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Tips and strategies for keeping your house clean from the ThriftyFun community.
When cleaning, do every job as fast as you can and time yourself. You'll then know it's not such a chore if you know each task is only going to take a few minutes. I think it was Parkinson's Law that said "Work expands to fit the time available" and that's certainly true of housework. If I work fast, I can clean the entire house in 3 hours. If I don't, it can take all week.
By Jo Bodey
During commercials, I pick up things. As soon as I hear my show come back on, I stop cleaning. That way, I'm not sitting around wasting time watching commercials and my apartment stays clean without putting in hours at a time. I reward myself with TV time by speed cleaning.
By Melissa
The easiest and only way to really keep the house clean is to first pick up the clutter and put it in it's place. You can't get to the dust unless you can reach it. With that in mind, here's what I do:
By Ardis
My most favorite cleaning item is a feather duster (about $5 at Walmart). It makes dusting fun and easy. Another tip is to do a little something every day, so cleaning up doesn't become such a big deal. And you can make great use of the commercial breaks on TV, you'll be surprised how much you can get done in several 3-5 minute breaks.
By Claudia
I once read that the most successful housewives did this: One day was designated to one room. Like Mondays: Kitchen; fridge, sweep, mop, and clean counters. Tuesdays: Living Room; dust, vacuum, so on. Of course, clean as you go. But this insures that you have at least hit a room once per week. For laundry: we have white night, colored night, and towel night.
By Tracy Elaine
Here are some tips I read long ago. When the room is out of control and you don't know where to start, just imagine the face of a clock. Pick a corner to be 12 and work your way around. For the bathroom, in a pinch, grab a wad of toilet paper, slosh alcohol onto it and wipe the sink/counter then do the toilet, starting at the top, then flush the wad away.
By Ruth Counter
When I start to tidy a bedroom, the very first thing I do is to make the bed. My college roommate taught me this trick and I'm teaching it to my kids now. It makes the whole room look cleaner and gives you the oomph to continue. I find that this works well with the couch cushions in the living room as well.
Jess
Do not live in the country; gravel and dirt get tracked into the house on the shoes, like my home. If you do have kids; get them to have chores to do. Before they can use the car for the evening, they have to clean up the kitchen or maybe wash up the bathroom. They want a privilege, okay, this is what needs to be done.
Don't have dogs or cats in the house (like I do), especially shedding ones (like I do, a Cocker spaniel). They also track dirt into the house and leave fur/hair everywhere in the house.
Electric forced air furnaces blow the dust in your home around, whereas radiant heat and baseboards do not. A girlfriend just moved into a newer home. She is now complaining about having to dust all the time. If you do have a forced air furnace in your home, get the duct work cleaned out once in a while.
Do not do any renovations to your home that requires drywall, like we did. It makes lots of dust when installing and priming with paint. The sanding down of the walls, lots of dust again.
Do not open your windows in the home. The wind will blow dust into your home and you will have to dust more often. This just isn't done in my home. I like fresh air.
Do not place bird feeders at the front door like I have. Now I also have sunflower shells coming into the house, tracked in by the kids, husband, dog and myself.
Teenagers/kids and their friends can also create quite a mess. Make your teenager/kids clean up their own mess after the "party". Don't you do it for them.
Do not be a collector of anything. The more stuff you have, the more things to take care of and clean. This is not happening here in my home either, I love collecting perennials (more to clean in the garden). I collect or have many crafting hobbies, more stuff, and I love reading, more books.
I remember way back to life in our first apartment just after we got married, no extra stuff, no kids, no pets, lived in town, no birds, gone to work all day (no one home to mess up the place). Boring, would much rather have what I have now, with all it's work and cleaning up to do!!
I made myself up a schedule. Each day I clean one or 2 rooms, do one or 2 loads of laundry. And during the seasons, I mow one section of the yard. I'm normally done within 2-3 hours and then I have the rest of the day to myself. And my house always stays clean.
I even have a day to clean the car in there. But if for whatever reason I am unable to do a certain day's cleaning I don't worry about it. I just skip it and move on the next day. Unless that room is extremely messy and it's not one I can just close the door on, in that case I just add it to the next day and just do a "lick and a promise" so I'm not embarrassed about it. Then the following week I make up for it. This schedule has made my life so much simpler and I have so much more time now to enjoy the day. (04/28/2009)
By Cricket
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