Oh, when I posted, I forgot to talk about why the division of labor is what it is. Our marriage is divided along sickeningly (to other people,not sickening to us) traditional lines: he earns enough money to keep us housed, clothed, fed and entertained; he fixes stuff; he cuts the grass. I deal with the kids and the housekeeping. As I said before, though, if I’ve got too much going on at one time, I will definitely grab him up and put him to work. I’ve also been known to put the kids to work (aside from their assigned chores) when I’m up against the wall. Every night after dinner, I set my timer for 5 minutes, and the kids pick up as much as they can in the living room. This means that after they go to bed, hubby and I can enjoy the living room without it looking like a tornado went through there.
[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
Here’s a follow-up question. For those who are married or living with an SO, tell me about your experiences sharing cleaning duties. Do any of you find that the female half of the pair usually does most of the cleaning? If so, why do you think that is?
QUOTE]
Don’t get me started… :mad: He’s a fucking :wally when it comes to sharing household duties.
BWAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA. Routine. Snork. Yeah, right. The bottom line is, I clean when the dust bunnies grow larger than the cats, or when company is coming over.
That said, on with the quiz:
1)OK, first tell me if you are a guy or gal, how big your abode is and how many people live in your household. If you are married, tell me how you divide up the duties.
Female, single, one human living in 3BR/2BA, 1400 Sq. ft. house with 2 dogzillas, and 2 random cats.
- Bathrooms: How often do you clean the toilet; shower/bathtub; sink; how often so you sweep/mop the floors? What cleaning products do you use? How often do you wash your bath towels?
Toilet: When the ring forms around the surface of the water.
Shower/bathtubs/sinks: Again, when dirt, mold, mildew or grunge in general becomes visible. Dust does not count as “visible.”
I use Lysol bath, tub and tile for all of those surfaces and Lysol toilet cleaner for the toilet. I will occasionally use the Clorox Bleach pen for grout if my grout is looking particularly moldy.
Bath towels generall get washed with the rest of the laundry, once a week.
3) Kitchen: How often do you sweep/mop your floors? Do you ever let dishes sit in the sink for more than one day? How do you clean the surface areas In the kitchen? Sink? Counters? Stovetop? Ever clean the refrigerator or oven?
Sweep and mop: When the grunge becomes visible. I have dirt-colored grout, so that can go a few weeks.
I hate doing dishes, so they could sit as long as three-four days before they land in the dishwasher. (I really suck about this.)
Surface areas get wiped down with a disinfectant when I need to use them to cook. That could be daily or it could happen twice a week. That includes sink, counters, stove top. I clean the fridge about twice a year and rarely, if ever, clean the oven. Not even sure how to clean a gas oven without blowing up the place.
4) Common areas: How often do you vacuum the carpets and/or furniture? What kind of vacuum do you have? How often do you dust the furniture? What product/method do you use?
No carpet at all: just hard wood and tile in 100% of the house. I use a broom or a dustmop. I’m considering one of those floormate things, for hard wood and tile, but I don’t want to spend another $200 on a third vacuum/cleaning device (I do own a vacuum cleaner and a steam cleaner.) I dust the furniture whenever I do the floors, which is, as I said, when the dust bunnies are bigger than my cats. I dust with a fluffy feather duster or a rag dampened with water. (I used to work for a cleaning contractor and learned that in general, all you need is water.)
5) Bedroom: How often do you change and wash your sheets?
My dogs sleep with me, so that happens once a week.
6) How often do you do laundry? Do you separate colors? What detergent do you use? Do you use fabric softener?
I do laundry as often as once a week and occasionally once every two weeks. I might wash clothes and iron on Saturday and do towels and sheets after work throughout the week. I’m sort of fast and loose with laundry, depending on how many clean clothes I have for work. Every couple months, I’ll wash all the throw rugs instead of just shaking them outside. I separate whites from everything else, unless there’s one white t-shirt in all of my laundry. Then it just gets tossed in with everything else. If there is a full load of whites (and this goes for towels and bedding, if white), I bleach the crap out of those loads. I use Arm and Hammer, non-allergenic, no fluffy girly smells to activate my allergies detergent and Publix brand dryer sheets as a softener. I never air dry on a line because it’s too humid here and my clothes would mold before they dried. I use cold water for everything, unless the dog has peed on it, and then it’s boiling hot water with white vinegar added to kill the pee smell. Before I owned a washer/dryer I would drop my laundry off at the laundromat and have it done for me at a mere $0.60 per pound. What a luxury – they even folded my bras! The owner told me that you wear out your clothes faster by using hot water and cold does just as well with today’s advanced detergents. So I follow his advice and wash with cold, which is cheaper anyway (hot water heater doesn’t have to kick on).
I love surveys. Why do we care about how Dopers clean?
Male, Married, 1.9 kids.
Toss me also in the ‘Clean? We have people to do that!’ camp. Hiring a cleaning service is one of the true paths to marital joy, folks. Know this…love this.
We still do some things. I cook, she does the dishes. I mow and shovel, she does the laundry. It works out.
1)OK, first tell me if you are a guy or gal, how big your abode is and how many people live in your household. If you are married, tell me how you divide up the duties.
Female, married. Two children (4 and 5). No pets. 2500 sq ft finished. (1000 unfinished in the basement that needs to be cleaned twice a year).
Before I get into the rest. We have, for four years, had a housekeeper who has come over twice a week. One day she just cleans up, makes beds, does dishes. The other day she dusts, vaccuums, mops, cleans bathrooms. She has decided to stop housekeeping, and I have decided that my kids are old enough that between the four of us (and my mother, who seems to want to come over and clean my hosue) I can keep up. Duties are divided by whoever does it. We both do laundry. He seldom cleans bathrooms. I seldom mow lawns. He seldom plants flowers (unless I show up with bushes and hand him a shovel).
- Bathrooms: How often do you clean the toilet; shower/bathtub; sink; how often so you sweep/mop the floors? What cleaning products do you use? How often do you wash your bath towels?
I’ve taken to wiping the sinks down every few days, in preperation for my housekeeper leaving. Bath towels get washed when they end up in the laundry. (Weekly or so). As I’m going to need to figure out what products to use, I’m here. I do like those pop up cleaners (but they annoy my frugal side - I may figure out a way to make my own – cut a roll of paper towels in half, soak them in cleaner and put them in an old diaper wipe container)
3) Kitchen: How often do you sweep/mop your floors? Do you ever let dishes sit in the sink for more than one day? How do you clean the surface areas In the kitchen? Sink? Counters? Stovetop? Ever clean the refrigerator or oven?
My housekeeper always does a great job with counters and stovetops. We have a self cleaning oven that I’ll set to clean once every three months. I’ll clean the fridge every few months as well - doing a “throw stuff out” trip a little more often. Sweep, when it needs it and I do it (it often needs it daily, I do it about half as often as it needs it). Since I often mop on Saturdays or Sundays (the housekeeper comes on Thursdays) the floors get mopped twice a week).
- Common areas: How often do you vacuum the carpets and/or furniture? What kind of vacuum do you have? How often do you dust the furniture? What product/method do you use?
Vaccuuming gets done weekly currently, and will continue to. More often if the kids eat popcorn in the family room. Dusting is weekly. I usually have to dust every few months with the hosuekeeper, she doesn’t tend to move everything and get the little places (like the baseboards, the slats on the furniture). I believe in dusting with a wool duster weekly, and every so often (three months) getting out a cloth and lemon oil.
- Bedroom: How often do you change and wash your sheets?
You can wash sheets? Probably monthly. Should do it more often, but with two kids and laundry, there is always more important laundry that needs to be done when I’m doing it than my own bedsheets.
- How often do you do laundry? Do you separate colors? What detergent do you use? Do you use fabric softener?
If I’m coordinated, a load a day. Realistically, three or four loads over the weekend during a panic mode, then the folded laundry sits in baskets for two weeks. Yes, we seperate colors. We use Era liquid detergent and Bounce dryer sheets (cut in half, that frugal thing again).
Our marriage is pretty much the same. Jobs are divided, as you said, sickeningly 
along gender lines. He earns probably 90% of the money, and does all the “outside” work; yardwork, cars, home repair and maintenance. I only work part-time, and only during the schoolyear, and I do most of the “inside” work; housekeeping and cleaning and cooking. His idea of making dinner is calling out for pizza and subs.
I can help with home repair, though - our house was a real Handyman’s Special, and I stood right by and helped hang drywall and spackle and paint and install lights and lay vinyl floor.
We also just bought a woodstove, and I have helped split and stack several cords of wood. We bought a gas-powered woodspliter and I can operate that, too - it’s very cool!
Gee, now I feel special! When my hubby has to fix diner, he actually cooks (well, fish sticks and boxed mac and cheese; that counts, right? Right?)
Well, yeah, if he turns the oven on, it counts as cooking.
Although I shudder to imagine what would happen if my husband tried to make fish sticks and mac & cheese.
“Honey, what do I cook the fish sticks on? A cookie sheet? Where are those? What do I make the mac & cheese in? A pot? Where do you keep the pots? How do I measure the milk and butter? Where are the measuring cups? Where are the wooden spoons? How do I dump the water off the macaroni?”
And on and on like that.
Don’t get me wrong - he’s a good husband and father; he’s just totally inept in the kitchen. He can make cereal and toast. 
I just realized that I am logged in as my husband, so before I forget, this is jeevwoman here. OK:
gal, condo about 2000 sq feet, 3 brs, 2.5 baths, LR, DR, KIT, den, FR. We are two 32 year old adults, and there are 2 silly dogs here, as well.
We have a cleaning woman, a godsend, who comes once every 2 weeks. She does EVERYTHING–gets our floors to a color we only see twice a month, scrubs everything, changes our sheets, anything we ask her to.
She does not do our laundry simply because we don’t ask her to. We do probably one load every 2-3 days. We split that pretty evenly, though jeevmon probably does more because he is more anal than I am (I mean that in a sweet way!). I am more of a throw it all together type launderer, but we have 3 laundry hampers, one for whites, one for colors and one for “knits” (which I have yet to figure out). They are done as separate loads. We use Tide high efficiency powder and store brand fabric dryer sheets. Because I get reactions from a lot of detergents, we do have to be careful about what we use in the washer. Sheets are washed after every time Nazi (yes, really, that is our cleaning lady’s name. It’s pronounced with a S, not a Z, but it’s weird to see that on checks!) changes the bed.
We make the bed every day; that’s probably about 50-50 (if we see it unmade, we make it.) ** jeevmon** does most of the cooking on weekends; I do it more in the week because I get home earlier, but we also go out a lot. He cannot leave for the day or go to bed if there are dirty dishes in the sink; he runs the dishwasher more often than I do but I empty it more. Usually whomever doesn’t cook will clean up after dinner but I probably do more of this than he does. It usually consists of loading the dishwasher, scrubbing the pots and wiping down the counters.
Because of the dogs, our floors need sweeping almost every day. I will usually get out the swiffer three times a week to take care of this. I also clean the fridge when I think it needs it, though I am thinking I can turn this over to the cleaning lady. She does the oven (plus, it’s self cleaning so it is simply a matter of pressing a button.)
And you didn’t ask, but we do all the grocery shopping together and then we split putting away groceries duty with taking the dogs out duty. I usually prefer to put the groceries away.
jeevmon takes the dogs to the dog park 3 weekeday mornings; I do it the other two when he is at the gym. I walk them every weekday afternoon when I get home. We usually take them together on weekends. He lets them out each morning because he is up earlier, and lets them out for a final time at night because I am too lazy. He gives them breakfast and I do their dinner.
So we do a pretty good job of keeping it 50-50. Of course, he makes about 3 times more than I do, so in that sense I am sure he is ahead of me, but at least around the house it evens out. We almost never fight about who does what.
Thanks for all the input guys! Thanks to Dogzilla for being honest about her less-than-stellar housecleaning habits…I get the feeling the only people who are answering this poll are ones who actually have good housecleaning habits. All the slobs (I use this term in jest, mind you) are staying silent! I truly feel that the slobs are in the majority… I also think that people with families (well women with families I should say) are better housekeepers. I also notice the trend that the women do most of the cleaning.
Another comment, Swiffer is one of the best housecleaning inventions ever!
I’m curious, why do you send your laundry out? I would feel weird about someone else washing my underwear and stuff!
To the daily toilet cleaners, why? Is it because you have men in your household? Being a single woman living alone, my toilet stays very clean, I really only need to clean it every few weeks. I do know that when I did live with a guy, it would get nasty really quick. YUCK!
Why do you change your pillowcases every day? Is it an allergy thing?
Curious, why do you make the bed every day? Do you just tidy it up, or do you do the whole nine yards, tucking the sheets in, etc., etc. I just never understood this; the only time I am in the bedroom is when I am sleeping, waking up or getting dressed, so I see no need to make it during the week. Although I do make it on the weekends, because I have guests over and want it to look nice.
Well, it drives mr.norinew nuts to go to the store with me, because it takes me forever, what with comparing prices, figuring out my best coupon deals, checking nutrition information; I think he’d rather have root canal surgery without anesthesia than to go to the market with me (the exception is Sam’s Club, where it’s not a big deal, cuz we know what we need, and we know how much it costs). I also put the groceries away, although if it’s a big Sam’s Club trip, hubby will divy up the meats and stuff into single portions in freezer bags, while I put everything else away. If he’s done doing this before I’m done putting the non-cold stuff away, he’ll put the freezer stuff in the freezer, too.
1)…guy or gal, how big your abode is and how many people live in your household. If you are married, tell me how you divide up the duties.
Female, married, house on the smallish side, 4 people and 2 dogs (dogs are in the yard 90% of the time). I’m a SAHM so I do about 95% of the household chores. Husband will help if asked, usually, but most of the time I spend so much time explaining how I like things to be done that it’s usually just easier if I do it myself in the first place.
-
Bathrooms: How often do you clean the toilet; shower/bathtub; sink; how often so you sweep/mop the floors? What cleaning products do you use? How often do you wash your bath towels?
Bathrooms get cleaned once a week, shower-every couple of weeks. Sinks get wiped down every day if they need it. I use Greased Lightning for just about everything and also Lysol wipes.
Towels–every 2 weeks or until I don’t have any clean ones left -
Kitchen: How often do you sweep/mop your floors? Do you ever let dishes sit in the sink for more than one day? How do you clean the surface areas In the kitchen? Sink? Counters? Stovetop? Ever clean the refrigerator or oven?
With 2 kids, the floor gets swept a lot. Sometimes 2-3 times a day, usually around the table. I Wet Swiffer once a week. Dishes don’t sit in the sink for more than 24 hours. Can’t stand it any longer than that. I spray down the countetops and stovetop once a day (and after cooking) with Lysol cleaner w/ bleach. The fridge? Ha. Well, when things start growing in there I clean. Same goes for the stove. -
Common areas: How often do you vacuum the carpets and/or furniture? What kind of vacuum do you have? How often do you dust the furniture? What product/method do you use?
I’m a wee bit compulsive about vacuuming. I vacuum the living room once a day, rest of the house once a week. I steam clean the carpets once a year or so. In fact, I am planning to do that this weekend. I dust once a week. We have a Hoover w/ a Hepa filter, which I usually forget to clean out regularly so it probably doesn’t work too well. -
Bedroom: How often do you change and wash your sheets?
Every 2 weeks. -
How often do you do laundry? Do you separate colors? What detergent do you use? Do you use fabric softener?
I do laundry twice a week, once on the weekend and then again on Weds. I don’t generally separate colors because we don’t have a lot of whites–I just toss underwear and socks in the same load with the other clothes. I use ALL, no fabric softener.
Fredian finger slip!’’
Female, living alone. I go to the laudromat once a week and throw everything in a big machine with soap and washing soda. I clean on Sunday, using mostly baking soda, soap and vinegar. The toilet gets borax and vinegar when I leave for work on Saturday, and I scrub it when I get home. I spray the bathroom fwith vinegar and wipe every week. Sink & bathtub get a baking soda and soap scrub.
Female , 3 bedroom, 1 bath, currently have a parasitic brother and a 3 year old niece living with me.
Bathroom- wiped down every other day, scrub tub and toilet and sink once a week. I change towels about every three days.
I sweep/swiffer/vacuum everyday. Necessary due to the shedding labrador retreiver and the beach sand.
Kitchen - I hate washing dishes and my brother will do them if I leave them in the sink overnite. Usually don’t do that , though. The counters and stove get wiped down after every use.
I usually dust once a week, straighten up every day, clean my niece’s room whenever I can’t stand it any more, clean the mouse cages weekly, and stay out of my brother’s room altogether.
I do laundry once a week on Sunday. 1 load of undies, socks, and bras, one load of clothing (mostly work scrubs) and one load of towels and sheets. Brother does a thousand loads a week whenever he feels like it. He does NO cleaning except the afore mentioned dishwashing.
All that, and I feel like it is always a mess.
I really miss living alone.
OK, first tell me if you are a guy or gal, how big your abode is and how many people live in your household. If you are married, tell me how you divide up the duties.
Girl, one-bedroom apartment (small, skinny kitchen, good-sized living/dining room, good-sized bedroom, bathroom). I’m guessing it’s 650 or 700 square feet. Residing in my apartment are my boyfriend (male) and cat (female, short hair, rarely sheds)
Division of duties will be described by section.
Bathrooms: How often do you clean the toilet; shower/bathtub; sink; how often so you sweep/mop the floors? What cleaning products do you use? How often do you wash your bath towels?
Toilet: every week or two, depending on how quickly it gets dirty. Bathtub/sink: same time as the toilet. Living in Denver, things stay pretty dry, so we don’t have much of a mold/mildew problem in the bathroom. The rug gets shaken out and the hideous tile gets swept when the other bathroom things are done. More deep cleaning (tiled window ledge, bathroom window, wet cleaning of floor and base of toilet, mirrors) gets done every couple of months or when it needs it.
I clean the bathroom more often than my boyfriend does, but if I ask him to he will clean it. Though we did have a time during which he wouldn’t clean the damn toilet even though he’s the one who makes it gross. He finally did it one day; not sure what made him change his mind. We don’t have a toilet bowl (it’s more like a restaurant toilet or something with industrial flush) so we can’t use one of those drop-in thingies, and the ones that clip to the inside of the bowl smell funky.
Cleaning products: Bon Ami or barkeep’s friend for the toilet/sink/tub/tile. Windex all purpose cleaner with vinegar for the mirrors/walls/wet cleaning of floors. My cat drinks out of both the sink and the tub so I try to use cleaning products that are less likely to make her sick.
Kitchen: How often do you sweep/mop your floors? Do you ever let dishes sit in the sink for more than one day? How do you clean the surface areas In the kitchen? Sink? Counters? Stovetop? Ever clean the refrigerator or oven?
Floors: swept more often than mopped. I get really sick of doing both, because the tile in our kitchen is white (and breaks easily; it’s really shoddy tile; we have cracks in places that nobody’s ever stepped let alone dropped anything) and shows EVERYTHING. It will get a sweep a couple of times a week and a mopping when I’m feeling industrious. We got a new string mop that makes mopping a lot easier, though (the sponge mop didn’t work for crap on that floor). I used to have to scrub it on hands and knees with a sponge, dishsoap and a bowl of hot water. Ugh. I’m much more likely to clean the floor than BF is - even when he cleans everything else in the kitchen, he’ll burn out by the time it comes to doing the floor. Plus, he cooks mostly, and he’s a much messier cook than I am, so the floor never stays clean.
Dishes: We try to be good about dishes, but they’re most likely to get done right before we cook rather than after dinner’s done. So they do sit for a day. I wash more but he dries more. We have virtually no counter space so the dishes can look like a huge mess even when it’s really not, just because of the lack of space.
Surface areas: Top of stove, counters, and baker’s rack done every couple of days (sometimes it goes longer, but everything’s white or light-colored so any little bit of stuff shows). I bleach out the grout in the white tile counter every couple of months. The Clorox bleach pen is good for this. Sink is stainless steel and never looks that bad even when it’s had gross water and dishes sitting in it. When I do clean it it’s with baking soda. Then it looks sparkly.
Haven’t cleaned the inside of the oven since I moved in, but I haven’t needed to. I try to do a thorough fridge cleaning every few months, though it could probably use a sweep-out-of-gross-leftovers more often than that. The fridge itself doesn’t get very dirty except for things like onion skins or crumbs from something (stuff rarely spills). The only thing that needs regular cleaning is the vegetable drawer. I hate the vegetable drawer. BF would clean the fridge if I asked, but I don’t generally ask him because I do the kind of job I want done. He might overlook some stuff.
Common areas: How often do you vacuum the carpets and/or furniture? What kind of vacuum do you have? How often do you dust the furniture? What product/method do you use?
No carpet: hardwoods in living room, hallway and bedroom. Floors get swept once every week or two and the rag throw rugs get washed on a similar schedule. I suppose if the cat shed more we’d have to do it more often, but she’s a very clean cat. Only a couple of pieces of furniture are dust-able (the coffee table, for example) because everything else is covered or unfinished. Coffee table gets Orange Glo every month or so and everything else gets dusted with a rag dampened with windex all-purpose. When the catbox gets cleaned (every couple of days, and BF does it much more frequently than I do), the hallway gets dustbusted to get rid of the huge litter mess she likes to make (litter box is in hall closet, door kept open a crack). Of course, it takes about 5 minutes before the litter’s all over the place again. Luckily we have throw rugs in the hallway that keep the litter from spreading too badly or getting tracked around much.
Our common area (living/dining/hall) is almost always cluttered, but never really DIRTY. We are two people with a lot of stuff living in a very small space, and we both have art/sewing/knitting/etc. projects going all the time, so our living room never looks very neat unless it’s JUST been cleaned. We tend to clean when company’s coming over. But it doesn’t take very long to pick up the clutter. We both have several hundred books, so our hallway is lined with bookshelves. They should probably get dusted, but I never think about it.
BF and I are equally as likely to actually clean the living/common area, but he won’t do it unless I ask him to. Every other weekend or so we have several hours of cleaning and the rooms get split up (because both kitchen and bathroom are too small for more than one person to clean at a time).
Bedroom: How often do you change and wash your sheets?
Sheets changed every couple of weeks. Washed whenever laundry’s done. The bedroom is the messiest room in the house because we have way too many clothes for the amount of space we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to move to a bigger place, so for now the bedroom doesn’t get completely clutter-free very often. It’s POSSIBLE for all laundry to be clean and put away, but very difficult because of the space issue (we each have one tiny closet and share a smallish dresser. It’s HARD to keep it all contained). Bedroom gets swept/mopped when it gets cleaned up. I try to have that be at least once a month, but sometimes that’s not possible.
How often do you do laundry? Do you separate colors? What detergent do you use? Do you use fabric softener?
BF does laundry way more than I do because I hate it, and because he has to wash his work clothes frequently. I have about 50-ish pairs of underwear because I hate doing laundry, and therefore I can go six weeks without doing it. I’d like to stay on top of having it done frequently, but I hate it so much and it costs a lot (quarters) and we have to lug it to the basement to do it. Ugh. Products: I don’t like fabric softener and use dye-and fragrance-free detergent. BF likes fabric softener. All of my clothes get washed on cold (it’s easier to tell BF that because he’s shrunk many things by washing them on warm, even though not EVERYTHING has to be done on cold). He does color and temperature separation with his stuff (work shirts are white and done on hot with bleach, for instance). He’s also much more likely to fold/hang up the laundry. Both of us are bad about putting it away.
I wished he SAW the mess and would clean more of his own volition without me having to point things out or ask, but he’s not as bad as he used to be. Plus, he does the one chore I hate (laundry) and he does the gross jobs like the cat box and taking out the trash.
TANK. Toilet tank. Of course we have a bowl.
Stupid brain.
Huh. Do I just have a really tidy husband? Our toilet is about the same as when I was single. Better, really, because there aren’t 4 people sharing it–but what I mean is I don’t notice any Icky Male Filth in my bathroom.
I know it wasn’t directed at me, but for myself, I like making the bed every day. I tuck in the blankets and sheets, and depending on the quilt (we have 3 for different seasons, I’m a quilter) put on pillow shams–which are shamming, because I just put them on top of the pillows and pull the quilt over. That particular quilt doesn’t cover the sheets, which probably don’t match.
Anyway, as to why, it’s because I feel it’s more hygenic and it makes the room feel better. I always air the bed by folding the sheets down every morning until we’re out of the shower, and then make it (well, either of us does it) to keep it nice and clean inside. Then the room looks nice and relaxing, and at bedtime I can turn down my side before getting ready for bed. I just like having a made bed and clean sheets. It’s a luxury to me, really–I get to feel good for very little labor. The same for clean towels twice a week; I love having a clean towel, and if it wasn’t decadent and wasteful, I’d have one every day.
Oh, and groceries–I do the grocery store with the kids, and DangerDad does CostCo runs on his lunch hour. I hate CostCo. It winds up about even, I think; he gets a lot of our staples there.
Single female (well, techincally divorced, but I’ve been divorced 4x longer than I was married, so I think I’ve reverted back to “single”) with three kids, one rabbit, two cats and a three storey (plus basement) 5 bedroom house.
Each week everything gets cleaned–bathroom, house vaccuumed, etc. Saturday mornings are when the beds get stripped and towells get washed. After every meal, the dishes are loaded into the dishwasher and that’s run, counters are wiped off with Orange Clean and the floor is swept. Kitchen trash goes out each evening, and household trash is emptied every Wednesday evening (Thursday is trash day) and the recycleables go out then as well. Laundry is typically done throughout the week, in the evenings, when I get a chance, with the weekend being catch up time.
Both the older girls are responsible for their own rooms/laundry when they’re at home (which translates into "during the summer months when they’ve returned back to the nest, and during the school year when they come back from the dorms). The son pulls his weight with his room, usually the bathroom, always the trash and sometimes the vaccuuming. He’s also a darn fine sweeper. Yard work is usually divied up between myself and my oldest daughter. (I trade off ironing or mopping, two things I hate, for a chance to pass at doing the yard.)
Cleaning products (especially laundry detergent) is always what’s on sale, and what I have a coupon for. Washing at least 28 pairs of underwear a week one uses a lot of laundry detergent. I buy generic bleach and liquid dish soap (which I use rarely since I have a dishwasher).
A few times a year (usually in the fall when it starts to get cold and in the spring once it begins to warm up), I do a general “cleaning”, which consists of stuff like washing curtians, cleaning out closets, etc. Usually taking a few loads of stuff to the Salvation Army fall in there as well.
:eek: Have you seen what people do in toilets?!? Okay, I’m kidding a little bit. I’m not obsessive about it or anything, but the toilet’s getting cleaned every other day, at least. And, yes, I live with two males who sometimes just lift the lid and aim in the general direction of the bowl. It splatters. That space where the seat is screwed on gets nasty. The front of the bowl gets dirty. It’s easy to just squirt some cleanser in and quickly swipe the bowl out.
And I agree about the Swiffers. I have the dry mop and the duster. I love them both. I even bought the long-handled duster.