I am curious to know how often people clean their houses or apartments around here, especially those who are single. I have been given some **** about how I rarely clean my house. I do know that I need to do a better job of keeping it clean, and I have set a goal of doing cleaning once a week. But I think that most single guys really don't give a rip about keeping a place clean ALL THE TIME (one of the people giving me **** has an obsessive compulsive cleaning disorder). Probably should do a poll for this but I am too lazy to put one up.
I'm about to freak some people out... I have OCD. I clean my apartment EVERY DAY. This includes vacuuming the entire two-story apartment and getting on my hands and knees and scrubbing both bathrooms and kitchens from floor to ceiling with Pine-Sol. I also use Pine-Sol to clean all of the wooden furniture in my apartment (entertainment center, computer desk, etc.). I use windex on my dining room glass top (which I've never eaten at in 5 years of ownership), my glasstop coffee table, glasstop end tables, my laptop, all of my TVs (not the HDTV, I'm too scared to screw it up). I do this daily. I'm 27. I'm single. I have a disease.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....?! I clean whenever my girlfriend starts getting upset about the state of my stuff. I guess I just don't have the sensor which tells me something is messy... or at least it's not as sensitive. What I find "clean" she finds to be disgusting but really... I just can't "see" it. That's men for you.
Growing up we cleaned our house every 2-3 weeks. When I moved into my first apartment I cleaned the bathroom every couple of weeks, but i never dusted. I just waited for it to get thick enough then I rolled it up like they roll up the tarps in baseball and threw it in the garbage. After I got married my wife and I cleaned every few weeks. When we moved into our house we hired a lady to come over every other week and take care of things. She is wonderful, I don't have to do any cleaning, except laundry and dishes. Also, one of my best friends has OCD, he has to have his vacuum lines perfectly straight and they have to match. When they are coming over and my wife is giving the carpets a touch up she purposely makes funny designs to see if he says anything. He did the first few times(nothing derogatory, he just joked about it) then he found out we were doing it on purpose so now he just lets it go.
Same way with my house. A therapist once told me that I may have OCD when I went on a camping trip with them and freaked out about how dirty everything was, especially my hands. I hate when my hands are dirty, have hangnails, dry, etc. I wash clothes and towels almost every other day and washing sheets and the like at least once a week is a must.
once the flies gather at the garbage, cleaning time. however, the extent of my cleaning time...put the 5 foot by 5 foot pile of trash into the garbage bin outside...sweep the rest of the smelly stuff into the hall...go back to sleep.
I turned like this after I graudated college. Until then I was the biggest slob. We would have rats in our apartment in college b/c my roommate and I were too lazy to take the multiple trash bags that piled up at the doorway out to the dumpster. And Castor, I too am very touchy about my carpet lines. I make sure to tread in the same area daily, in order to keep the carpet lines straight and perfect. This is why I hate when people come to my apartment and try to keep people from ever coming over, even friends. I feel like I have to sanitize the place when anyone comes over. And this takes well over an hour.
I have a maid service come twice per month to do the big stuff - kitchen, bathroom, floors. With wood floors and a bunch of cats, it is tough to keep them constantly clean. I try to just pick things up as they happen - put dishes in the sink, throw clothes in the laundry basket, put things away. I am a pretty messy person by nature so it is tough sometimes. I make messes very slowly, though, so I can manage them. Now, if I could just get my desk to be clean! By the way, if you want a good and not terribly expensive service in Houston, try Maid in the Shade - http://www.cleanthis.com/ . They are awesome.
drapg, I am seriously thinking about buying you a round trip ticket from Houston (or wherever you are) to Nashville, picking you up at the airport, driving you to my house, and then letting you go to work!
My wife and I are pretty sloppy and up until now we've blamed it on not having enough storage space, so there was no place to put anything. However, we've just bought a new bigger house so that excuse is out the window. We'll see how it goes.
I was clothes every sunday and while I'm washing clothes, I also clean the house. Do dishes, clean the bathroom, sweep... I usually do the dishes twice a week (manual washing, no dishwasher)....
I keep the place picked up during the week and vacuum/dust on the weekend. Occasionally bring in a maid, if company is coming unexpected. They usually run for around 100 bucks though. Once a month, do an overhaul. Oh by the way, I'm married so I can't be a slob like some of you.
I also do laundry every three days, just b/c sweaty gym clothes laying in my hamper do for prolonged periods of time do not make for a nice atmosphere.
I'm fairly messy. I would like to be a little cleaner but there just is not any time. Especially this semester. If you saw my office right now most of you would run screaming. There's a lot of stuff on the floor, unfiled papers, overflowing recycling box, etc. And my house is worse, because you have a lot of dust there. And there is someone else who lives there... and is supposed to be responsible for most of the cleaning... but he doesn't make it much of a priority. We just hope nobody comes over. We manage to keep obviously "gross" stuff like old food, etc., from sitting out on the counter, to keep the roaches to a minimum. But you can probably scoop up a few dust bunnies at any given point. Also, remind me not to put up Christmas decorations next year. I may not have to. They may still be up from last year at this rate. The thing is that I am absolutely maxed out schedule-wise right now. (why am I posting? because I had a few minutes' break at work) I'm teaching almost 18 hours when you're supposed to teach 12. We're about to present some research at a conference, plus I have several music commitments. I'm normally busy, but this is beyond normal. When I go home and I'm this tired, I say "screw it" and lie down comfortably in the middle of the mess. Looking at it and thinking about cleaning it up only makes me more tired. so, there went all your stereotypes about women... they don't have to be neat. In fact, I've never been great about it - there are always just more important things to do than clean all day - but it was a messy female roommate that really changed my habits for the worse. Yes, there are some worse than I am.
