did the laundry once a week.

[Lizard Queen]

Are you sure you need 2800 sf for 2 people? A smaller house takes less time to clean.

[finnime]

For the past couple of months I've been cleaning with the aid of a very thorough and strong cleaning person. She scrubs floors, washes windows, vacuums stairs and anything else I ask of her. This week she helped me get blinds installed in the sunroom. Next week she's going to clean out the refrigerator. For me, this really works. We are empty nesters in a 1740 square foot home, which we are working on readying for sale. Since it's all been painted I'm acutely aware of every bit of dog fur or grime on the woodwork, and mud on the floor. I think wherever we go next I'm going to find room in the budget for a cleaning fairy.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Feb 4, 2022 22:37:15 GMT -5 jitterbug said:

Feb 4, 2022 21:52:22 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Hi! 
I have daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning lists. 
I can post them if you want me to. 

Hmmm….I only clean every other week!  (We’re empty nesters).  Of course I clean the kitchen as needed,  but otherwise I like having the whole house looking good at the same time.  But I’d love to see your lists!

I did not realize you were asking such a specific question. My house is always company ready, so I’m not sure how I implied that my cleaning schedule led to a problem.

[startsmart]

I live alone and have a big, old house I’m renovating and trying to keep clean. Since the upstairs is under construction I’ll just talk about the first floor.

I try to pick up and put away things daily, especially in the kitchen. Clearing off surfaces makes cleaning easier because there’s less to move (for me at least).

I don’t want to spend hours each week cleaning in a dedicated time so I make a monthly list of the big jobs and worth through those.

Typically in a room I start with dusting, moving top down so dust from a ceiling fan doesn’t land on the table I just cleaned. I scrub or dust any surfaces and finish by vacuuming the floor.

About once a month I will steam mop the floors before I go to bed so my dogs cannot mess them up while they’re wet.

I also follow the Instagram account GoCleanCo which has great tips and recipes for stain removal and tools that work (she owns a home cleaning company).

[jitterbug]

Feb 5, 2022 10:12:47 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Feb 4, 2022 22:37:15 GMT -5 jitterbug said:

Hmmm….I only clean every other week!  (We’re empty nesters).  Of course I clean the kitchen as needed,  but otherwise I like having the whole house looking good at the same time.  But I’d love to see your lists!

I did not realize you were asking such a specific question. My house is always company ready, so I’m not sure how I implied that my cleaning schedule led to a problem.

I’m sorry - I did not mean to imply that your schedule was a problem.  My thought was that I feel like I only actually clean every two weeks and you having the 3 lists meant you were more pro active than I am. Our house is also company ready - most of the time.

[Deleted]

Feb 4, 2022 21:44:08 GMT -5 jitterbug said:

I feel sexist asking this question in this forum - but I figure I’d get the best answers!  I’ve had a cleaning lady for most of my adult life (cleaning house was the only thing my husband and I ever fought about, so we solved that by hiring someone else to do it!). But our cleaning lady of the past 10 years quit about a year ago and so my husband and I have been splitting the duties fairly equally.  It’s takes us 3 hours total for a 2800 sq ft house.

But today I did it by myself and thought there must be a better way to do this!  Do you clean room by room - or duty by duty?  Meaning…do you mop, dust and clean the toilets in the master, then move to the kitchen, then the living room, etc.?  Or do you dust the whole house, then sweep, then do toilets, etc?

And curious if you have a favorite product or tips to share?

When I have to pull big stuff out, like the vacuum or mop and bucket, I go on and vacuum or mop everywhere, otherwise, I mostly do room by room. I do the floors last.

I also have a Roomba to help with the annoying dark wood floors. As soon as we moved in, I knew those floors were going to drive me nuts. They did. Now that we have 2 dogs, the Roomba is a necessity lol.

[raeoflyte]

We essentially go by task, except for bathroom and bedrooms. Pre kids I enjoyed cleaning the house all at once, but that just doesn't work these days.

No set schedule right now. I think our lives are a bit haphazard. But dusting upstairs is ideally twice a week, vacuuming upstairs twice a day (2 cats and until this week we had 2 dogs - now just 1 but still a shedder).

Kitchen is once a week (we clean up after meals of course). Bathroom twice a week. Mopping kitchen happens more than the rest of the house.

Basement is more by room as well.

Chloe - I'd love to see your lists. If we migrate out of haphazard we'll get back to that kind of schedule.

I'm hoping over the next couple years to pick 1 room a month to basically empty, clean, paint, project, and then put back together.

[debthaven]

This may be a really stupid question, but couldn't you just hire another cleaner? 

I've had a cleaner my entire adult life. My 4 kids are all out of the house too now, and frankly, I can't imagine having to start cleaning on a regular basis myself (or even with DH LOL). I do spend of lot of time organizing/decluttering. 

My house is also "company ready" at any time. It takes me about 5 min to "straighten up" every night before bed or before company. 

But I find myself curious why you decided not to replace the cleaner, if you don't mind me asking. 

[Artemis Windsong]

I dust everything first with a swiffer duster or static duster.

Vacuum next. In my small house, I take the swiffer wet with me as I vacuum to do the bathroom floor, entry and kitchen.

The kitchen is cleaned up daily. I usually wash dishes by hand while I'm cooking the evening meal.

I do my larger home in the same sequence but there is less floor area to damp mop. Upper level is cleaned monthly. The basement is my challenge area that seldom gets cleaned.

The bathrooms I clean a section every time I go in. Other than the shower, it's a quick swipe. The shower I clean after I'm finished. Usually about once or twice a week.

Bedding is removed, washed, dried and put back on the bed. One set of sheets for each bed cuts down on cost and storage. Although, I do keep the older sheets when I buy new, which is seldom. My sheets last years.

Windows are my challenge that I fail at.

I use a blower for the carport, garage and patio.

[countrygirl2]

I vacuum every other day, get quite a bit of fur and dust. The cats are not big shedders, but they do shed.

Now I have decluttered and have carpet out a lot easier to keep clean. I mop every couple of weeks, sometimes have to do the kitchen and bathrooms more often. I mop the hardwood about once a month.

I will clean the toilets every few days, plus the sinks and mirrors. Maybe the tub and shower every couple of weeks, we have a water softener so the sinks and all stay nice.

Everybody picks up after themselves so that helps and DD let me take tons of stuff out of her room so I can vac in there easily now. I do at least a couple of loads of laundry a day, sometimes leave it and do every other day.

Change linens once a week or every 2 weeks, we bathe every night so not dirty. Wash the blankets about once a month.

I don't dust as often as I should, but with geothermal and the house was new in 2003, it's not full of dust or anything like an old house. So maybe every couple of weeks, it's not bad.

I will shake throw rugs outside and wash about once a month, bet I have to wash those yellow ones I'm getting more often. Lately I don't have any in the kitchen but really need to do that.

Remove leftovers out of the fridge every few days, clean it about once a month. Though I wipe spots out as needed.

I also decluttered kitchen countertops and am keeping them that way. But I try to clean my kitchen as I cook. Depends on what I'm cooking, can't sometimes. But I don't leave dirty dishes or a mess sitting around, that room I keep clean.

There is still more decorator stuff sitting around then I want, may make another sweep soon, less is more. Hubs and I need to put some pictures back up, just received the nice hangers I ordered. I clean baseboards when I mop. House is usually presentable.

Windows in the summer get washed several times, but not in the winter unless a really warm day.

Need to clean garage more often.

[stillmovingforward]

CG2 is never allowed to come to my house (please no offense). There is no WAY I would ever be able to keep my little house that clean!

It's just DH and i right now.
My place is a clean as 2 dogs and an injured DH can keep it. The porch light is on when I get home, dirty dishes are in the dishwasher and dinner is cooked 4 nights a week. That's about the best we can do right now 🥳

[stillmovingforward]

I'll admit it's fascinating to read how people manage so differently to keep their homes clean.

[empress of self-improvement]

As little as possible. Although I will be doing a deep clean and disinfecting this week after the cat that I'm catsitting goes home. I'm getting 4 more cats for fostering in 2 weeks so need the house ready for them. Of course, I may be cleaning up dead cat if he doesn't stop eating my plant!

[Blonde Granny]

I don't!!!! I have a cleaning service that comes once per month. I don't have a lot of things I allow myself but cleaning ladies is certainly one of them.

[buystoys]

When I could still clean the house myself, I would do the vacuuming one day, steam clean all the floors the next day, so both the bathrooms the next, and dust and tidy the rest of the week.  I had to stop because I just can't push the vacuum or steam mop back and forth with my back. 

[Opti]

How do people clean their TV screens and monitors or desktops of dust?

[Rukh O'Rorke]

I'd be interested in hearing about people's kitchen routines.

We have not had a cleaning person since the pandemic started. At one point, I likely would have gone back to our old cleaning person but heard through the grapevine she was not vaxxed and no intention to. This seems to be common in the older Polish community, according to DDs Polish friends in the yonger Polish community, and not related to any political ideology.

I guess more than cleaning routines, I want to ask how did people find/select a cleaning person?? Wondering what is happening with rates during the labor shortage.

[laterbloomer]

Feb 6, 2022 10:31:17 GMT -5 Opti said:

How do people clean their TV screens and monitors or desktops of dust?

I use a swiffer duster for regular dusting. Then I have a special Whoosh screen cleaner that I use about once a month with a microfibre cloth.

[Deleted]

jitterbug were any of our posts helpful? If you need more or different information, let us know.

[countrygirl2]

I think my house is not as clean as I want it. And the furniture is dustier than it should be.
But we are all home and hard to keep clean, but do the best I can.

[swamp]

I hired a cleaning lady about 12 years ago.

[Deleted]

We tried 2 different cleaning persons since the 90's but we were burglarized twice during the 1st person's time which may or may not have been her fault-even the best person may have family members with drug habits and it's so easy to grab your aunt's keys to the client's house.  Second time around was a couple but they weren't reliable and damaged a lot of irreplaceable stuff. The only cleaning service I would trust at this point is background checked, bonded and insured but they are also $125 a week.  

We are just 2 here so we split things up.  I dry Swiffer the hardwoods weekly and DH vacuums the carpets and area rugs.   He dusts (sort of  ) the main bedroom, TV room and dining room while I dust the kitchen, baths, living room and office. We alternate the cooking so the non-cook does a basic kitchen cleanup nightly.  I do a deep clean of the kitchen every other week including wet mopping the kitchen floor.  I also do a deep clean of the bathrooms every other week, although I clean the toilets weekly.  

It's complicated when having a cleaning person means either giving them the code to the burglar alarm or leaving the alarm off, neither of which is a good idea.  

[TheOtherMe]

My cleaning lady has her own code.  I know when she is supposed to be here and I will know if the code is used when it shouldn't be used.  

She doesn't have a key to my house.  When the alarm system was set up, I had a code set up for service people.  So far, she is the only one I have given it to.

[Deleted]

Feb 6, 2022 18:40:49 GMT -5 soupandstew said:

We tried 2 different cleaning persons since the 90's but we were burglarized twice during the 1st person's time which may or may not have been her fault-even the best person may have family members with drug habits and it's so easy to grab your aunt's keys to the client's house.  Second time around was a couple but they weren't reliable and damaged a lot of irreplaceable stuff. The only cleaning service I would trust at this point is background checked, bonded and insured but they are also $125 a week.  

We are just 2 here so we split things up.  I dry Swiffer the hardwoods weekly and DH vacuums the carpets and area rugs.   He dusts (sort of  ) the main bedroom, TV room and dining room while I dust the kitchen, baths, living room and office. We alternate the cooking so the non-cook does a basic kitchen cleanup nightly.  I do a deep clean of the kitchen every other week including wet mopping the kitchen floor.  I also do a deep clean of the bathrooms every other week, although I clean the toilets weekly.  

It's complicated when having a cleaning person means either giving them the code to the burglar alarm or leaving the alarm off, neither of which is a good idea.  

I completely understand the trust issues. I would struggle with having a cleaning lady. I am very cautious about who I allow inside my house, even people that I know myself, or someone I know knows.

A male coworker recommended a yard guy to me several years ago, someone he knew, but obviously didn’t know well enough. The yard guy was doing good work, so I was ok with him. Male coworker mentioned it to another female coworker, who turned out to be yard guy’s first cousin. She told male coworker to tell me SHE said to be careful, and never let him in my house because he was on drugs on and off, and had stolen from customers before. By the time I saw male coworker again and he could tell me that, yard guy had already started doing crackhead stuff. When I told male coworker that I’d already started getting concerned before he even told me that, and why, he called yard guy and shot off about the stuff he’d been doing and told him he was fired and better not come near my house again. Yard guy called me, practically begging to keep cutting my grass, I told him it was better for both of us if I just found somebody else.

I’ve always had trust issues concerning people I don’t know well or trust being inside my home, and I’ve had experiences that didn’t help any.