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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Keeping your house clean is a good thing to do. But it’s easy to stray into obsession territory. There lies madness.
Remember we all have far more visitor microbes in our bodies than our own host cells. Life is dirty. Life is germy. Embrace this.
You don’t need to live in a hoarder hell hole, but the sooner you accept that living is a messy business the more time you’ll have to enjoy actually living. Cleaning tasks should be quick and efficient, not sterilization.
I have 2 dogs and a cat and have hard floors throughout. The roboVac runs twice per day and is always FULL when I empty it after every run. In addition my roboMop runs 3 days a week. My job at home is no longer cleaning but, roboTending 😂
But yes, taking off your shoes from outdoors is a must. We all keep a pair birks just for use inside.
So wait, you take your shoes off at the door, but your dogs (who invariably step in their own piss and shit), have free reign?
I invested in a self emptying one. It empties the dustbin and automatically cleans the mop. I just have to dump the waste water every week or so, and fill up the clean.
There are robot mops now? Are there any that do not send your house floor plan to the company?
I’ve always considered paying for cleaning a little posh, but with children and both working full time it’s an easy choice. We’d always prioritise other things than cleaning in our free time, so it wouldn’t get done. It is also tax deductable where I live.
You’re never going to be sterile; good enough is good enough.
Keep an abundance of cleaning supplies. Soaps and rags in the kitchen and the bathroom. Think about investing in a vacuum and a carpet cleaning machine.
Some people find it easier to do one big push where they clean the whole house in one session; other folks like to do a little bit every day. Figure out which type you are.
Also, check and see what cleaners charge in your area. It might be worth it to have a pro come in and do the work for you. Figure out what your leisure time is worth to you and then compare.
I’m the little bit everyday person. I’ll clean the bathrooms one day, then vacuum the floors the next. Wash clothes later in the week, something I need to do today.
I feel like doing a bit a day helps keep things cleaner than if I did it all at once. Things can appear overwhelming pretty quickly, at which point I won’t want to do it at all.
I’m a combination. If something looks bad I’ll get to it right away, and try to do a blitz once a week.
This is the way. I use Trello and have automated task creation on days and use its Kanban. Also a great habit to get into is if you walk into a room do one cleaning thing while you’re in it. Walk into a room and forget what you’re looking for. Take a moment to do some quick cleaning or organization. The little bit adds up and does not become overwhelming
We got a service. We’ve two cats, a dog, and a toddler, and no family closeby to help with child care. We did the math and decided we needed the help. It’s fantastic.
I have a roomba to get rid of 80% every day. I strive to manually vacuum once a week, because the roomba doesn’t do corners and some hard to reach bits. Nor can it do stairs, obviously. After vacuuming I run a steam mop over the floors, which is amazing and SO much faster than regular mopping, without any cleaning agents.
Since its a combination steam mop/hand thing, I also use it for the windows. That’s not on any schedule, just when I think they’re dirty.
I wetwipe the countertop after I make dinner, and I clean it with soap whenever it looks dirty enough to be worth the effort.
Honestly, things like wooden floors can be hand-scrubbed four or five times before being actually clean, but it feel that anything that’s stuck on there after running the steam mop is probably not coming off during normal use, so it qualifies as clean enough.
What is a steam mop?
Apparently is called a “steam vapor cleaner”
I’d love a roomba but I’m horrified at the privacy nightmare hahaha
I have a rechargeable stick vac I use whenever the cat hair builds up too much.
I have the dumbest, non-mapping I could find. It works basically just as well as the 800 euro hypersmart ones
What brand/model do you have?
Robots
I do the dishes as soon as possible, wipe the kitchen surfaces daily if used, I scrub the toilets the second they don’t look sparkling (to prevent gross buildup, maybe every 10 days, there are no stand-pee-ers in this house spraying piss everywhere lol), my Roomba runs every 2 days to get most dust on the floor that normally would get kicked back up, and I pay for some house cleaners to come once a month to get what I missed and do a better job at it.
Roomba. OK, not exactly, but I have an offbrand bot that does touching up and my wife and I take turns doing a proper cleaning of the floors every couple weeks. It’s not perfect, but it’s presentable. Neither of us are going to dedicate too much time to keeping things perfect. Cleanliness is important, but take care that it doesn’t become an obsession at the cost of your other interests.
Bold of you to assume my home is clean.
The best advice I have is one I found on the internet: Whenever you walk through a room pick something up and dispose of it, or put it back in its place.
Don’t Walk Past It. That is the name of the rule. It’s a great rule.
I keep up on my hvac air filters to help with dust, and have a no shoes in the house rule.
I use a crosswave, and it’s disgustingly effective at cleaning floors. It’s basically a self cleaning Swifer wet jet.
I used it on floors that I mopped with a traditional mop twice right before, and the water was dark brown when I finished.
I bought a good vacuum cleaner and a steam cleaner. That and microfiber rags.
Daily tidying tasks: dishes asap, litter box, laundry, spray cleaner on the shower after showering. Once a week the more laborious tasks get done: vacuuming, mopping etc. Bathrooms every 3 weeks or so. It’s a constant rotation that I would struggle with alone… my spouse and I tag-team all cleaning together so that helps. Consistency with cleaning helps everything to stay relatively clean. If it ever gets to be too much to keep up with in the future, we’ve agreed that a weekly cleaner might be a good option to help us maintain.
It feels like it’s never actually clean.
Keeping things neat and tidy is literally an endless battle against entropy.
I mean, it’s not like I can get rid of the waterbugs in my eyelashes when I take a shower. Becoming truly “clean” would mean destroying all physical traces of, well, everything. We would have to be made of pure energy to be really “clean.”
In short, the organic biological world in which we exist will always be interminably filthy.
