How clean is your home on any given day?

TriciaChick

I feel like I am always cleaning up cleaning up cleaning up....it seems like  a never ending battle.  Me against 4 boys...my kids and DH!  The house is never completely trashed but usually about a 3 on a normal day on a scale of 1-10 10 being the messiest.  Dh says I stress too much about it, I would love to learn to just relax about it and enjoy the kids more.  How do you deal with this?  Thank you for any insight!!:)

sunandsand

If 10 was the messiest, mine would be at least a 5. The living room gets picked up daily, and the kitchen gets wiped/dishes done, but theres still laundry in various stages of clean in the hallway upstairs and all over our bedroom floor, the sheets dont get changed as often as they should, and vacuuming needs to happen more. Eh...it is what it is. 

amy05-04

I am in the EXACT same boat!  Boys are messy!  I even have a male dog to throw in the mix!  I would say most days the house is a 5.  I try to keep up with the pick up of toys, etc and I always make sure the kitchen is clean at the end of the day, but everything else is not done regularly.  I do laundry every day but I am never totally caught up.  There are a lot of things that need to be done more, but with 3 kids there are just not enough hours in the day!

gibs

As long as you don't panic if the doorbell rings, and it's presentable enough, shouldn't your kids remember a happy childhood and not a neurotic mom always wiping everything down and straightening up constantly?  now if it's dirty or looks like you should be on Hoarders, you have a real problem.

luckyluvr

gibs:

As long as you don't panic if the doorbell rings, and it's presentable enough, shouldn't your kids remember a happy childhood and not a neurotic mom always wiping everything down and straightening up constantly?  now if it's dirty or looks like you should be on Hoarders, you have a real problem.

I had one of those neurotic moms and it made me never want to play with my toys. She insisted I pick each item up as I finished with it, immediately. I got tired of it and basically looked at my toys instead of playing. That's probably why I don't care too much if I have toys lying around my house all day. As long as most nights they get put away before bedtime, I'm happy.

susan1017

I have a distinction between clean and tidy. These days with a maniac of a 1 year old who is fast as greased lightning, clean is winning but only by a hair. Move all the toys and baby gear and my house is about a 6 under the mess. But, put the toys and stuff on top its about a 5. I'm afraid that makes 11....signing off to go take care of that!

grja

My house is usually very clean (dusted, swept, floors mopped, etc) but its usually messy until after the kids go to bed.

I do find though that if I clean as I go during the week I have more time on the weekends to do family stuff. I used to spend the weekend cleaning and organizing, doing 8 million loads of laundry while dh entertained the kids. Now i do a little each day and my weekends are mostly free now.

Bride2b2004

My house is probably a six out of ten.  I feel like I constantly sweep up, but the LO is a crumb machine and makes messes quicker than I can clean them up.  And my 5 year old is always reaching for a new toy or creating an "invention" somewhere in the house.  Vacuuming is happening pretty regularly because it is easy to stop and start that or do little sections... mopping the hardwood floors, however, is a whole different story!  Right now, I don't really care THAT much because I am pg and the kids are little and out of all things that have to go by the wayside, messy house is okay by me right now.  

Oh, the dishes get done and the counters/tables wiped (eventually) and laundry is clean, but usually laying around the house in various stages of completion (DH throws in laundry but doesn't really fold it, I put it in and fold it but don't carry the baskets upstairs because I am a little clutsy have a fear of falling down the steps-- trying to get through this pg without a fall!) 

joy143dh

If we're talking about cleanliness...  9 out of 10.    I do not like dirty dishes or stains or crumbs or spills that have been ignored.  I clean my counters and sweep the floors after every meal and snack.   If you spill something, you wipe it up immediately.  If you track dirt in, you sweep it right away.  If you splatter toothpaste all over the mirror, I expect that it gets wiped off.   (again, this is in my house.  when I go to someone else's house, I don't care if there are crumbs or dirt or hairballs because *I* don't have to clean it.)

However, if we're talking about TIDYNESS, that's a WHOLE different story.  Upstairs bedrooms would get a 5 out of 10. Clothes are rarely put away in our bedrooms.  Beds are never made in the morning.  The basement playroom looks like a hurricane has hit it and only gets picked up and organized every 2 weeks when it gets a heavy clean.   Our main floor - kitchen & familyroom - gets an 8 out of 10 because I keep it tidy and clear of dishes/papers/toys/random stuff.  Everything has a place on the main floor.  The other floors are a free for all, though.

Mominator

It really depends on the room and the day. I kind of cycle my cleaning so while one day the living room might be clean and picked up, the kitchen will be a disaster and vice versa. I do try to keep the bedrooms at least straightened on a daily basis, but actual cleaning (vacuuming, dusting, etc) happens on a weekly basis and deep cleaning monthly, if that. I'd say if I had to average out the whole house based on daily cleanliness, I'm a 5 at best. And I'm mostly talking about tidiness here more than anything else. I don't like to have a "dirty" house, but at any given time there is "kids stuff" scattered around.