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A long, long time ago, in a city not-so-far away, I got an e-mail from a friend. Her sister had turned her onto this website, and it was going to do wonders for her as far as keeping her house clean. Many of you may have heard of it since then - FlyLady.
SO I, being duly curious, investigated the website. It was smarmy and a bit sickening (yeah, 'fly' stands for 'finally loving yourself' and they refer to their spouses as DH - 'dear husband'. I prefer to use the vastly more appropriate [censored] (just kidding)) but, I thought, I can see the principle behind all of the glittery sweetness and it seemed sound.
Years later, the awesome TV show 'How Clean is Your House' espouses many of the same principles.
Basically, once you get everything clean, if you just take a little bit of time every day, you can keep your house presentable (and by presentable, they tend to mean spotless).
That is bollocks. Complete and utter bollocks.
And I'll tell you why.
I jsut spend the last three hours cleaning. What did I do? Some laundry, some vacuuming, a few dishes, and cleaned a bathroom. THREE HOURS. I vacuumed the living room and half of the dining room (I was too lazy to move the chairs), the hallway, and the bathroom. Oh, and I sealed the grout in the bathroom, but that, surprisingly, didn't take that long. For something I had been putting off, it went relatively quickly.
Anyway, so according to them I should be vacuuming and dusting every day. Now, I don't have a huge house, but it's fair-sized. I have a living room and a family room, a kitchen, two and a half baths, four bedrooms, and once the basement is finished, a rec room and another half bath. Add in the foyer and the laundry room, and I have 2200 square feet and 14 'areas'. That means I have to vacuum and dust TWO areas EVERY DAY just to clean everything once a week. Add to that the daily laundry, cooking, and dishes, and what time do I have between getting home and going to bed? NONE, that's what.
And here's the bollocks part. They say it's easy to 'stay on top of the mess'. Now, let me preface this by saying that, yes, when you let your house go for 8 years and you need a paint scraper to see your cabinet doors, it would have been easier to stay on top of it. If the grime and crustiness is so bad you need industrial solvents, you probably are going to have to put forth a wee bit more effort than if you'd cleaned it sooner. But I'm talking about a few weeks worth of regular dust and dog fur.
You know how much harder it is to vacuum up 4 weeks worth of dog fur instead of 1? NOT AT ALL. Do you know how much harder it is to shift 6 weeks worth of dust instead of a day's worth? NOT AT ALL. Surprisingly, two day's worth of dishes clean up about as fast as one meal's worth, and you can sift through and file a week's worth of bills and junk mail just about as quickly as a day's.
This may make it sound like my house is a pit, and... yeah, sometimes it is. But I'm okay with that. And if you don't want dog fur on your clothes, stay out of my house.
SO I, being duly curious, investigated the website. It was smarmy and a bit sickening (yeah, 'fly' stands for 'finally loving yourself' and they refer to their spouses as DH - 'dear husband'. I prefer to use the vastly more appropriate [censored] (just kidding)) but, I thought, I can see the principle behind all of the glittery sweetness and it seemed sound.
Years later, the awesome TV show 'How Clean is Your House' espouses many of the same principles.
Basically, once you get everything clean, if you just take a little bit of time every day, you can keep your house presentable (and by presentable, they tend to mean spotless).
That is bollocks. Complete and utter bollocks.
And I'll tell you why.
I jsut spend the last three hours cleaning. What did I do? Some laundry, some vacuuming, a few dishes, and cleaned a bathroom. THREE HOURS. I vacuumed the living room and half of the dining room (I was too lazy to move the chairs), the hallway, and the bathroom. Oh, and I sealed the grout in the bathroom, but that, surprisingly, didn't take that long. For something I had been putting off, it went relatively quickly.
Anyway, so according to them I should be vacuuming and dusting every day. Now, I don't have a huge house, but it's fair-sized. I have a living room and a family room, a kitchen, two and a half baths, four bedrooms, and once the basement is finished, a rec room and another half bath. Add in the foyer and the laundry room, and I have 2200 square feet and 14 'areas'. That means I have to vacuum and dust TWO areas EVERY DAY just to clean everything once a week. Add to that the daily laundry, cooking, and dishes, and what time do I have between getting home and going to bed? NONE, that's what.
And here's the bollocks part. They say it's easy to 'stay on top of the mess'. Now, let me preface this by saying that, yes, when you let your house go for 8 years and you need a paint scraper to see your cabinet doors, it would have been easier to stay on top of it. If the grime and crustiness is so bad you need industrial solvents, you probably are going to have to put forth a wee bit more effort than if you'd cleaned it sooner. But I'm talking about a few weeks worth of regular dust and dog fur.
You know how much harder it is to vacuum up 4 weeks worth of dog fur instead of 1? NOT AT ALL. Do you know how much harder it is to shift 6 weeks worth of dust instead of a day's worth? NOT AT ALL. Surprisingly, two day's worth of dishes clean up about as fast as one meal's worth, and you can sift through and file a week's worth of bills and junk mail just about as quickly as a day's.
This may make it sound like my house is a pit, and... yeah, sometimes it is. But I'm okay with that. And if you don't want dog fur on your clothes, stay out of my house.