Help I don't like cleaning

phoenix Probably not, if you're wearing your thong sideways.

Wasn't it Quentin Crisp who said after 3 years the dust doesn't get any worse!

I posted a nice joke about housework a few days ago.
I have solved the housework problem for myself. Just live alone in a very small flat, have very few possessions, no pets or plants, no visitors except those coming by invitation for a holiday, put things away as soon as you have finished using them, clean the bath as soon as you get out. I doubt if I spend more than half an hour a day on tidying, cooking and cleaning.
I do my clothes laundry once a week, but I take bedding and towels to the laundrette every couple of weeks. I can put them in the machine and then just have time to shop in the nearby supermarket. I iron nothing but cotton trousers.
My only unpleasant job is cleaning the French windows. They face due South and the sun shows up any smears. Fortunately, they don't need doing very often.
Might be a bit drastic to get rid of your partners and downsize , though.
When my very messy daughter vacated a rented house, she paid a cleaning company £175 to clean the 4 bedroomed, three storey house . They did a wonderful job and it was worth every penny.

There was a wise man!

Being on crutches for the last 2 months and no quick prospect of any improvement this side of Christmas, I have acumulated the most extraordinary pile of things on the coffee table next to me - it has spilt over onto the floor underneath. I have tried very hard to sort it out, but when you have to move stuff around in your teeth as you have no hands free there is a limit to what you can do! When my arms are free of the crutches, even I might decide to do a bit of tidying!!

Errr.................think I'm missing something, are there actually people who enjoy cleaning, find it creative or satisfying or somesuch?. I am not talking about that odd feeling of satisfaction you get when you manage to clean something like the cooker or finally clear out a cupboard, but the day to day grindingly boring stuff that just has to be done? I am not too bad at getting it done on an ad hoc kind of basis but I cant say its a pleasant pastime or anything. I have always seen it as something thats got to be done or we would all be living in squalor, I do it, but only so I can then get on and do something I want to do with a clearish conscience!

It's when things get broken - when you do cleaning. If you could just leave the stuff sitting there, untouched...................!

I do the minimum as I quite enjoy mess but now and again I blitz the place.However, I wouldn't criticise anyone who enjoys cleaning and keeping things meticulous.I have two such friends and both come from similar backgrounds- left to fend for themselves at a very earlier age in a state of chaos and neglect.The structure of a tidy,well run house is one of the mechanisms they have used to achieve very successful lives.

Grannylin - An insightful post. To have calm, order and a place of serenity and peace can be very important. It's certainly a way I find of controlling, safely, my environment. I know where your friends are coming from.

Yes, I do have a need for order in my life when there is so much going on that I am unable to control.
I don't particularly enjoy hoovering or dusting (it takes me at least ten minutes to do the entire flat!) but I do enjoy a really big clear out. Last time I was in Manchester I cleared out two outside sheds for my disabled sister and made several trips to the tip. Even the huge spiders did not bother me as I was wearing my Marigolds! Then I did her understairs cupboard and a big walk-in cupboard in her bedroom. She found clothes she had forgotten she had, and we also unearthed her Christmas tree, decorations and wrapping paper. She was suitably grateful and I had a great feeling of satisfaction.
My daughter in New Zealand is fretting at the moment, because she has her broken ankle in a boot of some kind. Her husband and teenage children are good cooks and very helpful, but she has inherited a bit of my longing for tidiness and she thinks things are not being done to her standard - but she is smart enough to hold her tongue! She loves gardening and won't wear gloves - she enjoys getting her hands into the soil, whereas I can't stand anything under my fingernails.

hovers out polish is on the bench all ready to go ..just by reading these is making me move and do somethink

I agree with bags there is only so much mess I can cope with too before I get twitchy. When I have been between cleaners I find I get really cross if anyone (DH ) messed up the nice clean house but having a cleaner means that I know nothing will be bad for long and I can forget about it. I also find having a cleaner one morning a week makes us tidy up before she comes so nothing ever gets too untidy.

Wow Greatnan do you hire out

Yeah !!
Greatnan please come and stay !!

I clean every day whether it needs it or not. It helps keep me sane or insane ....not sure which Today downstairs is not tidy because I have washing drying and it's driving me insane. Our bedroom is not tidy because of Santa leaving presents everywhere so I have to take a deep breath before I go in

The only Gransnetter that I stay with is so damned well organised that she won't even let me wash up. She has a huge house and a large garden and also teaches and takes part in local politics, walks, swims and skis.
When I go to stay, she always insists that I take my bedding, which she not only washes but irons. She is also a great cook. Sometimes I wonder why I still like her so much.
Of course, she is a lot younger than I am!

Why do you have to take your bedding with you?

I think I've been cleaning my house non stop for thirty years, but it's always messy and dirty. My dream is to come home from work to a house and garden that's clean and tidy. I'm not bothered about it staying that way [I like junk, clutter and untidyness] but it's always there, waiting to be cleaned/tidied. It came very close to it being tidy the weekend that the landing ceiling started to drip with water but, somehow, it's gone backwards again. Mind you, I always think it looks nicely uncluttered when the Christmas decorations have been taken down, although it sometimes takes me months to clear all of them away [some stay all year round].

In answer to Ana's rather odd question - because I don't have a washing machine and my friend asks me to bring it. She likes helping people.

I was just curious. I'm sorry if you thought my question odd. I won't ask how you cope for the rest of the year!

To satisfy your curiosity - I take them to the laundrette in the next village. Did you think I took them to the lake and beat them on rocks?

Nice image, Greatnan, but no....not really!

I don't particularly like house work, but can't bear dust and clutter, so "get done" (cf my mother) fast and then feel relaxed. Mind you, this is the first time in 30 odd years that I haven't had a cleaner, so it's maybe a touch of novelty too. now the ironing is really getting me down! All shirts!

Ariadne I quite enjoy ironing. It helps that I have a utility room which faces the back garden so I have a pleasant view. We added it on to the house, I designed it and I think of it as my space
I think of an ironing spell as an interlude when I can think either my own thoughts in peace, or listen to the radio or a cd.
The piles of freshly ironed, nicely smelling clothes give me a warm domestic glow
Sad, I know!

pattieb - you are a woman after my own heart! I too have just retired (last week) and I am quite undisciplined about housework (in other words I only do it when my back is to the wall and someone is coming!!). At the moment my house looks like a bomb has hit it. However, I am planning to try out a plan of action, given to me years ago by a friend who told me how she hated housework, but hated an untidy house even more, so she treated housework like a job. She started promptly at 9 o'clock each morning and the first job of the day was to prepare the evening meal, then up until 12 o'clock she did one room a day (plus the everyday essential of kitchen and bathroom). At 12 o'clock on the dot she stopped working and went and had a shower, did her hair and make-up and put on her nice clothes. The afternoons belonged to her when she visited friends, or had friends in for coffee or otherwise just pleased herself. Given my track record I'm not sure if this will work for me, but I'll give it a try!