I’ll second the “get a dog” suggestion, if you can/fancy it.
My dogs eat any leftover and do 90% of the cleaning of plates, pots, pans, etc. It makes for a no mess, no greasy washing up.
If your microwave is really nasty. Cut up a lemon Squeeze out some juice into that water, throw in the lemons and nuke that for about 90 seconds.
Then clean.
Being of the female inclination, Im pretty impressed at the ingenious ways of some of you!
Im not against men cleaning, in fact I kinda like it, but its the Self-Righteously Smug Attitude that DH adopts when he finds a cobweb or, god forbid, hairball, that I might have missed. Silently and with great forbearance he drags out the FuzzyWand and all manner of paraphernalia to attack it with a Prim Look on his face. Whatever.
Years ago, I got rid of all of my various pairs of socks and replaced them with the same style of sock. I got twenty pair of casual socks, four pair of warm socks, and four pair of dress socks. Now I no longer have to match my socks after I do laundry- I just toss them all in my sock drawer and I’m good to go. Since the three types of socks are all different from each other, I can find a matching pair without even having to turn the bedroom light on.
Dogs: hair, poop, pee, spilled kibbles, regular walks, messes made. Not really a way to make cleaning easier. You should get a dog because you want a dog.
Why is that insulting, lots of jobs are paying minimum wage for janitors. I’m offering several dollars above that.
Seriously? They’d probably have to spend at least half of their “wage” just driving to your place and back. I pay a homeless dude that much just to wipe down my little car while I’m at work.
No no no, au contraire!
The daily messes that a dog makes, like getting its hairs in the most improbable places, means that you are forced to do a regular cleaning of all your place!
Win-win!
Nothing motivated me faster to clean up the floor that when the dog barfed on it.
Not to mention washing the dog itself, unless you want the place to smell like a kennel. In fact, in my experience, bachelor + dog + apartment = noticeable funk, in most cases. Of course, in some cases one can leave out the dog and the equation still works.
I like shortcuts, but I really think eating off paper plates, straight from the pan, with plastic cutlery etc etc is the most depressing thing ever. I’m a batchelorette but I always eat off placemats, on a real plate and with knife and fork. FFS how long does it take to clean those? You choice, but I think a little dignity is worth 20 seconds of cleaning.
Mind you, when I’m alone I lick the plates and so my dishes are easily cleaned. Classy!
Now that we know your secret, the blackmail can begin! BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Back in my bachelor days, I found that the easiest way to keep everything clean was to just do it every day/week, regardless of whether it looked like it needed it or not. What really made cleaning onerous was having to do typical bachelor-cleaning things like:
[ul]
[li]Washing a sinkful of stinky dishes that had been sitting there either festering or drying out for a week.[/li][li]Cleaning a shower/tub of 3 months of accumulated soap scum, dirt and crud.[/li][li]Doing a month’s worth of laundry at a time.[/li][/ul]
For example, do dishes every night after dinner (assuming you ate at home), do a load or two of laundry every week or two and clean your bathroom fortnightly or weekly.
It’s much easier to clean a tub if the soap scum is in a thin layer that comes off easily, rather than having to break out the green scrub pad and the Comet. Same goes for dishes- week old fermented dishes are far worse than spending the 15 minutes every night to do them while they’re fresh and not stank.
If all else fails, throw money at the problem. Make damned sure you live in an apartment with a dishwasher, and hire a cleaning service to come in once a month and make sure you’re not living in squalor. That’s my approach, and it works. (The cleaning service is only $70/month - not bad, for what you get).
Yeah, cleaning people make a whole lot more than $10/hour. I’ve had cleaning people for 20+ years now, and even in the 90s, it was $50-$55 for a couple hour cleaning job.
Nowadays I pay $80 for about 3 hours. That’s a bit high for my area (I live in a very economically depressed area), but she’s easily the best cleaning lady I’ve ever had and I’m trying to stay on the top of her list so if she ever cuts back, I’ll hopefully be the last she cuts.
Seriously, house cleaning is hard work. You’ll be incredibly lucky if you find someone who does a half-decent job for $10/hour.
If you want to pay a stranger not affiliated with a bonded and licensed business 1/7th of the going rate to have the run of your home for a couple hours, just go ahead and see how that works out for you.
When you have $20 bills/DVDs/games/watches/whatever missing after a $15 cleaning appointment, you’ll be the only one here who is surprised.
Didn’t get laundry done, out of things to wear?? A quick “dry wash” will freshen up previously-worn clothes in an emergency. Toss 'em in the dryer with a dryer sheet, run on high for 10 minutes. Airs them out, fluffs them up, deoderizes. Obviously this won’t work on heavily stained, soiled, greasy items, but for clothes or bedding that are just a little stale it rejuvenates them nicely.