House proud people

My mum was very busy cooking washing etc and we all had little jobs to do mine was brushing the stairs. My children both had little jobs to do also but I have never been a neat freak. Our house is clean but lived in I don’t spend my days dusting life is far too short.
We visited my sister at the weekend who has just had a perfectly good kitchen ripped out and renewed. A waste of money she does not cook but lives on salad as she does not like food odours. She is totally obsessed with cleaning I am the opposite I love cooking and baking.

About 40 years ago I lived in Central London with OH in a first floor flat. We were both working away from home for weeks on end and would just come home at the weekend. The flat was a bit of a tip after about eight weeks of this. One night I got home very late, OH was still away, and my front door was open. I was too scared to go up the stairs in case someone was in the flat, so got a very nice policeman to go in with me. Turned out there was no one there, and after looking around a bit the policeman said to me 'Well, it looks like you've been burgled but can you tell if anything is missing?' He then opened the airing cupboard, where we hid stored all the stuff we didn't know what else to do with and it all promptly collapsed on his head. I was mortified and couldn't get rid of him fast enough. We decided OH had probably left the front door open a week earlier when he went away and it had been open since. I realised later even the post was propped up against the wall instead of in piles behind the door. Our housekeeping improved rapidly after that.

Why do people assume that everyone who is house proud spends all of their time cleaning?

I'm with you henetha, how much all depends on my back, health comes first.

threexnanny

I can remember being told by my grandmother that my brother wasn't expected to do housework as he was a boy. What she didn't anticipate is that he now lives on his own so he has to do it!

I hope you argued that being a boy was no excuse.

My mother didn’t make me do housework. She said that she could never make my elder brother do any, and she wasn’t having me doing it just because I was a girl.

As soon as I could afford it I had a cleaner.

Nicegranny

My old mil used to say
“A clean and tidy house is a sign of a wasted life”.
Having been brought up by a house proud mother it took me years to shake off inherited habits. I now try to keep a healthy relationship with house work and my not so good eyesight helps.

Tbh your MIL probably said that as an excuse ?
There is a middle ground for everything after all.Fortunately we both like a clean and tidy house here, but not to the detriment of going out, doing things etc.
ethel you continue to do as you please, it’s your house after all.

I like a clean and tidy house, DH and I are both busy so I have a cleaner.

I was involved briefly with a man who was unable to leave the house unless the bed had been stripped every day, the sheets washing in the machine and yesterday’s laundry ironed. He berated me for making a pot of tea, pouring a cup and leaving the milk out ready for a second. I once left spoons face up on a drainer. Another faux pas. The kitchen was spotless. He vacuumed a lot. That was in his house.

When he came to mine, he was an utter slob, especially in the bathroom: wet towels on the floor, shaving scum in the sink, skids in the toilet. The idea of washing up was anathema, even putting pots in the dishwasher was too much for him. His clothes and other piles of his stuff were everywhere.

So what was that all about? He was a widower so I wondered if his behaviour in his own home was conditioning from when his wife was alive and when he was at mine he reverted to his more natural state of cave dweller.

We did not last long. Life’s too short to spend arguing over the temperature of milk and water-stained spoons.

I'd have an immaculate house if I had a cleaner I am going to suggest one if my business picks up a bit. I need to decorate the house first though <sigh>

is he under your patio Silverbridge?

timetogo2016

Housework is for people who have little else in their life.
I live mine.

Now sure I do, timetogo2016, but I'm not wasting my time doing unnecessary jobs now. Like many of us, I worked full-time at a tiring job, brought up my kids single-handedly and kept house. My home looks same it always has.

Good for you Chardy.
And i bet everyone who entered it was made welcome and happy.
That`s the case in mine,clean dust didn`t hurt anyone lol.

When I married my MIL told me there was a very high standard of housewifery in the area (she grew up here)
I’ll soon put a stop to that I thought. Quentin Crisp said something like don’t keep up with the Jones’s, drag them down to your level.
I’m not a house mouse and love going out. I think of it as my base, but try to keep it roughly in order. I have a cleaner and that makes me tidy up.
My best friend’s mother had a nervous breakdown after having a baby as she tried to cope with house and baby, but as she even ironed the nappies (terry towelling days) I’m not surprised.
Jackie O even had her fine denier stockings ironed!

JaneJudge

is he under your patio Silverbridge?

He's not under mine but if he was the same with subsequent women, he might well be under someone else's by now. She probably clouted him with a toilet brush, or gouged his eyes out with a water-stained teaspoon or drowned him in a bath of tepid milk. 50 ways to murder your boyfriend. There's one for the games section.

hollysteers

When I married my MIL told me there was a very high standard of housewifery in the area (she grew up here)
I’ll soon put a stop to that I thought. Quentin Crisp said something like don’t keep up with the Jones’s, drag them down to your level.
I’m not a house mouse and love going out. I think of it as my base, but try to keep it roughly in order. I have a cleaner and that makes me tidy up.
My best friend’s mother had a nervous breakdown after having a baby as she tried to cope with house and baby, but as she even ironed the nappies (terry towelling days) I’m not surprised.
Jackie O even had her fine denier stockings ironed!

I seem to remember Quentin Crisp saying that if you never dusted no more dust would accumulate after four years.

Smileless2012

It's often detrimental to their physical health too Mattsmum.

Yes agree with that ?

I'm not house proud, but I do object to living in squalor. My DD, who lives withe is not in the least bothered by muck, so we have a routine. When DGS goes to bed, I clean the kitchen and she cleans the sitting room.

I chip away at the mess in my bedroom daily. 20 things tidied / put away / cleaned every night before I go to bed.

The house is by no means clean and tidied but the routine stops it getting disgusting.

Great answer V3ra, why would anyone be interested in knowing that someone’s floor is so spotless that they could eat off it, ??? I actually enjoy housework, but I wouldn’t say I was houseproud, my house is clean, comfy and homely, a place to relax in, yes I vacuum every day, but I’m not one for clearing away cups etc as soon as someone has just put them down, and I don’t go behind plumping up cushions every few mins, ?

I'm slowly losing sight of what was once my neat, tidy little flat.
I don't like it at all, but I can't keep up with it.

DH is more house proud than I am, but he gets it from his mother. She had a glass fronted cabinet full of bits and bobs. They are came out on Thursdays to be washed, dried and put back in again. She had a cleaning rota for each room.
DH actually washes plates before he puts them in the dishwasher. It would be futile having a cleaner, the place would have to be spotless before she came in.

I actually enjoy housework, keeping my home neat and tidy makes me happy. I even iron almost everything, everyone is different. I just couldn't relax in a mess, my home is only a small bungalow and if I don't keep on top of it I find it stressful. I still have hobbies and my garden,being houseproud doesn't necessarily make me a slave to it.

Etheltbags1, do your mother, aunt and other relative visit you often? If not, they don't know what your home is like unless you tell them. A few white lies wont hurt.

etheltbags
Are you still working? I know from your other thread you look after your DGD too.

Just ignore your aunt who obviously doesn't have much else going on in her life at the moment (do you have to go and see her?).
As for your mother, you can't help someone who doesnt want to be helped.

Just smile and ignore them and do your own thing.

Dil before she left spent quite a bit of time through her work in stately homes, and said they were often filthy, dog hair everywhere, dusty, filthy kitchens. That reminded me of an interview I once read, where a woman who had come up from nothing, said that being houseproud was a working class/lower middle class behaviour. Can’t remember for the life of me who she is now, going to annoy ‘me.
Anyhow, perhaps that’s something you could say to your relatives in a Mrs Bouquet (that’s bucket!) voice “oh darling I feel that cleaning my house to an inch of its life is sooooo lower middle class”, say it holding glass of Prosecco wearing a Barbour coat for full affect. ( I’m from a working class family myself - but if they are being rude time for some jokey caustic remarks back.

we are both working past retirement
I missed that, you have enough on your plate.
My mother was house proud too, but I dudnt inherit that gene.

It's not too bad but certainly I can't remember when I cleaned out my kitchen cupboards (although I did wipe out the fridges today!) ?