# How do you manage household cleaning? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2012, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829 "2012-06-21T12:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/41 "2012-06-21T19:11:51Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Is there a reason for this? It seems kind of odd for your building to allow people to wash their clothes only during certain hours. Neither of the apartment buildings I’ve lived in had laundry rooms open 24/7. I assumed it was a noise issue. My current place is RIGHT next to the laundry room and I can hear the washers and dryers running, even aside from the door closing, footsteps, etc. I’m sure larger laundry rooms would be worse (ours only has two washers and dryers). ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/42 "2012-06-21T19:23:58Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > When we talked about moving in together, my SO confided in me that he was worried that our levels of cleanliness didnt’ quite match. I spent so much time at his house that when I was at my place, it was for short bits of time. So, I never really cleaned at my place that much. Now that we live together, we have different levels of cleanliness still, but they’re in odd ways. > > I’m more of a “place for everything and everything in its place” type cleaner. The scissors go back where they belong, clothes aren’t meant to be left on the bathroom floor-put 'em in the hamper. I’m constantly picking up after him. > > He’s more of a “let me get the bleach out” or “I’m going to move all of the objets d’art and dust with Pledge”. > > So, I’m more superficial but tidy and he’s more chaotic but into the deeper clean. > > We both don’t think the other keeps the place clean though. We were like this when we first got married - I was the tidy one (though I’d flip out occasionally and disinfect everything); he was the one who would go to put something in the closet, decide the closet was too messy and pull everything out of the closet and leave it there while he sorted things out. Seriously, something that would’ve taken me 30 seconds would get sidelined into a 2-3 hour project. Anyway, with the addition of a much larger living space and two kids, I’ve gone over to the dark side. I don’t really care about the clutter anymore, so much as our kitchen and baths are clean and we can walk through a room without falling. I agree that there should be two types of clean, like **TruCelt** mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/43 "2012-06-21T19:37:51Z")
My guess is the laundry room closes overnight is because it’s an attractive place for illicit happenings. Depending on the part of town you live in, providing an enclosed space overnight might encourage drug deals or sexytimes that you’d rather not have on the premises. It’d also be a warm, free place for homeless people to sleep. When I was in college, the laundry rooms were 24 hours… _but_ they were locked, and only the residents of that building could open the door. That’s an attractive solution, but it’s not cheap. Also if your property manager doesn’t have to keep the lights on overnight, the company saves on overhead. People who don’t like it have the option of taking their laundry to an offsite laundromat, which makes it a better business decision for the property manager to open the laundry room for a limited time. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/44 "2012-06-21T20:04:46Z")
Hmmm, the laundry rooms I’ve seen were locked as well. Which doesn’t mean someone can’t get in there anyway. And the lights were on timers. Who knows? ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/45 "2012-06-21T20:32:31Z")
I have a cleaning lady but i try to keep the place neat & (reasonably) clean in case she should have to miss her regular day. ---
**Author:** ![Mopal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Mopal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mopal)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/46 "2012-06-21T23:32:59Z")
The twins and I have an arrangement. They poop, I scoop. Otherwise if it doesn’t bother them it doesn’t bother me. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/47 "2012-06-22T00:30:56Z")
Maid service, yard service. Secret to a happy marriage. You need to experiment with different services. Our current one is excellent. But not all have been that way. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/48 "2012-06-22T01:14:06Z")
[Clean all the things?](http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html) ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/49 "2012-06-22T02:42:29Z")
I used to get intensely overwhelmed by cleaning, to the point that I would get frustrated and stop. One day I decided to do a tiny bit at a time. I vowed that before I left a room, I would put away 5 things. Easy peasy, 5 things. By the end of the week, the house was spotless. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/50 "2012-06-22T02:46:37Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > [Clean all the things?](http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html) I could have written that word for word. I try, I really try to be a grown-up, but it’s just exhausting. ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829/51 "2012-06-23T01:59:28Z")
Being an OCD type and rather particular about all things being neat and tidy, my 1100 square feet of Casa Scubaqueen is 98 percent ready for company at any time. Even if I could afford a cleaning person, I wouldn’t want one. I want to know personally that sinks, door knobs, dishes, clothing, and so forth are clean and sanitary because I made them that way. I detest clutter, so there are no books, newspapers, magazines, boxes, bags of stuff, etc., lying around, and don’t have a husband, dog, or kids to contend with, but I do have The SuperKitties, one of which is a mobile shedding machine. Maggie and Widget are American Shorthairs and are negligible shedders, but Turk is an 18-pound, part Main Coone, part… lion, I think, and the combination results in endless knotting/brushing and shedding. Everywhere. His hair is a lot like cotton candy – and sticks like it to everything in his vicinity and I do mean Everything! I vacuum and dust at least somewhere and something just about every day – have to, thanks to ginormous cat’s equally ginormous fur loss. A feather duster sprayed with Endust is a fast and effective way to speed-dust surfaces. Laundry is done when the hamper gets full, folded, and put away (and how a single person can generate that much laundry in a few days is still a mystery to me). Bed linens are changed twice a week. I really, really, really need to get my carpets cleaned professionally, but it’s a little out of my budget range at the mo. All dishes are in the dishwasher before I leave the kitchen whether I’ve cooked or not that day. With three SuperKitties in residence, the litter box upkeep is endless and ongoing: a daily, sometimes two or three times daily, scoop-fest. The box is wiped clean and sanitized (love those Clorox wipes, too!), and the litter changed every two to three days at the most, otherwise it will start to reek. The bath and a half are wiped down (Clorox wipes rock!) every couple of days or so and the tub and toilets scrubbed once or twice a week. All windows get washed inside and out twice a year. The one thing I’m shamelessly lazy about doing is filing papers from paying bills, etc., inside the very nice filing cabinet I bought for exactly that purpose. At the mo I’ve got about three to four months of filing to do, all of which is sitting three inches high on top of that very nice filing cabinet, and no inclination to sit down and do it. I hate to file, but if I’d stay up with it instead of letting it pile up, it wouldn’t take so darn long!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-manage-household-cleaning/625829.md?page=2)