Hi guys.
I'm just going to plunge right on in. My household cleanliness situation is less than ideal right now. I live with two people who seem either oblivious to or apathetic about living in what I would consider at best "gross conditions" and after two glasses of wine I'd call "filth."
Now, I got myself into this living situation, and as the person with the greatest desire/preference for cleanliness, it's really on me to take the house to a more preferable level. No, it's not always easy, but if you think about it, it's not really fair to expect other people to live up to my standards just because I have moved in with them. (I knew one roommate before moving in but really only "knew" and not "was friends with." So it's not like I'm living with a family or S/O who would be expected to all work together.) If I'm the person bothered by the mess, I need to step up and own it and solve it. For the parts I can't solve by myself, or if my roommates do totally shirk things that are blatantly their messes, it's going to be up to me to initiate calm, non-accusatory conversations with them where we work towards a solution, not get passive aggressive, or expect them to read my mind if I'm upset they haven't cleaned up. I get all that. It's...not perfect but it's the living situation I'm in and it's going to be fine, because it needs to be.
I've been working on the house problem for the past 4 months. There are a few problem areas where it is very hard for me because it's clear that filth has accumulated for years and it's also obvious that it's not my filth, never was, and I didn't cause it and so on, but I'm trying to just take it day by day and keep making things better. Eventually I'll either grit my teeth and address these areas, or maybe just let the house burn down instead. Either way, that's for future-me to worry about.
The reason I am posting about this is to ask for advice on cleaning from people who have been in the game for a long time and have advice or tricks and such that could help me. I am generally a tidy person especially in my living areas but I have never had house cleanliness issues on this scale before or been the most clean-freak-y person in the house. Basically I've never had to completely run house cleanliness and chores on my own before.
I was looking on the internet for advice about what a good frequency would be for certain chores. And I started getting like, what seemed like kind of really crazy idealized advice to me? Which is why I wanted to talk to the sane people of hubski.
Here are some questions I have/things I'm trying to figure out. I'm going to bold the crux of each point to make it easier for you guys.
- These crazy cleaning websites are telling me I should be dusting, vacuuming, doing laundry, and cleaning bathrooms on a daily basis. Even if that might be an ideal recommendation, I feel like in practice...does that happen? Do you adults who have been adulting for a while think that is a reasonable or executable goal? I was thinking more of a weekly basis. One another website told me I should be vacuuming 1x per week plus another time per each household member. That would be 4x a week. That also seems a little excessive to me. I mean, I like and want a clean house - it's just, I feel like in real life people generally don't vacuum that much. Am I wrong?
- basically interested in how frequently you do chores, and how you try to track them. Right now I try to do at least one thing a day which usually ends up being about 3, which I think is great. Yesterday my friend told me her rule is that she has a set number of minutes each day she has to spend doing certain things (like, 30 minutes every day cleaning) and if she doesn't do all her minutes, she rolls them into the next day. I find that intriguing and wouldn't have come up with it on my own. What do you guys do that helps you keep on track?
- I have this shower drain that repeatedly clogs. It's disgusting. At first I thought it was mostly my fault because of my hair, so I started doing things like brushing my hair right before the shower, using dry shampoo, taking quick showers etc. That doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. We have used Drain-o on this drain 2x in the past 4 months, and that's no good. Today I just bit the bullet, grabbed a coathanger and pulled what masses I could get to out of the drain. (Not that it matters, but what I pulled out seem to support the idea that my hair is not the primary clog factor. I read online that semen can contribute to clogging kind of wonder if one of my roommates is routinely jacking it in the shower...maybe that's just an internet fable? What I pulled out was extremely slimy, shiny and gross. It was much more slime than hair.) WHAT THE FUCK CAN I DO ABOUT THE SHOWER DRAIN PLEASE. Also any ideas about what might be causing/exacerbating this issue would really be appreciated. I would say the drain develops clogs that definitely noticeably slow down water drainage within a month after using Drain-O. What the fuck is going on here and why. How do I fix it.
- if I suspect that no one has ever come out and cleaned the dryer duct itself in the 5 years the dryer's been in the house and in use, like, how urgent is it that I try and get that to happen? The roommates DO clean the lint trap when they do laundry but they both appear to simply then throw the lint on the floor. (I'm biting my tongue on my ranting here, trust me, I know the feelings you are currently feeling as you read and then re-read that last sentence in disbelief. I knoooowww. So don't fixate too much on that.)
- what are chores that are easy to miss or overlook that I may not realize I'm missing?
And then any other tips plz.
Honestly I was going to send this to someone via PM but I couldn't decide who I thought would be best. So I figured I would just ask all of you.
I want to feel more comfortable and happy in my house than just tolerating it.
ref
So I would spend the $100 bucks and hire someone (a team) to come in and do a deep clean once. Hopefully this cost can be split between all the roomies. Give them a specific list of problem areas so that they spend their time on those areas and not sweeping the same section of the floor you can sweep. From there it becomes easier. I typically clean for about an hour of Saturday and Sunday. One day I'll do the bathroom. One day I'll mop. One day I'll move everything off the kitchen counter and wipe it down. One day I'll do the inside of the cabinets. Etc. An hour is a good amount of time because it doesn't get in the way of anything, but it allows you to get stuff clean. You can get a lot done in an hour. I would also choose to clean during times your housemates are around. Unless you are living with the rudest people on earth...or children... it's remarkably hard to watch someone clean and not help out a little bit. Once the house is cleaner in general, it becomes harder to leave it dirty. I'll leave a dish in the sink here or some spilled water on the counter without thinking twice, but I would never for a second do that at my parents. The counters at there house is always spotless, which means I literally spray and wipe down those two crumbs and the circle from my drink. Practically, here are some other tips: Get vinegar. It cleans everything. Dilute it with water and put it in a spray bottle. Or splash a bit down all your sink drains once in a while and let it sit. It'll get rid of that stank. Get windex. It also cleans everything (except real wood) Get one bleached based thing for grout and the corners of your tub. I hate bleach but we have a can of it. I use Kablam foaming or something for the rest of the bathroom and it's alright. If you dont mind bleach, use that though. Get a package of little heavy duty white hand towels. You'll save heaps from not using paper towels. Get a good duster off of amazon. Get gloves. I use little latex ones because we have a pack, but dishwashing ones would be fine. This is especially helpful when you are knee deep in the toilet going ew ew ew ew ew. If you have a significant amount of floors, I recommend a real mop. If you dont, get the best sponge mob thing you can get. A swifter is not a mop. Sign up for some bullshit mommy cleaning blog newsletter. Not only will you learn random cleaning tips, but you'll feel terrible about yourself; this bitch has time to raise two kids, handmake fucking cleaning solutions, go to church, and blog nonstop about it. What are you doing with your life? (lol) Lastly, do the best you can to clean a little bit in between things. So like, you get home from work, relax, go to make food. While making food, clean the kitchen or sweep the floors or dust the bookshelves. Don't go crazy just literally 5 minutes here or there helps.
A few things. 1) You need to enjoy cleaning. That probably means buying tools that make it more pleasant, and it means a total change of attitude. In your case, for this to work out long-term you need to enjoy cleaning up after two roommates that apparently wallow in their own filth. I don't see that happening, do you? So your solutions are short-term while you figure out how you want to live and find people who will support that. 2) You didn't mention your cats. This illustrates that you are a typical cat owner that doesn't understand the level of schmutz cat domiciling adds to a house. I'll bet there's a litter box that's resented at least as much as the dryer lint, too. Cats increase your need to vacuum by a factor of 2 per cat. Whatever normal non-cat-people do, you need to do three times as much. See also: Furniture. Upholstery attachments were invented for cat owners, they just don't say it on the box. 3) The actual pace of cleaning depends on a lot of factors and the Internet can't judge that as well as you can. For example, I moved 50 yards in 2011. The first place had hardwood floors. The second place has carpet. The first place had the Roomba run twice a week because hardwood floors in Los Angeles means black feet. The second place I vacuum maybe once a month but then I have to shampoo because the carpet gets sticky from all the NOx and free radicals in the air (as well as the tire and kerosene particulate coming off the runway). Should I vacuum more often? Maybe. But the carpet hides the skunge waaaaay better than the hardwood. I vacuum when my wife starts to get stuffy. The carpet sure doesn't show it. 4) The real trick is to never let it get messy. The messier you let it get, the more insurmountable it is to clean. I don't dust. Period. Things don't get particularly dusty around here. Period. But what dust they have is grimy and sticky and awful and the longer you let it stick around the thicker it gets. If I dusted, I wouldn't know this. Instead I'm left in a position where I don't dust (and am looking forward to living somewhere dust isn't sticky) because the act of dusting is horrific enough that I pay two nice toothless ladies about $150 every nine months to clean after I spend the day cleaning. 5) Ignore the Internet. It's pretty hilarious that a drain that sucks down three people's worth of shampoo, conditioner and soap is accused of being slimy and gross because semen. Get a grip. Drains are disgusting and if you have at least one person with long hair using the shower you will have to hook a dead rats' worth of hair and skunge out at least every other month. Those are the basics. Relish the fight, be honest as to what's going on and accept that the act of cleaning means being up to your elbows in filth regularly and you'll do fine.
In the Ohio valley they don't have dust as much as they have this vile, evil demon pollen that sticks and turns green when the humidity hits in the summer. I have air filtration in the house or else I would not ever be able to sleep. In the fall when it starts to get cool and finally dry I go through and bomb the house with as much dusting as I can stand to get rid of anything the filters could not take care of, then have to do the same thing at the start of summer. But yes 100% here don't let it get bad in the first place. And this goes to show that everyone is a bit different and every house/situation will have its own needs and issues. I have no idea where this semen thing came from, but yea. Soap scum on the walls also happens in the pipes. You have any clue where this nonsense started?4) The real trick is to never let it get messy. The messier you let it get, the more insurmountable it is to clean. I don't dust. Period. Things don't get particularly dusty around here. Period. But what dust they have is grimy and sticky and awful and the longer you let it stick around the thicker it gets. If I dusted, I wouldn't know this. Instead I'm left in a position where I don't dust (and am looking forward to living somewhere dust isn't sticky) because the act of dusting is horrific enough that I pay two nice toothless ladies about $150 every nine months to clean after I spend the day cleaning.
5) Ignore the Internet. It's pretty hilarious that a drain that sucks down three people's worth of shampoo, conditioner and soap is accused of being slimy and gross because semen. Get a grip. Drains are disgusting and if you have at least one person with long hair using the shower you will have to hook a dead rats' worth of hair and skunge out at least every other month.
I grew up in Juniper Hell. Every season, lemon yellow powder drifted everywhere and coated everything in a chiffon dusting of pure eyewatering sneeze. I was over at a friends' house once. He had a pool. There was a bathtub line of chalk yellow at the water line. It was about an inch and a half tall and about an eighth of an inch thick. You could run your finger along it and get a solid handful of bright sunshiney glop. I hate New Mexico.
Atlanta A friend of mine had a picture that got picked up by one of the buzzfeed clones where she had over 2" of pollen on her car one morning. And now I cannot find the image. One of the interesting things about these types of pollen events is that they may be caused by frustrated male trees in urban environments due to the lack of female trees.
I'm willing to admit the semen thing might be a reach, but I am also interested in whether maybe there could be other factors impacting the drain that I don't know enough to be aware of that contribute to the clogging. I did read hard water can impact the drain too, so I do plan to check what kind of water we have, but frankly I've never had a problem with this to such extent before so I lack knowledge and experience for this sort of thing.
I am not a neat freak at all. But here is how I keep the place "clean." I was told that it is easier to keep a house clean than to get it there in the first place. So, every evening before I get on the PC at home, I spend 10 minutes doing "clean" stuff. Dishes done, vacuum a couple of rooms, shred mail, make a trash run, store magazines, art crap etc, clean up the computer test bench of trash. Something simple, yet visible. Then on the last Sunday of the month I set aside at least two hours and go to town. I mop the floors, dust the ceiling fans, scrub the sinks and toilets if they need it, spray the tub and wipe it out, basically make the place sparkle. Are your clothes not getting dry in the dryer? Or is the dryer working fine? If everything is good, eh. I have a vent that has multiple kinks and bends in it and I've cleaned it out once in the last 7-8 years. It was not that bad then. I took a shop vac with a long hose and sucked out all the stuff stuck to the sides that I could see. On a scale of 1-10 this is about a 2 IMO. Go through the freezer and throw out the shit in there that is old. If it is almost old (as in month away from expiration date) use it asap. The stuff in the back of the fridge that has turned into a science experiment also needs to go. I do this myself about every quarter or so. All you need is 20 minutes and an empty trash can. If the item is not labeled, or you cannot recall when you bought it, pitch it. If it has.... growth... on it throw it out. Do you have pets? lots of people in the house? Then yea I can see that. I use HEPPA filters to fight the evil Ohio Valley Allergens so I have much less dust and dirt in the house as a consequence. A friend of mine has two dogs that shed their weight every week and he has to vacuum daily or else he lives in a cave of dog hair. 30 mins a day is a lot, but that depends on your situation as well. OxyClean. Yea, this stuff. And yes, it is basically pool cleaner with a good marketing campaign behind it. But I swear, it works. Get a container that can hold about a gallon of water. Fill to 2/3 with HOT water. Put two scoops of that stuff in the water and use it to clean your tub with a sponge or a brush to remove any stains or dirt in the tub. Let it sit for a few. Then run the water and use your sponge/brush to clean off the cleaner leaving a nice shiny clean tub in its wake. The tub will be clean and that stuff will also clean the shower drain. I also use this stuff to clean toilets and sinks as I hate having tons of cleaning crap in the house; one big tub of this stuff lasts quite a while and you can use it on just about everything. The only other cleaning supply you really need is vinegar for windows, glass, etc. Stop watching that Martha Steward shit and just make your space yours. The Home and Garden shows are evil. People don't live in a museum; they live in a space that gets used and using a space will make it not perfect. The sheets won't match, the pictures won't be perfectly square, the toilet water won't be the perfect shade of blue (yea, I saw this on a commercial once?!??!?) and in general your place will most likely not look like a magazine spread or a TV show. Keep things neat, make sure you can find all your stuff, and make your area comfortable.- if I suspect that no one has ever come out and cleaned the dryer duct itself in the 5 years the dryer's been in the house and in use, like, how urgent is it that I try and get that to happen?
- what are chores that are easy to miss or overlook that I may not realize I'm missing?
- These crazy cleaning websites are telling me I should be dusting, vacuuming, doing laundry, and cleaning bathrooms on a daily basis. Even if that might be an ideal recommendation, I feel like in practice...does that happen?
WHAT THE FUCK CAN I DO ABOUT THE SHOWER DRAIN PLEASE.
And then any other tips plz.
Am I the only who doesn't ever have to clean because I am clean? Been in a new apartment for a few months and I clean the toilet periodically and obviously dishes/laundry but that's it. No pets, no roommates, no eating anywhere other than the table and ... the problem goes away. Like, roommates, fuck that, sure that's its own problem, but the way I always dealt with my roommates was if they made a mess in the shared areas I transferred it into their room immediately and eventually they stopped making messes and we were sort of still friends? And I didn't really care because who wants to be friends with someone who is rude enough to make a mess in public and not clean it? I do not understand most things in the world.
If I lived alone, this would not be a problem. But I moved into a house which had not been taken care of (to my personal standard) for a long time and had several roommates come in and out. That leads to a certain amount of attrition and accumulated mess that current roommates may not identify as their fault and so aren't motivated to address.
I'm working on developing these habits: not needing to clean by being clean in the first place. If this is just how you are naturally, it might be hard to describe, but do you have advice for developing this? Especially because shit piles up really easily with grad school & work and I'm still trying to rewire my brain to not associate shared spaces of the house with my creepy ex-roommate (it's okay I can eat in public because he's not gonna come lurk behind me and prepare to skin me).
Uh, yeah, grow up with an insane borderline sociopathic mother. Wait, does that not apply? Hmm. So I dunno. I have a trashcan in every room. I have plenty of furniture so I never need to put anything on the floor. The only thing on the floor in my entire apartment is my workout clothes which I change into every night anyway. I eat at a table which I can then wipe off in the evening but like, if you keep your food on a plate why would you need to? If you're older than six that should be an unnecessary step. Uhhh. No clutter. Soak your fucking dishes you don't have to do them immediately it doesn't even matter but soak them. I have a lot of dishes in a cabinet but mostly I just use the same ones over and over again from the dish drainer. I haven't touched my dishwasher in a while, even when I cook for more than myself it's just not worth it. Like what I don't understand. Papers and books? Get some folders or use your backpack. Dishes? Soak 'em. Things that require a vacuum? How would that even happen, though. Pets? Yeah, it is what it is. Sorry I don't know what to saaay I just like I said get confused all the time.Especially because shit piles up really easily with grad school
see yeah if it's that deeply ingrained i figured it would be hard to explain haha but figured i'd ask stuff like everything. i just don't have time/energy to clean and the process gets backed up because i'll be like ok i am doing laundry today oh just kidding one of the 5 other people i live with is doing laundry ok guess i have to postpone that for another 5 weeks for me to have a break. vacuuming is new and important to me because we had a bimonthly maid service come by my parents' home so i never realized how much i SHED. even with a pixie cut. it still gets everywhere. and then there's just dirt from existing and being outside i guess? the point about pets is one i totally didn't even think about bc i grew up with cats and like... if i'm already reeling from junk and clutter and stuff adding kets is gonna be a whole other level
Hey wow though just get like a big basket for your laundry and then it's not even a problem except if you physically run out of clothing. I guess I don't shed. Or exist? I don't know my carpet is one of those speckled ugly ones so it just kinda looks how it's gonna look.
I do have 2 large baskets and that plan worked for a while and then i'm not sure what happened. i did a big clean the other day though and everything is lovely and i am actively attempting to change my habits. part of it is the whole house i'm renting is all hardwood which is lovely but makes being clean just that much more work
LOL. So I live in a place where if you don't wipe down phone cases every day by putting them in and out of your pocket, you have to wipe them down with 90% IPA every month because the air turns them into skunge. My wife has cheap-ass boots she bought for a halloween costume. They've been in the closet for five years. We pulled them out yesterday and they'd disintegrated. Some environments are easier to be clean in than others.
LA is the fuckin worst why do people live there lol
this is true. i have a sorority little moving out there on thursday and she's like lol imma be in the entertainment industry and it's gonna be amazing and great... i don't think she knows what she's in for. and she's pretty sickly so the drop in air quality is gonna be bad... i can't say i didn't warn her though.
May the gods of cleaning (Poseidon or Hades, depending on how hellish it is) have mercy. I've lived on my own now for a couple of years. My parents always said "it ain't a hotel here" so I had to help with chores often. I like to break up tasks in smaller tasks, it increases the likelihood that I actually do it (e.g. I do the dishes daily). Here's my rough schedule: Daily: doing the dishes, cleaning eating surfaces like tables, tidying my bed, reduce loose item entropy Weekly: clean toilet, shower, vacuum clean, laundry (whenever you have enough to fill a washing machine) Biweekly: dusting (depends a ton on home & ventilation), clean kitchen thoroughly, iron shirts. To keep track, you can make a simple spreadsheets with 'week / day number' as columns and the chores as rows. Print it out and cross the squares when you're done.
I just moved out of my parent's house this week with my boyfriend so tips would be appreciated :) I try to tidy up and do the dishes every day. I pass the broom and wash the floors once a week (or before if the floor starts to look dirty) . I clean the bathroom once a week too, but i try to keep the sink clean on a daily basis and always wash off toothpaste and stuff. Laundry once a week too. Honestly, my weekly cleaning takes about 2h, including the laudry. It's really not so much time. Am I missing anything? I don't really dust surfaces until I notice some dust.
For the love of all that is pure and clean may god have mercy on your poor soul... I'm in no way an adult doing adult things, but I have a pretty severe dust allergy which means I have to take cleaning into my own hands a lot of the time. The one thing I recommend doing is dusting as often as you can stand it. Seriously, dust just fucks every little thing up and I'm pretty sure if you looked up enough studies you would be petrified by what is in the air you breathe when its really dusty. Second most chores have to be done in accordance with the mess being made. For example if you aren't using too many dishes you wouldn't be washing the dishes as much. In your case it seems like you are one force against an even greater force that is your roommates. Although those numbers you researched seem high or excessive in your case they may not be. Cleaning always works in accordance with how much of a mess is being made. Currently I dust around the house 3-4 times a week and I vacuum my floor twice a week. My family luckily divides chores up so it isnt on me. The other issue like I mentioned before is doing anything four times a week seems excessive unless you aren't the only one. If you got one other person to help now you only have to do it two times a week. Third part: You've got to set aside time everyday to do it. In the same way you plan to clean the house, clean your schedule. Get organized to clean, and be prepared not to finish it all at first in your case. As you clean and begin reaching a reasonable level of cleanliness the job gets easier. Fourth, get someone to check out that drain. Seriously, get someone to check that drain out. Get them to snake the drain and then tell you what exactly is wrong and how to fix it. I don't have much experience in that field, so that's the best I got. Fifth, CLEAN THAT RIGHT NOW!!!! That is a huge fire hazard. Friend of mine set his town house ablaze because he didn't clean that shit for a really long time. Obviously it may possibly never start a fire, but it increases the chance greatly. Finally, I have a few tips I could give I'm just at work typing this out because yes I could be working, but this seemed far more urgent.
Okay, I'm going to divulge things you ought not divulge. I use a cleaning service. My wife is the most meticulous person you've never met. Our house "messy," is cleaner than just about anyone reading this's house. The home I grew up in was disgusting. We had dogs and they'd shit in the house and the poop would sit there, on the carpet so long that it would get hard. Why? Not because my parents weren't in the house but because neither wanted to be the one to clean it. DISGUSTING I'm not at that level of grossness, but I'm also not at my wife's meticulous level. Once a week we have a company come and clean our home. We've had the same women for the past three years. They're amazing. My children love them, they love my children and frankly, I love them. They're awesome. It's insanely affordable, if you think about it from an opportunity cost standpoint. I'll just say that it's less than $100 a week and the amount of time and cleaning products it saves us is worth it. We can allocate that time towards our careers, which in turn makes us more money than the cleaners cost. -It's a no-brainer for us. Now... having grown up in a slovenly situation, I didn't realize how much I would LLLLLOOOOVVVVEEEE having a clean home until I met my wife. It's amazing. It literally makes me happier and more productive. No joke. Therefore, I think that if you had a cleaning company come in and clean, your roommates would dig it. Then, you can have them share in the weekly expense. Would you spend $25 a week to have a professional team come out and clean your home? Also, I thought you bought a house? What happened with that? Am I crazy?
I feel like part of my problem is that by the time I was reaching adolescence my parents had also gotten a biweekly cleaner (once every 2 weeks) so while I remember having to do household cleaning chores in my youth, by age 13 all of that had fallen away and so I don't have as much hands-on experience or observations to help me here. I was thinking about buying a house, but it was either "buy a house" or "get an MFA" and I decided I wanted to pursue the latter.