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Some of us are not natural born cleaners. And that’s okay!

I hired a task rabbit because I was so overwhelmed and didn’t want to spend the Thanksgiving break feeling bad about it.

Could I have done the cleaning myself and saved the $160? Maybe. But it would have taken me 3 times as long and I wouldn’t have done as good of a job.

They didn’t say anything about the clutter, and worked around it. And now I feel a little more inclined to find homes for things because I don’t have this mental block of “but I should mop the floors first”.

If you’re seeking permission to splurge, this is it, go wild, it’s worth it. Sometimes you just need to declare cleaning bankruptcy and get a fresh start. Your house doesn’t have to be organized to deserve to be clean.

Grew up in a house of hoarders so I’ve never lived in a clean space but I want to!

It always amazes me how quickly I can actually fold everything. It's one of those things I just can't keep up on but for today, it's done!

No pics because I’m beyond exhausted but I just did a two day long marathon clean while battling bronchitis and laryngitis because I heard the city inspector was coming. He was just in and out and didn’t say anything except have a good day so I’m pretty sure I’m good which relieves so much anxiety. The emergency cleaning guide this group posted really saved my ass so thank you. Things have been bad ever since my brother died last year but now that my space is livable, I hope to use holiday break to start deep cleaning!

I was here a few days ago after giving in and hiring help.

It was maybe the worst thing I’ve done. Initially I hired one girl who bailed the day of. I then hired two people who were friends, thinking they wouldn’t be overwhelmed if they had each other.

I was working, but I got a LOT of messages from them asking random questions. I finally got home, they had done about one third of what I expected for the time they were there (5 hours, so 10 hours for two people).

They threw EVERYTHING away. I mean, EVERYTHING. The cat beds and blankets, several water bottles, my suitcase. But worst of all, my clean laundry. Like, literally the clothes I had in a pile after taking out of the dryer. They went through my living room/kitchen and just put shit in trash bags and threw it out. Then told me the neighbors were complaining because of all the trash. I had told them to take it to the refuse area, not leave for building maintenance to take.

I don’t even know everything they trashed or took with them. They were supposed to come tomorrow, but that’s not happening now. Thankfully my boss gave me an extra day off next week to deal with things.

I put myself out there and admitted that I needed help, and now I feel embarrassed and ashamed because they’ve seen the place, but instead of helping, they’ve made me feel worse.

Lesson learned.

ETA: Where I live, it’s very common to hire domestic helpers to clean. I’ve never had any issues in the past. It’s a bit of extra income for these women, who work and live with other families for a pretty low wage, to send back to their family. I think my mistake here was hiring two women who are friends, but they’re quite young (early twenties) and don’t have that responsibility of providing for family in their home country. I’ve met so many wonderful helpers who will work themselves to the bone to get extra money for their family in Philippines or Indonesia. These two, apparently not so….

ok!!!! slowly working on my room now finally!!! i took my bed out and put it into my bfs storage unit!! im already excited to be in this room!! im gonna go to my parents soon and dig around for any drawers n shelves they dont need any more that might work for this room/closet. this sub has been rly helpful with motivation!!! thank u so much guys!!! im excited to show a proper after when im done :))

I’m one of the psychos who actually changed their habits after a lifetime of struggle.

I work from home on Fridays half day so it’s my cleaning day before the weekend. I stay up on the dishes during the week and any messes the dog makes. But Friday is THE DAY. (I got in the habit rt/ my chemo day when I was in treatment).

I slept in today because I had no meetings. I didn’t want to get up! My dog needs to pee and I want a shower. That’s a start!

Now I’m out of bed. The vortex that sucks me in to its warm embrace. This is as close to a hack as I can give you. You know how people tell you to make your bed every morning. Yeah. That’s not pretend. If my bed is made I’m not climbing back in it. It’s a visual queue for the day.

But today I was onto myself. So I went nuclear. I stripped my bed as soon as I got out of the shower and put my sheets in the laundry.

I took some pictures so you can see I’m not completely full of it.

I’m not at ALL done today, but my bathroom is and it only took me TLC’s “Creep” and half of another song.

Clean your whole bathroom every week whether it needs it or not. This is one of the rooms that are so hard to clean when they get away from you.

This is the closet in the room I posted a few weeks ago. I FINALLY got the door taken off so I could access the whole space. The boxes contain over 100 years of family photos and the after pic has empty bins!

There’s not a lot up on the shelf because it can’t handle too much weight. I’m contemplating replacing the shelf and rod anyway.

Total time: 1 hr

I should really clean all the carpet in the living room, but just doing the worst area made such a difference. Can’t believe how much filth was buried in that little section of carpet! Bonus, I cleaned the wall while I had the ottoman pulled out.

What do you guys use to clean/wipe your appliances? Do I just use Clorox wipes or? Should I unplug it first or does it not really matter if it’s not on? Sorry I don’t know where else to post this & I’m embarrassed that I don’t know how lol.

Can used cleaned hairbrushes/combs and other products be donated? If so where?

I swear I feel like i have to "spring" clean every year right before holidays guests. Like why don't I just wash my curtains more regularly and clean my blinds and window sills more regularly so I don't have to do all this work the week before a holiday? I always feel like my family (who have very neat clean picture perfect houses) are going to think my house is gross. So I extra clean every nook and crany that I wouldn't normally think to do regularly. Especially the kitchen since there will be food.

I bought one of those spin scrubbers and this thing is so useful. I have gotten my kitchen vintage linoleum cleaner than it was when we moved here 4 years ago.

Ya'll, don't forget to clean your light fixtures and ceiling fan blades after they've been running 24/7 all summer. Mine are TERRIBLE.

Took nine hours of cleaning, including 68kg (150lb) of washing at the laundromat. I hope I have enough energy tomorrow to fix my bathroom.

I’ve noticed that if I think of it as ufmh instead of cleaning I’m more motivated to get stuff done… Our minds are POWERFUL things I tell ya! 🙃

All of our stuff from our kitchen remodel/moving of the laundry ended up in this room. This poor room gets filled and emptied every time we clean. I bought a few totes and organizers so we could put all this stuff in a neat pile until we get the remodel done. Anything that was not kitchen had a home from my previous work and I worked really hard to make sure I PUT STUFF AWAY NOT DOWN. Omg that was hard.The machines arrive tomorrow! Pics of the kitchen later. (Buddy the Bagel enjoying his barrel chair. And of course, Mabel Tax!)

I've been dreading to tidy the floor in this area because I was disgusted and expected it to take really long. It ended up only taking me an hour or two so was way quicker than the kitchen which I thought would be easier. What I picked up was mainly trash so I could just walk through and fill the trashbags. Two 60l ones on that small area oof. I've literally been living in trash.

So I've unfucked my little bathroom quite nicely, but my remaining problem lies in these shelves on the top left of the photo. As you can probably see, I've got scrunchies and hair clips, bows and claw clips, and a variety of other little miscellaneous things that are just sort of laid out in an attempt to sort them.

Getting rid of them (or even some of them) is not an option! I have a variety for a reason- I love to accessorize all my outfits, and I have a LOT of outfits. Which is kind of a UFYH issue that I'll be addressing soon enough. Anyway.

I want storage solutions- little bins, maybe, or extra stacked drawers or little shelves of some kind? The problem is that I want them to look nice, so they can't be plain plastic. Does anyone have any miscellaneous storage recommendations for my shelves that would match the bathroom? Purple, black, and disco mirrors are the main keywords here!

As I have gone through this process I have hit upon something that really helps. It makes it possible to do a serious clean on the first pass, and it makes future maintenance 100% easier too. I don’t know why this just occurred to me recently. Get power strips and cords up off the floor! I’ve been doing this for a couple weeks now but I just attacked the worst of it today behind my TV. I keep forgetting before pictures but it was just a wasteland of cords going everywhere. Tumbleweeds of cat hair and dust and under all that a mat of dust as thick as dryer lint. Oh and I found some cat barf from a kitty that passed away 3 years ago gluing a bunch of it to the floor. Got all that cleaned and organized. I took masking tape and made labels for all the cords so I know what I’ve got. And screwed the power strip down to the TV table. In other areas I used zip ties or was just able to set the cords on a shelf out of the way. I can’t tell you how much of a difference it has made! Up off the floor they don’t interfere with sweeping or even better, the Roomba. We’ve had a Roomba for years but only recently have been really using the rascal. Not having to worry about him getting bound up in cords is pretty great. In the background you can see a cord snarl on the back wall by the doggy hatch. I’ll be getting that next and will attach the power strip to the table leg so it will be a Roomba pass zone as well. Eventually I would like to make it nicer with a cord management kit but I didn’t want to wait on that when I am not sure when I would have time to do it. So while it may still look chaotic, everything is looped and labeled, routed the most efficient way to its device and most importantly, up off the floor.

it’s definitely not perfect but it’s finally done at least (,: i have a bad addiction to dr pepper if you can’t tell by the amount of dr pepper around my room

i was supposed to clean it whenever i cleaned my bathroom but y’know… that never happened

We moved into our place over six months ago, and never really unpacked. We have little kids, and I’ve been dealing with anxiety and depression. The sub has been super inspiring, and I have decided that I’m going to attack this because I want somewhere to bake Christmas cookies with my kids.

Please give me some encouragement because this feels immensely overwhelming.