My daughter has turned into a whirlwind. Her boyfriend is coming to stay, and she is cleaning the house to within an inch of its life! His house is apparently as clean as an operating theatre and is regimentally tidy and organised. Our home is cluttered and, I like to think, comfortably lived in. I vacuum once a week, not every day. I dust when I notice the dust. I wash the kitchen floor only when it’s dirty. This is not good enough for my daughter this week, although normally she is fine with it. To be honest, I think she should start first with her own bedroom, which is also cluttered and comfortably lived in.

I come by these standards honestly. My mother lives in clutter and has a plethora of “things.” When she moved into her small apartment seven years ago, she promised herself she would keep tidy, but it’s just not in her: untidiness is in her nature. When she mentioned to her doctor, however, that she felt her house was too untidy and not clean enough, he asked her if it looked like one of those houses on the TV programmes. She was shocked, “Certainly not!” she said. “There are no vermin, I don’t have a pet to mess on the floor, and I don’t have dirty laundry piled high everywhere.” 

“Then,” said the doctor, “You have nothing to worry about.”

Perhaps people generally had cleaner houses when more women stayed at home and there was less money to spend on things to clutter up the place. The middle classes, of course, had staff up until the 1950s. My maternal grandmother learned how to cook and clean while she was in service, but my father’s mother always had a cleaner, so never learned to clean herself. When the cleaner left in a huff, the farmhouse apparently grew rapidly very untidy and dirty.

Whenever I have moved house, I have always left things sparkling clean for the next people. It’s easy, however, to clean a house with minimal or no furniture. In our cluttered home, it is difficult to get around and behind things to clean.

The garden is another area in which I am challenged. I think, that if the lawn is mown and there are more flowers than weeds, it’s acceptable. Most of our neighbours, however, have beautiful gardens and I rather feel we let the side down. I’m sure my daughter’s boyfriend has a garden that is immaculate.

Nevertheless, one must be comfortable with one’s own standards. I think, if you are always striving towards an impossible goal of minimalism and surgical cleanliness but are naturally a hoarder and find more interesting things to do than housework, then you are just making a rod for your own back. 

Do you keep your house clean and tidy, or would you like to be cleaner and tidier? Do you long for an immaculate house, or are you comfortable with your own standards?

Mary

A Moodscope member