Why can I not get this house to stay clean?

Question

First off I am 19 and about a year ago my boyfriend and I moved from our old apartment into a large house so we can help take care of his grandfather. Mind you his grandmother passed away many years ago so the house is in need of some serious love.

I go to school and work full time and keeping this house clean is so hard. My boyfriend does all the yard work, which is tremendous, and my job is keeping the inside clean. But I just cant keep up with it all.

I tried cleaning one room a day but I NEED MORE DAYS!!! LOL. Please help, is there a product that keeps away dust or something that can make my life easier. The house is entirely hard wood floors? <Anything for that?

I lived with my mom my whole life and I thought girls were the worst in the bathroom until i moved in with two boys!!! EWWW LOL

I like to be clean. Its not like this place is a pigs sty, I just want to be able to maintain it. KUDOS to all you homeowners it is hard work!!!

Answer 1

Your boyfriend got the easy end of the deal. :-)

Unfortunately I don&#039;t think there&#039;s anything you can do to keep dust away!! But you can make dusting easier by getting rid of clutter in the house. If you have knick-knack type stuff, get rid of it, pack it up or put it in a cabinet with a glass front so you don&#039;t have to dust it (and around it) all the time.  If you have a garage or other storage space, use it to store things you don&#039;t need inside the house. An uncluttered space is MUCH easier to keep clean.  If you have furry pets, brush them regularly -- and outside if you can -- to limit the dander and fur that ends up on everything else. If anyone in the house smokes, ask them to smoke outside; that will make a big difference.  When you dust use a product like Endust, or Pledge, or OldEnglish, which helps pick up dust better than just using a plain cloth. Don&#039;t use a feather duster -- all it does is brush dust around and then it settles somewhere else! But those swiffer dusters (pledge also makes some) are good at actually removing the dust.

Bathroom: drop a 2000 flushes or other tablet into the tank. That won&#039;t clean the rest of the bowl, but at least you won&#039;t have to scrub inside it all the time (if at all).

Kitchen: line the oven floor with foil, and cover the drip pans under the burners with foil. Much easier to change the foil when it gets gross, than to scrub the oven and drip pans.

Floors: put an area rug or shoe stand by the front door and ask people to start removing their shoes when they come in the house. Once you get in the habit, it&#039;s not such a pain, i swear. Put a chair there, too, so people can sit down to put their shoes on or take them off.

Also, get a swiffer - they&#039;re great on hardwood floors. You&#039;ll still need to do a heavier cleaning sometimes, but just for keeping dust from building up, a swiffer&#039;s a great thing. (No I don&#039;t work for Swiffer; I just really like their stuff).

Rooms: you have more rooms than days so start prioritizing. Usually the kitchen and bathroom(s) get dirtiest the fastest, so maybe they each get their own designated day of the week, but maybe the bedrooms only need to be cleaned every other week. Honestly -- when I dust my dresser, I can see new dust on it literally later the same day. It&#039;s a no-win battle. Once you accept that, you can stop beating yourself up for not winning!!! And congratulate yourself for keeping up with it as well as you are!!!

Most of all -- relax!! You&#039;ve got a LOT going on. It&#039;s really OK if there&#039;s a little dust in your house. (If your boyfriend doesn&#039;t agree, trade responsibilities with him for a month - you do outside, he does inside - and he will get it.)   Life is not all about cleaning. After you graduate you&#039;ll have more time to keep your home pristine if that&#039;s what you want to do. In the meantime, give yourself a break.

And maybe tell your boyfriend that for your birthday, you want Merry Maids.

Answer 2

I use Flylady.net and I highly recommend her system. Keeping the house clean is very hard, people don&#039;t realize it until they have to do it themselves. I have tried a lot of housekeeping systems and Flylady&#039;s is the only one that really works. I have simple morning and evening routines. I have a plan so I know what I&#039;m doing, but it&#039;s flexible. I finally feel like I can keep on top of my house, instead of my house being on top of me. Here&#039;s a link:

http://www.flylady.net/

Please check out her system. Don&#039;t get overwhelmed and feel like you have to do the whole thing at once, do it gradually. It really works! Good luck!

Answer 3

let me tell you first You CAN NOT teach your boyfriend to be clean. I have tried for 23 years MEN DO NOT CHANGE. so you either spend yyour days nagging him or just pick up after him and be done with it. you can tell him to put his clothing and &quot;stuff away&quot; if he does you are a winner.  and then you can tell ME how you did it.

Answer 4

This house is probably full of dust from years of not cleaning.  Be sure when you do clean that you use a damp cloth or mop.  Otherwise, you are just rearranging the dust.  If you go over every surface with a damp cloth or mop, you will be washing a lot of dust down the drain.  It will be a gradual process, but you should make progress each time you go over things.

Another thing is to keep the filters in the air conditioner or furnace fan very, very clean.  You might have to change them every week for awhile until they stay clean for at least a month.

We moved into a neglected home, and it is unbelievable how dirty the filters would get in just a few days.  If you can afford it, buy the best filters you can find--rated 1200 or above.

Be sure the dryer is not blowing dust and lint into the house too.  I put a damp cloth over the compartment where the lint screen goes because it leaks a little around the edges.

I also have dust filters in the air vents that come into the rooms, and we take our shoes off when we come in from outside.

You might have guessed I have an allergy to dust mites, but I hate the sight of dust as well.  I bought a great mop at Home Depot.  It is a Rubbermaid Commercial; it has pads that go on with velcro.  Really easy and efficient to use.

You can pull off the pad and rinse the dirt off and put it right back on.

Good for you for being so concerned with cleanliness at the tender age of 19.

Answer 5

I have mostly hardwood floors and I use a stick vacuum on those. I find it works much better than a broom. You might have to empty the canister more than once if it’s a large house and you can swing the cost, consider getting a Dyson because it will hold more than a tiny stick vac.

Otherwise, think about which rooms matter: The kitchen needs to be cleaned just about every day, but that shouldn’t take hours. The bathrooms probably need it once a week. But then what over rooms do you have that get super dirty and need frequent cleaning? Beyond weekly dusting and vacuuming, I do very little to the rest of my house.

Nothing can keep dusty away, but since this is an old, neglected house, how clean is the upholstered furniture and drapes? You might want to consider taking the curtains to the dry cleaner and having the furniture steamed. Some of your problem may lie in those items.

Answer 6

Yes your right a house is very hard to maintain. Also men are slobs in the bathroom, there is just no way around it. You can teach your boyfriend to be neater in there, like I did with mine, but you can&#039;t teach his grandfather. Now you are doing the right thing by going room by room. Maybe you can get a friend or even your boyfriend to give you extra help on the weekend so while he maintains downstairs for a while you can tackle the other rooms! Good luck you will get through it! Or try a made service for a day or a few hrs, the rates aren&#039;t so bad, really just call up and ask. Some places depending on where you are, are less the $100.