Slovenly housekeeping - check in here

[Laura Corin]

All examples of poor practice welcome, so that we can each feel better about our own failings.

I hate our shower with the heat of a thousand suns. The doors and surround were designed with the maximum possible crevices by someone who never cleaned a shower. The stall is also tiny, and the previous owners installed a prominent old-fashioned style control set. I'm not a big woman, and I can barely bend over to pick up something I drop.

Six months ago, it looked as if we were going to be able to redo that room. And I stopped cleaning the shower. However it seems to be a parasite that is unwilling to be expelled, and it has somehow jinxed our renovation plans.

My daughter is bringing her partner home on Friday to stay for the first time.  Yesterday I threw half a bottle of bleach at the loathsome object. Today I scrubbed the worst of it with a toothbrush during my shower. The bleach has turned the drain grill green. But it will do.

Edited September 1 by Laura Corin

[Carol in Cal.]

I can honestly say that I have never ever taken a toothbrush to my shower, although it would have benefitted from that treatment along the way.  So, good for you!

[Kidlit]

Three cheers for @Laura Corin who has done something that I, in my slovenliness, would never consider doing! 🎉🎉🎉
 

My testimony to my own slovenliness is the cobwebs in the corners of the shower we actually DO use.  

[Kassia]

This might be my favorite thread ever.  🙂  

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I have way too many things.

Some don't actually matter but sometimes really feel like they do.  eg dust, cobwebs, mineral deposits

Some will matter one day. eg peeling paint on ceilings

Some do matter but I either don't have time or just don't care enough at this point in time.  eg grimy/dusty security screens

[Miss Tick]

Yesterday I got the shop vac out to clean up a small area of a high shelf in the furnace room. While I was up there I had a go at some cobwebs hanging around too. Once I had climbed down from the step stool I realized I had plugged the hose into the wrong orifice and instead of vacuuming I had just blown everything around the room. Problem for another day! I decided.

Edited September 1 by Miss Tick

[Harriet Vane]

Gosh, where to even start...

[Kassia]

8 minutes ago, Harriet Vane said:

Gosh, where to even start...

same.

I'm pretty good with the basic general stuff, but fail miserably at any deep cleaning or special things that need to be done.  So surface cleaning gets done pretty regularly, but the rest is embarrassing.  I just hate it and wish I could hire someone to do it.

[dirty ethel rackham]

I'm loving this thread!  It makes me feel so much better about my slovenliness.  I could list hundreds of things.  But from the vista of my living room couch, I spy 

1. a laundry basket of things that have been sitting next to my dining room hutch containing items to be sold, donated, or trashed.  They've been sitting there for a couple months, since my last home organizer appointment 3 months ago.  Decision paralysis has contributed to a serious layer of dust.
2. The remnants of some stuffed toys that Bear, the Wonderchewer, disemboweled at Christmas.  They have been sitting on top of my hutch since Christmas.  Dd kept them and restuffed them for Bear to play again.  
3. I have a pile of sewing items (machine, notions boxes, things to be repaired, new projects to start) in the corner of my dining room and they have been there for ages ... untouched.  
4. A bookcase that is largely dd's ceramics artwork, 4-H trophies and photos that were a display from her high school graduation party that her then-boyfriend called "the shrine."  She is 24 and it has only had a few things removed/ rearranged.  
5. A growing pile of papers to file, the shred, and handle ...  that is growing.  I do keep a box in that area to keep the robot vac from running over electrical cords.
6. Numerous "Bear bunnies" - dust bunnies largely comprised of Bear's sheddings - sticking out from under the couches.  I did vacuum a couple of days ago, but haven't touched under the furniture in a long while.

 

Oh, and I just stuck my had in between the cushions to retrieve my pen and found a couple peanuts, a chocolate chip, and a couple of tortilla chip pieces ... yuk. 

[Kidlit]

Y'all (yes, I'm very southern in my way of speaking) are my people.  

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I may have just found my tribe….Like a PP said, I do ok with the basics. We’re not living in filth. But there are things that I just never seem to get to. We’ve lived in this house six years and there are some windows that have been washed less than half that many times. My large room that is half sitting area and half dining area has a large dresser sitting in, right in the doorway, on its side, and backwards. My girls started reorganizing their room this summer and this dresser left their room but only made it this far, waiting for the time that it will make it on to marketplace. In the meantime it collects dust, cobwebs, and dog hair. We are starting school tomorrow but my dining table is currently covered with last year’s books and papers waiting to be put away. There is a small, beautiful square of carpet under my coffee table while the rest of the gray rug is a dingy tan-ish color due to our ridiculously large dog and everything he tracks in  (we’ll blame it on him anyway). The flower beds surrounding my beautiful patio have been taken over with this obnoxious little vine that is now growing out onto the patio. Also, there are many weeds growing between the patio bricks. I let it all grow wild this summer. There are so many other things. At the end of next month I’m hosting my IL’s 50th anniversary party at my house. One couple we invited are among the family’s closest friends, as well as being very, very dear friends of mine. They also happen to be the original owners of this house and we purchased it from them. So now I will have eight weeks to get things in shape around here, or I will simply have to un-invite them from the party. (jk, of course, they don’t care, but I’d REALLY like to catch up on some things before they come over.)

Edited September 2 by 2ndGenHomeschooler

[bookbard]

We had the luck of having our shower leak everywhere, which meant we had to pull up and replace all the floorboards in the living room, and get the bathroom redone. This was luck because I just could not get the place clean at all. Now it will take a few years until it gets to that level of grime once again . . . 

[strawberries]

DH took DS to dorm move-in day. I stayed home with DD. The boys video called and mentioned, completely baffled, that one of his suitemates' mothers was cleaning their bathroom walls with a Swiffer mop. I was like oh...that's a really good idea...I should maybe do that at our actual house. Because unless there is something like a visible splat of toothpaste or scuff marks from moving furniture, it never ever occurs to me to clean walls.  And let's not even talk about ceilings. We have the popcorn kind...

[Faith-manor]

Honestly, I am just over it all. There are cobwebs above the shower, leaves and grass at the back door, and pantry has dust. Too bad. Michigan is having glorious warm but not hot, sunny autumn weather, and I am just not willing to do housework inside. Mark made a comment about no clean towels and I looked at him and said, "Have you forgotten how to use the washing machine?" And I am not normally snarky with him at all. He took the cue and washed towels. I went back to the outdoors with my iced tea.

I am having a moment. A big, menopausal "get the heck away from me because all I can handle is my own crazy at the moment" phase. I need to snap out of it. I am very burned out on housework. But I actually enjoy turning my compost pile with the pitchfork! 🤣🤣🤣 I also "muck out" after my bunny with great happiness. I almost bought another bunny, and called about a couple of ducks. So potentially if my house was a barn, it would be clean. 😁

[Kidlit]

4 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

 

I am having a moment. A big, menopausal "get the heck away from me because all I can handle is my own crazy at the moment" phase. I need to snap out of it. 

Same same same same same same same, but I'm not menopausal. 😭

[wisdomandtreasures]

I have tried everything and I just cannot get my kids to use laundry hampers, trash cans, or properly close up food containers. Multiple times a day I find the dust pan full of garbage ON OP OF THE GARBAGE CAN! We compost all the food scraps but every day there are banana peels on top of there... Always piles of towels on he bathroom floor. I have a neon orange sign with all capital letters saying to please pick up any towels that fall and put them back away. There's always a mountain of clothes all over their floors and their bathroom floor... Every time I open the fridge I find open bags of tortillas or cheese and have to re-close them... no matter what I do, no matter how much I explain and show and say "Now your turn, show me how to do this correctly." So we have to take a couple hours a day to get the house back in order. No one follows my instructions to use the hampers and garbage cans or cleaning as you go but then they want to gripe about having to clean up or that they can't find jack squat because the house is a mess... 

[Kassia]

43 minutes ago, strawberries said:

 Because unless there is something like a visible splat of toothpaste or scuff marks from moving furniture, it never ever occurs to me to clean walls.  And let's not even talk about ceilings. We have the popcorn kind...

I didn't realize walls should be cleaned until a few years ago and I'm in my 50s.  That was an unpleasant lesson.  I knew that corners got dusty/cobwebs but I had no idea that the walls themselves got dirty.  It's just never ending.  I want the tiniest house/apartment possible if we ever move because I want to clean as little as possible.  There's no sense of accomplishment because it just gets dirty all over again and it's so much work.

[Miss Tick]

46 minutes ago, Kassia said:

I didn't realize walls should be cleaned until a few years ago

Nope! I'm not buying it. "Could", maybe, but "should" seems too strong. I painted most of the house with an eggshell gloss and just today found icky splashes on the wall by the fridge that I could wipe off. So for acute issues, yes, but cleaning the walls as a general thing seems unnecessary. I'm not directing this at you, just using your post as a spring board onto a soap box - which I'm now exiting 😆

[Ginevra]

1 hour ago, Kassia said:

I didn't realize walls should be cleaned until a few years ago and I'm in my 50s.  That was an unpleasant lesson.  I knew that corners got dusty/cobwebs but I had no idea that the walls themselves got dirty.  It's just never ending.  I want the tiniest house/apartment possible if we ever move because I want to clean as little as possible.  There's no sense of accomplishment because it just gets dirty all over again and it's so much work.

I never have cleaned my walls in any comprehensive sense unless I am prepping to paint. Of course I knock down cobwebs or clean the odd handprints or whatever, but to just clean them for the heck of it? No. 
 

If it doesn’t contribute to actual sanitation and it doesn’t bring pleasure to do it, then….well, I have better things to do. 

[dirty ethel rackham]

1 hour ago, Kassia said:

I didn't realize walls should be cleaned until a few years ago and I'm in my 50s.  That was an unpleasant lesson.  I knew that corners got dusty/cobwebs but I had no idea that the walls themselves got dirty.  It's just never ending.  I want the tiniest house/apartment possible if we ever move because I want to clean as little as possible.  There's no sense of accomplishment because it just gets dirty all over again and it's so much work.

Yeah, same.  I only cleaned walls if I was prepping to paint them. 

However, I brushed up against a wall in my ultrasound room and came away with a large patch of dust on my scrubs.  I noticed that not only were they coated with a thick layer of dust, there were splotches of dried ultrasound gel, which yellowed with age.  I did scrub the walls that I could reach, but I think I need a swiffer to reach higher on the walls.  Recently, a patient did notice some cobwebs on the ceiling. Our cleaning staff does a minimal job.  I left a small spill on the floor just to see if they cleaned it.  They didn't.  

I may be slovenly at home, but I like my work spaces clean and tidy.  

[Wheres Toto]

I was a lousy housekeeper when I was home all day with the kids, working full time certainly hasn't improved the situation.  

I did do laundry yesterday.  Only had two loads since I was late doing it last weekend and it didn't get done until Monday.   One of those loads is sitting in a basket on a table I can see from my current seat.  The other load is still in the dryer and I just pulled something out and realized it's not 100% dry.  

Definitely cobwebs in the corners of the bathroom.   I also smacked a gnat in there and it's still smooshed on the wall.  I'll probably wipe that off soon.

We still have a US and world map on our bedroom door, with nicely yellowed tape bits holding it on.  My kids are 17 and 19, I think those could probably go.

Under the table with the laundry basket on top are three pairs of shoes (only two are mine) and a bunch of ribbons that fell down after the 4H fair that was back in July.  The end of July but still.

I did do dishes tonight but there's already more dishes in the sink.   The kids usually do the dishes, alternating days, but I do Sunday because odd number of days.  

I have never cleaned my walls but they are actually relative new walls so probably don't need it yet. 

I'm pretty sure if I stuck my hand in the side of my chair I would probably find some popcorn or peanuts or something that was once edible.  And they are relatively new chairs, only a few months old.

[Kidlit]

38 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

I was a lousy housekeeper when I was home all day with the kids, working full time certainly hasn't improved the situation.  

 

Same.  I had no idea I was actually doing a decent job then.

Edited September 2 by Kidlit
Autocorrect fail?

[strawberries]

7 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

We still have a US and world map on our bedroom door, with nicely yellowed tape bits holding it on.  My kids are 17 and 19, I think those could probably go.

Mine are 16 and 19; our maps are still up in the hallway. We also have a Periodic Table of the Presidents on the living room wall from a history bee circa 2017. 

[SKL]

4 hours ago, wisdomandtreasures said:

I have tried everything and I just cannot get my kids to use laundry hampers, trash cans, or properly close up food containers.

Story of my mom life.

[SKL]

I don't wash painted walls.  I've heard this is a thing, but only in weird books and magazines.  (Kitchen walls maybe, if things splatter.  But generally, no.)

However, I am kind of a natural housekeeper, if left to myself.  Which is why it bugs me that my house is usually not neat.

I have two 17yos, and I've utterly failed at getting them to learn housekeeping skills*.  Probably because I get impatient and just do it myself rather than force myself to follow through with them.  But it's time.  So I am forcing myself not to pick up their crap, do their laundry, etc.

Having housemates (who are not particularly neat), I had to teach myself not to see certain things, and now I have to up those skills.  Otherwise, my teens won't learn, and someday they'll be "that housemate" ....

So I am trying to look at the positive side of things.  Better late than never.  The dining table is currently covered with my kid's clothes, but at least she's doing her laundry.  😛  The stove isn't spotless, but at least they shop and cook, throw empty stuff away and rinse dishes.

And then there is my dog.  He is just gross.  He drools and sheds everywhere, and we have many reminders of his bitey puppy stage (damaged furniture, holes in the carpet ...).  We need to replace or repair everything downstairs, and I'm not doing it while he's here.  And he has about 100 toys flung all around the house.  More things to studiously "not see."  😛

*(I shouldn't say my kids haven't learned any housekeeping skills.  They know how to do all the things.  What they're still learning is *when* to do them, i.e., regularly, and about following through [e.g. you don't just do your laundry; you gather it up and put it away asap].)

[Halftime Hope]

We have been talking about what we'd like in a very small retirement house. I found that dh had written down a list of house ideas, and on that list he had "wooden hood enclosure, to match kitchen cabinets".  I found myself completely over-reacting (mentally cussing him out):  he doesn't know that cleaning greasy wooden kitchen cabinets is something I have zero interest in doing. I clean the stainless steel hood every few weeks with a paper towel and some kind of grease-removing spray, when the dust and aerosolized grease get too grimy for me. I don't think I'd be able to see it or use an all-purpose de-greasing spray on a wood finish. Bah, humbug.

[madteaparty]

See this is the slovenly thread and I’m already feeling bad about my habits. So we are supposed to clean walls? With what, pray tell? The paint would scrub away wouldnt it? No matter. I’m not at danger of finding out. This is more of an academic question. 

[Rosie_0801]

Thanks everyone!

This thread has helped suppress my sensory issues enough to get another job done around here that I thought I'd have to spend most of the week psyching myself up for. *mwah*

[popmom]

9 hours ago, Miss Tick said:

Yesterday I got the shop vac out to clean up a small area of a high shelf in the furnace room. While I was up there I had a go at some cobwebs hanging around too. Once I had climbed down from the step stool I realized I had plugged the hose into the wrong orifice and instead of vacuuming I had just blown everything around the room. Problem for another day! I decided.

My husband did this once. He needed to clean out the fireplace which is normally done with the little shovel. Only he thought he was going to “work smarter not harder” by just using the shop vac. !!!!!! He had no idea until he finished. There was ash everywhere.
 

I was out of town at the time. I’m kinda sorry I missed it. 

Edited September 2 by popmom

[popmom]

No one has brought up their car. I’ve just about hit my limit. My dog loves car rides, so there’s her hair everywhere and her “nose art” on the passenger side windows and windshield. 
 

I’ve got stuff in the back floorboards that I brought back from my grandmother’s house 2 weeks ago. A teapot, Christmas decoration, several jars of preserves…and it’s loose. Just rolling around. And the paper! Receipts and stuff from Dr appointments and forms and junk mail. Fast food wrappers,  empty La Croix cans…. My dd left her dog’s crate in the backseat…

I’m motivated to get it cleaned before I leave for a road trip next week.
 

 

[Laura Corin]

Cleaning walls? I've been known to annoy a spider lurking in a ceiling corner.  And aforementioned shower room ceiling nurtures unpleasant growth, so I have sometimes wiped that.  But the other walls? Unless there's been a dropped-mug splatter or something,  I leave them in peace.

[SKL]

Not the car.  My kids and their friends and the dog are so gross.  Every time I clean it, it takes them less than a week to completely trash it again.

Nowadays I am rarely in my car, so out of sight, out of mind ....

Once upon a time, I had the cleanest car.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

[Clarita]

So we did a big clean up for a party this weekend. I had the kids clean up their playroom, the room looked cleaner before they cleaned. All the toys were covering up all the little pieces of papers underneath...

[DawnM]

We downsized and lost a lot of square footage.  This house has very little storage/closets/etc...so I feel like there is always a mess.   But I also know I need to get rid of tons of stuff and go through more.  It is never ending.   Never.

And our living room carpet is horrible and needs replacing.   We bought the house and it didn't look that good, we have steam cleaned it 3 times since moving in and always, within a few days, it looks gross again, off white carpet with stains that pop back up after a few days.   

I would like to replace it with hardwood, but we have two kinds of hardwood in the downstairs already, I can't really tell it is two kinds, but DH can and it makes him crazy and he doesn't want yet another hardwood that is trying to match the rest.   What do you all think?   The truth is, the kitchen hardwood has some warping near the fridge from moisture and I would prefer to replace the hardwood in the kitchen with tile and then replace the living room floor with hardwood, but I know the kitchen won't be done for a while.

[madteaparty]

I have a cleaning lady every other week. The most cleaning is done by me before she comes so that she can clean. She hasn’t been here a couple months (I’ve been travelling) and I know I’m going to get yelled at. 

[Faith-manor]

2 hours ago, DawnM said:

We downsized and lost a lot of square footage.  This house has very little storage/closets/etc...so I feel like there is always a mess.   But I also know I need to get rid of tons of stuff and go through more.  It is never ending.   Never.

And our living room carpet is horrible and needs replacing.   We bought the house and it didn't look that good, we have steam cleaned it 3 times since moving in and always, within a few days, it looks gross again, off white carpet with stains that pop back up after a few days.   

I would like to replace it with hardwood, but we have two kinds of hardwood in the downstairs already, I can't really tell it is two kinds, but DH can and it makes him crazy and he doesn't want yet another hardwood that is trying to match the rest.   What do you all think?   The truth is, the kitchen hardwood has some warping near the fridge from moisture and I would prefer to replace the hardwood in the kitchen with tile and then replace the living room floor with hardwood, but I know the kitchen won't be done for a while.

I am a fan of tile in the kitchen. The Alabama house of ours that DD and family live in has tile, and the clean up is so amazing. You can't make it look bad. It doesn't stain. The finish is there forever. I have 30 year vinyl in our kitchen here, a pattern and color that I do like very much, and we have been here 12 years, and it looks like crap despite proper upkeep. So done with cheap flooring!!!!

I say replace the hardwood with whatever makes you happy in the carpet areas as you can afford it, and go for tile in the kitchen.

[MEmama]

7 hours ago, popmom said:

My husband did this once. He needed to clean out the fireplace which is normally done with the little shovel. Only he thought he was going to “work smarter not harder” by just using the shop vac. !!!!!! He had no idea until he finished. There was ash everywhere.
 

I was out of town at the time. I’m kinda sorry I missed it. 

We’ve done that; what a mess. The walls did get cleaned after that debacle out of necessity. It was years ago, and I still haven’t scrubbed the now ancient ash from the top shelves of bookcases in that room. Since this is a safe space, I’ll be honest and admit I’m sure I never will. 

[Kassia]

10 minutes ago, MEmama said:

. Since this is a safe space, I’ll be honest and admit I’m sure I never will. 

I've decided I'm never cleaning the tops of our kitchen cabinets again.  They don't go to the ceiling and just collect so much dust.  I either have to climb on a chair or something and vacuum them(?!) or try to dust them, which I've done before and it just results in the dust falling all over everything else in the kitchen.  I'd rather keep it all contained to the top of the cabinets and pretend it's not there.

[MEmama]

17 minutes ago, Kassia said:

I've decided I'm never cleaning the tops of our kitchen cabinets again.  They don't go to the ceiling and just collect so much dust.  I either have to climb on a chair or something and vacuum them(?!) or try to dust them, which I've done before and it just results in the dust falling all over everything else in the kitchen.  I'd rather keep it all contained to the top of the cabinets and pretend it's not there.

This is definitely the way 👍

[mommyoffive]

21 minutes ago, Kassia said:

I've decided I'm never cleaning the tops of our kitchen cabinets again.  They don't go to the ceiling and just collect so much dust.  I either have to climb on a chair or something and vacuum them(?!) or try to dust them, which I've done before and it just results in the dust falling all over everything else in the kitchen.  I'd rather keep it all contained to the top of the cabinets and pretend it's not there.

I have the same thing.  And then the tops of the cabinets are unfinished so whipping them does nothing because the surface is so rough.  Impossible.

[marbel]

Joining in late. I'm a terrible housekeeper, in general. I tend not to see things like cobwebs until I'm getting ready for guests when I try to look more carefully. I don't notice dust on baseboards and don't clean under furniture often enough.

So right now... ugh. We are moving furniture around to make a moved-out child's room into a guest room/sewing room. She had to leave a lot of stuff when she moved and didn't exactly leave it well-organized. But besides that, moving furniture and seeing the cobwebs, dust bunnies, and little bits of trash on the floors, oh my.

The bathrooms... oh I hate cleaning bathrooms and let them go way too long. 

 

[Ali in OR]

I do vacuum and clean bathrooms weekly. But...

-Mopping the wood floors goes on the once-a-year project list

-Washing windows is on the once-a-year project list

-I do not wash walls unless there is something obvious on them or I'm going to paint.

-I think I've wiped the baseboards clean a couple of times in the 20+ years we've lived here.

-We're redoing the kitchen and the cupboards are going to go to the ceiling so that I can drop the once-a-year project of cleaning the tops of the cabinets.

-I'm dreaming of how to redesign the primary shower so that no cleaning would be needed. No glass door. Dark surfaces? Minimize grout lines. And the grout should be dark.

Edited September 2 by Ali in OR

[MEmama]

1 minute ago, Ali in OR said:

I'm dreaming of how to redesign the primary shower so that no cleaning would be needed. No glass door. Dark surfaces? Minimize grout lines. And the grout should be dark.

We have to completely redo our main bathroom and those are my rules, too. It must be easy to clean and it must appear clean even if it isn’t lol. 

[kbutton]

14 hours ago, Ginevra said:

I never have cleaned my walls in any comprehensive sense unless I am prepping to paint. Of course I knock down cobwebs or clean the odd handprints or whatever, but to just clean them for the heck of it? No.

YMMV. I find cleaning my walls to be the easiest task in my house, and it definitely contributes to sanitation. I have two people who manage to coat the walls in perpetual grime, though thankfully, the one that is the worst stopped making booger sculptures on his bedroom wall after about age four.

If I didn’t wash my walls periodically, every light switch would have a big black circle around it. I don’t wash every inch, just high traffic spots, except for the kitchen now and then—it’s smallish, so it gets really dirty. The cupboards are the bigger problem, and I have to wash the cupboards a lot. They are painted white, and my kid would seriously ruin them. The paint on the cupboards is starting to peel in spots, but that is because half of what my kid splatters is wet and because we didn’t have time to do quite as good of a job on the cupboards as planned six years ago.

Washing walls is much less onerous and time consuming than it sounds—it’s like wiping off a table. The paint is mostly fine—the exceptions to that have reasons beyond being wiped down, and one of my kids touched up the paint there for me. All fixed.

I dry mop my walls for dust about three times per year (dry mop head on my Bona—different from the ones I use with cleaner on them). It takes about ten minutes to do the downstairs and less to do upstairs. It is one of the few cleaning tasks that makes me happy anymore.

I used to be a good housekeeper, even though I am a pile organizer, but our current house is super dusty because our HVAC people talked us into a super duper wonderful filter that is super duper useless. Our current house has more dust than the previous one where we had a woodstove in the central room of the house that spewed ash everywhere at the drop of a hat.

Between the dust and the two people who just fling grime (and clutter) all over every flat surface, I have kind of given up.

My masterpieces are an end table that is where all the junk goes to make the rest of the room look semi-presentable, and a pile of paperwork that every time I get it almost done throws another “but now you have to do this” at me, much of which was not part of the original task. It’s a tedious task on merit alone, but it’s double paperwork for not quite overlapping time periods—Dec to Dec and Jan to Jan, and some things count for both time periods and some do not, and it’s all stuff I have to legally keep. The Pile was almost finished off multiple times, but something happened every time, such as accounts that go with the paper work migrating from one entity to a new one with weeks long blackout dates during the migration that kept me from one last part. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s gone on so long that I literally treat it like a tree in the yard that I have to mow around. I don’t even look at it and think, “Oh, I could finally finish that.” And it’s on my dining room table that we clearly aren’t using.

It’s also best not to look at or in my fridge. We eat tons of veggies, and they leave little bits of detritus all over.

Our master bedroom is a disgrace. DH does shift work, so it’s not a really functional space, and it shows. 

11 hours ago, madteaparty said:

See this is the slovenly thread and I’m already feeling bad about my habits. So we are supposed to clean walls? With what, pray tell? The paint would scrub away wouldnt it? No matter. I’m not at danger of finding out. This is more of an academic question. 

See previous comment re: paint condition. I scrub with water and a rag or sometimes clean dishwater.

1 hour ago, Kassia said:

I've decided I'm never cleaning the tops of our kitchen cabinets again.  They don't go to the ceiling and just collect so much dust.  I either have to climb on a chair or something and vacuum them(?!) or try to dust them, which I've done before and it just results in the dust falling all over everything else in the kitchen.  I'd rather keep it all contained to the top of the cabinets and pretend it's not there.

I know someone that made Formica drop ins for the tops of the cupboards. It makes cleaning super easy.

I don’t have open spots above my cupboards, which I am thankful for at the moment!

[wintermom]

20 hours ago, Kidlit said:

My testimony to my own slovenliness is the cobwebs in the corners of the shower we actually DO use.  

It's all in how you spin it. I have made friends with my bathroom spider. As long as he/she keeps their webs high enough that they don't annoy me, we can co-exist in this space. I have not named the spider, but I'm thinking that Mackenzie would be a perfect choice. I can pretend it is of Scottish decent. 😉 

[wintermom]

I have now just discovered that the word "slovenly" has one of the definitions of "excessively casual." I think I may embrace this as my 2024 theme words, in fact. This will now be an Excessively Casual year for me. This is something I feel I can jump into in an excessively casual way. 😂

Edited September 2 by wintermom

[Familia]

18 hours ago, Kassia said:

I didn't realize walls should be cleaned until a few years ago and I'm in my 50s.  That was an unpleasant lesson.  I knew that corners got dusty/cobwebs but I had no idea that the walls themselves got dirty.  It's just never ending.  I want the tiniest house/apartment possible if we ever move because I want to clean as little as possible.  There's no sense of accomplishment because it just gets dirty all over again and it's so much work.

 

17 hours ago, Miss Tick said:

Nope! I'm not buying it. "Could", maybe, but "should" seems too strong. I painted most of the house with an eggshell gloss and just today found icky splashes on the wall by the fridge that I could wipe off. So for acute issues, yes, but cleaning the walls as a general thing seems unnecessary. I'm not directing this at you, just using your post as a spring board onto a soap box - which I'm now exiting 😆

Yes, I am sorry to admit that I began that thread here, at least 5 years ago, likely more, about how to clean walls. 

I further implicate myself by stating that I did indeed clean the walls as per the directions that the model housekeepers gave to me in that thread. 

The walls, I attest, have been left to fill with dust since. Why exactly do our walls get dusty? Like hairy dusty?

IDK, but I do not plan to do anything about it anytime soon, so am I welcome to the club?

[Pawz4me]

8 minutes ago, Familia said:

The walls, I attest, have been left to fill with dust since. Why exactly do our walls get dusty? Like hairy dusty?

I've been accused of being a neat freak, and I've only cleaned walls (as in with water) a few times in my life. I think unless you move to a "used" home, live with a smoker, like to burn candles, heat with wood, or have kids or pets who slime the walls then all they really need is occasional dusting or vacuuming to get rid of the hairy stuff. Washing with water turns hairy dust into a muddy, much-harder-to-clean mess.

[dirty ethel rackham]

3 hours ago, Kassia said:

I've decided I'm never cleaning the tops of our kitchen cabinets again.  They don't go to the ceiling and just collect so much dust.  I either have to climb on a chair or something and vacuum them(?!) or try to dust them, which I've done before and it just results in the dust falling all over everything else in the kitchen.  I'd rather keep it all contained to the top of the cabinets and pretend it's not there.

I did it once.  And since the dust was combined with years of kitchen grease buildup, I decided i will never do it again.  And now I just noticed a bunch of cobwebs above my cabinets.)  If and when we actually get around to redoing the kitchen, I am getting cabinets that go up to the ceiling.  It's only a standard 8 foot ceiling and dh and I are on the tall side so we would get more storage.  

[Pawz4me]

If you really want to freak yourself out about cobwebby dust then wait until it's good and dark, turn all your lights off, and walk around shining a flashlight in all the corners.