Set Your Own House Cleaning Standard

Keeping a house/apartment/flat spotlessly clean is a tiring prospect. If you have young children or pets and/or work 40 hour weeks or are a caregiver to an older relative the idea that you have a lot of time to devote to housework becomes increasingly preposterous. The more "other responsibilities" you have, the less time you have to devote to housework. It is even more important to have "down time" if you are already swamped with responsibility.

My Number One Housekeeping Issue:

Cleaning house can be a breeze, but first you have to take care of clutter, because that really is what makes housework difficult.

My one complaint from my life is I wish I had not bought so much stuff! Why? Because everything you have, needs to be moved to clean under and around. Eventually, all that accumulation creates the need for totes, cupboards, bookshelves until your space is chock full.

That creates the need to move into a bigger space and more space to be cleaned. Add to that, the need to pay for that new space be it a bigger house or rental storage.

Technology Can Help with Clutter

One thing I am grateful about technology is that it is freeing me of paper clutter. Since I enjoy writing and researching (and always have), I would accumulate boxes of material before I disposed of them. Of course, I would never have the required time to get through it all and so it accumulated. Now I bookmark and categorize material in my computer so I feel I have made a major coup on the paper. Taming the "paper monster" has saved a few trees in the process... besides streamlining my writing process and making researching so much easier!

Books Need Space and Dusting!

I have always had a huge book collection and still have, but I have to say the Kindle and free ereader apps on my smartphone have saved me tons of money and allowed me to read even more than if the books were hard copy. Mind you I love, love books...but it is the material within that is the real meat. Now I can read and not worry about where I will store all the books in a limited space, not to mention, dusting them! Win-win.

Recycling Has It's Drawbacks

I come from folk that do not waste and therefore do not throw away stuff - in case it can be used for something else (re-purposed). It is a practical approach that saves money, but be prepared for clutter!

Clean What Needs Cleaning, Keep Tidy and Think about Momentos to Keep

In my household, housecleaning has evolved from a chore that is done constantly, to one which is done in rotation. I clean what needs attention when it needs attention and let the rest wait until I have time to do it. That takes care cleanliness, which is important especially in kitchens and bathrooms, which get cleaned the most.

Tidiness seems to be a factor of how much clutter one has and that boils down to buying less and tossing out more. Well, if I bought it, I hardly want to toss it do I?

Over the years I have inherited "stuff". I have managed to keep the essence of what is important without smothering under a load of momentos.

In my mother's day, she would stay at home and bake and clean. She had very few hobbies and no distractions like the internet!

My family had a marvellous ritual of "Saturday cleaning" followed by a sauna. The house and the kids and adults would all be squeaky clean! Saturday night we all donned our freshly laundered PJ's and slipped into our beds made up with line-dried sheets that smelled heavenly...so much better than dryer dried sheets with today's fabric softeners. I remember those childhood memories fondly. I seem to remember the Saturday, but I wonder how long that clean really lasted?

On Saturday night, the world was spotlessly clean. I don't remember Sunday in the same way, so invariably, dirt had made it's way back into our world!

Life was simpler then. Mom stayed at home. She swept and dusted during the week, but the big cleaning was always left for the weekend. It was a another era. An era that was more innocent and touched with a sense of magic. It almost sounds like a meditation compared to today's hustle and bustle. They never rushed around because they did not have to.

There was a certain constancy about mother’s rituals that was very comforting. Something I have never been able to emulate. But then again my aunt said I was a “carrier” woman (she actually meant "career" woman. God love her!)

I like the idea of a stay at home mom. It is great and wonderful, but we have left that innocent age of "I Love Lucy" and entered the era of "Two and a Half Men", where reality is that the average family isn’t what it used to be. Women have to work and if one wants to have a life and enjoy some of it, housework is often on the back burner of activities, simply because there are only so many hours in a day to make a living and commute and prepare meals!

That is why there is so much advice on how to do housework, but the main culprit is we simply do not have the disposable time to do it all anymore. the demands on our time have multiplied many times over from our grandmother's time.

I have a shortcut for all of that. I don’t do much housekeeping!

I am beginning to think after years of wondering if there really is a system for doing it all, why hasn’t anybody ever found it? Sure you can have everything spotless, but you may give up all your sleep, never interact with your kids or husband... never have time for a lovely chat with a friend or maybe never go visit your aunt Bess…that sort of trade-off.

Over the years, I did the housekeeping more or less okay. Never to my mother’s standards, but I began to notice, she didn’t actually do it all either. I had better standards of hygiene in the kitchen. She was unaware of bacteria and virus and it’s spread. I would disinfect and scour items she would ignore, but would be concerned that the corners of the floors had to be spotless!

I realized, even she, did not do it all...so there was a trade-off for the clean house!

I also relaxed my housekeeping over the years when I realized I wasn’t having any time for myself. I always felt guilty sitting down and relaxing. My husband on the other hand, always sat down at home, while I was preparing meals and washing up. So I invested in a dishwasher. “My maid’, I used to call it!

I then realized his standard of "clean" was way lower than mine. For instance, I once let the place get progressively more cluttered to see when he actually picked up and lo and behold the place got so bad I had to roll up my sleeves and clean…he never batted an eyelash. When I asked, he said, it didn’t bother him. A light bulb went on in my head..

I began to get wiser. I would prepare supper and put the dishwasher on and I would go relax in front of the television with him and read and enjoy myself. I think it prevented a divorce and certainly a ton of arguments about sharing the work!

Now I have relaxed completely.

I got a laugh when my cat walked into the living room from somewhere in the bowels of my space with a number of streaks of dust on his head.. “See” he seems to be saying, “It is so dusty in here, that the dust gets all over me”

What is the worst that has happened ignoring the dust? Not much. I am enjoying life! Try it!

The dust will wait...trust me and it will be back... even if you do dust this very minute!

I would say, a clean house by today's standard needs to have clean cooking and food preparation surfaces and of course clean dishes and a clean fridge. The sinks need to be clean as well as the bathroom.

Everything else depends on how much belongings you have. The more you have, the more work it creates. Only you can determine what mess you can tolerate. Dust is unsightly, but unless you have allergies, it can wait.

I try to not let anything get too dirty, but I don`t sweat the daily dirt. dirt seeps in everywhere, gets tracked in and shed by pets. The main thing is to relax about housekeeping,