If you don't have a cleaning lady, how often do you...

amother

OP ↓

Yesterday at 11:17 am

If you don't have a cleaning lady, and you have at least a couple of younger children, how often do you do each of the following chores?

*Scrub bathtubes
*Scrub tiles in showers
*Wash the bathroom walls
*Wash the kitchen walls
*Wash other walls in the house
*Scrub the grout of the bathroom floors (and how do you do this?)
*Scrub other floors in the corners, or places that typical mopping doesn't get
*Clean out/reorganize drawers or cabinets throughout the house

I lost my cleaning lady a year ago and didn't get a new one, and honestly, week to week, I'm glad I'm cleaning my house myself. Things aren't getting lost as often, and the stress of having to have the house ready beforehand is gone -- I do one chore every day and leave almost nothing for Friday, which means on Thursday and Friday I can pretty much focus on cooking and getting the kitchen ready.

(Disclaimer: My youngest is very easy, and I was able to clean while she was home. I work part-time from home and this school year is the first time I have everyone out of the house for half a day, and my work is flexible enough that I can take about twenty minutes a day to clean each morning and still get the amount of work done that I need to.)

But the chores in the list above don't need to happen every week, which means that somehow they never happen...until I notice how gross something is getting and then it's really hard to clean. I'd like to set up a schedule, but I have no idea how often they're "supposed" to happen in order to keep a clean house. Also, I have ADHD (finally medicated -- never could have done this beforhand!) and don't notice things like grime until they get REALLY bad, so just "clean them when you notice them" won't work for me.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 11:23 am

#BestBubby wrote:

There are YouTube videos and online articles about cleaning schedules.

Yeah, but those people aren't juggling little kids and weekly Shabbos meals and, and, and...Trying to figure out what is realistic. Not how often it SHOULD be done, but how often real moms do these things. Real moms with a lot of stuff on our plate.

In my OP I guess I made it sound like I have all the time in the world. Things are a little less stressful now that I can work without any little ones around, but I'm still juggling all the myriad responsibilities and really am not interested in giving up my life to cleaning. (Did I mention I have ADHD and this goes entirely against everything that makes me, me?)

amother

Feverfew

Yesterday at 11:31 am

amother OP wrote:

I have 4 kids 9 and under. No steady cleaning help by choice but I do hire a cleaning crew every 6-8 weeks to do a deep clean because I never seemed to find time to get to everything. The day to day and week to week cleaning I’m good with but the less frequent harder tasks never seemed to get done. I do scrub the bathrooms/walls/grout often though cuz yknow, boys…

Reorganizing gets done over the winter, one room a week. I call it pesach cleaning 😆. The junk drawer in the kitchen and kids closets gets done more often on an as needed basis.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Yesterday at 11:31 am

amother Kiwi wrote:

For pesach
Beside bathtubs twice a week

Wow, twice a week? How do you scrub them, and around how long does it take to do each one?

Also, I try so hard not to do spring cleaning for Pesach. But I was sort of wondering if that's when people get these things done. Maybe I should institute another time of the year that they get done. (Late Cheshvan seems like a good time, or early Kislev...That's when things are probably the calmest overall, right?)

Once a year sounds like something I can handle.

amother

↑ Kiwi

Yesterday at 11:44 am

amother OP wrote:

Just spray and wipe with a shmata
Approx 10 mins
I wouldnt bother if it's not used for a bath-only to shower

amother

Freesia

Yesterday at 11:47 am

amother OP wrote:

I was told bathtubs are very important, especially if females will bathe in them.
Walls-basically never, only if they're sticky or something (and then I usually give my kids stuff and make it a game to clean them)
dirty corners-if I notice, I take a minute to wipe it.

amother

↑ OP

Yesterday at 12:47 pm

hodeez wrote:

Never wash the walls is that a thing?

I didn't realize it either, but then I noticed that my bathroom walls had this awful gunk growing on them. Maybe because they hadn't been cleaned by my cleaning lady since we'd moved in a decade ago? I honestly have no idea if she ever did it, but it was gross. And again, I don't typically notice these things, so I have no idea how long it had been there.

I then noticed that the same thing was "growing" on the other side of the bathroom door, and to a lesser degree on the walls of the hallway and other doors near the bathroom. I washed it all off, and it took a while, maybe a couple of months ago. Yesterday I remembered to look again and noticed that it was back, although nowhere near as disgustingly as before. Which is what prompted this post--how often do I have to clean it?

Do most people who don't have sparkling houses even do these chores? I wonder if the only people who will answer this post are the people who really clean a lot. I can't imagine doing these when I was pregnant/postpartum/sleep deprived, which was a lot of time over the years. Do these chores jus get ignored? It's okay if that's the case, just trying to figure out if I'm going overboard here and most people don't notice/care about these things.

amother

Topaz

Yesterday at 2:29 pm

amother OP wrote:

Floors every week -main floor, bathroom floors
Bathroom
Every other week:
Clorox spray everything
Shower floor and bathtub just the tub
Sinks
Toilet

Kitchen
Sinks as needed they get noticeably dirty
Fridge Freezer once a month empty and Clorox wipe
Stove top as often with spray
Oven once a month

Bedrooms drawers I don’t fold everything, I prefer hanging a lot…
Hand me down and giveaways go in a big garbage bag in the basement- sorted into storage or give a way

Other rooms I only clean as needed

amother

Apricot

Yesterday at 2:32 pm

amother OP wrote:

I didn't realize it either, but then I noticed that my bathroom walls had this awful gunk growing on them. Maybe because they hadn't been cleaned by my cleaning lady since we'd moved in a decade ago? I honestly have no idea if she ever did it, but it was gross. And again, I don't typically notice these things, so I have no idea how long it had been there.

I then noticed that the same thing was "growing" on the other side of the bathroom door, and to a lesser degree on the walls of the hallway and other doors near the bathroom. I washed it all off, and it took a while, maybe a couple of months ago. Yesterday I remembered to look again and noticed that it was back, although nowhere near as disgustingly as before. Which is what prompted this post--how often do I have to clean it?

Do most people who don't have sparkling houses even do these chores? I wonder if the only people who will answer this post are the people who really clean a lot. I can't imagine doing these when I was pregnant/postpartum/sleep deprived, which was a lot of time over the years. Do these chores just get ignored? It's okay if that's the case, just trying to figure out if I'm going overboard here and most people don't notice/care about these things.

When I’m mopping the floors I take the mop and mop the walls