House Cleaning You Can Ignore

Why work yourself silly cleaning house? The trick is to be flexible and devise a cleaning schedule that eliminates unnecessary cleaning and you getting side tracked into cleaning too much! I will show you how to clean your home in less than half the time it normally takes.

You will need to let some stuff go and this will be hard for the obsessive compulsive out there. I know, I'm one of them and I still have a hard time letting stuff go!

House Cleaninig You're Overdoing

Floors. Yes, you can ignore your floors, only parts though. You don't have to vacuum under the furniture or around the edges every time. It won't ruin the carpet if you skip this step. Just remember that you need to clean the traffic areas to pick up dirt because if you don't that dirt will eventually ruin your floors. (Carpet fibers get split and frayed from dirt).

Rugs and mats. I have rugs and mats everywhere in my house and I rarely clean under them. The only ones I worry about are at the entry ways to my home where dirt tends to gather. For these, I flip up the ends once in a while and vacuum and clean under with my Hoover FloorMate.

I only vacuum the tops of the high traffic area rugs weekly or a couple of times a week depending on the usage they get. All the other rugs in my house that don't see much traffic are ignored by my vacuum except for a once or every two month vacuum.

Furniture polishing. Now that I have a lot of little finger prints on my wood furniture, I do polish the wood every other week or once a month with a cleaner and polisher like Pledge. You don't have to do it this often, just make sure to dust off with a micro fiber cloth or Swiffer duster.

Windows. Glass is a material that won't be destroyed by dirt, smudges, or slobber. Water does cause calcification on glass, but if you're tight on time and money and can't clean it off right now, just close the blinds or curtains and ignore it!

I cheat regularly when it comes to cleaning windows. If I didn't have little kids, I probably would clean windows once a year. I clean only the dirty portion, which is the bottom of the window where my kids smear things up a bit while talking to the dog on the other side of the glass.

For great window cleaning tips, see my page on how to clean windows.

Cobwebs. These really don't hurt anything except maybe our cleaning ego when we glance up and see them or your two year old who is afraid of spiders. I rarely clean for webs. Every once in a while I'll see one suspended from a light fixture or the ceiling. If it's too high up, or I'm too tired, it stays there for a while. Plus I don't have too many cobwebs since I vacuum the edges of the walls, floors, and ceilings once a year which gets any cobwebs or spider eggs (preventing more spiders).

Cabinets. The inside of a cabinet can go years without cleaning, so don't clear these out and scrub during spring cleaning. Just do it when you move into your home as part of a thorough house cleaning, then don't worry about it.

Drawers. The insides of drawers don't need much cleaning either. The silverware drawer does get a lot of use and can collect dust bunnies and crumbs, just clean it out quickly with the vacuum hose when you're vacuuming the floor. Same goes for the bathroom drawers that collect dust, lint, and hair. Just quickly vacuum out with the vacuum hose once in a great while.

The oven. Unless you've got caked on messes, which you won't since you clean these up as they happen, don't bother cleaning the oven.

Sink fixtures. Don't bother wiping the chrome off, it's just going to get wet again.

Stainless steel appliances. If you have little ones, just forget about keeping these spotless. I have stainless steel appliances and I clean these at the most once every two weeks with Pledge All Surface and then just ignore the finger prints.

Extra bedrooms or rarely used rooms. Just close the door and ignore. If you have company coming, then do a light clean. See my page on clean bedrooms.

The best advice I can give for house cleaning when you feel overwhelmed by it all is to relax and take a deep breath. It will all get done, and don't really stress or worry about it because it's just going to get dirty and messy again.

I finally realized that if I have a schedule for everything that is flexible, and I relax and pray, it all eventually gets done, house cleaning too. A great book that helped me get mentally and spiritually organized is A Mother's Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul. Even if you're not religious, this book really helps put everything into perspective and helps you to relax and not needlessly worry about everything you need to do.

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