I’ve just swept and mopped. Once the floor dries, I could easily go sweep again and turn up more dust and dirt. If I were to mop again, I’m almost certain the water in my bucket would be filthy. It feels like it’s never actually clean.
Beyond that, there’s dusting, cleaning windows, sinks, countertops, bathrooms, and probably things I don’t even consider. How do you all stay on top of these things?
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Smaller houses tend to be better for this, generally. Cut down on all the stupid useless crap you own that you only use like once every 3 years, it’s not worth it to keep it sitting around. Buy and sell everything on craigslist, and rent the rest of what you might need. Maybe look into a storage shed or something, or dedicate a portion of your house to this, a room, something like this. Most people have a garage, I think. Pawn stuff off on everyone around you, call them when you need it, and then that’s a good opportunity to socialize. The same goes for “makerspaces” or whatever. Get out of your house more.
Work from the top down, start in an area with your fans, cobwebs, whatever, then work down to the pictures and higher shelves, the windows, lower shelves, tables, then hit your walls and baseboards, and then, after all that’s done, do the floors.
Remove clutter and little aesthetic baubles on shelves where dust and hair and crap might accumulate, unless you’re actively using the things in that space, or frequently moving stuff around in that area. It also pays to be conscious of how airflow moves throughout your house and how dust settles. It always tends to be the corners, but then corners also tend to be the deadzones where people put things anyways. If you can turn this on it’s head, and keep things away from the walls and corners more, that’s probably a decent idea, and could also help you open up your house more. If you can’t do that, you could look into like, these triangular dust guards they make for the corners of things, especially stairs, though those are mostly for sweeping, and I think dust might end up sticking to them regardless. The best solution for most people is probably just to go in the complete opposite direction, and get some big sealed corner cabinets with actual doors, instead of just having a bunch of open shelves everywhere.
Make sure you always remove your shoes when you come in from outside, and if you’re especially dirty, your outerwear. It’s easier to clean this all in one location by the door. Cats and dogs and all your other pets also shed a ton which can suck really bad and get on everything. I really like having pets, but god damn it can get pretty nasty. I would probably not do it all over again if I had the choice. Maybe look for breeds that don’t shed as much. Or just brush your pets maybe more than daily, that might also help.
Also, invest in a good stick vacuum, don’t get one of those huge corded garbage vacuums, or those ones that roll around and have the tube, those also suck and are awful. Also a good spray mop with the bottom that sticks to the cloth pad, and not like a normal stupid mop with a bucket or whatever, because those suck.
Yeah. Do all that, revolve your life around just cleaning and maintaining the shit that you own, and then you can probably get away with like an hour maybe once or twice a week for your whole house. How fulfilling!
We have a robot vacuum that runs automatically every day. And yea, it picks up a load of dust every day. Leaves me to do other stuff.
Exactly this. You’d be surprised how much dust it can collect. After a week or two in my small home it can easily collect a fistful of dust, and that’s just from me alone.
i don’t.
I have a mastiff. Truly clean will never be a thing again.
Robot vacuum has been a game changer for me. Highly recommended!
Vacuum. It sucks up the dirt and traps it.
Brooms & mops were from the ancient days before electricity existed, and as you’ve experienced, the dirt just keeps circulating and never goes away. Endless filth & frustration.
In newer construction, especially high-rise apartments, there’s a lot less dust. But in older buildings, it’s just an endless torrent, and the solution has been…
Robot vacuums
While they must be maintained, and won’t work well if you’re not diligent about picking up and keeping obstacles off the floor, they make it far easier to keep the whole house clean by reducing the overall volume of interior dust and debris inside the building envelope.
To illustrate (this will be gross) I change the bags about every month and weigh them and it’s usually ~1 kg per bag, so each year they remove roughly 30-40 kg. And every time I’ve cut them open to see what’s causing all the weight (or make sure nothing important was eaten) it appears to be mostly dust and hair.
It’s freaky thinking how all of that would be floating around, settling on surfaces, collecting in corners and crevices, saturating carpets and upholstery, and of course getting breathed in constantly. Instead I don’t have to manually dust and vacuum very often and our indoor AQI is usually better than outside.
So yeah. Robots.
Robots is great, but the privacy implications scare me.
I hear you. I do have one that’s dumb, only just smart enough to set a daily schedule, no WiFi or cameras, but it’s bullet proof and easier to maintain than the others, so It’s possible to not sacrifice privacy.
What brand/model do you have? I’ve been looking into purchasing one.
Not the person you’ve replied to, but I’ve got a Roborock Q7 Max. It’s cheap and relatively simple. It’s got a LIDAR and proximity sensors, but no obstacle avoidance or stair/cliff detection and no camera. From what I can see it’s also silent (no network activity) even though it’s bound to my WiFi. After months of using it I’d say its been a great choice to splurge on. Never had one, never thought I’d need one, but after seeing dust settling on every bit of the floor every day… I got tired of sweeping.
That one’s a refurb iLife v3s. Not sure of current price but I paid $62.
I hear you. There’s always Valetudo. Get yourself a supported vacuum and install Valetudo whenever you feel the need. Had my robot for half a year but haven’t come around to doing it just yet. Maybe after its warranty runs out.
Ate there ones that aren’t loud? I work from home and never leave the house, and if robot vacuums are only ever used when you jagger the house, then they aren’t for me
Put a large air cleaner in on high. Beat the couch cushions outside, shake down blankets outside, carpet wash the furniture and carpets. Scrub hvac vents and air handler ducts. Wet wipe your walls and base boards. Clean you dryer vents. Dust is everywhere. Light mop daily with a spray mop.
Change your HVAC filters every month until it gets better. If you don’t have HVAC, get more air cleaners and stay on top filter replacements.
It’ll take ages, but it’ll get better.
As someone with OCD in the form of germaphobia and excessive/repetitive cleaning, I recommend you see a doctor and get tested for OCD. Doing therapy massively improved my quality of life.
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I gave up keeping the floor clean, I’m the only one that cleaned in the house, any complaints about the dirt on the floor was met with “well you should be wearing shoes”, any attempt at cleaning the clutter is met with the other household members stressed out because things changed. I take any W I can, but it’s defo a learn to get used to it type of situation at least in my case, and dirt isn’t going to go away sadly.
I had to start wearing slippers so I didn’t feel the dirt and it stopped getting in my sheets, that might help you avoid noticing it as much if you don’t already do so
Maybe take the approach used in Asia of taking shoes off at the door to avoid tracking in dirt
I do, the issue is I’m the ONLY one who does. My mom raised me to take shoes off indoors but I’m not sure where she learned it from because nobody else in the family does.
Not just Asia. Wearing shoes indoors is mostly an american thing.
Nah, in the Netherlands I’d say 75% of guests in houses wears shoes indoor.
We don’t have much carpets though. With carpets I’d totally get it.
That’s why I said mostly. There are exceptions of course. I only tell people to keep their shoes on if the floor is too dirty and it wasn’t raining / snowing.
Edit: also, flip flops exist. Lots of people have guest pairs somewhere so you don’t walk on the cold floor.
Italy too, pretty much everyone that is know wears shoes indoors.
Australia, it’s a bit more normal to ask if shoes should come off when visiting someone, as that might be their thing.
Not just america
I do take my shoes off now, but did not growing up
Your link says shoes off is considered rude in all of Central/South America and all of western Europe.
Sorry links to this reddit.com site don’t seem to work here
The last time this topic came up, someone said…
Of course I wear shoes in the house; I’d rather not walk in cat barf without shoes!
Europe here. Taking shoes off at the door is cleanliness 101 in my house. Stops people from spreading all kind of dirt inside the house.
Then well, there is the matter of kids and pets. 1 kid, 1 cat here. This fundamentally changes how you need to clean the house.
Sometimes I try to remember what a great princess once proclaimed: let it go, let it gooo…
I don’t wear shoes in the house and run an airfilter. Every friday or sunday, I do an hour of cleaning (if necessary). Keeps things extremely clean. If I make a mess, I immediately clean it up.
wait til’ it gets bad enough to bug me, then clean.
We’re almost there.
Make sure that you cleaning routine is top to bottom. Wipe off the blinds, wipe the counters and appliances, moving down until the floor, which is last. Even if it isn’t perfect, it’s better than completely dirty, right? Progress is progress.
Routine.
Part of my routine is to do a more deep clean on one thing/section each week.
