STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Elle · Hermes

Cleaning Habits

Kitty · Hermes

We have a cleaning lady that comes every week and cleans, but I still have to pick-up and organize before she comes. In between having our house cleaned, we usually just pick-up as we go, but I still find that things tend to clutter (laundry, mail, shoes, etc). I'm not too bothered by clutter as long as it doesn't get out of hand -- which it doesn't, because I go through that stuff on a weekly basis. I never make the bed, though.

Kelly · Hermes

I usually let things get cluttered to the point where I can't stand it and then spend a whole day cleaning on the weekend. It's never really *dirty* though. If someone is coming over, I try to get all the clean dishes put away and all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher so they're out sight, pick up my dog's stuff (which is all over the den-ish area, especially when it's rainy and I just put down big junky blankets on the floor so she gets her mud and stink all over those instead of the carpet!), and vacuum. I still do have a cluttered table, etc, but since I'm not having any fancy dinner parties no one really cares. It's just like, mail and junk. The one thing that I am kind of embarassed about is all of my garbage cans. I have one garbage can, one recycling can for glass, plastic, and metal, and paper grocery bags sitting out to collect paper recycling. This is in the kitchen, which is right when you walk in the door. So it looks like I have one big group of garbage!

XtinaStyles · Marc Jacobs

Living with roommates, I basically have to clean up after myself in every instance. I feel bad if I leave mail on the table. I kind of like it that way because if I want to pop in at any moment with a friend, I have a presentable place.

I try to clean up after myself in my bedroom but I find that I leave clothing, makeup and whatever else it took to get ready in the morning strewn throughout the room. I usually clean lightly before bed then one day on the weekend will spend a couple of hours tidying up and doing laundry or heavier cleaning (like the bathroom,vaccuuming, etc).

My one roommate leaves dirty dishes in the sink for days on end and it drives me nuts (even though we have a dishwasher). I can't go to bed without taking care of the dishes, thats just gross.

clothes_horse · Dooney & Bourke

a messy house stresses me out, so i clean every day, unless i'm not at home or horribly sick. (i have two girls and a husband that make sure i have plenty to do) my usual schedule is:
vacuum every other day, or as needed
dishes every evening right before bed
laundry 2-3 times per week, or as needed
straightening up every day
wipe down bathroom once a week, heavier clean once a month, or as needed
same with kitchen

i generally do all the cleaning, with help from my six year old and husband helps when he has time or on the weekend.
we have a lot of overnight company since we live 8 hours from our parents and families. when company is coming, i generally clean for 1-2 days before hand. if it's last minute, i throw everything in a bucket/basket and toss the dishes in the dishwasher.
i recycle paper and batteries but i have so little room that it's hard to recycle anything else. i'm thinking about getting a little plastic set of drawers for all the other recycling.
both me and my husband hate clutter so i go through all our paperwork/toys/clothes on a regular basis.

Bastet · Kate Spade

I don't like cleaning when it takes up a lot of time. As soon as DH and I buy a house, I want to hire a cleaning person to come and do the chore I hate the most: cleaning the bathrooms.

Right now, we vacuum a lot because we have a Dyson and it's actually kind of fun to see it suck all the crud out of my carpet. We generally do the dishes after we finish dinner. I try to clean as I cook, and put stuff in the dishwasher as I go. I hate dust and tend to dust 2x/week. I loathe cleaning the bathroom. It seems like a day after it's cleaned, it looks like a frat house again. I guess I shed a lot, because my hair gets everywhere, and the baseboards get gross from water condensation and dust. DH and I share a sink, and my side of the sink is usually clean, I wipe it down every morning and try to put my stuff away. DH's side of the sink is pretty gross since he rarely wipes it down. I *hate* cleaning it. And his tolerance for filth is much higher than mine, so I usually snap first and cleaning it. Bleah!

So, usually my apartment is "presentable" if people drop by unannounced, I just shut the door to the master bathroom. The spare bathroom is rarely used, so it's usually clean and ready for use by guests.

We do have clutter, though. There's usually a pile of mail on the entry table and a few stray loads of laundry that I have to cram into the bedroom really quick.

blink · Coach

I am a perfectionist, who is compelled to just give up if I can't accomplish all the neccessary cleaning perfectly. I also have an issue with clutter, so I have to remind myself to take care of it on a regular basis, rather than having a huge overwhelming pile of stuff to sort through.

I have recently started FLYlady.net, which helps me a lot! The site has been around for years but I just now decided to give it a shot before my home gets too out of control. It helps one take "baby steps" in order to establish cleaning routines, instead of wearing ourselves out with 4 hour cleaning sessions every weekend. Currently, I am trying to establish a routine of shining my kitchen sink every night, doing at least one load of laundry every day, keeping hotspots clear (the dining room table where I fold laundry and the desk where I pile the mail!), giving the toilet bowls a quick swish every morning, and windex the mirrors.

My goal is to have my house always be no more than 15 minutes away from company ready. It didn't used to be too hard, but since I have toddlers now who will happily pull out everything I just cleaned up, I have additional challenges. :)

Elle · Hermes

blink wrote:

I am a perfectionist, who is compelled to just give up if I can't accomplish all the neccessary cleaning perfectly. I also have an issue with clutter, so I have to remind myself to take care of it on a regular basis, rather than having a huge overwhelming pile of stuff to sort through.

This is me, too. I'm suprisingly all-or-nothing in a few areas, and this is one of them! Part of it is that my husband is not terribly helpful at picking up after himself. Not out of spite but because he's often home just long enough to make a mess

. It makes keeping things clean impossible unless I obsess, so I just give up.

I think your goal of 15 minutes away from ready is a great one blink! I may have to adopt that myself. May help keep me between obsessive and completely lax instead of falling off the deep end on either side.

Hermione · Kate Spade

I've been dealing with this myself lately, and also consider myself, like Elle and Blink, an all-or-nothing type of perfectionist. I lived with two boys (well, one of the rooms was rotating, but we had 3 different boys through there) and 2 cats (and at one point 8!!! we rescued a preggo one) for about two years, and at that time i felt like it was fruitless to try any sort of cleaning. the boys could care less - literally I, as the only girl in the apartment, was the only one who would take out the trash. My brother (the other roommate) would do dishes if I asked him to, but that was about it. I never ventured into their bathroom the entire time. It was scary enough from the threshold.

Anyway, I've been in my own place for a little over a year and I'm embarassed to say that I'm only now getting it shaped up - and it's because I have been trying to let go of that all or nothing thing - it's very VERY hard for me to do that. But I have to say, it is working. The place is becoming very presentable and no longer a frightfest if someone wants to come over. I'm hoping to paint over the summer and do some other improvements that have weighed on me - I think the motivation of having a plan and knowing when and what I'm going to do, and that things WILL be taken care of, instead of a pile of "oh yeah I need to get around to that" has helped alot.

I have to admit though there is one close that I am leaving to be the last thing - I still have some stuff that I just do NOT know what to do with, and I think will ultimately give away, and in order to give myself peace of mind, I'm allowing myself to shove things in there haphazardly to get them out of other areas that are completed or near completed. now THAT will be a marathon day of closet organizing when I get to it!

Once everything is the way I want it, I am wondering/ concerned about the routine I will need to establish. I wonder if I need to make myself like a literal schedule to make sure I do everything a little at a time and not end up with a 48-hour deep clean every month or two?

kenzie · Chanel

Seeing as I live with Danny Tanner from Full House, our place is usually pretty clean. And if it isn't, it's because he worked his second job in the evening and wasn't home to follow me around with a dust pan and Lysol. We have more of a clutter problem than anything (which makes me crazy), mostly because our apartment is too small and we don't have the best storage systems.

pollyjean23 · Marc Jacobs

DH is more organized and concerned about cleanliness and clutter. He has work first, play later ethic and is usually first to snap and clean stuff.

In the end both of us are mid-level minimalists--so we compromise.

I enjoy having my stuff around me, so I can sometimes end up with a pile of stuff near where I'm sitting.

cahabo · Kate Spade

My house always seems like a mess! It's almost impossible to keep up with a 2 year old and a 5 year old while trying to do school work and cook meals. My two brothers live at home too, and they don't do a damn thing to help! I pretty much clean here and there throughout the day and do a little more picking up before going to bed. In the morning I do a little bit more extra cleaning before I go to school. The house usually doesn't get a good cleaning until the weekend.

littlebean · Kate Spade

Since my work tends to be all-consuming, when I'm at home with the chance to relax, the last thing that I ever want to do is clean. I also have a high level of clutter-tolerance. So unfortunately I usually clean just whenever I have company coming over or get into a very rare mood of actually wanting to clean. My significant other is much more of a neat-freak and usually "breaks down" first and cleans.

So shameful!

greendiamond · Marc Jacobs

I try to keep it clean enough on a daily basis that I wouldn't be mortified if someone stopped over unexpectedly. But, my place almost always looks lived in. It is not very often that my place is "company ready" as I like to say.

I am trying to eliminate anything around here that isn't easy to clean and am trying to find ways to store things so it is easier to put them away/more convenient. I have had mild success thus far.

It is really easy to spend 2 days in a row feeling lazy, look around and wonder what the hell happened to your place though.

Suasoria · Chanel

I'm like you - when it needs it and/or when someone will see it. Because it's normally clutter-free, my house usually looks acceptably clean - just don't look in the corners or peek inside the showers and closets. Clutter to me equals chaos, but I can tolerate some dirt and dust.

Sometimes I think if not for company coming, I'd never CLEAN-clean house at all. (That's when I go on the 1-2 day rampages like clothes_horse mentioned.

I have to clean the kitchen floor fairly regularly because it's black and white, so the light-colored dirt shows on the black squares and the dark-colored dirt shows on the white ones. By regularly I mean once a week or so. I'll also do the bare minimums in the bathrooms once a week or thereabouts - counter/sinks and toilets.

I rarely dust or vacuum the rugs, but I use a little hand broom and dustpan for things like cat and people hair, spilled kitty litter, and dust bunnies on the hardwood floors. If I keep them free of debris I find they don't have to actually be mopped very often. The floors are a very dark stained oak, so the bits o' stuff shows up like it does on the dark tile, and they do have to be swept (or Swiffered) more than I'd like, at least in the traffic patterns.

BargainQueen · Marc Jacobs

Elle wrote:

Apparently it was a disaster - crap all over the floor, weeks of dishes on every surface, etc.

If I didn't know we don't live in the same state, I would be scared DH came to visit us! Yeah, that is us, or at least was us up until a month ago.

Im my defense, I never had to pick after myself until I got married, I did pretty well for myself, that is until DD was born and started walking! Since then, either there's papers & clothes everywhere or dishes in the sink for days...

Finally last month, our house has turned into entertainers quarters. From Friday to Sunday, there's people visiting, even if nothing is planned. So it was VERY hard for me, but it has so embarrasing for people so walk into a mess even though no one seemed to care. As soon as school broke out for summer, I cleaned everything! I've never been so tired! So I've kept it up, and now that it's clean all the time, DH has no problem cleaning up after himself!

luckyclover · Dooney & Bourke

blink wrote:

I have recently started FLYlady.net, which helps me a lot! The site has been around for years but I just now decided to give it a shot before my home gets too out of control.
My goal is to have my house always be no more than 15 minutes away from company ready. It didn't used to be too hard, but since I have toddlers now who will happily pull out everything I just cleaned up, I have additional challenges. :)

my sister told me about that a couple of years ago and I tried to do it but it stressed me out from all the emails lol. This is me too though....my house was spotless before the baby...I had a cleaning schedule and cleaned all the time...people asked me if I ever did anything but clean. You could show up anytime unanounced and the house would be spotless except maybe some magazines or mail on the table. Literally right after I had my baby I kept telling my husband "but I didn't get to clean the floors" LOL. Anyway it's somewhat a mess now with no time to clean (even on the weekend) and when I do...it's gets messy again so fast.
There was a thread on this a long time ago (at that time I wasn't a supercleaner) and someone had posted some pretty intensive cleaning....including something about wiping everything down with their towels after showering (which I now do thanks! lol) and for the last couple of weeks I keep thinking about that and wishing my house was as clean as I'm sure theirs is lol. I really need to get back on track so thanks for this post! biggrin

manhattanmonkey · Kenneth Cole

Since it's just me, I clean as things are dirty. Dishes are done as need be (generally every evening), laundry is done weekly.

Generally if I've had a busy week, I have to spend a little time putting things away, hanging up clothes that were tossed around in a mad rush through the week, etc.

If people are coming over I make sure things are put away and surfaces wiped down.

jacL · Coach

Oh man, I have become a clean freak since I don't have roommates anymore (I guess BF is a roommate though). Every other day I vacuum my wood floors and wipe down the bathroom counters. I try to put dishes in the dishwasher or clean them immediately after use. BF cleans out the cat boxes at least every other day. Then every Friday I do a deeper clean--moving things out of the way to vacuum, scrubbing the entire bathroom, cleaning mirrors and dusting, mopping if it is needed, and whatever else needs to be done. The thing is, while I hate dirt/dust, I don't have a problem with clutter so my place is always cluttered, making it look unclean even though I know it's not. I also don't believein making the bed unless I have company--I figure it just gets messed up again anyway! I found that it you keep up with a cleaning routine, a little bit every day, you never have to spend too much time cleaning. Friday is my big cleaning day and even then I rarely spend more than an hour-and-a-half cleaning, tops.

I should point out that I don't have kids and when I do, I doubt I will be able to keep up this routine. That may be when the cleaning lady has to start coming!

sheisfabulous · Nine West

I love to buy cleaning supplies, microfiber cloths and brushes. It's an illness. I also will rank one of my top three favorite scents other than "clean" as good ole chlorine bleach. Funny, I grew up in a house where we ate 100% organic/vegetarian and bleach was never used because "it's carcinogenic".

I keep my electrolux canister vac out and really only put it away when we have company because I use it all the time. I love to steam clean and see the flith that comes out in the rinse water. My biggest problem is clutter. I'll miss the kids when I send them to live with their grandparents. I can't think of any other solution.

I hate clutter, I'd rather scour the place from top to bottom and repaint all the walls than to deal with misc. stuff.

I'd love to know if anyone has a Roomba or Scooba and if they're worth it?