Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with housework

How clean is your house (or small apartment)

kmtiszen — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:36:33 -0800

Can anyone recommend a good one-time maid/cleaning service in Manhattan? I want to give my soon-to-be-for-sale apartment a VERY thorough scrub down before I start showing it to prospective buyers. I was hoping someone could recommend a maid or cleaning service that will do an excellent one-time cleaning. My place is far from a disaster, but I want it to be SPARKLING!

I know some people might not want the secret of their very excellent cleaning person to get out, so if you just want to send me a message, I won't tell a soul!

If you could include a price range, or just a ballpark figure, that would be helpful too!

Thanks!

Need to improve my house cleaning skills

valannc — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:00:11 -0800

I want to improve my house cleaning skills... improve my speed, efficiency, thoroughness, etc. And use the best cleaning products for the task. In the past, we used a cleaning service. Now I have more time than money. It's my job to keep our house clean. I dislike these chores. It occurs to me I would like house cleaning better if I were good at it.

All I know about cleaning is what I learned on TV. "Buy Windex!" "Buy Swiffer" etc. There are many cleaning expert books and web sites. But most of them are selling a cleaning product.

Dear AskMeFi Hive,
Can you recommend resources that for good sensible advice and techniques. What are the best non-harsh cleaning products? I have a closet full of expensive products and tools that don't seem to work right.

Martha Stewart's cleaning advice makes me uncomfortable. Her instructions are so extensive and exacting. She acts as if you have all day to make a bed. (I do like Martha's recipes.)

How can I sleepwalk more productively?

the latin mouse — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:47:05 -0800

I'm a sleepwalker. While asleep I can accomplish basic tasks, but nothing which requires higher brain function. I've heard of lucid dreaming; is there any way I can train myself to do simple household chores while asleep?

Remodeling this old spouse

lgandme0717 — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:40:29 -0800

Would like to end the ongoing clashes over housework and childcare with my husband. What has worked for your family? I have worked for myself as a freelance Web developer and computer tutor for seven years. The only work I do out of the home is when I'm tutoring (a couple of half-days a week). My husband has a demanding job, but telecommutes from home unless he has client meetings or is traveling on business. We also have a four-year-old son who is in pre-K all day as well as several additional activities (music, karate, soccer).

From time to time we have these awful arguments over housework and childcare that I really am so so sick of. They seem to get kicked off if I ask my husband to do something -- I swear it's always a reasonable-sounding task -- that he just refuses to do, usually without explanation. It drives me crazy because I feel that I do and do for him and my son all day long with little acknowledgment or thanks. It's getting so I'm afraid to ask him to do anything, which of course just escalates my rseentment.

For example, last night it was giving my son a bath; my husband just refused without explanation. He has actually only given my son a bath himself once in our 4-y.o. son's life.

My husband and I have been together for 18 years. We each manage our own finances. I do all of the housework and yard work. If we're all eating the same thing, I do all the cooking. Since I'm a vegetarian and my husband isn't, we often each prepare our own dinners. I prepare all meals for my son too. I chauffeur my son to and from school every day, plus playdates, and most after-school activities. My husband is involved in several time-consuming interests -- working out and the gym and a theater group -- that I do encourage him to do, but it gets very hard for me to ever get to take time for myself.

After recent arguments, my husband started taking my son with him for a five-hour block of time on Saturdays; they have lunch together, go to karate, and then my son plays with the gym's babysitter while my husband goes to the gym. But when we're arguing, he will say things like, "It sure must be nice to have five hours to yourself every weekend" -- even though during that time I'm usually doing housework I can't do with my son underfoot -- and that my husband would never do himself. For example, last Saturday I painted the dining room; this Saturday I'm deep-cleaning for a Halloween party we're throwing tomorrow.

The resentment is really eating at me and my husband is just feeling criticized and nagged. I really want to turn this around so we have a more loving partnership. What has worked for you in dividing up childcare and housework?

If It's Thursday, I Must Be Churning

amyms — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:42:34 -0800

I'm interested in becoming more organized and consistent with my housework routine. Recently I started assigning different tasks to different days, so that I would be able to say "Okay, it's Tuesday, I need to water all the houseplants" instead of wondering "Yikes, when did I last water the houseplants?"

In that vein, I remember an old poem about housework:

"Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday."

I wonder if it's really possible to organize household chores in that way (obviously the poem would need to be modernized). What kinds of chores would work in that model, and what kinds wouldn't? Do you do your housework based on a daily or weekly routine? And if so, what types of chores get their very own day?

I read an article about breaking down doing housework into increments of time, but now I can't find it. Do you know about this?

h00py — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 03:39:44 -0800

I read somewhere recently about a method (such as timeboxing) that was applied to housework, where it was broken down into increments of 15, 30 and 60 minutes (or something like that). I can't remember the details and I can't remember (or find) where I read it. Do you know? I did read this thread but couldn't find what I'm looking for.

Joy in housework?

treepour — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:23:45 -0800

How do I find joy in housework? I hate housework. My partner used to do most of it because he didn't have a job outside the home and I did, but now we've switched roles -- and he's justifiably losing patience with my inability to keep the place even reasonably tidy.

The problem is that I can't make myself do much of anything unless I find some pleasure or joy in it. Even when I was working a job that I didn't like, I managed to find some aspect of it (e.g, logical problem solving) pleasureable enough to permit me to get through the day.

I've tried everything I can think of to find even the slightest delight in housework, but nothing's worked. Grooving out to good music doesn't motivate me, it just makes me want to sit and listen to the music. Thinking about how nice it will be when it's all clean just makes me think about how much work I have to do get there. And setting up reward/denial systems just makes me resent it even more.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tote that bale, jr.

craniac — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:15:41 -0800

How do you get your young children to do *some* housework and pick up after themselves? Did your parents do anything that worked? Is this an intractable problem? My kids are 9/6/4/1.5

Save me some work

ChrisR — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 10:32:36 -0800

Help me to deflect criticisms of my dishwasher usage. What sorts of dishes is it safe to wash in the dishwasher, and which ones are bad? Bonus points for authoritative answers, extra for peer-reviewed (although that's an AIR award waiting to happen). The class of story that's least useful, although might still help, is "My mom told me..." since that's what I'm trying to deflect.