How to make college apartment self-cleaning

[Anonymous]

DS knows how to clean, but his apartment was gross. Other than Clorox tabs in toilet, any suggestion on other self-cleaning items?

[Anonymous]

You can lean in hard on lots of disposable items, and limit how many piece of furniture and objects are in the apartment. You can also get a Roomba for the floors, and avoid lots of fabric items that tend to attract dust/hair/grease (like curtains, pillows, fabric lamp shades, upholstered bed frames, etc.). Just limit the number of surfaces generally, and try to make those surfaces hard and clutter free. Also, there are some cleaning materials that you just spray on and then rinse (lots of shower options for this that will work ok) and that can help if you can get him in the habit of just spraying things down, at least.

You can also sign up to have cleaning supplies delivered periodically instead of having to go replace them as needed, which will help encourage light cleaning.

But the truth is that surfaces in a home need to be wiped down about once a week to not get gross, and that is especially true for young men who tend not to be sufficiently careful to keep things from getting messy, wet, sticky, etc. Wiping down the kitchen and bathroom every few days, even just a very cursory wipe of counters and other hard surfaces with an all purpose spray or wipe, will make a huge difference.

Also, having a system for cleaning floors in the bathroom can be very useful for men, who often tend to shed a lot and will wind up with shave clippings all over the place. If you don't get these swept up regularly, they attract dirt and moisture, and then you wind up with these filthy floors that are genuinely hard to clean.

He has to learn to clean more often, even in a limited way. Doing so will also usually encourage him to be more careful, because he'll realize "oh, if I spill beer on the counter and don't clean it up immediately, it gets sticky and gross very quickly."

You can pay for a cleaning service but then they don't get this feedback and continue to be very messy/sloppy without learning how to clean up after themselves. You're just kicking the can down the road to future roommates and partners.

He has to learn some bare minimum cleaning skills.

[Anonymous]

He needs a girlfriend or boyfriend. Then he'll be motivated to clean.

[Anonymous]

A filthy apartment could be a sign of depression and social isolation.

You could also hire a cleaning service. It won’t teach your kid to be clean but at least the room would be clean.

[Anonymous]

Get him a tentanus shot

[Anonymous]

Molly Maids (or similar) every 2 weeks. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can lean in hard on lots of disposable items, and limit how many piece of furniture and objects are in the apartment. You can also get a Roomba for the floors, and avoid lots of fabric items that tend to attract dust/hair/grease (like curtains, pillows, fabric lamp shades, upholstered bed frames, etc.). Just limit the number of surfaces generally, and try to make those surfaces hard and clutter free. Also, there are some cleaning materials that you just spray on and then rinse (lots of shower options for this that will work ok) and that can help if you can get him in the habit of just spraying things down, at least.

You can also sign up to have cleaning supplies delivered periodically instead of having to go replace them as needed, which will help encourage light cleaning.

But the truth is that surfaces in a home need to be wiped down about once a week to not get gross, and that is especially true for young men who tend not to be sufficiently careful to keep things from getting messy, wet, sticky, etc. Wiping down the kitchen and bathroom every few days, even just a very cursory wipe of counters and other hard surfaces with an all purpose spray or wipe, will make a huge difference.

Also, having a system for cleaning floors in the bathroom can be very useful for men, who often tend to shed a lot and will wind up with shave clippings all over the place. If you don't get these swept up regularly, they attract dirt and moisture, and then you wind up with these filthy floors that are genuinely hard to clean.

He has to learn to clean more often, even in a limited way. Doing so will also usually encourage him to be more careful, because he'll realize "oh, if I spill beer on the counter and don't clean it up immediately, it gets sticky and gross very quickly."

You can pay for a cleaning service but then they don't get this feedback and continue to be very messy/sloppy without learning how to clean up after themselves. You're just kicking the can down the road to future roommates and partners.

He has to learn some bare minimum cleaning skills.

Please don't do this. It's terrible for the environment.

OP, is there a reason you care? I have much better things to worry about than the state of my young adult's bedroom/house/squalor.

[Anonymous]

Most of this age group live like pigs. 4 guys/girls in an apartment doesn't help because you ALWAYS have a dead weight roommate that doesn't do their part. When driving to pickup my kids at college, I would opt for the gas station restroom over their toilet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A filthy apartment could be a sign of depression and social isolation.

You could also hire a cleaning service. It won’t teach your kid to be clean but at least the room would be clean.

Or a sign that you have a teenage boy. Lol!

[Anonymous]

When I was in grad school in a small shared house we handled this problem by sharing the cost of a cleaning service for the common areas and bathrooms and then each remaining separately responsible for our own bedrooms. We also agreed that the person who came to clean for us (who was always the same person) needed to be shown the common courtesy of walking in on a space that was at least tidy and ready to be cleaned, without personal stuff lying all over the place. We didn't want her to have to do our dishes when she was already going to be scrubbing the kitchen. It was a good happy-medium arrangement that kept us from blaming one another for not cleaning the common areas properly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of this age group live like pigs. 4 guys/girls in an apartment doesn't help because you ALWAYS have a dead weight roommate that doesn't do their part. When driving to pickup my kids at college, I would opt for the gas station restroom over their toilet.

+100

[Anonymous]

I bought an inexpensive robot vacuum for around $150 that I have been using for years; bought one for my mother and she loves it, too.

[Anonymous]

Let them live in their own squalor. I don’t even go inside my kid’s college house he shares with seven others. We pull up out front and pick him up when we visit. We socialize at our hotel or a restaurant.

[Anonymous]

Hardwood floors, hard furniture.
Antimicrobial sheets
Mattress covered in bed bug proof cover
Several roo.bas with self emptying function
Tie rental payments to cleanings. Live video proof of monthly cleaning
How a cleaner top teach them how to clean and work along side them

[Anonymous]

Let it go. It’s not your apartment.