Or somewhere in between? I find that because I live alone, I’m somewhat lax about cleaning up after myself. I tend to leave dishes in the sink (I have a dishwasher so it’s not like I even have to wash them by hand) and a trail of clothes behind me when I get home. I also leave stuff “out” a lot because eventually I’m going to use it again (e.g. my ironing board). Unfortunately, I’m not space limited and things tend to be everywhere. My dining room table is covered with “stuff.” With no one to consider but myself, things get kind of messy and I have to go into a cleaning frenzy whenever anyone comes over, which I hate. I wish I could train myself to be neat but I can’t be arsed.
Until recently, I didn’t even realize how much of a slob I am.
A couple of months ago a had a friend hang out at my place for an afternoon. Not only is she a neat freak, but a professional housekeeper. I felt the need to straighten up a little so as not to freak her out too much.
I threw out 7 large bags of junk, and gave myself a scar dusting stuff that had not been dusted in over 8 years. It took a day and a half.
I live alone (for now). Though I occasionally leave the dishes until tomorrow, I am, on the whole, a hard-core cleaner/organizer. A place for everything and everything in its place. I have one room in my house that is full of unpacked boxes. I gave up on them when I realized that I was only going to live here until the lease ran out, then I’m moving in with my boyfriend. If I were staying here longer, I’d have unpacked long ago.
When my son is here, the house looks like it’s been hit by Hurricane Toddler, but that gets cleaned up quick. Mommy is a little CDO. (Because the letters belong in alphabetical order!)
A slob by nature, I suppose, but I’ve been getting better about it. Don’t have enough visitors to make it necessary; have to do it just for me.
Last spring I did just about my whole apartment top to bottom; moved the furniture to mop the floors underneath, even. I just decided that I’d do a little bit every day, even if it was just sweeping one floor or unpacking one old box. Took a while, but it was a world of difference once it was done.
There was a time in the past 5 years when I lived alone that my house got so messy that I had to ask my parents to come help me clean for a whole day. I don’t remember what the circumstances were of that - if I was working a ton or if I was depressed. Or both.
Then I got a tenant and I kept it fairly neat. I vacuumed and dusted at least every 2 weeks and did the dishes all the time. He was a slob but I made him keep it contained to the basement.
I got rid of that tenant and got the current tenant, who stays here for free. In exchange he cleans the house (everything but the office and bedrooms) and keeps up with the dishes (no dishwasher…but hardly any dishes).
Anyway since I have a “maid” now I pretty much keep the place spotless for fear of looking like I’m messy and having to be cleaned up after. Sometimes I clean inbetween him cleaning. And since I don’t have to clean the rest of the house, I keep my bedroom and office pretty tidy too.
So yeah I am a neat freak now but I don’t know how it will be once I’m on my own again. I think pretty neat…I don’t have much stuff to manage.
used to be a slob thru my high school and college years. my roommate and i once won the ‘messiest dorm room’ award my junior year.
as i aged i got less and less messy, altho i was guilty of leaving clean clothes in a chair in my room for long periods of time. today, i’m a neat freak. furniture dusted, clothes laundered and put away, dishes in the dishwasher and so on.
I’m the kind of guy who will leave a plate or two in the sink, a pile of laundry on the bedroom floor, the swiffer-duster untouched and the kitty box over due by a day, but then I’ll whip into an utter frenzy and clean the place spotless from top to bottom. So I can start over messing up the joint with a clean pallette, as it were.
A couple of years ago I made a list of things I could do in my life that, if I did them on a regular basis, would make a huge impact on my happiness either now or in the future. There were things like “Exercise 4+ times/week” and “Eat vegetables every day.” Then I ranked them in order of importance. I was surprised to find that “Keep apartment clean” ranked #2. It’s really such a small price to pay for happiness, and yet I still have a hard time getting motivated.
Definite neatnik here. I do a pretty thorough cleaning about once a week. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t dust, vacuum, or Windex something. I can’t stand dishes in the sink or clothes laying around.
Also if I am upset or stressed about something, cleaning up my house always makes me feel better.
Total slob. My office and desk at work are super neat, everything-in-its-place, etc., but my house is a disaster most of the time. I’m able to clean up (superficially) pretty quickly for company, but the thought of unannounced visitors gives me stomach acid.
I will say that now that I have a toddler running around, I do try to keep things a little neater than I would left to my own devices. I’m trying to set a good example. But even with her watching, I still leave dishes sitting out and clothes on the floor most of the time. :rolleyes:
On the slobby side. I usually clean up once every week or two so I don’t get bugs, but that’s it (unless I am expecting company). I have a small stack of empty coke and mike’s hard lemonade bottles on my desk now, and a small pile of undone laundry, and only a couple of empty pizza boxes, because I cleaned this weekend. Usually my desk and laundry basket (and stack of pizza boxes) are far more cluttered than they are at current.
I never dust or wash windows, that’s weird. I sweep/vacuum (depending on the type of floor, wood now but carpeting in the past) once when I move in, and once again when I move out. Never yet been dinged with a cleaning charge. I am quite capable of doing a fantastic job of cleaning, but rarely get up the energy to do so. Only when money is at stake
I could have written this. (Do you have a camera hidden in my house?)
I do have cleaning people who come every three weeks and vacuum, do the bathrooms, kitchen, etc. Before they come, I’m forced to pick up clothes off the bedroom floor… otherwise I prolly never would.
I do sort of make the bed, i.e., I cover my side (the other side belongs to my dogs) and put the pillows up on the dresser. When I’m gone during the day, the doggies like to sleep and shed fur on my side.
ETA: Paradoxically (or maybe not) the contents of my computer are SUPER organized. I have a document naming system and other organizational methods and I can put my hands on anything in a matter of seconds without using the search tool. The truth is I’m more comfortable and able to cope in the virtual world than I am in the physical world. The objects in the virtual world obey me; the ones in the physical world defy and taunt me.
I’m at both ends of the spectrum I think. I generally don’t have a lot of clutter laying around, I’m one of those “everything in it’s place” types. On the other hand I can live with a large amount of pet hair and dust floating around. Dirty dishes usually don’t get washed until Friday or Saturday. I rinse 'em good so it’s not like there’s decaying stuff on them. My tool boxes, guitars, gear and amps and my vehicle are always clean and organized. I have two bedrooms that are “junk” rooms but everything is organized in plastic totes.
The funny thing is that when I’ve lived alone I was messy - like you said, leaving things “out” to use them again, leaving clean laundry folded in one hamper, dirty in the other. Bathroom was scrubbed weekly and dishes were never left more than 12 hours. Not dirty but really quite messy. I had lots of space and filled it out cause hey, nobody was coming over, right?
Naturally though I’m happiest when things are tidy and clean. Roommates and/or an SO have helped with this - they never pick up after me but just knowing they’re there makes me straighten up. I have enough $ to live alone when my SO moves out of state in August but I’d rather live with others so I can have someone “watching over” me - keeping me clean and making sure (a la Liz Lemon’s worry) that I don’t die alone in my apartment because I needed the Heimlich.
If you clean things every day versus every week you are in exactly the same place at the end of the week. Therefore, I extend this policy to cleaning only when the need is great and my view of that is changing for the worse.
Not really. I’m kind of messy (clothes tend to end up piled on the floor at the foot of the bed, and my dresser is covered with papers and hair elastics and lotion bottles, etc.), but I do make an effort to keep clutter contained to those two places. Dishes aren’t done as often as I would like, but that’s because I have a roommate and I resent doing a big pile of dishes all the time. I clean the bathroom every week and scrub the kitchen counters and stove every time I do the dishes. There’s more pet hair around than I would like and the tile should be swept more, but overall it’s usually presentable.
