<still jeevwoman here> Because my husband is a freak. 
I would be fine leaving it unmade unless there were guests, but his mom raised him to make the bed every day so that is what he likes. I have gotten into the habit of doing it now, simply becuase our dog Tino likes to chew the sheets and this keeps them out of the way. Yes, we do the whole nine yards–tucking, fluffing, putting on the comforter and matching pillow covers. We do use the bedroom often–it’s our favorite place for movie watching (I am sure you were thinking I was going to say something else, but that is what the living room couch is for!) since we haven’t gotten our family room to livable conditions yet.
Ha, I own a residential cleaning service. We clean a lot of homes. They range from smallish to pretty darned big. Our biggest now is 5000 square feet and they have a couple of big dogs that shed like there’s no tomorrow. Most people get their homes cleaned every other week, some every week, a few more often and a few less often.
The minerals in your water probably cause the biggest headaches for cleaning. If you buy a squeegee and use it to remove most of the water after you shower this will make your life a lot easier. Also clean the toilets as often as possible and anywhere water touches if your water is hard. Urine is relatively easy to clean compared to mineral deposits. Ovens can also be difficult. Referigators or other items with lots of crooks and nannies are time consuming although not necessarily difficult. Pet hair is one of the worst things to clean up, because it is insidious.
I swish my toilet between cleanings (and that’s all it is, just swishing a dry brush around the bowl without any cleaner) to keep it from forming that narsty scrim around the waterline. If there are any egregious splashes around the rim (or on the seat, lid, tank, pedestal, floors, or walls–I haven’t gotten him completely trained out of playing “Beat the Flush”) I wipe those up after I wipe down the sink and tub. I’ve found that this minute or two of daily maintainance makes the big cleaning easier. There’s less soap scum and other stuff to scrub, so you don’t have to use so many chemicals or as much elbow grease.
I also make my bed most days. If the sheets are especially loose, I’ll tuck them back in, etc. There are two reasons, really. For one thing, it makes a huge difference in how the room looks and feels. When the bed is made, the room looks clean, even when there’s an inch of dog hair on the floor and the nightstand looks like a pile of books with an alarm clock on top. It feels calm and organized and restful. Besides, if I don’t make the bed, Dr.J will have all the bedclothes, including the fitted sheet, rooted off the bed by the next morning. Then I’ll have to take everything off, untangle it all, and make the whole bed from scratch. It’s faster and easier to spend a minute making it every day than to spend ten minutes every other day.
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.
I’m a gal, living with a guy, two cats and a dog. He does the dishes and cleans the kitchen, I do all the laundry. Everything else is shared, but I usually do the bathrooms because the dirt gets to me before it gets to him.
- 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?
** As mentioned above, I do the bathrooms mostly, but he does the tub because he’s got the upper body strength to get the grit out of the little cracks. I cleaned the bathrooms a few months ago. We honestly don’t clean until things get bad enough to notice. I use Clorox wipes because they’re damned convenient. I try to get the towels washed at least every two weeks or if they get a little moldy. Less in the summer because the AC keeps everything pretty dry.**
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?
This is Ardred’s responsibility. I know he does a full kitchen cleaning once a week, but we load the dishwasher every day, pans and pots and such may sit for a while. He takes the soap dispenser sponge thingy we have and wipes everything down, unless we’ve had a meat juice spill or something, then we break out the trusty Clorox wipes again. We clean out the fridge every month.
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?
Vacuum. Twice a month? More if it’s shedding season (the dog sheds majorly twice a year) or if we have people coming over. We have a standard upright (dirt devil, maybe) that has bags. Works great. I dust the tv every few weeks with those nifty Swiffer dusters. The kitten takes care of everything else as he’s a roller (he rolls around on flat surfaces, picking up dust).
- Bedroom: How often do you change and wash your sheets?
Once a week or every two weeks. More often since the tick incident and the infestation of chiggers we somehow got in the sheets.
- How often do you do laundry? Do you separate colors? What detergent do you use? Do you use fabric softener?
I don’t separate colors unless we have a TON of laundry (like today). I do laundry if we need towels, sheets or underwear or something specific (work shirt, softball jerseys) washed. This is every three weeks to a month. I use fabric softener dryer sheets. I have very specific requirements for detergent and fabric softener as I’m allergic to almost every kind.
Male. Slightly more than 2,000 s.f. Four of us live there (me, wife, her daughter, my dauighter).
House is cleaned every week. Dusted, vacumed, floors swept, the whole nine yards. Laundry is done every week, including all bed linens and towels. Dishes go from table to rinse to dishwasher. No sitting in the sink. I won’t live in a dirty house.
I just tidy up the bed everyday by pulling up the quilt. I only do it because I got tired of having cat hair everywhere and this way my sheets stay much cleaner.
You are quite welcome. In my own sloppy defense, I would like to point out that my yard + Garden are pristine, perfect and beautiful! We all have our own priorities, ya know, and there are only so many hours in a day. I enjoy gardening. I hate housework. My car is also usually fairly filthy, with at least half a dozen empty diet Coke cans rattling around in there.
But the butterfly garden… always perfect.
One question:
Um. No colors. No whites. What do you wear?
If all of the cool, scientific minds in the forum will tolerate this silly question, I’d like to know whether **nyctea scandiaca ** is a Cancer or a Capricorn? I’ve never met a person interested in house cleaning, who wasn’t one or the other.
Stark, unrelieved black with the occasional dark grey thing thrown in. I’m a recovering Goth…
I also make the bed every day. The kids have to at least pull the sheets and blankets and quilt up so it looks made. I don’t do hospital corners and sheets so tight you can bounce quarters off of them, but it has to look neat. Like tremorviolet, mainly because the frigging animals get on the beds, and if it’s unmade the fur gets all over the sheets. I also just prefer how it looks.