Changing housework style!

I am very lucky to have the luxury of having a cleaner 3 hours a week so I know the bathroom/toilets and kitchen have a 'good' clean then. She also vacuums all floors weekly and dusts upstairs/downstairs on alternate weeks. In between my DH cleans up after me & the visiting DGCs! I cook/shop/garden. I do 'blitzes' of cupboards/oven/windows as and when the mood/need take me! I iron only as a last resort or when the ironing pile (my stuff as DH does his own) is almost ceiling height!

Joan Bakewell recently said that gardening should be put in Room 101 because it's just like outdoor housework.

My housework resembles indoor gardening.

Remember Quentin Crisp's message to the housewives of Britain - "After four years the dust doesn't get any worse..."

Yes, I remember that well. But even I couldn't leave it that long...I don't think.

Silly man (Quentin Crisp)

Joan Bakewell's comment shows how much she knows about gardening . What a silly remark! Has she not heard of botany and pteridology and bryology, etc? Somewhat more fascinating than cleaning the looor vacuuming a floor, I find.

My house has dusty bits that have been dusty for more than four years. It particularly affects high book shelves. Not a problem. And when you want one of the books, you take it down and dust it. That's not a problem either.

I love gardening, too, but have never heard of pteridology and bryology, Bags! (I have now - ta, Google) Some gardening is like housework to me, especially tidying away all the weeds I've plucked and branches I've pruned.

I hate housework, so paradoxically I keep my house tidy and relatively clean to avoid having to blitz it. I do it in fits and starts, so if I'm I'm the bathroom and notice something needs cleaning I do it then, telling myself that two minutes having a quick wipe round earns me two hours messing about on my iPad.

Today, I'll do nothing - I'm off out. Lunch with friends and grandaughter, bit of shopping, walk round aimlessly with my dog a couple of times, watch a bit of telly, then read in bed. I'll wash the few dishes I use tomorrow morning. Nice balance, I think

My house would not look as it does now if I lived alone. Accommodating and putting up with other people's untidiness arrangements is a big part of sharing one's living space. It has always amazed me how some people manage, apparently, to force tidiness and cleanliness on the whole family. Mind you, maybe they just do more tidying up and cleaning than I do, or nag more. If so, they're welcome to it. I can't be arsed to deal with other people's mess unless it impinges on what I want to do. Then I ask them to clear it up or clear it myself. Otherwise, shrug. Who else has a bowstring-making jig on their sitting-room coffee table?

We bought a house with a huge (30ft x 9ft) partly brick built shed in the garden. DH's eyes lit up. It has since been converted into a work shop with light, heat and power points.

Why, therefore, are there furniture and appliance repair equipment - and the furniture and appliances on the dining table, packing materials and stock for his ebay business in the study and why will I be the one who returns to the shed the stuff he brought down last week and is now finished with?

My house is tidy in the bits you can't see [inside wardrobes, drawers etc] but a complete mess where you can. I've always been like that. I've pinpointed major problems to stuff that the S.O. brings in [eg newspapers, which I leave lying around because I feel I should read them but then don't; then, when I go to throw them away I see an article that must be read so put it on one side where it stays for months]. And my office is full of racing form and old Racing Posts which need sorting into folders. I blame it on being a filing clerk in my youth, which means that nothing can be thrown away but must be organised into sections and kept forever. Once a filing clerk always a filing clerk, obsolete as we now are .

I have never felt I am good at housework. My dear Mum was and I wish I could be one of those people who make a clean and tidy house look effortless. Now I have more time, I am using the Flylady.com website. I don't get the emails as apparently there are many a day!!!! However it uses a series of zones which come round every five weeks and I find this useful for reminding me to dust under the bed or whatever. Sad maybe but I feel more organised

Sorry it should be www.flylady.net!

I still do Flylady' s swish and swipe in the bathroom every morning when I've finished my bath. But I can't always manage to shine my sink before I go to bed.

#whataslutiobviouslyam...

#onlyyouknowthatmissis.

I'm training up the grandchildren! Of those that are not running their own homes, two have done all the vacuuming, but have now gone to Uni, the third is about to depart this year, so there is one more to go before starting on the great grandchildren. It works well!

As long as the sinks, and loos are clean and everywhere fairly tidy and a quick hoover downstairs most days. I just fit the rest in when I feel like it or am not doing anything else. Nobody has complained yet and if they do, they know what my answer will be.

Impressed with that experigran one of mine is still in nappies and the older one only 4. He does love his toy Dyson though, so perhaps there is hope!

I am a bit of a neat freak so things get put back where they came from when I am finished with them so the house looks tidy mostly. Bathroom and kitchen get a real clean often ( cannot bear hair) but the rest of the house gets clean when it looks dusty, the hoover only comes out once a week if that.
I too find 30mins is about my limit at one time so short bursts works for me. OH has his space that I don't touch where he keeps all his (rubbish) important stuff I dust around it now and then . I don't do housework if I have something better to occupy me that's for certain.

Sometimes I just park the vacuum cleaner in the middle of a room, with the flex unwound, and the plug in the electrical socket. Then I wander off and do something interesting instead.

#joiningana'sslutbrigade

Though, actually, I clean a lot of things (loos, shower surround, sinks, cooker, fridge, gardening tools, etc, etc) that nobody else even notices need cleaning, so maybe I don't qualify. I think I might be about that

Oh Tegan I can really identify with you on the tidy-but-never-seen areas!! When I was selling my last house people viewing actually commented on the fact that the cupboards/wardrobes and, particularly, the linen cupboard were so organised - they failed to comment on the tidiness (?) of the rest of the house

I remember reading somewhere years ago of someone who used to spray a quick squirt of lavender furniture polish into the air before anyone visited, so that it gave the illusion that she had been busy polishing

I have turned into a complete slacker since retirement. When I was working I seemed to fit in far more housework than I do now I have all the time in the world. I have just returned from Slimming World and am about to zoom off to have lunch with a friend and to walk her adorable dog. The bed is not made and I am looking at last night's dinner things still strewn round the kitchen. Sod it, I'll do it later, has become my motto. Thank heavens people come to stay from time to time as this is the only thing that stirs me into activity.

I do agree with most of the posts here. Only do housework of there is nothing more interesting to do or if guests are expected. We've just had our French friends here (for the Twinning weekend) so things aren't too bad at the moment, apart from our shower room which they didn't go in. It is in need and might get done if it rains and I can't garden.

Indeed "Petallus" - what is housework?

I clean up spills and wipe off dust when it is getting too noticeable (usually in the rare flashes of sunshine!), but have no regular cleaning programme - I do what needs doing when it needs doing. My OH will confirm that my filth threshold is pretty high - i.e. it needs to get pretty bad before I notice!

But the children can come in and mess about without me hovering around them and worrying about tidiness; and a friend once said she liked my home because she could chill out without worrying about making a mess, and she felt she could wander in and make herself at home. That suits me fine.

I am constantly mind-boggled by people who have nothing on their surfaces - no books, photos, newspapers, half-completed crosswords, no trash out of Christmas crackers, toys, child's paintings, pencils, shopping lists. Where is all this stuff? Where do they keep it?!

I remember a workman asking if he could use the vacuum when he finished and I blithely agreed, before stopping to think that I did not actually know where it was kept!!! - he was quite shocked.