Changing housework style!

Dust is a protective covering for furniture

I keep the important bits clean (loo, kitchen worktops) but the rest gets left for months! I sometimes have to search for the Hoover. I have a small house with no cupboard to put it in.

I have just realised that Purpledaffodil had a little failure with the Fly Lady link ( it happens to all of us sometimes ) so I am putting it on HERE

As it is clearly very much needed As you may enjoy a quick glance at it.

especially that Bags

!!!

Thanks for that Jingle. I neglected to test the link. Silly thing turned blue and everything so I thought it would work. Will know better in future! to you.

When we moved here, to a slightly ( 3 bedrooms) smaller house, we thought we couldn't really justify a cleaner, so I did what most of you do, pottered and wiped and kept it looking OK. However, as the knee got worse, I was aware that things were a bit grubby; when I came out of hospital, we brought in a cleaner. This was after trying to give Theseus blow by blow instructions on how to..... I had not realised how much I was struggling. She whirls round every Friday, (leaving out the spare rooms) and I am so pleased with it all. I cannot stand dust and mess.

I am now quite mobile, but have booked her to come in once a month to keep it up to scratch! It may be every fortnight...

I have had a cleaner since our third child arrived! It stopped me stressing about the mess and grime! In the beginning I had someone twice a week but now I have the wonderful Claire for one morning a week. I rarely need to do any cleaning between visits apart from the loos, sinks and cooker top! I intend to hang on to her until she can't cope with us any longer!

I feel I should feel guilty - but I don't! I'm really busy with the family, mum and volunteering so consider it an investment.

Can I ask what your Claire does in that one morning, kitty? Surely it can't be much more than hoovering and dusting. I think I'd need to get industrial cleaners in to get my house fit to warrant just a weekly whizz-round!

What is a "scrat" anyway? .

PETALLUS!!!

you can't mean this can you?

Surely not! I assumed (after googling) that it referred to the sabre-toothed, acorn-obsessed squirrel from Frozen, but who knows...?

(Well, Petallus does, of course)

Claire comes for 3.5 hours and does downstairs one week and one week up. On an 'upstairs week', if we've not had visitors, she does the kitchen as well! She has been with us for years so knows what she's doing and has us under control now!

The thing is, had I been to her house before I employed her and seen the state of it, I would never have employed her. . She cleans five mornings a week to fund her horses and rides every afternoon so has no time for her own house! .

I'd actually really like to know what one would expect a cleaner to do. Does it include skirting-board cleaning, banister rail polishing, floor polishing etc. not just hoovering and dusting?

(You can tell I'm actually seriously considering this now, can't you...? )

Claire now does whatever occurs to her because she has been doing it so long but I would expect a cleaner to Hoover, including taking cushions off chairs and sofas, moving furniture where possible, loos, sinks, wash hard floors, definitely dust skirting boards, lamp shades, clean the work surfaces in the kitchen, the cupboard fronts and the cooker top.

I don't expect her to clean the windows or the oven.

Most importatntly though - I expect an update of village gossip!

I'm sure to have forgotten stuff but, so Claire can clean well, I always tidy up first or ask her to leave bits that I haven't got to

Thanks, kitty, that's a help.

Just come back to say that I realise that I'm very lucky to be able to afford a cleaner and exceptionally lucky to have found Claire who is a good friend and completely dependable but the amount I pay her means I am so much more laidback than I would otherwise be.

Therein lies the problem . Having to have a house tidy enough for the cleaner to clean. I've fallen at the first hurdle .....

Crikey!

Scrat is a word my mother used when I was a child. It was slightly pejorative, as in 'don't be such a scrat' or 'stop scratting around'.

The nearest I can find in the dictionary is 'a person who scrapes or saves, a miserly person'.

Mum had a few words which I now wonder if she made up. She used to tell me to stop being so 'omicky'

Incidentally, it was only when I moved from the Midlands down to the South East that I realised that, rather than taking a pride in keeping the house spic and span, including the front doorstep, it was almost a badge of honour to say you did no housework but just let the dust accumulate etc. I used to amaze some of my new friends with the amount of scratting I did (though they didn't use that word).

Kittylester I felt exhausted just reading what your cleaner gets through. Years ago, when I was very busy, I had a cleaner and I was quite embarrassed to ask her to do the bathroom. I used to hoover and spruce it up a bit before she went in.

petallus - makes me sound like a slave driver - doesn't it.

Claire does those things as and when - not each week! And, as she has been doing it for years, she is on top of everything.

When minibags was little and my ME was becoming a problem I made enquiries of a local cleaning services business. I wanted someone to clean under furniture and do what a friend of mine calls deep cleaning. It became clear they only really touched the surface with their dusters and smelly polishes/cleaning-fluids and a quick scoot round easily accessible carpet with a vacuum cleaner. I don't call that cleaning. That's only tidying up.

So, you see, I actually have quite high standards. When I clean I do it properly, it's just that those whens are rather sparse and I don't mind having a shabby house. There's far too much house and home snobbery in the world.

It's even worse when you are in a house rivalry situation with your sibling.

My brother has a large immaculate house with a wonderful garden. He doesn't have GC or pets, whereas I do, so I'm on to a bit of a loser competing with him.

I'm trying to 'let it go' but you should see me cleaning the house just before he is due for a visit.