LOOKING FOR A HOUSEWORK ROUTINE

I agree with so many of these posts. M DH is the generation of men brought up by a mother who had a daily so he never mucked in. Rather sweetly I noticed he bumped into the lightweight dyson and looked at it quizzically . He pressed a button and it started up and he jumped. When I was much younger I used to pretend mil was coming over to get housework done swiftly. Now I seem to live in a mess until my dear cleaner arrives. I feel there is now too much for me to do and I want to downsize but DH says we will never fit in a smaller house. I do not do housework every day apart from wiping down counters and a light dysoning. Clearing up after a meal and stacking the dishwasher is ample housework and a Monday washday can be any day of the week which is fine as I believe in drying outside on the line.

You can buy the oven cleaner in a bag from ebay. I find it very good. Put the racks in the special bag with the solution, turn it occasionally and leave it in the garden! Rinse well, after leaving it all overnight.

Love the poem
My routine is"when I feel like it" or when my children were young and I was cleaning thoroughly,they asked "who is coming" we still laugh about it.
My DH dusts when it is obvious, he works as a home help, and has become more houseproud since he started there, lucky me!

Jalima - Oh, it's that expensive, is it? In that case, thanks Nonnie - I'll go with your advice.

By the way, did any of you know that the Gransnetter who gave the name of the cleaning website - cleaning love to know, has started a demand to find a supplier of Borax?

That's what I call consumer power!

You can some stuff from Lakeland where you put he shelves in a bag with the liquid and it cleans them. I've got some under the sink. Might use it someday. Or DH will (more likely)

Why do you need your oven cleaned when there are such good products out there in the supermarket.

Spray the stuff on and wipe off.

If it doesn't work the first time do it again !

My oven gets filthy because my children let things spill over and bake on the bottom.

I wash the racks in the dishwasher. They come out like new

Looking at the price of having the oven cleaned I worked out it would be cheaper to let it get dirty then buy a new one every so often

It was the 60s and at 18, with my childhood sweetheart/husband, 20, and gorgeous baby, I thought I was Doris Day, all pink gingham and a pony tail, trying to do better than my super housewives mother and sister in law.

In my beautiful brand new council flat (those were the days) I would see husband off to the station with a kiss, then scrub everything, including the baby. I had enormous energy, no doubt helped by endless cans of Coke. I remember that after cleaning the bathroom I would polish the bath, loo and wash basin with lavender Pledge after scrubbing them to death with Vim. Where's Vim now?

I gradually became normal over the years with bigger homes, more children, long working hours and sometimes a cleaning lady, but now, if the door bell rings I have a blind panic to shove the untidiness out of the way on my path to answer the door to a friend or neighbour. That awful self satisfied teenager I was has gone, but I do wish she had left me some of her energy.

Sometimes I start an ambitious rota which lasts about two days and mainly consists of, first day - doing over the wardrobes and chucking stuff out; second day - doing over the kitchen cupboards and chucking stuff out; then husband brings my favourite magazine back with the daily paper and that's the end of that campaign.

PS. Where do you nice people find someone to clean the oven? I told my husband that if one of us doesn't do it soon we'll have to get a new one.

I am semi-retired (working occasionally on short term contracts for companies I have worked for before) and on my non working months I do miss the structure of the working day and wonder how I will cope with full retirement.

When it comes to housework, I've come to the conclusion I am a lazy perfectionist. I hate people seeing it less than perfect but can't be bothered to put in the elbow grease to achieve it.

I do actually have a very strict housework routine, one room a day as well as keeping on top of kitchen and bathroom cleaning and washing and ironing. I just don't keep to it, I do the basics at the moment, ie cleaning up after 2 cats and a dog, and escape to the garden.

Because I'm a lazy girl!!

Maybe buy the kindle version of "the Lazy Girl's Guide to Housework" 99pence from Amazon. Amusing if nothing else. Why am I writing this rather than vacuuming??

When my eldest daughter was growing up she used to say 'if you sit still too long mum will either dust you or hoover you up'! After late edition to the family I was more laid back. Now we look after our granddaughter three days a week, so
cleaning-what's that!

I need to get a hand held steam cleaner. My steam floor mop shifts marks on the vinyl that I can't get off otherwise.

I know just what you mean about a routine bringing some structure to your days. If only I could shift my sit-upon and do it.

Brummiegran - patience, please! I had 3 appointments to get to yesterday so I wasn't able to look at Gransnet again until today.
I am grateful for all the interesting and helpful responses - many thanks. Alea - loved the poem too!
Since retiring from an over-structured, over-burdened job, I have found it very hard to get used to not having a structure at all and feel that I am "floundering". I think that a routine will help me to fit in the household jobs that I have to get done and make me feel likeI am achieving something. I don't intend to be governed by it like a rod of iron though. I just feel totally disorganised (and probably am).

Synonymous - let's say that I am a "gran-in-waiting", and there must be lots of grans whose children and grandchildren live do not live near them so they don't get involved in childcare, babysitting etc. Your later post was very welcome.

Thanks once again to everyone who took the trouble to reply to my initial post.

Hoovering, not hovering

I've found a hand held steam cleaner is great for all sorts of things, sinks, loos, stoves, ovens. Brilliant! I have a cleaner who helps with the hovering and dusting, too. Once a week for routine stuff, once a month for other things. And some things are once or twice a year....

I can't believe I've read this, in the 21st century. It reads like a page out of 'Woman's Own' in the 1950s.

'There are just the 2 of us now'. Right, that makes 2 to do all this work, not just one.

'Towels don't get used massively'. Well, if you shower daily (or bath) the towels don't actually get dirty, only damp. They don't, therefore, need changing all that much.

Cleaning the oven? Last time our oven got cleaned was a few years ago when DH was in hospital. A man came and did it for us. Clean the fridge? All it needs is a wipe out before putting the week's grocery order away. Shopping gets delivered by Tesco. Windows cleaned once a month by a local man.

What else? Do you think you'll be lying on your death-bed thinking 'I should have cleaned the fridge/oven/windows more often'?

There's a lot more going on in the world than doing housework. It's spring! Get out and see it - while you still can.

I don't think I'd be remembered as someone who cleans all the time, though my mother would be. I suddenly turn into Mrs Mop though if I know anyone is visiting. I find with us retirees the banter tends to be a competition as to who puts the least time into housework, yet I am sure we all run our houses efficiently, tidily and cleanly. It must be sad though to let the house run the person.

I often wonder what it would be like to live in a house where everything's tidy and cleaned regularly. Can't imagine it . If I'm likely to be sewing most days, then obviously it makes sense that the sewing machine, cutting mat, scissors, pins, tape measure, fabric etc. are all left out on the table. I'd hate to be a tidy freak and have to get it all out every day and then put it all away again afterwards. What a complete and utter waste of time!
And because I'm likely to be sewing most days, housework is simply not given a thought. DH always washes up and tidies the kitchen every morning. One of us will put the vacuum round when it needs doing. If dust is visibly thick then I might go and look for a duster. Or I might just grab a tissue and give it a swipe.
I'd rather be sewing

I had set days for going out shopping too. Now I have it delivered. Just couldn't manage it anymore on my bike.

I use to, religiously, do "Monday work". Cleaned the whole house. It was good inasmuch as it was out of the way until Friday when I did a quick touch up. Too exhausting now though. Sometimes I think I should try to go back to it.

Mind you, with a cordless vac and a steam mop, I can quickly do bits here and there when it's needed.

Clean beds and loos otherwise housework only when guests are coming. Life's too short.

i've never kept to a routine - i gave up routine when i gave up work!!
last year my daughter and her two daughters moved in with me and there's more work but still no routine although, after two nasty colds and a stomach bug we're still in the getting over it stage.
so no housework has been done - not proper, move all the furniture and clean beneath housework - since the bug.
still hectic as my daughter is covering for a sick colleague [she usually works two days a week] and any routine we may have had has definately gone to pot.
however, with half term next week, i'm hoping we an at least get the backlog done and then, after half term, it'll be easy to keep up to scratch - but i'm not going to do anything "routinely! it'll get done as and when i feel like it - mornings only though.

I polish and hoover when it's necessary, probably do three or four lots of washing per week, and swish round the kitchen and bathroom every day.
I worked to a strict timetable throughout my career, so I'm not going to do the same thing now!