Everything I know about house cleaning could fit in a small mop bucket. Not that I own one, but I’ve seen them, so I have a general sense of the dimensions.
1. Host everything. Sometimes a little incentive’s necessary, which is why an impending audience is handy for motivating the terminally messy to pick up the pace and get the place clean.
2. Tackle the bathroom first. Nothing says I need a good scrubbing like toothpaste bits and water spots on the mirror. Plus it’s the easiest room in the house to sparklefy, especially if you employ the shower curtain in the manner in which it was intended: to hide a bathtub rim cluttered with shampoos, soaps, razors, and three types of conditioner.
3. Marry well. My husband is more sensitive to mess than I am, which means that he’s more than willing to pitch in and shovel out the clutter whenever necessary. His latest project? Mucking out both of our sheds. I came out one evening last week to find him vacuuming the rafters in the carport shed. When he noticed me watching him in astonishment, he cheerfully pointed out that he had “vacuumed up enough spider silk to make a blouse”. Although I kindly turned down his offer, I can see how cleaning can have other advantages I haven’t yet foreseen.
4. Squirt, leave, return. Household chemicals work so much better when left to settle for a while. A toilet bowl soaked in bleach-infused cleanser for an hour doesn’t even require a good scrubbing — a flush will do. Plus the lovely chemical smell adds to the illusion of a germ-free environment.
5. Mess is obvious; cleanliness is not. No one notices a nice, neat house. It’s not fair. Get used to it.
6. Learn how to apologize for the mess. I’ve honed this one to a fine art, asking people to excuse the mess, even if I’ve spent the last three hours tidying and the visitor in question is selling something and therefore won’t make it through the half-closed front door.
7. Hire someone. If only! Still, one can dream.
As I said — a small mop bucket of info. Other suggestions for the cleaning-impaired?
@Robin – And that’s only one of his talents!
@LaDonna – Oh, yes. Candles. I nearly forgot. I use them all the time. And fabric softener on the towels makes the bathroom smell nice, too.
@Marilyn – Sounds like you’re well-matched. 🙂
@Lainey – I’ve thought that, too, but I always worry about the first few who trickle in at the beginning. People know they’re my friends when I let them see my mess!
@Erin – Ah, yes. We do the divide and conquer method, too. I’d forgotten. Also works well for grocery runs, which are also a necessary evil.
@Pam – LOL! That’s what I do when I cook something other than the usual. If I’m going to the work of making manicotti, including homemade pasta sauce, it darn well better be consumed by more than just the two of us!
All perfect suggestions/solutions. I am also house-work-challenged (we have dustballs that rival our dog in size). Kudos for the use of the word ‘sparklefy’!
Can I borrow your #3, please? Mine is rubbish.
While he was whizzing round with the vac, I’d whip up something pretty from the spider puke.
Just an idea :0o
you couldn’t be more right. the only time our house is really clean is when we’re having people over. i can be messy (leaving dishes and stuff out) but my husband is a packrat. we drive each other crazy with both of these habits. sometimes i wish i married an anal retentive clean freak but then…that might not go over well.
My husband won’t let me hire somebody to do our bathroom and kitchen. It can’t cost THAT much to have someone come in twice a month. Sheesh.
Oh my Caryn, I also have parties to set myself cleaning! This may be the curse of the writer-working-at-home.
A couple of cleaning tips that work for me:
Vinegar is fabulous, non-toxic, cheap and works on everything. So is baking soda.
Set a small pan on the stove with spices of your choice (plain vanilla works) in water and let it simmer for a while. Cheap, non-toxic air freshener!
I, too, work at home and can’t seem to bring myself to clean things up until someone is coming over. Tomorrow, for instance, a plumber is coming, so that made me do the laundry to get it off the laundry room floor where he will be working on the pipe under the sink.
But I had a friend who gave me a piece of cleaning advice that made me laugh out loud: She said when it comes to cleaning for company, the only thing you really need to clean are the areas that friends can stare at while they’re sitting on your toilet. You don’t want them sitting there studying your cobwebs and your brown tile grout and mildewed shower curtain. The rest, she said, you can just forget. Give ’em plenty of wine.
@Katie — I beg to differ. Any time I’ve seen your place, it has looked great! As for ‘sparklefy’, I originally had ‘clean’ in there, but I used it too many times, so I went through looking for words to replace it with. That seemed a fun one.
@Kit — Sorry! Not giving him up. I know a good thing when I have one. 😀
@Robin — Neat freaks have their own sets of problems. For example, then you’d worry about leaving anything out ever, and that can be tough when you’re naturally messy and in a hurry. Sounds like you have a good thing going.
@Conda — I love those tips! I knew you’d have good ones. You always do.
@Sandi — Oh, no! Good luck with your plumbing. And I LOVE your friend’s advice. It made me laugh out loud. It’s true, too; that’s why I always clean the bathroom first when company’s coming over. I can just dim the lights and distract people with food and music elsewhere, but that doesn’t work so well in a bathroom.
Chiming in a bit late here. Just wanted to add that I’m a huge fan of anything Swiffer (and disposable). No messy buckets, etc.
My apartment is usually messy, except during NaNo when I can’t write unless my floors are sparkling. Sigh.
You and your repliers are so right on. I have never been what I would call “organized” or even “neat”, but since my husband and I have retired; we have picked up a terrible condition often named clutter. Clutter happens. And if it is left alone it happens again, only faster.
We don’t refer to our solution as “hosting” everything; we refer to it as the “third party catalyst”. We have one of those events coming in one month and we have a house that will need all that time.
Love your articles; you are a great writer.