Clean is Keen

Keeping a clean and tidy house was something I've always struggled with. As a child, it wasn't something I thought too much about. My mom was always there to do the dishes and the laundry. She swept, mopped, vacuumed, and generally kept the house neat because she liked to keep the house nice. All I had to worry about was keeping my room clean(ish) so I wouldn't get in trouble.

When my siblings and I were older, she put a little more of the housekeeping duties on our shoulders in the form of chores. We were in charge of vacuuming our rooms, we shared duties in keeping our bathrooms clean, a little bit of dusting here and there, and... that was it. We did our chores with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but in reality, most of the housework still fell on our mom's shoulders. She still did all the laundry and dishes, all the cooking and grocery shopping. The woman was (and is) a saint. It wasn't until I moved away to live with my dad and my older sister in Utah that I realized just how much we relied on her.

My dad is great, and I love him to death. But a housekeeper he is not. Ever since my parents got divorced, he has remained the epitome of a bachelor, with the bachelor pad to match. When he, my sister, and I all came together to live in the same house, our mutual hatred of household chores became a curse. I had to do my own laundry for the first time in my entire life, and there was no more mom to take care of the dishes, cook the meals, or motivate me and my sister to clean. I'm sure you can see how this story is headed towards disaster.a

For years, the three of us lived together in that house. We always ate takeout because none of us cooked. None of us cooked because all of the dishes were always in a dirty heap in the sink. We rarely used the dishwasher because everytime we tried, there was a general lack of actual cleanliness. In other words, it didn't work. On the rare occasions one of us was in the mood to cook something, said individual had to clean the necessary dishes before they could do so. To avoid creating more dishes, we always used paper plates and bowls. Terrible for the environment, I know. Because we ate so much takeout and used so many paper or plastic utensils, the trash can was always full, and the trash that didn't fit was left out on the TV trays we ate off of (due to the fact that our table was always covered with magazines, mail, and general clutter).

Cue the dogs. Our two dogs are named Ren and Bella. I love them very much, and I have no regrets about having them in my life, but goodness do they make a mess. Any trash that was left out (see previous paragraph), especially if there was food on it at any point, was ripped to shreds. If the bathroom door was left open while we were all out of the house, we were welcomed home by the sight of trash strewn up and down the hallway. In a house with two grown women, this was sometimes a macabre scene. On top of that, there was fur everywhere because - fun fact - dogs shed. And vacuuming was, sadly, not an exception to our hatred of household chores.

To sum up, we lived for years in a house with dirty dishes almost constantly piled in the sink, trash everywhere, and grime collecting on all surfaces. We actually had a carpet rake so we could rake the dog hair out of the carpet before vacuuming to ensure the vacuum wouldn't get clogged on those rare occasions we did clean (usually when we were expecting company).

We all hated it. It's not exactly fun to live in a disaster zone, with dog hair everywhere and a very unhealthy diet. It's also embarrasing. I avoided inviting people to our house because I didn't want them to see what a mess we were. There were times we tried desperately to keep the house clean. We all put in a herculean effort whenever one of us was having a date come over, or when we were just sick of the house being a wreck all the time.

Unfortunately, keeping a house clean is a group effort when there are multiple people contributing to the mess, and we were rarely in sync when one of us was in the mood to start up a cleaning routine. Whenever one of us would start trying harder to keep the house clean, the rest of us didn't get with the program, and eventually that person would lose motivation. Or sometimes we would all work together to clean the house for a special occasion, and plan to keep the house clean afterwards. Which, again, always ended in one or two of us trying really hard for a couple of weeks and then giving up.

Then in March, 2019, I went on my first date with the man who I would eventually marry. I'd love to say that from that point on, I was magically inspired to either keep the entire house clean by myself or enforce cleaning routines with my family. What actually happened was that the first time he came over, I cleaned the entire house pretty much by myself. And then he kept coming over. Fortunately, he continued to date me even after he saw what a mess my house was.

Most of the time we would hang out at his house, which was always clean. He and his family kept a very clean home, and he's honestly a bit of a neat freak. There have been times when he started cleaning at my dad's house when we were alone there just because he couldn't stand the clutter. One of my biggest goals was to be better about keeping the house clean, to save myself the embarrassment and to save him the trouble.

It wasn't until after we got married and moved into an apartment that my housekeeping skills really took a turn for the better. My husband likes to keep a clean house, so he's really good at helping with household chores. That, in turn, helps me to stay motivated to help clean. I tried really hard right from the beginning to be better and to work harder on it, and I was really worried that the time would come that I would lose my motivation, or that I would lapse back into old habits. I am proud to say that it has been almost a year now, and I'm still going strong.

So here are five tips that have helped me (a former slob) maintain a clean and tidy home.

1. Be on the same page. If you live with someone, make a list of things that need to be done and how often, and hold each other accountable. This helps motivate everyone involved, and makes it easy to share the load. It might be a good idea to assign certain tasks.

2. Clean as you go. When I'm cooking or eating, I like to rinse off each dish or utensil I use as soon as I'm done using it, then put it in the dishwasher. By the time you're done cooking, the dishes are pretty much done.

3. Make it a competition. My husband and I compete to see who can finish a particular chore before the other gets to it. If you have a competitive spirit, this can be a great motivator, and can even make cleaning fun and satisfying.

4. Avoid clutter. It's easy to get into the habit of keeping everything that might someday be useful or has sentimental value. But everything has its place, and if something doesn't have a place to go, or a practical use, it's clutter, which just looks messy. And if you take something out to use it, always put it back where it came from.

5. Clean up your own messes. It's one thing to clean up after kids, but it's an entirely different story to have to clean up after an adult. It's dispiriting to have to clean up after someone who is entirely capable doing it themselves.

This is not an all inclusive list of things that work to help people in maintaining a clean house, but they certainly helped me. It's a huge relief to have a clean home after years of struggling, and despite all the effort it takes, it's much more enjoyable, too. Hopefully these tips will help someone else who is having a hard time (like I was), because it is possible to turn your cleaning habits around.