I’m not your typical house frau. I learned this after browsing a Canadian census on line. For one thing … I was actually reading the census. On a Friday night. For fun. Yup. I feel quite confident at this point that I can advise anyone who is considering this as a form of evening entertainment to eat a wool sweater instead. It would be more fun. So yeah, I'm not typical.
But I was bored and avoiding housework. That’s something that everyone does at some point, right? Housework I mean, not avoiding it.
Well, according to the census … not so. Of the approximately (I’m being approximate … not the number loving , abacus polishing folks in the Census department) 9 million Ontarians that are “eligible” to do housework, almost 1 million of them don’t. As in, they checked the “I do zero hours of housework in a week” box.
What about Spring Cleaning? They don't even Spring Clean? (THIS is PRIME spring cleaning season by the way and here are 3 Quick Spring Cleaning tasks you can accomplish in UNDER an hour.)
I can understand people are busy with working and kids and Netflix and everything, but not devoting at least 3 minutes a week to cleaning a toilet? Not that I run around with a feather duster in my holster all day long, but I do find it necessary to do the odd thing around the house to keep my life running smoothly. Like washing my unmentionables. Or perhaps throwing out that 7 year old miniature bottle of Heinz ketchup I thought I might need for a French fry emergency one day but didn’t.
My job as a blogger allows me to work at home. This accomplishes two things. I'm always here to make a mess and I'm always here to clean it up. I prefer the making of messes mind you. On occasion I will do neither and actually venture out of the house, most often to go to the Dollar Store.
I LOVE the Dollar Store. For one thing every single thing in there is a dollar(ish). They used to only take cash which made overspending difficult but now that they take debit cards it's a bit of a free for all. It makes absolutely NO sense to leave The Dollar Store without $50 worth of off brand scented candles. None. I’m getting a bit off track. The discussion of grossly underpriced toilet brushes and stackable boxes does that to me. We were talking about housework.
I figure I do about 7 - 10 hours of housework a week. Which is a total guess based mainly on cleaning the kitchen and scowling at the litter box. Is that excessive? 7 hours? The census made me think so. It implied I was freakish even. A veritable cleaning machine at 7 hours a week.
I called a stay-at-home mom friend to ask her how many hours a week she thinks she spends doing housework. In between the roar of the vacuum and the screams of her children she said “Oh … I’m not sure … OH MY GOD THE DOG’S PEEING ON THE COUCH AGAIN!!”. Then she had to go. So no help there.
Like everyone, (except those curious one million who don't do ANY housework) I have my favourite household chores. Who doesn’t like those vacuum marks on the carpet? The only thing better than a vacuum mark on a carpet is a vacuum mark on a couch. I’ve convinced myself as long as I have at least one of those vacuuming marks on the couch in conjunction with a clean kitchen sink, I can actually fool everyone into thinking my whole house is clean. So my kitchen sink is always clean. Usually.
I have a relative who actually runs her hand over the couch so it *looks* like a vacuum mark to keep herself happy.
Emptying the dishwasher? That is a chore I hate. HATE. I couldn't dread it more if the dishwasher were filled with somersaulting centipedes as opposed to clean dishes. In fact, I'd prefer it because at least that would make a really good Instastory that I could get some mileage out of.
I also really love having freshly washed sheets and freshly washed pajamas. All white if possible. I don't love washing my sheets and duvet cover but the end justifies the means, so that's a household chore I can get behind. Ironically I did find a centipede on my bed a while ago and did indeed Instagram it.
It wasn't as fun as you might believe and I'm actually rethinking that whole dishwasher filled with centipedes scenario.
So, I’m not your average house frau. I’m not sure I’ve ever met one. What I am sure of is there are approximately one million of them out there I will consciously be trying to avoid. Ick.
So lay it on me. How many hours do you think you spend doing housework? Is it ... zero? And most importantly ... how much do you love vacuum marks.
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Erika Pelletier
I used to HATE doing vacuum, to the point i did it only twice in 2017....... yeah twice, and I own two cats, a parrot, and an australian shepherd. That mean feathers and pet hair. I have a central vacuum that don't work very well, and it was the only reason I did not use it regularly.
When I came back home on the 26th of december, couldn't take the mess and vacuumed everything while my SO was shoveling the 40+ cm that had fallen while we were at our relatives, I had enough. I ordered online the last Dyson cordless.
What can I say? I vacuum a few time a weeks now ! Remember i did it only twice last year !!! And what get me is not the vacuum mark on the couch or the carpet, it's how much dust&hair i can suck out of this carpet each and every week !!!!!! I love emptying the vacuum, (because it's super easy with the Dyson...) realizing how filthy this carpet was and how much it is so much cleaner now !!!
Fonda
Things that make me puke:
Gray water is at the top of the list {thinking about barfing just thinking about it!}
Litter boxes
Washing dishes with food floating around in it
Seeing little spars of people hair or getting it stuck between my toes
Any part of a toilet
Any part of a tub/shower
For these reasons, we have someone come in once a month. She does the bathrooms and vacuums and washes the floors. Sometimes, she does little extra things. One time, she cleaned out the refrigerator. Another time, she cleaned the front of the kitchen cabinets.
In the meantime, my wonderful wife, Katie, does a little maintenance. She washes the dishes and cleans the litter boxes. Sometimes she vacuums the floor, especially where the litter boxes are.
If I couldn't clean and pull my weight in that department, we needed to hire someone. And, we did. She even turns into a cat sitter if we need to go out of town. She's a good one! Oh, and no matter what she does, she knows that she can't discuss what she does with me. Otherwise, I would barf.
Wendy Spence
I am a weirdo - I love to clean. I only deep clean on the weekend but tidy and keep up with it during the week. Estimated 10 hours a week.
susang
I thought the cat was potty trained. wanted to try that because of the huge amount of cat byproduct. having said that - I hate making the bed. love clean crisp sheets etc but I can never get the sheets and blanket remotely even. would work a second jo to afford someone to help keep the house presentable.
Yabut
Well, I'm out of practice as I had a torn meniscus and just as I was getting mobile from that I had a non-knee related operation that took a while to recover from. So now I can finally move again I'm thrilled to death to be able to actually get busy and clean some stuff. I managed to vacuum all the baseboards and put away a ton of stuff, and later today I will wash down all the kitchen cupboard doors (and I do have a lot of them). I'm definitely into spring cleaning, but the regular housework never seems to get completely done. My best trick is to set a timer for 10 minutes and tackle a room. I have to quit and go onto the next room when time is up, but it's amazing what you can accomplish when there's a timer running. Somehow I tend to quit after 3 rooms though, which would be fine if I didn't insist on starting from the beginning each day. I really need to start in the room I left off at because they are getting messier while the other three are getting neater and cleaner. Yes, I'm enjoying housework, but in small measured doses.
Linda
I'm with Jennifer. It doesn't rain (nearly ever) in SoCal, which is a great excuse to be outside doing projects instead of inside doing chores. Sort of a Can't see it, not there, attitude.
Trade off is the air is full of dust, so when it DOES rain (tomorrow) I'll be trapped in the house with all that damned dust, which is hard to ignore.
Also: hate emptying the dishwasher (what is it about dishwashers, we should be grateful they exist) and love those vacuum marks on the carpet.
Karen, you clearly struck a nerve here, given the number of responses....
Mindy Northrop
SAHM with three kids and a husband. I clean all damn day.
Leslie Barnard
2 dogs and 3 cats, an occasional ferret (grand-ferret, actually. It belongs to my daughter and instead of the daughter who keeps moving back, she just sends her ferret-it's okay, he's really cute). Also with chickens, there's the occasional tracking in of stuff on your feet. Then there's cooking breakfast and dinner every day...so... probably 10 hours at least per week. And by the way, those other folks who say zero hours/week are either lying, have a live-in maid/slave/robot or are living in the kind of filth that makes street scenes in Slum Dog Millionaire look like a garden party.
Danni McLaughlin
I clean a lot, but it never looks clean except the time after the housekeepers leave and my family gets home. I enjoy those minutes. Sometimes it's even destroyed before that bc pets. This post is timely, bc I was just booking a vacation on a (vacation rental website that should advertise with you) and thought "These houses all look like a magazine shoot! What if I had to photograph MY house for that site?" When I regained consciousness, I did the first half of spring cleaning which has a KAREN element. Instead of 50-Things, I do 500 things. It isn't even hard. Which is embarrassing and shocking but true. A whole new category is stuff that I didn't ask for, that I hate, but that were gifts from, ahem, people who are close to me. A Monkey cookie jar. A glittery birdcage. Art. Away it all went yesterday.
A number? maybe 25 hours a week, but I only do gig work, and there are four of house currently in the house, plus a dog, two cats, and a hamster. Tbh, the hamster doesn't contribute much.
Susan Schneider
Um, does that include cooking? If not, I am, indeed, on the "barely ever" end of the spectrum. My husband loves to vacuum. I dust. Very sporadically. We both clean toilets about once a week or when they need it. I do not clean a clean toilet. I'd say, maybe 2-3 hours a week. I am pretty bad about clutter, unfortunately. My poor husband has given up on trying to be organized. I could go on, but you get the picture. I do intensely dislike cleaning and am always happy to postpone it. Like right now.
Kat
I'd say I do maybe 5-8 hours per week, depending on how deeply I'm cleaning (also cleaning out various areas and getting rid of things is one of my favorite hobbies - but I don't consider that housework). I, however, LOVE emptying the dishwasher - putting things back in order is so satisfying! I absolutely hate mopping, however, and delegate that to my husband ALWAYS.
Kat
Sorry for those redundant "howevers." I should proofread.
Jennifer Hibbard
American here, so maybe this doesn't count. Between me and my husband, we probably spend about 4-5 hours each week cleaning and/or doing household chores. However, we live in a small apartment and don't have any kids or pets. Also, I don't do much cooking. I've always been considered a bit of a "neat freak". It's not so much that I like the process of cleaning, but that I feel so much calmer when it's done. Plus, I work from home, and it's hard to concentrate on work if I have a mess somewhere in the apartment staring at me....
Diane Arias
I've gone from HATING EVERY PART OF TAKING CARE OF MY HOUSE PERIOD while being at home with my three daughters to being determined to figuring out something that at least works. So in 2017 I tidied using the KonMari method and forcing myself through a full month of of following http://www.cleanmama.net/blog cleaning schedule.
With that I think I'm at about an hour a day averaging the same as you with 7 hours a week all throughout the week thinking to myself I'm AMAZING at how much freaking work it is to keep up a house. Like, seriously. And I don't do anything really consistently. But it's a vast improvement from five years ago.
That and I hate cleaning bathrooms. Like HATE HATE.
Gretchen Sexton
If you count cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, and shuffling/restacking the piles of stuff around the house, I'd say I do about 10 hours/week. Sometimes the hubby kicks in--but he's mostly the outside guy. But I have two older kids--one vacuums every week, the other cleans the bathrooms--so I get some free time. (Ha~)
Heather Sykora
Hmm... I used to clean so much when the kids were little. Then I started de cluttering and finally found Kondo’s book. Turns out cleaning is fun when there’s nothing to pick up first - and you have a quiet canister Miele vacuum. Also, we taught all the kids to help clean. Teaching them was ALOT of work in patience!! Now they clean the main areas of the house on a weekly basis- they rotate so it’s “fair”. They do their own laundry and clean their own bathroom. And help with the dishes when asked. And - they’re teenagers and male !! It was definitely work to get to this point!
Of course now I have no excuse and have to stay on top of my science experiments in the fridge, deep clean my gas range, wash the windows and keep my own bedroom clean.... actually I really am curious how many hours I now spend. I will have to time myself next week.
Alena
The amount of house work I do each week varies depending on
1. how lazy I feel
2. if I am reading a book
I am an obsessive reader and I find it hard to peel myself off of a book. But, I took advantage of the fairly decent on Tuesday and I washed my living room monster window. Living in close proximity to an express way, I can wash all my windows every 2 months. In spite of being washed at the beginning of December they looked horrible and I thought my poor plants are getting barely any light (despite of the living room having southern exposure). It's a huge window that technically consists of 3 double-hung windows, so 12 panes to wash. I focused just on the glass because it was only around 10 C (I did not get to it until about 4:45 pm) and because there are lots of plants in the living room I wanted to minimize the time they would exposed to cold air. But I am so happy I washed it! I like when the windows are so clean that it looks like there is no glass at all (is a very short-lived phenomenon but so worth it!).
I also hung a framed picture that has been leaning against the wall for 2 months. (And I made a crockpot full of beef curry although that does not count).
Nancy
I once went to a funeral where at least three people spoke about how clean the deceased kept her house. I thought that was the most boring legacy to ever leave behind from a life well lived. That will never be said of me. And I don't care. I have a big house, a dog, 9 cats (6 belong to roommate) 2.5 wooded/gardened/lawn acres and a dirt driveway. When people ask if they should take off their shoes I laugh. Fortunately, my roommate periodically gets into a "cleaning snit" and I come home to find various surfaces free of dust and pet hair and my possessions rearranged or moved to a different room. The only thing I know how many hours I spend doing on a weekly basis is work because there's a timeclock and I have no choice. That said, I wash dishes 2-3 times a day, clean up all the crap it takes to prepare a meal, put away random shit when I need to declutter...which is a very relative term....sweep up the firewood debris/dust bunnies/tracked cat litter and driveway dirt when it bothers me enough and basically keep the house ready for anyone who cares to find a comfortable sacred space to relax, decompress, create, converse and share the joys and griefs of their life. I figured out a while back that the entirety of human existence is about making messes and cleaning them up. As far as cleaning as a regular disciplined pastime I said "Fuck that shit" a long time ago. Possibly after trying to clean up after the men in two different relationships and finally deciding that if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em. Don't judge me.
I prefer to spend my waking hours in deep meaningful conversation, making art or craft, designing and building sets for youth theatre, playing in the dirt (I think there's a clue in there) watching documentaries about quantum physics/archeology/human consciousness and evolution rather than pushing household dirt around in eager anticipation of doing it again real soon. Do I appreciate a clean house? Absolutely. Do I envy those who have spotless abodes worthy of a white-gloved mother-in-law? Sure. Do I keep my house in a condition that says "artistic pack rat not hoarder? You betcha! Am I suspect of anyone who doesn't have a book or companion animal anywhere in sight? Yup.
I often envy primitive cultures and animals as they don't have to clean up as much and their respective refuse eventually goes back into the Earth. Modern humans seem to be the only species that creates substances that never decompose.
So that's my take on cleaning, thanks for asking. Now I'm gonna go back to researching spagyric alchemy and then go put on a play.
Love your blog, Karen! Thanks for the entertaining education!
Alena
LOL, I love your post, Nancy! I would love to visit since we are clearly 'birds of feather'. Nobody will talk about how clean my house was when I die, too! I always laugh when my neighbour (who is retired) has a major cleaning fit twice a month the day before her cleaning lady is due! (I have to say that they do have an amazing cleaning lady that cleans like there is no tomorrow - you would have to see it to believe it) but I don't think there is anything that would make me clean to make my house 'clean enough' for the cleaning lady!
Nancy
Thanks Alena! I'm in Vermont, come on over...just call first so I can tidy up a bit. Hah!
Alena
Hi Nancy,
Now that I see you live in Vermont you are in real danger of me taking you up on the offer! I love Vermont and I drove through many times (I am a greyhound collector and I drove to New Hampshire to pick up a new greyhound many times). (I live in Ontario, just a bit north of where Karen lives - I am about 2 hours drive from Buffalo). I always get off the Interstate (I think it's I-90?) past Troy and then I meander through Vermont because it's so unbelievably beautiful there. The most poweful memory I have is when I went the 3rd day after 9/11 (I was not even sure if I would be able to get across the border when I was leaving because the border was sealed for a while) and I drove some quaint village, at dusk, where a small crowd gathered to hold a vigil with lit candles for the victims. It made me cry so hard I had to stop for a bit because I could not see where I was going.
There is a big soft spot in my heart for Vermont.
Sue
Favorite magnets on the fridge..."A clean house is a sign of a misspent life" and "Housework done properly can kill you"...that's me in a nutshell.
Penny
I'm with Sue, Alena and Nancy.
No magnets on my fridge, though, instead I worked a cross-stitch sampler on Binca that says 'Boring women have immaculate homes'.
Of course, it took quite a while to do...... which was a good excuse for not doing borin' ole housework.
Rationalisation is used here more frequently than microfibre cloths.
And, yes, my house is a MESS. Dust Bunnies??? Mine look like musk oxen..
Kim from Milwaukee
I'm another kindred spirit, Nancy. There are just too many more pressing things to do than clean house (which is never done). My house is relatively uncluttered but most definitely not spotless, and I wouldn't use the 5 seconds rule in my kitchen since I have 3 cats. :)
I love your phrase 'modern humans seem to be the only species that creates substances that never decompose'. I'm hoping in my lifetime we get back to basics and stop cluttering our planet with things that don't break down and nourish Mother Earth.
Nancy
I knew you all were out there! Thanks for pokin' your heads up above the dust bunnies to say Hi! And apparently you're all the kind who read the comments too. It's become a favorite pastime of mine. Probably since leaving Facebook. It's quite entertaining and I learn a lot. That's how I learned about spagyric.
Alena, I'm a transplant from Long Island but I've been here 40 years and it's definitely where I belong. Feel like I probably lived here before...before it was Vermont.
Love the magnet slogans Sue! Definitely agree!
And Kim, yes, I'm hoping for that too. I'm a recycling Nazi and my roommate is learning so there's always hope.
As a tree hugging, dirt worshipping Pagan I'm always on the side of the Great Mother but' She's too big to fail, it's us that needs saving.
Rock on, ladies!
Laura
I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I bet I spend 2 hours a day cleaning. I'm obsessive about it, and living with 5 indoor dogs means I have to stay on top of it. Plus it's therapeutic! I visited my sister a couple weeks ago and voluntarily swept and mopped her kitchen and LOVED IT. I'm a psycho. And I do love vacuum marks but I never have any because I had to get rid of all carpets and rugs. Again thanks to my dogs. 🙄
Thera
30/day dishes/kitchen/foyer
30 mins weekly scrub
30 mins laundry/week
5 mins a day cleaning up bathroom
30 mins weekly scrub
15 week washing floors/vacuuming
30 mins week cleaning stairs (white rug, black cat hair, rental)
5 mins a day making bed/tidying room
10 mins a day tidying entire house
15 mins week on mirrors/windows/walls/face plates/vents
10 mins a day for animals
App 3-4 hours a week and I have 3 teens, 2 cats, a dog and a turtle
*Not including cooking app 1 hour a day which would add 7 hours a week
Jaine kunst
I do laundry, make the bed, vacuum 1-2 times a month, clean my bathroom once a week and sometimes cook. I do spring cleaning which consists of wiping the pollen from the window wells and wiping down all the wood floors. But we're empty nesters and we have separate bathrooms and when I just don't feel like it I go to the barn and muck my horses stall. I like doing that better than cleaning my home.
About that centipede, Karen. Several years ago in my former very old house, I tried to kill a centipede scurrying around on my bedroom wall. They're fast little suckers. Well, he got away and I knew he was in there somewhere just waiting to crawl over me as I was sleeping. I packed my bag and went to a hotel. And if I see one in this house, I will do the same. I HATE centipedes!!