Anonymous wrote:I do not know what people are talking about? If I have a clean house to begin with. Then it is easily 2 hours to JUST MAINTAIN everyday - daily laundry, daily light cleaning of bathrooms, daily making beds and quick vacuum of bedrooms, daily collecting of coffee mugs and such things from each rooms, daily recycling of mail and newspaper, cans, cups, dusting, straightening the living areas, daily watering of indoor and outdoors plants. The cooking, dish washing, cleaning kitchen - another hour

On the weekends - washing the floors, more detailed vacuum. dusting picture frames etc, cleaning cobwebs, cleaning appliances, wiping down cabinets, laundering bedsheets, towels. Cleaning showers, tubs etc. Sorting put pantry, cleaning refrigerators. I am not counting grocery shopping etc - which also takes time.

Those who clean once a week, I want to ask - are you pretty much ignoring everyday messes and living with it? Maybe your laundry piles up? Or your bathroom floors and toilets are a little unclean? I cannot imagine the house being clean for more than 1 day if you have kids. You have to do some cleaning. ANd if you are showering and using the bathrooms, there is no way that it does not require at least a quick wipe down with clorax wipes everyday. So if you are not cleaning everyday you are actually letting your house grow dirtier everyday, until you get down to cleaning it on the weekends.

If you're for real, I think you have ridiculous standards that no one in the entire world appreciates except you. I mean it with kindness...if you did 50% less of this, no one would notice, so I have to conclude you're doing it for your own satisfaction, which is fine, but it doesn't make it necessary.

Why do you need to wash two sets of clothes per person? Does anyone in your house ever wear a T-shirt two days in a row? How about a pair of pants? There is zero need to wash two sets of clothes day if you're past 2 years of age.

What's wrong with throwing a comforter over a bed? Who will come to your house and fine you if your bed isn't made up with sharp corners army-style?

Yes, my laundry piles up. I throw our dirty clothes into the washing machine, when the lid no longer closes, it's time to run it. We have lots of clothes so we don't care.

Daily watering of indoor and outdoor plants will kill them. Plants don't require more than weekly watering. Outdoor plants should not need water except in the heat of summer or right after transplant.

Bathrooms don't NEED a daily chlorox wipedown. You WANT to wipe them down. That's different from need. The only thing I do daily in my bathroom is flush.

Of course the house grows dirtier every day. I have no expectations of sterility of my house. My cleaners come twice a week and do their thing. Between their visits I cook and clean the kitchen after cooking. The dishwasher does the dishes. I mop the floor or vacuum in between their visits only if the dirt is visible (cooking spills or someone tracked dirt from the outside). We are fine.

I have no problem with your incessant cleaning. But you're making it sound like it's a necessity. And it just isn't.

Anonymous wrote:We have a pretty big house too. I always keep up with the kitchen, laundry, and dishes, but I have a cleaning crew of three and it takes them about 3 hours to clean. Unfortunately, it takes my family 5 minutes to mess it up!

Just cleaning your house (not laundry, kitchen and dishes) requires 9 man-hours. This sounds about right.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not know what people are talking about? If I have a clean house to begin with. Then it is easily 2 hours to JUST MAINTAIN everyday - daily laundry, daily light cleaning of bathrooms, daily making beds and quick vacuum of bedrooms, daily collecting of coffee mugs and such things from each rooms, daily recycling of mail and newspaper, cans, cups, dusting, straightening the living areas, daily watering of indoor and outdoors plants. The cooking, dish washing, cleaning kitchen - another hour

On the weekends - washing the floors, more detailed vacuum. dusting picture frames etc, cleaning cobwebs, cleaning appliances, wiping down cabinets, laundering bedsheets, towels. Cleaning showers, tubs etc. Sorting put pantry, cleaning refrigerators. I am not counting grocery shopping etc - which also takes time.

Those who clean once a week, I want to ask - are you pretty much ignoring everyday messes and living with it? Maybe your laundry piles up? Or your bathroom floors and toilets are a little unclean? I cannot imagine the house being clean for more than 1 day if you have kids. You have to do some cleaning. ANd if you are showering and using the bathrooms, there is no way that it does not require at least a quick wipe down with Clorox wipes everyday. So if you are not cleaning everyday you are actually letting your house grow dirtier everyday, until you get down to cleaning it on the weekends.

Bwahahah. Who's got that kind of time? Our house really doesn't get that dirty in between the weekly housekeeper. We do laundry 2x/week at most, sometimes just once depending on what sports season it is. I clean the kitchen after we eat - it takes a few minutes. No one is allowed to leave coffee mugs or food around the house so no collecting required.

It takes at least 2-hour worth of work from me everyday to make it ship-shape.

As for clothes, I wash at least two sets of clothes per person, each day. I have found that doing laundry is not a pain, but folding and putting them in dressers is a pain. And if I do not do laundry everyday, then it is unmanageable.

I cook a lot (at least an hour a day) - because my family is finicky about food. So, cleaning kitchen is a lot more involved than wiping down counters. I have to make sure that the floors are mopped everyday and every few weeks I need to clean the burner and the burner pans with oven cleaner.

I have tried to have my family make beds everyday before they step out of the house - but they do such a poor job (basically, they pull the comforter over the entire bed...ugh!) - that I have to redo it.

I have actually switched to white towels and white bedsheets to make weekly washing easier.

I don't think it is too much work - but cleaning a house (mine is 3500 sq ft minus basement) for me is a couple of hours worth of work - every single day.

I hate to break it to all you haters, but 4000 sf on 3 levels (finished basement) is NOT a McMansion. My house is 4600sf including the basement and it just looks like a run of the mill colonial. Nothing "mansiony" about it. True, it's not a 1200 sf Arlington cape, but a McMansion it is not.

I think 3000 sf up plus 1000 sf in the basement is a "normal" size house for a family with kids.

Some of you have a warped view of what is a big house.

OP here, nope I don't live where you think I do. I live in Canada. Nice try.

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Anonymous wrote:Or, you could have bought a home that was manageable. Why the hell do people think they need these crazy homes?

My thoughts exactly. These are the same people who complain about how much it costs to fill up their escalade. Welcome to planet earth, try thinking about the fact that you share it with other people sometime.

You sound jealous, why not live in a huge house if you can.

Hmmm. Because it's SMARTER to live in a home that doesn't require outsourcing just to do basic things like cleaning and weeding a garden?

I have the feeling you have other people raise your infants also while you Metro an hour each way into DC to slave away at a job that lets you live in a tacky McMansion that Juanita and Marisol poke around in every few days while they are barely lifting a finger to clean.

. congrats, PP. you get a gold medal..for being smug. enjoy your seemingly charming and simple life spent disparaging people's parenting choices and throwing in a good racial stereotype in for good measure. well done!


-owner of a very small house

Not the PP, but I agree with her. A house that big for a couple and two kids is just an albatross. You know they live in some tacky outside-the-beltway mcmansion. Admit it.

last time i drove through bethesda, i saw plenty of monster size homes re-built on small lots. so it isn't just the outburbs.

#1 rule on DCUM - Never talk about your house if it is more than 1800 sq ft. If you aspire to live in a spacious home you aren't worthy of this crowd.

I've lived in a huge home and now, post-divorce am a single parent to two elementary aged kids, living in a 1500 sq. foot house. It sucks! I would kill for some more space. Somewhere to store all of our stuff. There is not enough storage for our clothes or food/kitchen stuff. Much less anything else -- where does one put beach chairs, the cooler, snow shovels, bikes, sports equipment, etc., etc. Every single crevice is full.

I've had the same cleaning lady at both houses and she charges me $20 less in the current house. The old house had a lot of space that did not get used, so the real cleaning was still bathrooms, kitchen, family room, bedrooms. Laundry is not part of the deal. I want her to do the stuff I really don't have time for, or choose not to spend my time on (showers, vacuuming, etc.). I wipe counters every time I'm in the kitchen and keep a dust buster near where we come in the house. I work full time and realize my own limitations. I choose to spend the money on this. I am not entitled or wealthy -- I just think this expense is worth it.

She spent 4 hours total at both houses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or, you could have bought a home that was manageable. Why the hell do people think they need these crazy homes?

My thoughts exactly. These are the same people who complain about how much it costs to fill up their escalade. Welcome to planet earth, try thinking about the fact that you share it with other people sometime.

You sound jealous, why not live in a huge house if you can.

Hmmm. Because it's SMARTER to live in a home that doesn't require outsourcing just to do basic things like cleaning and weeding a garden?

I have the feeling you have other people raise your infants also while you Metro an hour each way into DC to slave away at a job that lets you live in a tacky McMansion that Juanita and Marisol poke around in every few days while they are barely lifting a finger to clean.

OK, now you're the awful one. And I live in a small house and clean it myself.

Anonymous wrote:I do not know what people are talking about? If I have a clean house to begin with. Then it is easily 2 hours to JUST MAINTAIN everyday - daily laundry, daily light cleaning of bathrooms, daily making beds and quick vacuum of bedrooms, daily collecting of coffee mugs and such things from each rooms, daily recycling of mail and newspaper, cans, cups, dusting, straightening the living areas, daily watering of indoor and outdoors plants. The cooking, dish washing, cleaning kitchen - another hour

On the weekends - washing the floors, more detailed vacuum. dusting picture frames etc, cleaning cobwebs, cleaning appliances, wiping down cabinets, laundering bedsheets, towels. Cleaning showers, tubs etc. Sorting put pantry, cleaning refrigerators. I am not counting grocery shopping etc - which also takes time.

Those who clean once a week, I want to ask - are you pretty much ignoring everyday messes and living with it? Maybe your laundry piles up? Or your bathroom floors and toilets are a little unclean? I cannot imagine the house being clean for more than 1 day if you have kids. You have to do some cleaning. ANd if you are showering and using the bathrooms, there is no way that it does not require at least a quick wipe down with clorax wipes everyday. So if you are not cleaning everyday you are actually letting your house grow dirtier everyday, until you get down to cleaning it on the weekends.

Bwahahah. Who's got that kind of time? Our house really doesn't get that dirty in between the weekly housekeeper. We do laundry 2x/week at most, sometimes just once depending on what sports season it is. I clean the kitchen after we eat - it takes a few minutes. No one is allowed to leave coffee mugs or food around the house so no collecting required.

boy there r some real JEALOUS people on here. We bought out house, 4k sq ft, 25 years ago. Back then with zero kids, and being young and fit, I could do it all. Fast foward now where I'm not in the best of shape, 2 kids and tons of activities and home work, I have to hire the cleaning out.

OP, hire someone to clean, and to hell with all the haters on here..let them go roll up in their lil match box and be happy!!! smdh....

I do not know what people are talking about? If I have a clean house to begin with. Then it is easily 2 hours to JUST MAINTAIN everyday - daily laundry, daily light cleaning of bathrooms, daily making beds and quick vacuum of bedrooms, daily collecting of coffee mugs and such things from each rooms, daily recycling of mail and newspaper, cans, cups, dusting, straightening the living areas, daily watering of indoor and outdoors plants. The cooking, dish washing, cleaning kitchen - another hour

On the weekends - washing the floors, more detailed vacuum. dusting picture frames etc, cleaning cobwebs, cleaning appliances, wiping down cabinets, laundering bedsheets, towels. Cleaning showers, tubs etc. Sorting put pantry, cleaning refrigerators. I am not counting grocery shopping etc - which also takes time.

Those who clean once a week, I want to ask - are you pretty much ignoring everyday messes and living with it? Maybe your laundry piles up? Or your bathroom floors and toilets are a little unclean? I cannot imagine the house being clean for more than 1 day if you have kids. You have to do some cleaning. ANd if you are showering and using the bathrooms, there is no way that it does not require at least a quick wipe down with clorax wipes everyday. So if you are not cleaning everyday you are actually letting your house grow dirtier everyday, until you get down to cleaning it on the weekends.

I would live in a 10 000 sq FT house if I could.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or, you could have bought a home that was manageable. Why the hell do people think they need these crazy homes?

My thoughts exactly. These are the same people who complain about how much it costs to fill up their escalade. Welcome to planet earth, try thinking about the fact that you share it with other people sometime.

You sound jealous, why not live in a huge house if you can.

Hmmm. Because it's SMARTER to live in a home that doesn't require outsourcing just to do basic things like cleaning and weeding a garden?

I have the feeling you have other people raise your infants also while you Metro an hour each way into DC to slave away at a job that lets you live in a tacky McMansion that Juanita and Marisol poke around in every few days while they are barely lifting a finger to clean.

Many people live in small homes and still need to outsource these things. The jealous is crazy here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or, you could have bought a home that was manageable. Why the hell do people think they need these crazy homes?

My thoughts exactly. These are the same people who complain about how much it costs to fill up their escalade. Welcome to planet earth, try thinking about the fact that you share it with other people sometime.

+2

Jesus, people. You are not zoo animals. You don't need a habitat of that size for 4 goddamn people.

I bet you have a lot of things you don't NEED. Life is not just about meeting basic needs.