Spring clean

Grandadpete you would hate my 140 year old house where 140 years of dust under the floorboards is blown up and around in strong winds. Remember young women are bringing up families and holding onto full time jobs..likewise their partners.
Some of us oldies are coping with illnesses and mobility problems.
My parents were certainly not wealthy but it wasnt expensive to have a cleaning lady it's certainly not cheap now.
I wonder how clean your "Mother's" house would be these days?

keepcalmandcavachon

I was watching a podcast from Cass of Clutterbug fame and she reminded me that the same benefits felt when practicing meditation are also felt after cleaning!
Apparently dopamine is released thus ensuring one feels less stressed and happier. And you get a clean home .Win-win!
I do actually feel quite jolly with a mop or cloth come to think of it.......

Wish this was me!
Cleaning is always a chore.
..I'm happy to hang washing out though.

My flat is excessively dusty, and I have no idea why.
I have to dust around items in the bathroom that are moved and used every day.

Next day, a film of dust around them.

My house is a similar age HelterSkelter1 - cleaning is tedious.

That said I would clean for a decorator.

MissAdventure

My flat is excessively dusty, and I have no idea why.
I have to dust around items in the bathroom that are moved and used every day.

Next day, a film of dust around them.

When we moved here, all new houses but building work completed, a neighbour said it was the dustiest place she'd ever lived in. Her house was always immaculate so she must have spent a lot of time dusting and cleaning.
I remember that she used to "bottom" a room every week and dust and vacuum through every day. I'd never heard the term "bottoming a room" before.

It's a Scottish term, I think.
Nothing wrong with a bit of bottoming, in the privacy of your own home.

I had to thoroughly clean before our renovations. Our son is very particular and wanted our help cleaning everywhere. It was like circuit training exercise I am sure it was good for my joints.

I do seem to have given up on the traditional, semi compulsory pre Hogmanay Spring Clean but was never much of housewife anyway. However our little lane off a busy main road connecting ferries at each end seems to be generating huge quantities of dust and grit. I flit around with an old fashioned feather duster a 2 or 3 time a week which does pick up a lot of dust but it is all back the next day. This is not helped by the new 'garages' being built by neighbors - and left empty while the several cars stand outside......and all the grit being poured and pressed so that no plants (or animals) can live... My Hoover ...and it is a Hoover - shows thick fine grey dust in the see through barrel. We live on a remote island but the air seems to be full of grey particles which presumably we are breathing in... I try not to think about it too much....

I spring clean, always have done only now I start earlier because I’m retired. I feel as if I can’t relax and enjoy the summer until its all done, daft I know. So far I’ve only done the kitchen cupboards and wardrobes, had to stop to clear out mums flat she’s gone into a care home.
I seem to have lost my mojo at the moment because I can’t get motivated to start again.
When my decorator came last year he asked what I’d been cleaning the skirting boards with as the paint wouldn’t stick, I’d used flash spray.He had to wipe them down again because the paint wouldn’t stick.

MissAdventure

It's a Scottish term, I think.
Nothing wrong with a bit of bottoming, in the privacy of your own home.

Can't meet up today Dahlings ,I'm bottoming!

I was never so surprised at other people’s extremes of cleaning as I was working as an office junior in London several decades ago.
After arranging a Saturday outing with one of the other girls, it was decided we’d have to meet at her home because of her weekly cleaning routine. She more than bottomed her room…..it was bedding changed and then room cleaned and hoovered and when I say cleaned, everything walls and ceiling everything washed down. Every single Saturday!

MissAdventure

It's a Scottish term, I think.
Nothing wrong with a bit of bottoming, in the privacy of your own home.

😁

I'm not sure I've ever washed a ceiling. Hoovered cobwebs out of the corners, but washed?

DH very kindly bought me a new microfibre duster with a long handle so I can reach the cobwebs in the conservatory. 🤔
At the moment it's standing in the bin in the office. Perhaps I should get him to demonstrate how it works.

I'm tempted to make a suggestion as to how you could make the message more effective

😁

He does occasionally climb on a ladder and de-cobweb the ceiling.

HelterSkelter1

Grandadpete you would hate my 140 year old house where 140 years of dust under the floorboards is blown up and around in strong winds. Remember young women are bringing up families and holding onto full time jobs..likewise their partners.
Some of us oldies are coping with illnesses and mobility problems.
My parents were certainly not wealthy but it wasnt expensive to have a cleaning lady it's certainly not cheap now.
I wonder how clean your "Mother's" house would be these days?

Mother brought up 4 children, worked part time and still kept the house and us kids spick and span
She still had time for lots of play and love
Father did have to help with the spring clean, moving the heavy furniture and getting on the steps to do the height bits .
I do think it's a generation thing , mother took a lot of pride in the house and what she saw as here domain .
Father ( a WW2 veteran ) also had a lot of time and love for us kids and do all the house d.i .y
The greatest generation imo
If mother was alive today...her house would be still be spotless a

Haven't been sleeping too well recently, and last night I remembered that I hadn't clambered up and changed the papers on top of the kitchen cupboards 😱, and thought that I'd have to get DH to hold the step ladder!
Lazyitis, that's me, and it still isn't done, but I am enjoying my cuppa and trawling through Gransnet, learning how to do, or not do it.
(Bathroom refurb begins tomorrow, so no need to dust everywhere until afterwards)

Grandadpete

HelterSkelter1

Grandadpete you would hate my 140 year old house where 140 years of dust under the floorboards is blown up and around in strong winds. Remember young women are bringing up families and holding onto full time jobs..likewise their partners.
Some of us oldies are coping with illnesses and mobility problems.
My parents were certainly not wealthy but it wasnt expensive to have a cleaning lady it's certainly not cheap now.
I wonder how clean your "Mother's" house would be these days?

Mother brought up 4 children, worked part time and still kept the house and us kids spick and span
She still had time for lots of play and love
Father did have to help with the spring clean, moving the heavy furniture and getting on the steps to do the height bits .
I do think it's a generation thing , mother took a lot of pride in the house and what she saw as here domain .
Father ( a WW2 veteran ) also had a lot of time and love for us kids and do all the house d.i .y
The greatest generation imo
If mother was alive today...her house would be still be spotless a

I’m very glad I’m not your wife, having to live up to your mother’s standards. Times have changed, thank goodness.

I hoover every year whether it's needed or not.

My parents didn't spring clean ever that I remember, though we all pitched in to clean the house each weekend.

I enjoy cleaning (oh dear, I know) so do a big clean at least twice a year- once just before Christmas and then again early May. I make sure OH is out for the day and just keep going until it's all done.
If I get the chance I'll do an Autumn clean too!

i think the big difference is: no open fires so no grime from months of particulates from the fire everywhere and, as many have said, women working now.

To be honest I have no memory of spring cleaning happening in my childhood - but as an army family, we were constantly moving house and the big clean was always just before being 'marched out' from a quarter. The inspection was detailed and meticculous and the house had to be immaculate and all its contents accounted for.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to have a clean house, but I'm very glad that women are no longer judged by those standards. I don't remember it, but I'm on a lot of FB history groups and I've read about women who were 'talked about' if their nets weren't white enough, or if their doorsteps weren't clean. What's the point of scrubbing doorsteps for people to tread on? A lot of posters (men) say that it was about 'pride', but I don't understand that, really. For one thing, pride is a sin, and for another, what is there to be proud of in a doorstep? There are photos of elderly women on their (probably arthritic) knees, scrubbing and donkey stoning doorsteps. I just don't understand it.

I can believe that the social pressure to keep women busy doing pointless tasks was there, and that it must have been hard to be the first one in the street to say 'B*gger this this for a game of soldiers - I'll have a lie in instead', knowing that you'd be the talk of the wash-house, but don't know why so many bowed to the pressure for so long.

People had many less possessions than they do now, and damp was rife indoors. Spring cleaning was a way of ridding the house of various bug and mould infestations, and the cleaner you kept your house the less likely they were to become a problem. I wouldn’t want to go back to that - but if I had to, I expect my house would be immaculate.

Bottoming is also used here in the NE.
I assume if it’s done for you - one is being bottomed! Think I’ll stop there. 😂