Shoes: Almost never, but I will use a brush on them if they’ve gotten muddy or something. Dress or semi-dress shoes get an application of wax/polish whenever they get scuffed, and the exposed sides of the soles are usually brushed whenever I think about it. I don’t wear dress stuff that often, so that’s probably only once every couple of months.
Socks, underwear, undershirts: I change those every day.
Pants/Jeans: Unless I spill or something, I usually wear these two or three times. Exceptions are during the summer, when I sometimes sweat enough to need to wash them pretty much every time.
Shirts: Overshirts can be worn a couple of times if I wear an undershirt, and I almost always do. I’ll generally put them on a hanger and hang them outside that night, and then transfer back to the closet the next night.
Jackets: Rarely. Wool ones need dry cleaning, so maybe once a season. Down only gets used during really cold times so it rarely needs more than a shake or a brush, unless used on a camping trip. My regular jacket is a semi-permeable shell. That gets cleaned pretty easily just from being used in precipitation, again, unless I’ve used it on a camping trip. Everything gets filthy when you’re in the woods.
Sweaters: Again, wool needs to be dry cleaned, and shouldn’t be cleaned too often or it degrades, so usually only a couple of times a season. Fleece pullovers probably get cleaned every couple of weeks. I usually use sweats for workouts or dirty, physical work, so those get washed pretty much every time.
Something not on your list are suits. Cleaning these too often causes them to get shiny and old-looking pretty quickly. I usually get mine cleaned and repaired (if needed) once or at most twice a season. I’m more careful when wearing it, so I rarely spill on it. Spot treatment if I do, and a garment brush for regular use are about all it needs most of the time.
Bedsheets: I’d like to change them once a week, but sometimes I forget or don’t have time to wash a whole set. Average is probably 2–3 times a month. I change pillow cases more often, and cycle pillows every couple of months. The old pillow gets taken out, beaten, and left [del]for dead[/del] in the sun for a day or two.
Tangent: One of the things I like about futon compared to mattresses is that you can take them out and beat all the dander and crap out of them every once in a while. My wife wanted a bed, but I insisted on using a futon instead of a mattress. Our compromise was a platform bed with a couple of nice futon. I’d been sleeping on futon on the floor for years before we moved in together and got backaches every time I visited relatives and slept in a Western-style bed, which was my main concern. The cleanliness issue was a nice secondary benefit.
Two ironies here: she’s Japanese, I’m American. You’d think that she’d want a futon, not me. The second is that there are more choices and better quality futon made in the US than there are in Japan. Cheaper too. They’re a little different than the Japanese ones, but most styles are a nice middle ground between the thinner Japanese mats and a regular mattress. You can’t even get a comparable product here.
