Do you have a cleaning rota?

[Mrs Miggins]

I'm absolutely shocking about housework and try not to do any at all if I can help it. As aurora and so many others have already said, it's just so depressingly never ending. I can clean my bathroom one day and there will already be dirt around the sink just 2 days later. So I basically don't do it until I can't stand the muck any longer.

I'm fine with washing and washing up though and do generally keep the place reasonably tidy. It's just the cleaning. It's fucking rubbish. I hate it!!! Windows haven't been cleaned in 2 years.

I'm going to try to get into the habit of doing just a tiny little bit every day. Seriously doubt it's going to work though. My only serious solution is to pay someone to do it for me.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

yup.

I dont use it often because i do most things daily if i feel up to it.

Monday: Kitchen, Living Room, change beds.
Tuesday: bathroom, toddlers room, water plants.
Wednesday: Master Bedroom, Nursery.
Thursday: Kitchen, landing/stairs/hall.
Friday: Bathroom, living room, water plants.

Washing is done on a daily basis, along with ironing and putting clothes away.

Do you go to work as well?
I'm sure I wouldn't mind cleaning half as much if I didn't!!

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Mrs Suplex and I keep the place in mess pretty much all the time. Our solution is inviting friends round every now and then which forces a clean up job on the place. I even polished the foor last time.

The house scrubs up really well, it's a shame we don't keep it up.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Do you go to work as well?
I'm sure I wouldn't mind cleaning half as much if I didn't!!

Nope, but im 6 months pregnant and have a toddler about! Much harder than working tbh!

But I kept within the rota when I was working too. Its easier if you get yourself used to it.

Im a lazy fuck at the best of times, but I cannot stand mess anymore, and feel much better having achieved something in my home.

 

[beeboo]

All this talk of cleaning has shamed me into planning a tidy up of our filthy pit tonight.

<dons marigolds>

 

[Miscellaneous]

beeboo- focus one one room tonight, dontgo all out- you'll end up killing yourself

*goes off to blitz the kitchen and bathroom*

 

[Numbers]

but dusting once every couple of months is probably taking the piss... I really ought to do it more often!

lol, every cpl of months. I do it every cpl of days.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

But I kept within the rota when I was working too. Its easier if you get yourself used to it.

Hmmm....maybe I should work some sort of rota out. We only live in a 1 bed flat after all so it's not like there's an awful lot to clean.

 

[aurora green]

My flat doesn't seem to get very dusty, which is good, but dusting once every couple of months is probably taking the piss... I really ought to do it more often!

See, I'd like to know, how is this possible? And is there anyway I can move to where you live?
The dust gathers in my house at a shocking speed, great big fluff balls of it in the corners of rooms where there arn't rugs... and this is even where I hoover regularly.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Hmmm....maybe I should work some sort of rota out. We only live in a 1 bed flat after all so it's not like there's an awful lot to clean.

The main thing is to tidy up when you finish doing something, then it makes life easier.

Go and tidy the messiest room in your flat tonight mrs miggins!!

 

[girasol]

See, I'd like to know, how is this possible? And is there anyway I can move to where you live?
The dust gathers in my house at a shocking speed, great big fluff balls of it in the corners of rooms where there arn't rugs... and this is even where I hoover regularly.

I don't know, I really don't... Maybe my flat is really damp and the dust particles don't float about as much...

(come to think of it, that could be why... The flat seems a bit dustier since I got central heating working about a month ago!)

 

[Mrs Miggins]

The main thing is to tidy up when you finish doing something, then it makes life easier.

Go and tidy the messiest room in your flat tonight mrs miggins!!

No
I'm going out for a curry

But don't you feel like you spend all your life tidying and cleaning? That's what I want avoid! However, the state of the flat does get me down sometimes so I should bloody well get off me fat ass and grab that duster!

Other thing is though that all our furniture is shit, the kitchen is shit, the bathroom wall is falling off through damp etc. etc. so it doesn't inspire me to make it look good when it's intrisically shite anyway

 

[Miscellaneous]

No
I'm going out for a curry

But don't you feel like you spend all your life tidying and cleaning? That's what I want avoid! However, the state of the flat does get me down sometimes so I should bloody well get off me fat ass and grab that duster!

Other thing is though that all our furniture is shit, the kitchen is shit, the bathroom wall is falling off through damp etc. etc. so it doesn't inspire me to make it look good when it's intrisically shite anyway

yup my life is cook-clean-sleep at the moment, but im trying to teach the little un that keeping the place tidy makes life easy, and I get pissed off with our dog who moults consistantly, and th hairs go everywhere.

Plus on a day when i dont feel like cleaning- i dont have to worry about it, and I have totally free weekends with my family.

 

[beeboo]

beeboo- focus one one room tonight, dontgo all out- you'll end up killing yourself

*goes off to blitz the kitchen and bathroom*

If I do the kitchen and maybe change the bedclothes, i'll consider it an achievement.

 

[beeboo]

My flat doesn't seem to get very dusty, which is good, but dusting once every couple of months is probably taking the piss... I really ought to do it more often!

I think there are some bits of my flat which have never been dusted in the two years we've lived there!

 

[Crispy]

Rather than a cleaning rota, in my last place we had a cleaning tally chart. Each time you did a chore, you'd put a tick in that column for your name. Meant that work got done at it's own pace and it was dead easy to keep tabs on who's not pulling their weight. The only arguments were along the lines of "You put a tick in the sweep floor box and I STILL SEE CRUMBS!"

 

[lynne8]

I dust every day and try and do dishes every day, then I lie around all day Saturday and spend all Sunday panicking and washing floors, vacuuming and doing laundry. You gotta keep up with the bathroom and the kitchen and everything else will fall into place!

 

[cathal marcs]

I wish I did but most probably it would be ignored like my pleas to wash your dishes when your finished with them. one of my flatmates is the messiest fucker you will ever meet. I kid you not you will not know how much mess this one arsehole can mate.

 

[pembrokestephen]

I try to get daughter-of-partner to do easy jobs, like load the dishwasher (she won't wash up!), but it's more of a chore to get her to do it than it is to do it myself. For a start, she tends not to clear big chunks of debris off the plates, so the load ends up being covered in a universal melange of dinner, catfood and an unidentifiable grit-like substance. But that's OK, because she's so rubbish at loading it, anyway, that there's only about half the stuff in that would be in it if I loaded it. Which is just as well, because she finds the little drain trap sooooo repellant to even THINK about that she never clears that, either, and the whole load needs to be done again.

So I do it.

She's a lovely girl, really, which is why I don't like to spoil it by getting her to do things that I know she'll mess up (as, I suspect, she does, too) which will make me cross.

And she did get 85% in her science GCSE coursework.

Both of the girls hate hoovering, so this is the monthly hoovering rota (I generally end up doing it about (!) once a week:

Week 1: Stephen
Week 2: Stephen
Week 3: Stephen
Week 4: Stephen

 

[surfgirl]

OK, so tonight I came back to an immaculate, and I mean immaculate, flat for the first time, errr probably ever!

Thanks to a couple of tips on this thread and other stuff I've picked up this is what worked for a tidy/cleanaphobe like me.

Best tip by far was from someone on this thread saying clear all surfaces even if you can't be bothered to do anything else. Once I'd done that, it felt lovely.

Bathroom, it turns out needs cleaning more than once a week as does kitchen.

I do one thing a night now, ie. clean sink and loo while running bath, when I get out I clean the bath.

Next night hoover. Next night do kitchen. Next night change sheets. etc. Its so easy just doing one thing it really doesn't feel like a chore.

Finally, you can only put stuff away if theres somewhere to put it so make sure you invest in storage boxes, storage anything. You can only really clean a tidy place as there is no mess to skirt around.

Just thought I'd share what I've learnt for anyone else thats in the same boat as me, sounds like there are a few of you!

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Hmmm....I feel rather inspired by your post sufgirl!

Must devise a rota and give this a shot this week! Although some mates laughed at me in the pub the other night for saying that I was going to have a go at a rota...

 

[subversplat]

No, I like the slow, silent build up of tensions as everybody winds each other up without actually doing anything they think is wrong, which then erupts into a volcano of shouting, screaming and sometimes brandishing knives

I also don't care if where I live is clean all the time. A bi-weekly swoosh with a vacuum does the job

 

[suzee blue cheese]

Rather than a cleaning rota, in my last place we had a cleaning tally chart. Each time you did a chore, you'd put a tick in that column for your name. Meant that work got done at it's own pace and it was dead easy to keep tabs on who's not pulling their weight.

I've been meaning to put something like this in action I hate housework but despite the fact I can always think of a million things I'd rather be doing, I'll get stuck in and do it when I've reached my mess threshold. I'm really not the tidiest of people so the threshold is quite high. He who shall remain nameless, however, simply doesn't have such a threshold ...or if he has, it's yet to be exceeded...

Another good reason for a tally is that he'll get to be appreciated for all the things he does that I don't necessarily notice..

Generally I do try to do stuff as I go along. Getting home from work knackered fit to drop doesn't compliment the good intentions though.

The laundry gets done, no probs - don't really notice that as a chore but then again I'm not an ironer which cuts out most of the chore really.

The kitchen surfaces get done every time I do the cooking at least - I detest preparing food on dirty/cluttered surfaces. Try as I might, I never feel like doing the washing up after we've eaten - it's almost always done the next day. The kitchen floor can go for weeks..

General tidying happens more often than hoovering. I'd like to aim for a proper clear up every week but it doesn't happen - fully clear and hoovered downstairs is probably once every 3 or 4 weeks or when someone comes to visit.. again.. Bathroom, which is all part of the downstairs bit, tends to get done when things begin to look grubby so more frequently than the hoovering.

Glad I'm not the only one who feels the need to make the place comfortable for someone else to stay in...

 

[Stobart Stopper]

Most of the time I do have some sort of rota but in the school holidays it goes out of the window, when it gets really bad I just do the best I can. Didn't realise one kid could make so much mess. Everyone else's house always seems alot tidier than mine at the moment.