I’ve just swept and mopped. Once the floor dries, I could easily go sweep again and turn up more dust and dirt. If I were to mop again, I’m almost certain the water in my bucket would be filthy. It feels like it’s never actually clean.
Beyond that, there’s dusting, cleaning windows, sinks, countertops, bathrooms, and probably things I don’t even consider. How do you all stay on top of these things?
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Define your standard of clean. How much clutter do you want? How much dirt is OK?
Then break tasks up - decluttering, vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and schedule each as often as is needed.tp.mwet the above standards.
My personal standard is to do light vacuuming and decluttering every day. Dishes and cleaning kitchen +dining room at least daily, sometimes twice as needed. Bathroom cleaning and more extensive vacuuming every week. Dusting and mopping every couple weeks.
Most of my non-floor surface cleaning is done with method pink or 409 and microfiber cloths. A battery Dyson vacuum was a game changer and makes touch ups way easier; no wrangling with cords, just grab it off the wall charger and push it around for a few minutes hitting spots you can see dirt.
Nature’s miracle is great for pet or kid messes, I use both the hardwood and carpet formulas.
20"x20" air filter taped to a box fan while you’re cleaning and leave it running for a few hours. Change your HVAC filter.
This seems like an amazing idea. Someone should sell 3d printed adapters for the filters
Clean the worst of it and let the rest be. I try to do a more thorough cleaning spring and fall.
I keep up on my hvac air filters to help with dust, and have a no shoes in the house rule.
wait til’ it gets bad enough to bug me, then clean.
We’re almost there.
I have 2 kids under 3…
laughs maniacally
I can’t believe no one has said this… Don’t wear shoes inside the house.
This will dramatically reduce the griminess of your floors.
Its a big commitment. You’ll prioritise shoes you can just slide your feet into, or at least out of. I still have nice boots and stuff but wear them less often.
My floors are clean and warm enough for me to walk barefoot. I can’t imagine not taking of my shoes at home. I treat shoes as a necessary evil. Not even barefoot shoes give you the same comfort as just a bare foot. Can’t imagine not having the feeling in my life. Also, the airflow around my feet - wouldn’t want to spend more time than necessary in a closed shoe. I even wear slippers at work for this reason.
Yeah I can even feel dust on the floors with my bare feer, tells me when it’s time to vacuum.
As a Canadian, I still find it shocking that people don’t take their shoes off inside. That’s just gross.
It’s always the Brits and the yanks
Fuckin barbarians 😅
To be fair, some people just aren’t that flexible and its a bit of a chore tying & untying laces.
But that’s why shoehorns exist?
Shoehorns tie laces?
No but with a shoehorn you can slip in and out of your shoes without tying the laces?
How do those people wash their feet?
If you can take them off to go to bed, you should be able to take them off earlier, at the door
Keeping your house clean is a good thing to do. But it’s easy to stray into obsession territory. There lies madness.
Remember we all have far more visitor microbes in our bodies than our own host cells. Life is dirty. Life is germy. Embrace this.
You don’t need to live in a hoarder hell hole, but the sooner you accept that living is a messy business the more time you’ll have to enjoy actually living. Cleaning tasks should be quick and efficient, not sterilization.
We have a robot vacuum that runs automatically every day. And yea, it picks up a load of dust every day. Leaves me to do other stuff.
Exactly this. You’d be surprised how much dust it can collect. After a week or two in my small home it can easily collect a fistful of dust, and that’s just from me alone.
i don’t.
I have a mastiff. Truly clean will never be a thing again.
In newer construction, especially high-rise apartments, there’s a lot less dust. But in older buildings, it’s just an endless torrent, and the solution has been…
Robot vacuums
While they must be maintained, and won’t work well if you’re not diligent about picking up and keeping obstacles off the floor, they make it far easier to keep the whole house clean by reducing the overall volume of interior dust and debris inside the building envelope.
To illustrate (this will be gross) I change the bags about every month and weigh them and it’s usually ~1 kg per bag, so each year they remove roughly 30-40 kg. And every time I’ve cut them open to see what’s causing all the weight (or make sure nothing important was eaten) it appears to be mostly dust and hair.
It’s freaky thinking how all of that would be floating around, settling on surfaces, collecting in corners and crevices, saturating carpets and upholstery, and of course getting breathed in constantly. Instead I don’t have to manually dust and vacuum very often and our indoor AQI is usually better than outside.
So yeah. Robots.
Robots is great, but the privacy implications scare me.
I hear you. I do have one that’s dumb, only just smart enough to set a daily schedule, no WiFi or cameras, but it’s bullet proof and easier to maintain than the others, so It’s possible to not sacrifice privacy.
What brand/model do you have? I’ve been looking into purchasing one.
Not the person you’ve replied to, but I’ve got a Roborock Q7 Max. It’s cheap and relatively simple. It’s got a LIDAR and proximity sensors, but no obstacle avoidance or stair/cliff detection and no camera. From what I can see it’s also silent (no network activity) even though it’s bound to my WiFi. After months of using it I’d say its been a great choice to splurge on. Never had one, never thought I’d need one, but after seeing dust settling on every bit of the floor every day… I got tired of sweeping.
That one’s a refurb iLife v3s. Not sure of current price but I paid $62.
I hear you. There’s always Valetudo. Get yourself a supported vacuum and install Valetudo whenever you feel the need. Had my robot for half a year but haven’t come around to doing it just yet. Maybe after its warranty runs out.
Ate there ones that aren’t loud? I work from home and never leave the house, and if robot vacuums are only ever used when you jagger the house, then they aren’t for me
Put a large air cleaner in on high. Beat the couch cushions outside, shake down blankets outside, carpet wash the furniture and carpets. Scrub hvac vents and air handler ducts. Wet wipe your walls and base boards. Clean you dryer vents. Dust is everywhere. Light mop daily with a spray mop.
Change your HVAC filters every month until it gets better. If you don’t have HVAC, get more air cleaners and stay on top filter replacements.
It’ll take ages, but it’ll get better.
Vacuum. It sucks up the dirt and traps it.
Brooms & mops were from the ancient days before electricity existed, and as you’ve experienced, the dirt just keeps circulating and never goes away. Endless filth & frustration.
As someone with OCD in the form of germaphobia and excessive/repetitive cleaning, I recommend you see a doctor and get tested for OCD. Doing therapy massively improved my quality of life.
