Housework before going away

Today I am going to pull out fridges, the washing macine etc just in case a burglar goes hunting for any treasures behind them!

(Only spiders etc at the moment)

Not only do I do the bed changing cleaning the house for the burglars thing but I get a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Going away tomorrow and should be thrilled but just feel sick.

Reading about all this house work is exhausting! I also clean before/after a holiday and when something in life goes bad. I wonder why? Are we naturally disposed to feather our nest (and in my case hotel rooms as well)?

Absent - I agree 'What are holidays?'. However I go into a cleaning frenzy when something bad happens eg bad news about a loved one. My house was perfect when my Dad died!! He would have been so proud, as normally I live in something resembling a rubbish tip! Usually life is too short to waste on cleaning. If it doesn't smell it doesn't need it. On the other hand it is therapeutic when you need to clear your mind!

Pogs I love the Miss Haversham comment . It will be my new mantra!My SIL spends hours cleaning up for the burglars before she goes away.

before I was married I was rushing out to get the bus , noticed things were a bit messier than usual , called to Mum that the kids had been messing before school , came home to be told we had been burgled , which explaained why I had no money in my bag

I subscribe to the cleaning blitz before visitors come school of thinking. I would feel ashamed to be caught with a dirty or untidy house by visitors but while I agree that it's lovely to come home from holiday, when your are probably very travel weary, to a clean and tidy home, it is after all only you who see it. I find preparing for going away can be quite stressful and don't always have the energy to change the beds and clean the windows just before the holiday. I tend to change the beds a couple of days before and agree with posts about getting rid of food that would go stale. we also make sure the grass is cut, especially at the front but more for security reasons. Sadly we don't tackle the washing immediately on return as this is usually late in the day, but we get down to it after a night's sleep. DH is usually first to put the washing machine on. And after a week or two of not being domestic it is quite nice to get back into a routine.

I always leave it until the very last moment and wear myself out in a frenzy of cleaning. I go away for weeks at a time and know I have plenty of time to prepare but I seem to be only able to do it if I am really under pressure. I am always so surprised when I return home at how clean and tidy everything is: this only lasts about a day by which time I have gone through weeks of mail which is in piles on every surface, I have emptied the bags and left stuff all over the place and I am back to square one. I think I do the it clean up in case I don't come back and it is in a decent state for whoever has to come and sort it all out . I once came home after a couple of months to find a horrible smell in the kitchen. The friend who had been keeping an eye on the house couldn't trace it, and it took a week before I found the culprit - an egg which for some strange reason I had left on top of the cooker hood!

Just sat down to rest my feet and found this link which is echoing my thoughts when going away. Have had a break booked for months for this weekend but had to go away for family reasons last weekend too at short notice. Got home last night, grandchildren to look after today but managed to catch up on all the washing as well as doing a quick shop and cook for them while DH looked after the little one. He is watching football while I've just ironed the lot and put it in piles for packing tomorrow morning. About to sit down with a large glass of wine and give myself a manicure although maybe I should do that before the large glass of wine. Multi-tasking!

Nowadays I do like to leave the house in a reasonable state to come home to. Once, many years ago, we left in a hurry and left a huge pile of dishes to do on our return. We left keys with neighbours. Imagine my mortification on our return to find them all neatly washed and put away and the whole place dusted and hoovered! Apparently our neighbour couldn't stand living next door to such a mess !

Now that I have a cleaning lady I don't have to worry about leaving it clean for holidays and like some others have said, my DS stays at home too but surprisingly, it was still tidy when I came home last week after a couple of days away.

I had a friend who did all her washing while she was still on holiday so only had to put away clean clothes when she came home! Too much in my opinion.

Same here- always have a good clean and tidy before we go away- for same reason.

I love walking back through the door and thinking what a lovely little house, I'm so glad we live here. Won't get that feeling if it was a mess.

If it strikes me as needing doing and if I have time/can be bothered. Emptying the kitchen bin and the bread bin and making sure there's nothing highly perishable in the fridge make sense. Changing bed linen? Nah.

What are holidays?

Another compulsive cleaner/tidier here, floors vacuumed, bins emptied, fridge and bread bin checked so that we won't return to any mouldering remains. Clean linen on the bed. I stop short of cleaning windows though.
When we come back I can't relax till I've unpacked and sorted everything out.
Janerowena re coming back to a cold house - we have an electronic thermostat for the central heating. I can log on from my phone and set the heating to come back on several hours before we get back.

Greenfinch you could be on to something there. My maternal GM and her sister were both fine needlewomen, one a tailoress and the other did marvellously intricate decorative beading on bespoke evening dresses. My mother hardly knew which end of a sewing needle was up - she once famously lay my younger brother, at about 2 and a half years old, on an old skirt of hers and cut round him from the waist down, through both thicknesses of material, then sewed them together thinking this would constitute a pair of trousers . Needless to say.....
Then I turn out to be an enthusiastic needlewoman, making my own wedding dress and bridesmaids' dresses, and virtually all my DD's clothes as she was growing up - and many of my DS's as well when he was little.
And my DD? Hasn't got the slightest interest in sewing, knitting, crafts. It'll be interesting to see if her baby, due in June, will become a little tailor or tailoress

I wonder if it is a family thing. My dear grandmother whom I hardly knew apparently was a lovely lady whose front door was always open to visitors but whose house was always in a bit of a pickle. Her 3 children were all very houseproud and then I am not. However my DD is always having a blitz on her own house and occasionally on mine and DGD1 looks as if she is going to follow in my footsteps . At the age of 7 she says she wants to be an artist because she feels it is OK for an artist to be messy. Perhaps we rebel a little against our own mothers. My DS1 is always reminding me that when they were young I used to say "people must take us as they find us".

I try to leave a clean and tidy house (must move the fridge and freezer out tomorrow and clean behind) but one time we went away and left teabags in the teapot

A nice mouldy teapot when we got back!

I don't think it is generational - or if it is, then there are the usual exceptions to the rule, one of whom is my DD. She can't leave the house, or go to bed if there is anything needing washing up or putting away. She gets down on her hands and knees every day (even now at 7 months pregnant) to vacuum up the dog hairs from her kitchen floor because she 'can see them' (the living room carpet can wait till the weekend because she can't see the hairs on it ).
She has always been this way. From about the age of 7, she wouldn't come down to breakfast in the morning until her bed was made and pyjamas/nightie folded. At night her clothes would be put away or in the linen basket and her dolls neatly tucked up in their bed. She couldn't sleep if there was a corner of a blouse, sweater, scarf etc peeping from a closed drawer, but would have to get out of bed to tidy it away.
I can't think where she gets it from

I am much the same as others on this thread, but stop short of washing windows.Who wants to come home to a tip?Once, when feeding my DD's cats when she was away on holiday, it was such chaos, that I found myself half horrified and half admiring, that she could leave it this way. Because I never could, and am wondering now if my attitude or hers is the most normal or are we all a bit OCD about things?Or is it a generational thing?

I'm not keen on housework at any time, but before we go away I always make sure all the washing up is done, dishwasher emptied, everything put away and the kitchen, living room and bedrooms are tidy, with beds made (bedlinen will have been washed a day or two beforehand). I can't honestly say I make a point of vacuuming .
My DH and I pack our own cases, and I leave him to unpack and sort his belongings himself when we come home. My case and assorted bags are emptied as soon as I return, washing is sorted and as many machine loads done before bed as possible. Everything else (toiletries, shoes etc.) are put away and bags are stored away. It's not at all unusual for DH's bags to remain in the hall for anything up to 4 days .
My mother used to clean the whole house, including the windows, AND wash and rehang all the curtains before going away .

I tidy up and do more cleaning than usual before we go away, partly to avoid coming back to a mess, and partly because if we don't come back, I don't want anyone thinking that I was a total slut which in fact I am although if I was dead, I wouldn't know or care what they thought

Untidiness makes me restless, I can't relax in a muddle.
I'm not house proud just like things tidy !

I'm the same janerowena. It's mad, though, isn't it. I very much subscribe to the notion that when you're on your death bed you won't be thinking "I wish I'd spent more time - at the office/cleaning the house/organising my e-mails," etc. - but I can't stop myself from doing it! Therein lies true serfdom.