It takes my cleaning lady 5 hours to clean our house. Do you have that kind of time/stamina on top of all the other things you already do? Have your mom cook and hire cleaning people. Your mom already sees it all so what privacy are you talking about?

What work me: be militant about no food outside of the kitchen/dining room. Vacuum 1-2 times a week (always Sunday night, sometimes Wednesday evening if get my act together). This forces me to tidy the floor at least once a week which does wonders for making everything feel cleaner. Get the kids involved — mine love shrieking and pretending the vacuum cleaner is a monster and actually ask clean. If you’re keeping food out of the kids’ room(s) let it be a mess most of the time. Bathrooms when the need it (this is hardest for me but I aim for every two weeks).

Don’t force yourself to do a deep clean every time you see things being a bit messy. Aim for one 10-15 minute task at a time. Ask your mother to help with a quarterly deep clean. Ask her to teach you and the kids how to do it well. You’ll feel so much better knowing how to keep your living space tidy and will be able to help your mom with her space when she gets too old/infirm to do it all herself.

Op it sounds like it's time to be a grown-up. Maybe your mom can teach you how to clean.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I would say I don't mind my mom to help out once she retires and she is bored to stuck at home for doing nothing. Cooking and house cleaning is difficult for me because my parents did everything for me growing up. I did not move out till I married my husband. I suddenly had to do all these without anyone showing how to do all this and that. My parents helped me a lot, and they helped me to take take of each kids for 2.5 years, in total of 5 years. I just feel bad for letting my mom to do these house cleaning and cooking at age 65 even paying her. My husband is another problem because he can't communicate with my mom. There is some cultural and communication problem here.

Let me guess. Asian princess married whitey?

Sounds like "whitey" is a prince too since he apparently "can't" clean either.

We do it with house cleaners. They come twice a month. Between those visits I do laundry almost daily. I vacuum every few days. I wipe down the kitchen nightly. I will do a quick wipe of toilets and sinks once a week. None of it takes more than 20 minutes at a time and is done in the evenings throughout the week.

But it is noticeably different after the cleaners come. That type of clean would take about 4 hours probably and really needs to be done all at once, top to bottom of the house (which is why we pay).

My DH is also opposed to hiring a housecleaner for various reasons that I think are dumb, but it's not the hill I choose to die on. It helps that he's also very good and thorough at cleaning, and committing to doing deep cleans (while I'm better at keeping the place tidy on a day to day basis). And most importantly we live in a very small apartment! <1000 sq ft, and it works for us and is so much easier to maintain. Even when we travel and stay in a bigger house the mess just accumulates so much faster over such a large area it gets overwhelming.

We have two kids, 7 and 4. They share a room and honestly it's a mess most of the time. We make them clear the floor so we can vacuum once every couple of weeks, and we change their sheets weekly, but other than that it's kind of up to them if they want to sleep in a bed full of toys or whatever.

We vacuum the whole place once per week. We deep clean the kitchen once per week or thereabouts. Same with the bathroom, although sometimes I realize it's been weeks since the area behind the toilet or something has been wiped down. vacuum under the kitchen table most evenings with one of those light cordless vacuums that aren't a beast to pull out and navigate.

My husband tends to put things in piles to clear the table for dinner or whatever, I tend to be the one who puts those piles away (e.g. books go back on the bookshelf). We don't go to sleep every night to a clean apartment but I like to think one person can make the place look good and decluttered for guests in well under an hour.

We cook a lot but really basic stuff. We do laundry throughout the week, and because there's no place to store clean laundry in such a small apartment we have to fold and put it away as we go. That part takes 15 minutes, tops. One of us usually dumps the clean laundry on the bed and sorts into piles by person/theme, the other usually puts the clothes away.

One big grocery trip on the weekend and lots of filling-in-the-gaps as needed on our way home from work, or sometimes I'll go early in the morning before the rest of the family wakes up (I actually love that). The store is 5 minutes away on foot. My husband can carry a huge amount home, I will carry home a bag here and there.

Kids help carry groceries (a small amount, but it helps!), they are OK about cleaning their toys but we do often do it for them after they go to bed, which I know isn't great.

No lawn to maintain.

Are you carving out body parts of living people and selling them on the black market? Do you have a sweatshop in your basement? What's going on in your house that you don't want someone to clean it?

When you and DH cook, cook larger portions so you can eat leftovers and save money on takeout.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I would say I don't mind my mom to help out once she retires and she is bored to stuck at home for doing nothing. Cooking and house cleaning is difficult for me because my parents did everything for me growing up. I did not move out till I married my husband. I suddenly had to do all these without anyone showing how to do all this and that. My parents helped me a lot, and they helped me to take take of each kids for 2.5 years, in total of 5 years. I just feel bad for letting my mom to do these house cleaning and cooking at age 65 even paying her. My husband is another problem because he can't communicate with my mom. There is some cultural and communication problem here.

Let me guess. Asian princess married whitey?

Ding ding

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I would say I don't mind my mom to help out once she retires and she is bored to stuck at home for doing nothing. Cooking and house cleaning is difficult for me because my parents did everything for me growing up. I did not move out till I married my husband. I suddenly had to do all these without anyone showing how to do all this and that. My parents helped me a lot, and they helped me to take take of each kids for 2.5 years, in total of 5 years. I just feel bad for letting my mom to do these house cleaning and cooking at age 65 even paying her. My husband is another problem because he can't communicate with my mom. There is some cultural and communication problem here.

Oh Boy. OP- time to be an adult.

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I would say I don't mind my mom to help out once she retires and she is bored to stuck at home for doing nothing. Cooking and house cleaning is difficult for me because my parents did everything for me growing up. I did not move out till I married my husband. I suddenly had to do all these without anyone showing how to do all this and that. My parents helped me a lot, and they helped me to take take of each kids for 2.5 years, in total of 5 years. I just feel bad for letting my mom to do these house cleaning and cooking at age 65 even paying her. My husband is another problem because he can't communicate with my mom. There is some cultural and communication problem here.

Let me guess. Asian princess married whitey?

Op here. I would say I don't mind my mom to help out once she retires and she is bored to stuck at home for doing nothing. Cooking and house cleaning is difficult for me because my parents did everything for me growing up. I did not move out till I married my husband. I suddenly had to do all these without anyone showing how to do all this and that. My parents helped me a lot, and they helped me to take take of each kids for 2.5 years, in total of 5 years. I just feel bad for letting my mom to do these house cleaning and cooking at age 65 even paying her. My husband is another problem because he can't communicate with my mom. There is some cultural and communication problem here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH is responsible for grocery shopping on Monday evening. I am responsible for drop off/pick up 2 kids and taking them to classes. DH cooks once a week, and I try to cook 2 times a week for dinner. We spend too much money on carry outs. I try to do laundry on weekend, one load for kids, and one load for us. No one really clean the house, and I mean kids don't clean up after themselves because they will play next day. We pay someone to take care of mowing lawn. There has been no snow, no need to shovel in dmv area. If we need car repair/maintenance, we pay someone.

I really need someone to clean the house. We don't want other people to come in to do this job for privacy reasons. I feel bad that my mom offers to help me to clean and cook for us daily once she retires in a few months. She is 65. I can 't let her do that. I need house cleaning 101, how often and how long does it take should kitchen be cleaned, refrigerator be cleaned, bed sheet washed, hardwood floor mopped, carpet floor vaccumed, furnitures to be wiped, etc.. once I figure it out, I will assign some tasks to DH to do. I am not good at house cleaning and I hate it so much. However, we need to make it work.

Does your mom really want to help with housecleaning? Because if she does, you should let her. Retirement kills people who don't stay active, and housecleaning is a terrific way to stay physically fit if you are doing it correctly. Unless she has other plans to move her body and stay physically fit in retirement, working as your housekeeper could be a great means to keep her from the typical sedentary existence in retirement that shortens so many lives. You should, of course, pay her the same you would pay a stranger - that solves the issue of privacy and will also give her more opportunities to grandma your kids.

This is really true! I don’t think it’d work for every family because it takes communication and expectation setting to make sure mom isn’t being taken advantage of and family isn’t feeling intruded upon. But my incredibly long lived Grandma (103 and counting) was always an insatiable house cleaning machine and it kept her very mobile. She would clean her entire house then come over to my parents and beg to fold their laundry and sweep. Lol. I practically never saw her without a laundry basket. She really would not have had it any other way. It was like this until well into her 90s. Now, in her mid and late 90s she slowed down considerably and is more sedentary but even now she still walks (with a walker) and qualifies for assisted living which is excellent at her age.

I think if you go this route you need to set time limits like try it 6 months and reevaluate and you need to either offer to pay her or agree to take her on some nice vacations. We never paid my grandma but my parents have done other things like manage finances, properties etc etc

Cleaning people once a week changed my life. I don't scrub any accumulated dirt anymore. Certainly still wipe spills and sweep if needed.
We do laundry nearly every day with 2 kids. Easier to do a load and fold in 10 min than make it a big chore. Sheets are every two weeks and towels once a week or so. I do all the house towels at once.
Key has been having fewer sheet and towel sets in rotation, forces you to wash things. Kids and i do a 10 quick pickup sessions every other day of toys etc. also pickup before cleaners come.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Privacy reasons?wtf

They have a dungeon in the basement

DH is into BDSM

Get over your privacy issues and hire a cleaning person every 2 weeks. I never clean bathrooms, dust anything, or clean my oven, microwave etc.
I vacuum our main level every other day. I wipe down countertops in kitchen daily after meals and do laundry pretty lunch all the time. I’ll put a load in the washer before bed then when I get up I love to the dryer. Take out and put away after work.
My kid is 11 and puts her own laundry away and empties the dishwasher.
I don’t make any dinners that take more than 15 mins. Tonight we’re having cheese/spinach tortellini with broccoli in Alfredo sauce. Takes about 10 mins total.
Rotisserie chicken is your friend.