I typically, once a week do a major cleaning (an owned apartment =) that consists of scrubbing down and then using lysol wipes on the sinks, shower, toilet, medicine cabinet. I clean out my refrigerator, wipe down all of my hanging pictures, frames, windows/glass surfaces. dust the light fixtures, move bed and couch and clean underneath, vacuum the stairway, sweep, mop, also I wipe down my garbage cans, disinfect countertops, laundry and dishes betwixt it all. Is this a little excessive to do once a week? I like everything to look brand new lol. What are your cleaning procedures and how often?
I got bored halfway through reading about your ritual. My ritual is sit around until I get yelled at by the wife.
Ditto. (for snfaulkner’s cleaning style)
anomalous1, why don’t you come out to my place for a visit?
Same thing. Cleaning my house will be a nice change of pace for you.
You have something against bacteria?
I do cleaning tasks when I notice they need doing and I have the time/energy. I don’t think anything but dishes and laundry gets done as often as once a week.
Yeah, I did that once or twice in my life. It’s the kind of thing where I’m satisfied just to be able to say, “Yeah, I did that once or twice”.
OP: Have you forgotten to take your OCD meds?
I take out the garbage when it starts to smell.
And by “starts to smell”, you don’t mean “starts to emit odors”… you mean “evolves a central nervous system and a respiratory system which combine to produce an active sense of olfaction.” 
Laundry gets done when I have nothing left to wear. Dishes every couple days.
Trash gets taken out when the can is full, because otherwise I can’t throw things in the trash.
The living room, hallway, and bathroom all get mopped well once a week. We’re working on house training, and…well, it’s not going well.
One of the best things I ever did was break down and pay a housekeeper to come out twice a month. I’m a slob with ADD and I tend to get overwhelmed by messes, which is not a great combination. (My husband is the unfortunate neat freak married to me.)
A housekeeper has not absolved me of the need to do all housework. Laundry, dishes, etc are an ongoing task. What it does is forces me to declutter and wash out all the catboxes every two weeks, so that the housekeepers can clean. It keeps me on a cleaning schedule. Genius.
I have a whole methodology for people with short attention spans who are easily overwhelmed, which I will get to in a bit.
Same as Spice Weasel…unfortunately, I hate putting things away and dealing with clutter, but that’s the part I do. I don’t mind dusting, mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, and wiping, but that’s the part I pay other people to do. I wish it could be the reverse.
But I love coming in to a nice clean house every other Wednesday.
Right now I am trying to things de-cluttered enough to have a regular cleaning lady. As it is, someone manages to come every 6 weeks or so. Other than that, we keep up with the dishes, laundry and trash.
That’s awesome. Thanks for the responses.
I guess I am just a cheapass or that my apartment is small enough it doesn’t warrant a housekeeper. I hate cleaning, but its a necessary evil. Wednesday is also my day to clean. Pretty much just finished up. Takes me about 2 1/2 hours. I am the opposite, Hilarity N Suze, I hate the sweeping, mopping etc. Stuff. Clutter is the easy part for me, it took some time though as I had to re-train myself into putting things back where I found them, so as to not build it up. I hate cleaning, and I usually go out rather than have people over, so I don’t know why I like to keep things so clean, but both of my parents and my sister are that way so maybe its genetic things, who knows.
No cleaning style here. My style is mainly to fight my hoarding tendencies. As others have mentioned, I don’t mind scrubbing, vacuuming, etc., but the tidying up is an issue. So, I “deep clean” when I have a major impetus to.
With small children, daily tidying-up is a matter of “do I have the energy to pick up more than they dumped out today,” and when it’s 90% picked up (say, once or twice a week) then I vacuum, dust, mop. I wouldn’t want surprise guests any day of the week, but I’m not in fear of the county social worker, so…I guess that’s good enough for now. 
There are essentially two cleaning styles. “Make it clean” style and “Take the dirt away” style.
My husband is a ‘make it clean’ kind of person. When he mops a floor, for instance, he really Mops A Floor. Chairs and table will be moved aside, every corner meticulously gone into, and once he’s done it is CLEAN.
And then of course, by the next day we’ve walked all over it, and it’s back to normal again.
I on the other hand, approach floor mopping as … Sling a bit of water on the floor … swishswishswishHEYwe’reDONE! In other words, totally slapdash and over in 5 minutes.
BUT - although I may leave a floor with grungy corners, I can muster up the energy to to a half-assed slapdash clean about ten times for every one of his CLEAN sessions. So I figure I’m still taking more dirt away and therefore making a useful contribution to the household state. Which is fortunate, because making it CLEAN! and having your work essentially destroyed with the first dirty footprint is way too depressing for me and would drive me to drink.
Basics (bathroom, mopping kitchen floor, general cleaning) is done once a week.
Vacuuming every other day if the dogs are shedding.
Laundry is done when I start running short of underwear or work clothes.
I hate leaving dishes in the sink and I cook from scratch a fair amount, so that’s my “biggie” chore. That’s fine because I actually like doing the dishes.
OP sounds like my MIL. Out of six kids only two have inherited what we call her OCD/anxiety gene, One of them was not my husband.
My mother always said that there was more to life than having a spotless house. I agree.
I apply a combination of two systems, (and sometimes ignore both in favour of going to the beach, gardening, or swinging in my hammock!)
System first is all about how you clean. Like a hotel maid! Meaning, in a systematic, efficient fashion. Always the same order of events. It very soon becomes habit, requires no thinking and gets faster each time. Like the very efficient hotel maid! Ie: cobwebs, declutter/ dust, Windex glass surfaces, strip out/change linens, vacuum, etc, etc, you get the idea, I’m sure. (Think each room through, make a list of the order, stick to it, until the order of cleaning becomes a habit, so you no longer need the list, like the maid!)
System second is a breakdown of which rooms, which days. So you divide your home up into seven spots and do one each day, and stick strictly to the order. So, every Monday/kitchen, Tuesday/Bedroom, Wednesday/bathrooms, etc. I like to leave Sat and Sun for fun, so those days are mostly, weekly food prep, and ‘clear a cupboard, closet or drawer!’. By the weekend your house is completely clean, you can relax and just enjoy it.
The great thing about this is, once you’re into the pattern it quickly becomes habit. So, after the initial week of big clean up, the next week, on Mon, you go to the kitchen and just do what jumps out, likewise each following day of the week. Now I’m just into, “it’s Wed, I’ll go see if there’s a couple of things I could do in the bedroom?”, then do whatever I see, as opposed to repeating every little task from the week before. This is a great ‘clean maintenance’ method.
This combination really works for me because it provides two things: a NOT too onerous system to clean the whole house, top to bottom, by weeks end. Plus a simple means to stay on top of it, simply by following the daily room bit, a little everyday.
And when having a fun life throws me off the whole schedule, and things get out of control, it’s really easy to start it back up again, with the whole house clean week, followed again by the maintenance follow up part.
It works for me!
For these days and times that more often and more thorough than I think is average, but there’s nothing wrong with it if that’s what you’re comfortable with. Certainly, by doing that routine once a week you’re definitely keeping up with clutter/dust/dirt which makes it quicker to do that someone who let’s it go longer than thus must engage more intensely in cleaning when it is done.