How often do you perform specific chores at home?
What's your cadence for maintenance? Is there anything you think you should be doing more frequently? Is there anything you do extra proactively because you don't like seeing it left undone?
I'm also curious about how much time you spend taking care of your home and how that balances with the rest of your personal life, and how you share the load with other people you live with.
I’m recovering from cancer and caring for my wife who has severe post traumatic stress as a result of natural disaster.
That’s pretty much all I can do at the moment, but I’m slowly getting better.
Hey, just wanted to say: Fuck cancer, you beat its bitch ass to a pulp for good now, ya hear?
High odds he doubles his vacuuming for a good relationship, or gets his way and they ultimately break up. ( Most relationships die by bug bites. )
You can’t be a slob when sharing space with another person and expect success.
I think you replied to the wrong comment?
Done as needed, or as mood strikes. Generally everything stays clean, if not, the pressure and annoyance builts until it gets completed. Repeat.
Routines like that do not exist in my household
When it gets bad enough that I have to ; )
Though we have been on a kick lately of washing dishes immediately after supper and not letting them pile up.
So, I'm SINK, so my routine is probably "light."
Dishes are done usually daily, but I live alone, so it's like... My breakfast mug and then whatever dinner is. I usually do it in the morning while I'm waiting for the water to boil.
I vacuum once every 1-2 weeks depending on the state of the carpet. (I got outside often and sometimes track things in. Also have a long haired cat). I also don't like bugs, and my carpet is light. The little dots make me anxious.
I wash the bathroom about once a month, but will spot treatments here and there. (like wiping something down whole brushing my teeth, stuff like that).
And swifter the kitchen floor whenever it seems gross. I do laundry when I run out of underwear.
Littler box is usually every day, though I can sometimes skip a day. Usually when I do that, I'm in "animal mode," so that'll prompt me to refill bird feeders as well.
I am awful when it comes to my bedding. I hate doing it for whatever reason.
I hate doing my bedding too.
Actually I don't even hate it, I just never think of it. It never seems to force me to think about it like other dirty things do.
Same. I don't think of it as "dirty" like I do everything else. Even though it's just as dirty 😂
I vacuum the house every day with roombas. It’s actually nice always walking on clean surfaces. The roombas have had some disasters but still worth.
Two months ago or so, I started wiping my floors about twice a week with a damp cloth, because I've got dust mite allergy, and yeah, the clean surfaces are crazy. When I'm not wearing socks, I can easily tell, if I haven't wiped for a few days.
But also, everything else in my room collects dust much less quickly, I guess because I scoop it off the floor before it can settle everywhere else.
And my floor now also has this shine to it, which always makes it look like I'm trying to sell the place.
Exactly, walking on dusty floors gets stuff on your feet after a while. And after a night of sleep, at least in my house, the ac will have blown a lil bit of dust on the floor.
Once its cleaned the wooden flooring feels almost sticky because it cleans your feet as you walk instead of making it dirtier.
I actually started with this chore list, and we eventually ended up tweaking it to better suit our particular living conditions:
Dishwasher run every night
Counters sort of wiped down every night
Laundry as needed, sheets and towels once a week, kitchen towels whenever the basket gets full.
Roomba runs at least once a day
Biweekly cleaning lady we pay for to do the rest. Yell at kids to clear off surfaces so she can work, weekly, I asked for that so we do every Friday whether she is coming or not.
This is the compromise because I am a good cook but not a good housekeeper, husband is sort of a clean freak but out of his depth with the kids and me.
Yard, we have mowing and edging service, monthly cost. In summer once a week mowing (yes it grows that fast) in winter once a month is ok. I do the rest of the yard maintenance - pull weeds around the trees (yard is made of these weeds, whatever grows gets mowed), maintain food garden, mulch, flowers out front, that is daily at least some and about twice a year big overhaul with mulch, if there is heavy work I get help from all the kids.
Re-caulk around sinks and tubs every 2 years.
So: daily stuff is yard, dishes, counters, and floors.
Declutter weekly (and weakly) mow yard (outsourced)
Heavier cleaning is biweekly and outsourced.
In general - if it was just me & the husband I think the workload would be pretty evenly distributed. I cook and try not to explode a big mess in the kitchen, and check on the garden. By cook I mean homemade, some homegrown, naturally fermented stuff, fancy-ass food not frozen pizza. Maybe 1.5 hours a day. He maintains the Roomba, feeds the animals, does more of the dog walking, takes out the garbage daily and cleans the kitchen nightly, also about 1.5 hours in all.
The not daily stuff also pretty evenly distributed and when it's not we ask each other for help and provide it so it does balance out.
how you share the load with other people you live with.
I do everything because the other two people I live with do nothing and are absolute pigs. No... I take that back. Pigs are cleaner.
Oh no! I hope you all can get along still anyway.
I have a cleaning lady who comes every-other week, which takes care of most upkeep. I also have a roomba that runs daily. Otherwise:
Walk the dog twice a day.
Do dishes / clean the kitchen every night.
Laundry, once a week while working from home.
Empty the litter box robot once a week.
Take out trash as needed.
I also meal prep every Sunday.
I used to be a very messy person, but this system has worked well for me.
I have trouble consciously making and adhering to routines, so I've got an automated checklist that I attend to when I'm dissassociated enough to simply go through the motions. Some days, I even finish the list.
Emptying the dishwasher every. single. day.
I have daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, and quarterly tasks, including both home and car maintenance. I put them on my calendar so I don't lose track. Especially when I'm traveling a lot for work, "when was the last time I washed my bedsheets?!?"
Cleaning the kitchen is the thing I keep on top of best because I want my food to be clean and safe and for cooking to be enjoyable.
Compared to some I have dated, I have some personal standards that are higher. I think I'm pretty good at recognizing that though and dialing back to a compromise when appropriate. But I also draw lines where I have to. Someone bringing their cat into the equation; they must be 100% responsible for their cat and they must take good care of it. Someone who lets litter age, or lets cat vomit sit for any period of time after discovery, or doesn't vacuum hair and litter dust up at a high frequency I find acceptable is a no. Just no. We're not compatible and that sort of mismatch does not get better with time. Even if we haven't moved in together and I'm just visiting their place, that's something that will strongly sway me towards breaking up.
I have broken up with one person due to mismatch in our cleaning expectations. It happened well before there were conversations about moving in together. Conversations leading up to it were cordial, open, and without blame. As far as breakups go, not a bad one from my perspective.
I vacuum, polish, sweep and tidy up twice a week
In general, I mostly focus on pet > plants > bathroom > kitchen > everything else.
My partner and I once sat down for like 3 hours and make a checklist of chores in todoist. Can ret reoccurring things with all different parameters... Sometimes I stay on top of it, but other times I play like 3 weeks of catch up on my day off...
Wow, lots of folks Roomba way more often than I do... I should get that guy going more often! I just get conflicted with it... I feel like I have to get everything off the floor for it... Perhaps I'll try to let it run in a native environment.
I started with the cadence that I found from somewhere on the internet. Then I adjusted the timing to what felt good to me.
I found that https://github.com/grocy/grocy worked well for me to setup these kinds of things as chores. I guess that a callender would work too. I just like to have everything on one page.
I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to find a comment that mentioned using an app if some kind to help organize these tasks.
This one sounds interesting, I'll check it out.
Household of 2 adults (me and my partner), where we mostly do things that we prefer. Personally I think I end up taking charge of things that he would do less often than I would.
There are a bunch of infographics I like for this question, philosophically/asperationally anyway: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+often+should+you+clean&t=fpas&iax=images&ia=images
Now being regimented enough to stick to those schedules is the hard part for me.
Daily/weekly - dishes, trash, laundry always get done, but with the six year old plus two full time jobs they can linger for an extra day at times, lol
edit: typo
The first image I clicked on started with "Daily - Make Bed" and I noped out of the whole thing. There's cleaning that needs done regularly for health and there's tasks that get more onerous the longer you leave them (like laundry). But I'll never understand the obsession with making beds.
Maybe people have more complex bedding setups, but mostly I just have a duvet on top and fitted sheet below. What difference does it make to anyone if I lay the duvet out flat and smooth each day? I'm immediately going to move it around when I go to bed, and I spend almost no time in my bedroom when I'm not in my bed. It's the equivalent of saying "Daily - Fold the end of the toilet paper into a neat triangle". If anything, immediately covering your used bedsheets with a duvet is trapping in moisture. At least the German habit of hanging your duvet out to air each day serves a purpose!
hehe, yeah hence my 'aspirational' comment. I think of em as more guidelines than strict must-dos. also I forget that cleaning the blinds is even a thing until i go look these up and see that on the list, lol.
Husband makes the bed every day. I don't care about that but washing the sheets every week and showering before bed keeps it nice. He likes it made because he sits on there to relax and because it makes him feel more in control I think. I do it if he has to leave early because he likes it, even though it does nothing for me. I think to him it is akin to decluttering, making an organized environment in the bedroom.
All the time. Someone's gotta do it.
I do dishes and a light pickup pretty much every day, and a more thorough pickup once or twice a week. I have a couple of cleaners come to clean the floors, the kitchen, the tabletops, bathroom every other week. I have two robovacs that run every day. I do laundry about every week and a half. I keep the fridge clean of aging leftovers and whatever else at least once a week. I trim blackberry vines and ivy periodically but not nearly often enough. I brush the dog a couple of times a week. I water the plants/garden. I order or go out to buy household needs a couple of times a week.
Taking out trash/recycling/compost is supposed to be the husband's job, but I do it here and there as he is forgetful/lazy.
I hire and schedule all of the cleaners, landscapers, contractors that we need for various tasks. A much bigger chore than it sounds. Easily my least favorite task. I don't know how all of these businesses manage to remain in existence when they're all so flaky.
My roommates and I have a chore chart where the major common areas are split up with one person having a week off.
We do our own laundry, dishes, rooms. I do laundry and vacuum once a week. Other cleaning as needed.
Somebody missed the schoolhouse rock that explained "compromise", what a dullard lol
Wait, I don't get it. The alternative that the guy propose sounds like a win-win though? What if one of them likes vacuuming twice a week and the other once every month? What's the right way to divide it fairly?
(I'm a woman who vacuum as needed.)