WOHM - how do you keep your home orderly?

[Anonymous]

I'm a part-time WOHM and I'm having a hard time keeping our home orderly. I'm overwhelmed with laundry, toys, pets and just stuff. I'm able to keep the home clean (mop floor once a week, scrub bathrooms weekly, kitchen is clean/no dishes etc.), but it always seems messy. DH suggested hiring a housecleaner, but I just need help with organizing and putting away things, not necessarily cleaning. My child is too young to help and DH only helps once in a while (after lots of begging). I can't relax when the home is in disarray and it bothers me so much.

How do other WOHM do it? Please give me some ideas/suggestions. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Could a housekeeper do the mopping and bathroom-scrubbing, which would free you up to tackle laundry and getting things put away?

Could more things go to the dry cleaners? I no longer do my husband's shirts -- Zips will wash and press them for under $2, and my time is certainly worth that (especially since ironing takes forever and is so tedious.)

Toys: get baskets and just toss everything in. My son makes a gigantic mess of his toys, but it generally takes 5 minutes or less to clean up the living room & playroom because we don't have a complex organization system. Just one bin for plastic toys and one for stuffed animals.

GL! I know its frustrating to live in a messy house, but for the next couple of years you may have to lower your standards a bit.

[Anonymous]

You should def get someone to help clean at least every other week. I find it's so much easier to keep it clean when there's a fresh start every two weeks. But as for daily clean-up, we have a number of baskets, containers for the various toys. e.g. a basket for all the train stuff, a basket for the big legos, etc. And they're in a corner in the living room, a corner in the den for them. nothing fancy. And DH and I take turns each night who puts the kids to bed and the other one is in charge of cleaning up the toys (throwing them in their basket) and generally straightening up. I have a nanny who helps with the kids laundry. For ours, I try to stick to the same day or two a week and tend to fold during the kids half hour of tv. Then I'm still sitting with them but getting something done too. Hope that helps a bit. I'm starting to learn that it's about keeping up with it nightly so cleaning up doesn't get overwhelming.

[Anonymous]

FRANK conversation with spouse is also in order. Tell him it makes YOU feel stressed and you need him to pitch in more on this stuff. He might not be bothered by it, but it bothers you, so if it makes him feel better to view his efforts as helping you relax rather than being forced to pick up what he doesn't deem a mess, he might "get it" a bit more.

I've had the same talk with my husband, and I had to make clear to him that THIS STUFF DRIVES ME CRAZY AND MAKES ME AGITATED...so if you want calmer wife, start helping. And he did.

[Anonymous]

Thank you everyone for your ideas. I have spoken to my husband about this, but maybe I should be more FRANK like PP suggested. I'm so tired in the evenings that I can hardly function, let alone read a book, watch TV etc. I feel like I'm working non-stop. I get up at 5:00 AM, have coffee, walk the dog, clean up a bit, child wakes up, breakfast, out the door for activities, lunch, then go to work until 9:00 pm, get home, clean up, laundry, bed at midnight. My husband is a bit of a pack rat and he leaves stuff scattered everywhere. I'm not much better (at the moment), but it is because I'm so overwhelmed. I never used to be like this. I'm normally very very organized and I like minimal stuff. I do not have this problem at work. In fact, everyone comments on how organized and neat I am. It is sooo frustrating. I miss having some 'me time', just reading a book.

I'm going to look into a cleaning lady twice monthly to see if that will help.

[Anonymous]

I would recommend a cleaning service because bathroo
and heavy duty cleaning is time consuming. But for the day to day, a couple of things help me: first, I am a huge fan of toy bins. We have one in kitchen, our room, family room, etc. Second, before bedtime or switching activities, clean up the toys. And third, I don't leave a room empty handed. For example, when I leave the kitchen to go upstairs, I'll take my shoes and kids dirty socks from the hallway. When I go downstairs, in the a.m. I will take my coffee cup and magazines that I read to bring down to the kitchen and recycle bin it's basically cleaning as you go!

[Anonymous]

You might want to also spend a few hours and reorganize some things that will allow for easier storage, and get into a good rhythm of cleaning. Spend 30 minutes every night on one particular area. Also having a basket or some area for your husband to keep all his "stuff" would declutter the home, just make him go through it weekly and toss what he doesn't really need. If you both can devote 30ish minutes a day to housework, you'd be surprised how much you can get done!

[Anonymous]

I also highly recommend a cleaning person every 2 weeks. She does much more than clean. While it forces me to pick up everything before she comes (usually takes me 4 hours), she beautifully arranges things and it makes such a difference. Somehow the house looks so beautiful after she's been here, and like another said, helps start fresh every 2 weeks.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm like you. I get VERY stressed when the house is out of order, and unless I'm sick, I can't go to bed unless things are at least mostly under control.

What I've done is to get a monthly cleaning person for the big jobs that I hate doing (dusting, floors, etc). I do vacuum in between and surface cleans, but I don't do deep cleans anymore.

The MOST important thing I do to keep things organized is to recognize when something is a problem (ie things that are somewhere with no home or that need a better home) and I go buy a bin or drawers or whatever solution is needed. I definitely don't have minimal stuff, although I'd like to, but keeping things neat and put away helps my state of mind immensely.

Good luck. And start small, pick one thing to organize at a time.

[Anonymous]

Oh lord, do I feel your pain. My DH is also a pack rat, and I swear can't throw anything away. If you could have seen the purge he did before he moved into my place when we got married!

I am pretty ruthless about throwing things away. We have a housekeeper come every other week. DH does the dishes, takes out the trash, picks up toys in the living room - dishes are daily, the rest as needed. He also does his own laundry, and fortunately, I've finally got him pitching in on doing DC's laundry and linens, on occasion. (Now I'm feeling really lucky considering how far he's come.) I totally get how you feel, but one thing I have learned since DC was born - I have to let it go. I'm getting better at it. But it doesn't do anyone any good if I am just pissed all the time about how the house looks or how cluttered it is. So it's not perfect, but it's not a total pigpen either. Having the housekeeper come every other week does help keep things from completely going to hell!

[Anonymous]

I made it my life's work to get my house under control a few years ago. I am absolutely ruthless about throwing crap away, donating, freecycling, etc. Ruthless. When we get something new and equal number of old things are ejected. ie 2 new shirts for hubby in, 2 old shirts freecycled

I throw out my kid's schoolwork, the vast majority of art, etc.

Before bday and Christmas I purge my daughter's toys and books. I generally give them to friends or freecycle. This year I may sell them, but I don't know if I am up for all the work. If I freecycle or donate, everything is gone in one day.

I keep a huge rubbermaid tub in her closet. When she has outgrown clothes, I wash them, dry them, and put them in the tub as I am putting away her clothing in her room.

I organize as I go. For example, school is out now. My kid wears a uniform to school. I washed and dried all her uniform parts. I folded them and put her uniforms that still fit in her designated uniform drawer. I took the pieces that don't fit and put them in a pre designated place so I can grab them when I need to go to the uniform swap. I don't have to think about them until back to school time. The week before school I will try them on her to make sure everything still fits. If I did not spend 15 minutes separating and stowing, it would take me hours to dig through all her clothes to find all the pieces in a couple months. Now I am done.

I took her backpack, emptied it, washed it, and hung it up to dry on its designated hook so I will know right where it is on the first day of school.

I cleaned out our homework station and set it up for next year.

I asked my husband to help repeatedly. Gave him specific requests, the whole bit. Doesn't work. I assigned him set tasks to do daily and weekly. So much easier.

I have a weekly house cleaner and a yard service. My husband could dick around in the yard for a year doing nothing in order to avoid doing stuff he doesn't like. I gave him the yard service as a present.

I still have a long way to go, but I am sooooo much better than I used to be.

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP that the less stuff there is, the easier and saner pick up will be. So consider a big goodwill purge (or a stoop sale) and get rid of anything you are not using often. Recycle anything you're not reading. Give away any clothes that are too small for you, baby, anyone.

You need to assign some specific stuff to your DH. What worked for us was defining very specific things that he'd be responsible for, things I don't need to redo, because they are done or not done and his job is to done them. His responsibilites are dishes (loading dishwasher, unloading dishwasher, making sure there is not a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, baby bottles washed and sterilized each night) and getting trash and recycling out the door. My job is laundry and dry cleaning. We have a housekeeper in once a week for scrubbing, bathrooms, vaccuuming.

Spend a weekend thinking about how physically things are laid out. Do you need a larger trash can? Do you have a place to dump recycling until pick up days? Do you have a place to hang up air drying laundry out of the way? Do you spend a lot of time running loads back and forth from location to location? Is it a lot of trips up and down stairs to put away toys? Think about where physically it's difficult. We got a recycling system, and put the trash bags on the ground next to it, so that getting recycling out is easier. I hung up next to baby's hamper, some lingerie bags for his little socks, bibs, etc. I keep plastic hangers specifically for hanging up air drying laundry in the plastic laundry bin. We have an envelope on the coat closet where all outgoing mail goes. These little tasks can end up very time consuing, so try to set up a system that makes it as streamlined and efficient as possible.

[Anonymous]

Can you send the laundry out to get done? Some people here rave about the Wishy Washy.

I'd use them in a second if I had the money!



http://www.wishywash.com

[Anonymous]

Hiring a cleaning lady was one of the best decisions we ever made - she comes twice a week and, as another poster mentioned, the cleaning and straightening really make the house feel organized. I'm also a fan of bins - for toys, for stuff cluttering up the bathroom, etc.

We also just did a major decluttering, organizing and labeling things we truly want to keep so we can find them again and donating or selling the rest. There may be other charities that do this, but Vietnam Veterans of America will come to your house to pick up - we'd been meaning to go to Goodwill but with work schedules just hadn't found the time to do it. It was so nice to be able to just put things outside on pick up day and come home to find them gone.

[Anonymous]

My DD is 19 months and I have felt overwhelmed for a long time. I couldn't figure out where to begin. We finally hired a housecleaner to come twice a month. Ya know what - that actually made a difference in other areas of my life. I had been disorganized before, but I had to get organized before the cleaner's came the first time - at least get things picked up. That first time took me a while to get organized - but boy has it been worth it. Now, the cleaners come on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month. Between that time, the house might get a little cluttered - but not badly and it hardly takes any time to pick it up before the cleaners come.

The great thing about it? First, I feel like a HUGE weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I've actually been able to start decluttering a bit and working on other projects that before I felt frozen on. Second, I now actually invite people to my home. Before, I was mortified if anyone came over unannounced. If I invited anyone, I would spend hours and hours the night before cleaning and felt exhausted. Now, I host a movie night with our friends every Wed night. I invite neighbors to "come on in" when I see them. I honestly feel like a new person.

Also, I only do laundry once every 10 days - 2 weeks or so. Unless there have been a lot of messes. DD has more clothes than I know what to do with, so that helps. I'm stocked up on underwear, etc. I have a lot of towels, extra sheets, etc.

I've had to tighten down on the budget to have the cleaning people, but it has been so worth it. My fantasy is some day (some year) to have cleaning people come in weekly. But, I'll take the twice a month.