I don’t want to hijack, but… are you supposed to clean behind the stove? Is it, like, bad for it if you don’t? (I know you’re supposed to clean the refrigerator coils, although I never have, but the stove?)
That’s a good idea. I’ll try that instead of knocking myself out trying to get everything hyper-clean all at once.
Re: Urges to clean behind the stove - never. And good thing, too. My stove is your typical apartment appliance (from the late 50’s -really- and has had many components replaced many times). I don’t think one person could move that thing. That monster could double as a bomb shelter. The fridge is on casters but for some reason the stove isn’t.
Generally, when it comes to cleaning behind/under furniture and appliances, I’m pretty lax. Out of sight, out of mind.
Well, I don’t want to move the fridge to clean behind it because it’s leveled with an old textbook and I don’t want to disturb the delicate balance. It was like that when I bought the place, so who knows if it’s the previous owners’ or the ones before them?
The only time myself or anybody else whose cleaning habits I know personally has moved a fridge or stove has been when they got replaced or in order to recover something Very Important (paycheck, wedding band).
No household fires for any of us.
I do have quite a few doodads, but also a coffee table which I absolutely love because it counts as a display case. All my little doodads go in there; since the table closes very well, they only get cleaned during Spring Cleaning. Anything else I have on a surface is either a lamp, a book, or too big for the table. Most of those things are in these raw pine bookshelves, which get dusted… uhm… have I ever dusted those? I started doing it once but stopped when I saw they would actually look worse (you can’t see any dust on them, but the untreated wood catches bits of dustcloth).
The supercleaning process you’ve described (wiping twice with two different tools) sounds like most people’s idea of Spring Cleaning. Unless your Mom’s coming to visit and likes to point out your bad cleaning habits (which would be her fault in the first place, no?) or you live in a furniture showroom, you’re overcleaning. See if you can rearrange stuff, see if you can throw something away, try to clean just a bit less.
Best wishes
Another vote for “you’re cleaning too much!” I’m in a similar situation - I live alone in a 1 bedroom apartment with kitchen, bathroom, and living/dining room. And a cat. I keep it neat - nothing sitting out that doesn’t belong out - but I do way less cleaning than you do and it still looks ok. I do run the vacuum through the whole place once a week, and I mop the floors about once a month, more if it gets dirty. I hate dusting though so I almost never do that. Trust me, it can go *much *more than a week without dusting. As someone else mentioned, maybe do a major cleaning in one room a month and the minimum in every room every week.
Also think about why you’re doing it. Is it for you? Will you feel less comfortable if the apartment has a little more dust? If so, then by all means keep doing what you’re doing. I know some of my friends wonder why I keep my place as neat as I do since I don’t have all that much company to see it. But I like it that way. OTOH, if you’re worried about keeping it really clean because someone else might see a spot of dust and think less of you… well, maybe you can suggest meeting them for lunch at a restaurant. Or at their house. Or find less critical friends. (If it’s family, there’s not much you can do about that.)
I’ll tell you what worked for me - getting rid of the carpet. Carpet is just a big dirt holder, really. You just don’t see all the dirt they hold. Got the house good & clean when we got rid of it, and it’s easier to maintain that clean when you start from that point. Ditto with the fact that we repainted, replaced old curtains with vertical blinds, etc.
Now, I’ve just about got my husband talked into getting a Roomba (since he refuses to vacuum), and I’ll have my house cleaning chores down to just a few hours a week. Woo-hoo!
Here’s a little perspective, a big-picture look. A hundred years ago, when cooking meant making a wood fire in the stove, when the housewife was the dishwasher, when a microwave was a ripple on a pond, when convenience food didn’t exist, and the clothes dryer was a line out back, housework took (mumble) hours a week. Today, it takes the same amount of time. That means your house is much cleaner than Great-grandma kept hers.
Part of that is Dr. Parkinson’s law that work expands to fill the available time. The biggest reason, though, is advertising. We’ve been sold a sparkling, spotless fairy tale by the folks who sell cleaning supplies. How often did Great-grandma vacuum? Once or twice a year, rugs were hung on the clothesline and beaten. We keep striving to keep everything super-clean, to please…who? The folks who make soap and vacuum cleaners, that’s who!