I’ve just swept and mopped. Once the floor dries, I could easily go sweep again and turn up more dust and dirt. If I were to mop again, I’m almost certain the water in my bucket would be filthy. It feels like it’s never actually clean.
Beyond that, there’s dusting, cleaning windows, sinks, countertops, bathrooms, and probably things I don’t even consider. How do you all stay on top of these things?
Bold of you to assume my home is clean.
You’re never going to be sterile; good enough is good enough.
Keep an abundance of cleaning supplies. Soaps and rags in the kitchen and the bathroom. Think about investing in a vacuum and a carpet cleaning machine. Edit = Also get more trash bins. One for the kitchen, one for the desk, one by the coffee table, one for the bathroom.
Some people find it easier to do one big push where they clean the whole house in one session; other folks like to do a little bit every day. Figure out which type you are.Also, check and see what cleaners charge in your area. It might be worth it to have a pro come in and do the work for you. Figure out what your leisure time is worth to you and then compare.
I’m the little bit everyday person. I’ll clean the bathrooms one day, then vacuum the floors the next. Wash clothes later in the week, something I need to do today.
I feel like doing a bit a day helps keep things cleaner than if I did it all at once. Things can appear overwhelming pretty quickly, at which point I won’t want to do it at all.
I’m a combination. If something looks bad I’ll get to it right away, and try to do a blitz once a week.
This is the way. I use Trello and have automated task creation on days and use its Kanban. Also a great habit to get into is if you walk into a room do one cleaning thing while you’re in it. Walk into a room and forget what you’re looking for. Take a moment to do some quick cleaning or organization. The little bit adds up and does not become overwhelming
I’m an all at once person and I also think that’s less clean. It’s easier for me to think about it like shaving: you’re more likely to have a grown out patch of hair if you do a big shave once a week vs a daily trim.
We got a service. We’ve two cats, a dog, and a toddler, and no family closeby to help with child care. We did the math and decided we needed the help. It’s fantastic.
I can’t believe no one has said this… Don’t wear shoes inside the house.
This will dramatically reduce the griminess of your floors.
Its a big commitment. You’ll prioritise shoes you can just slide your feet into, or at least out of. I still have nice boots and stuff but wear them less often.
As a Canadian, I still find it shocking that people don’t take their shoes off inside. That’s just gross.
It’s always the Brits and the yanks
Fuckin barbarians 😅
Its winter that makes it a necessity for us
To be fair, some people just aren’t that flexible and its a bit of a chore tying & untying laces.
How do those people wash their feet?
With difficulty?
If you can take them off to go to bed, you should be able to take them off earlier, at the door
But that’s why shoehorns exist?
Shoehorns tie laces?
No but with a shoehorn you can slip in and out of your shoes without tying the laces?
The laces are supposed to keep the shoes on your feet… Show horn with laces is just loosening their fit and kinda defeating the point yeah?
My floors are clean and warm enough for me to walk barefoot. I can’t imagine not taking of my shoes at home. I treat shoes as a necessary evil. Not even barefoot shoes give you the same comfort as just a bare foot. Can’t imagine not having the feeling in my life. Also, the airflow around my feet - wouldn’t want to spend more time than necessary in a closed shoe. I even wear slippers at work for this reason.
Yeah I can even feel dust on the floors with my bare feet, tells me when it’s time to vacuum.
If you’re sweeping, it’s possible you’re kicking a lot of dust up in the air, so that by the time you’re done mopping, it has resettled back down on the floor. You could mitigate this by vacuuming instead, or opening your windows and using fans to blow air out of your house. But also, you’ll never get all of the dust anyway.
In newer construction, especially high-rise apartments, there’s a lot less dust. But in older buildings, it’s just an endless torrent, and the solution has been…
Robot vacuums
While they must be maintained, and won’t work well if you’re not diligent about picking up and keeping obstacles off the floor, they make it far easier to keep the whole house clean by reducing the overall volume of interior dust and debris inside the building envelope.
To illustrate (this will be gross) I change the bags about every month and weigh them and it’s usually ~1 kg (~2 lbs) per bag, and each year they remove roughly 30-40 kg (70-90 lbs). And every time I’ve cut them open to see what’s causing all the weight (or make sure nothing important was eaten) it appears to be mostly dust and hair.
It’s freaky thinking how all of that would be floating around, settling on surfaces, collecting in corners and crevices, saturating carpets and upholstery, and of course getting breathed in constantly. Instead I don’t have to manually dust and vacuum very often and our indoor AQI is usually better than outside.
So yeah. Robots.
Edit: added imperial mass equivalents
Robots is great, but the privacy implications scare me.
I do have one that’s dumb, only just smart enough to set a daily schedule, no WiFi or cameras, but it’s bullet proof and easier to maintain than the others, so It’s possible to not sacrifice privacy.
