How neat and tidy do you keep your home?

[Anonymous]

If someone dropped by unexpectedly, would you be embarrassed by the mess in your house or are things always kept pretty clean? I would be embarrassed. It seems like I work really, really hard to keep my house clean and organized, but it's always a mess and it's kind of dirty too. Even though I do the dishes every day, they always pile up on the counters. I'm constantly wiping up coffee grounds and food chunks in the microwave and on the oven top - still, it looks like I never clean. Have you ever seen that show, "Take Home Chef?" I'm always amazed that when he picks up random women in the grocery store and goes home with them, their houses are always immaculate. Sometimes I think how mortified I'd be if I took him into to my kitchen - and it was televised! yikes

We have piles of "stuff" everywhere - junk mail, newspapers, receipts, books, boxes, Birthday cards, magazines, DVDs, toys, laundry, etc. We don't have a good place to put things like our stroller, car seat, my purse, laptop, keys, cell phone chargers, etc so this stuff always crowds our family room and spare surfaces. Most of the time, you can't see the surface of our coffee table and end tables.

My husband says everyone lives this way, but I disagree. How do you live?

[Anonymous]

Would I be embarrassed? God, yes. You are definitely not alone!

[Anonymous]

We definitely used to live this way. Now we don't. Why is that? Well, we moved abroad and could afford to have someone come in the house everyday for 4 hours. Crazy, huh?

[Anonymous]

My house is sounds like yours. People pop by I feel embarassed but at least our house looks like it is lived in. My neighbors house doesn't look like she has kids that live there I have no idea how she does it.

[Anonymous]

It's a mess.

I've never seen the show but I'd bet $100 that a cleaning crew goes into every home before the TV crew...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We definitely used to live this way. Now we don't. Why is that? Well, we moved abroad and could afford to have someone come in the house everyday for 4 hours. Crazy, huh?

This is my dream, my absolute dream.

[Anonymous]

Drop-in visitors are one of my greatest fears, I'd have to introduce them to the dust bunnies by name!

[Anonymous]

Our house is pretty clean - we have cleaning people who come every 2 weeks and my husband is a clean freak, so he is always cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms. But we do have a decent amount of clutter. Our dining room table has stuff on it, as does the hutch in our living room. However, the coffee table and end tables in the living room are clean. Our basement is filled with toys, but we just had another room finished so we can use that as a playroom which should get rid of some of the clutter. I think we are in the middle - not really neat, but not too cluttered. I do have a friend whose house is always perfect and that is a little intimidating - it looks like it is out of a Pottery Barn catalogue, and you would even know she had a 2 year old! I have dropped in unexpectedly on her, too, and it is still like that, so I know she doesn't only keep it neat when she is having people over!

[Anonymous]

Ours is a disaster. Every place we've ever lived has been this way and it doesn't seem to matter how big or small it is. If someone were to drop by I'd cringe. There always seem to be little things EVERYWHERE - scraps of paper, assorted small packaged food items, etc. We keep throwing out stuff, don't seem to buy anything, but more crap keeps invading our home. Let's not even mention the paperwork.

Our first baby is coming soon and I hope we can straighten up before then! It was funny in college but not so much anymore...

[Anonymous]

I make a conscious effort to tidy up every night before I go to bed, because visible clutter bugs me. So while the papers are always in a neat stack, and the dishes are always put away, the actual cleaning doesn't get done as often as I'd like. Can't run the vacuum cleaner while the wee one is sleeping, and it sucks to spend weekend time doing it, when I want to be playing. If you were to drop by unexpectedly, you'd find the place pretty nice on a first glance... then you'd see the dusty corners, the mound of shoes under the hall table, and the spotty table cloth that should have been washed last weekend but somehow wasn't...

[Anonymous]

It's a daily battle against the mess! We invite people over occasionally, in part because we HAVE to clear the obvious clutter and do some real cleaning. In the meantime, I try to keep our dining room uncluttered so I can sit in there with unexpected visitors. I keep the kitchen counters relatively clean and try not to let dishes stack up in the sink because I feel more sane that way, but paper really stacks up around here with two kids in elementary school. Our family room floor is usually covered with toys, but our au pair puts them away after the kids are off to school in the morning, so at least we can walk through there during the day. I work full-time, but often from home, so I'm tempted to leave my computer and clean or declutter, but feel like I have to stay on task, so even though I'm here, stuff still builds up. We would love to hire someone to clean, but can't afford it. My husband is responsible for vaccuuming and washing floors, cleaning our shared shower, cleaning up the kitchen at night or after I've cooked for guests, keeping up with the incoming mail (including handling all financial stuff), and doing his own laundry. I keep the surfaces as uncluttered as I can, do the dusting, wash the tubs and sinks, and deal with the kids' stuff (toys, clothes, school papers).

I get some ideas from flylady.net, so you might want to check that out if you've never seen it.

[Anonymous]

Forget neat. I just make sure that it is not a fire hazard or a culture plate...it is safe, never neat.

[Anonymous]

Our house used to be a mess until we put it on the market this spring. We've been in the house for over 6 years and we really needed to declutter. We tossed everything we could and spent three full weekends going room by room, closet by closet, drawer by drawer. In the end, we had a super-clean house with a place for everything. Maintaining the house hasn't been nearly as difficult as I thought it would. My husband and I do a quick clean up every night (15-20 mins.) after the kids are asleep, and we have finally established a quick morning clean up routine (making the beds, wiping down the counters in the kitchen/bathroom). We do a deep clean every weekend. Granted, we HAD to do this b/c realtors and potential buyers could walk through our home at anytime. Now that we've sold our home (yay!), I hope that we can keep up with our new housekeeping regimen. I have to say, coming home from work each day to a clean home has had a tremendous calming effect on me and the rest of my family. Even my 4-year-old has caught on -- he's much better about cleaning up after himself and putting his toys away.

[Anonymous]

My house is clean and presentable for about 8 hours a day - between the hours of 11pm (after the kids are in bed and I finish cleaning) and 730am (when the kids wake up and the daily "tornado" zips through the house.

[Anonymous]

I think my house is like poster 11:29's house. The crazy thing is I used to feel that our house was so dirty and we just started having a cleaning person (it is wonderful!), she comes every 2 weeks and now I start to feel that may be too often, i.e. house does not need cleaning yet. Could also be that this coincided with our dog dying
The paper war on the other hand has completely overwhelmed me. I dream of getting that filing done but life always happens. I used to be better before having a baby!