[McRennet]

I am so glad you posted about this!


For the last 6 months our house has been getting more and more dirty. It's really hard with all the animals and especially through kidding when you are coming going in the house to eat and pee then straight pack out again!


And it does get me down when i walk into the kitchen in the morning and i can feel all the little stones, dusty bits and hay. HAY!! I must have had nearly a bale in that sodding kitchen.


This is the first house we have had where we have a spare room and given the animals it is much easier for people to visit us than it is for us to go to them.


We have done two big things which i really had to wrestle with before i was happy to do them.


1) get a dishwasher. The ability to get all dirty pots and plates out of sight in a oner is just amazing, swtich it on over night and OH empties it before he leaves the house in the morning. It is such bonus. However we try not t use other electrical appliances to counter our extra usage, partly because of green issues and partly because we dont want our electric bills to go up.


2) I got a cleaner.    I feel like  a cop out because of it but... it's a small cost. We both work full time and then we have all the animals on top of that. Plus we want to spend some time together without feeling bad about the house.
and I have to say I love her! She's brill! She's like a cleaning fairy, stealth.


I used to think having a cleaner was extravagant but actually I'm so much happier that my house is clean. We aren't planning on staying in this place forever, as soon as we find the right place in Scotland we are off, so in the meantime we need to try to look after this place and to see it as an investment.


How you keep your house is a very, very personal issue.
And I couldn't agree more, life is too short for housework.
But life is also too short to tolerate things that annoy you.
My filthy house annoyed me, so I did something about it.

[Sylvia]

I do like ironing sometimes, as said it is a good excuse to keep still for a while. Plus my daughter works in an office so she needs to be smart.

Has she too lost the instructions?

[northfifeduckling]

Trouble here is that OH never takes his shoes off as he has dodgy knees - after vacuuming all looks like before within hours!
I don't touvch the iron. I made that clear when I moved in - the only thing I actually stuck to over the years  . He does his own shirts and the girls are so much better than myself if they want something ironed. I've raised them well, though, it only happens very occasionally 
Sadly I'm the dishwasher, another wouldn't fit into the kitchen as the washing machine already is blocking half the floorspace 
I am constantly decluttering, bags with stuff  leaving the house each day but it doesn't seem to make a difference...
Dreaming on - should OH ever win the lottery bigtime I want in that order - a gardener, a static caravan for a Woofer or 2 and a cleaner. 

[norfolk newbies]

It is wonderful to have so many like minded people, here.
 
Before we moved, once we had finished redecorating that house, when I was working long hours and commuting and had v. young children, we had a cleaner. I also had what became 'Mummy's tidy room' which the midwife and visitors were allowed in ( unfortunately if they needed the loo they had to go through the rest of the house!) We could not let cleaner go even when OH was made redundant ( and he is reasonably house trainedbut he was spending more time with an increased number of animals and land). But every Sunday eve we would go into overdrive putting everything away so cleaner could hoover and dust. BUT at least I knew that everything was getting cleaned. I would do basins/loos and worktops in the meantime, but hoovering and dusting not on the agenda....( good intentions let down by garden/chickens/dog etc etc). We would also go manic before we went on holiday if she was coming in,,,,,but it was REALLY nice to come home to a clean house!
 
Now we have moved I do despair. No commute (or cleaner) and a hugely increased dirt level. My excuse is that a) dog + kids in static carvan = constant dirt and b) in the partially renovated house (kitchen being 'lived in') plaster and bricks = dust. THis does not explaing the dog hair wafting around the floors, but I do try. We have  shoes off at the door policy, but that is to stop everyone ( apart from the dog) tracking sheep/pig/chicken/ duck poo into what is remains of the clean patches of carpet.
 
When my kids (new) friends come around I have to tell them to watch out for chicken poo and apologise for any dead rats they find ( outside-not in house I hasten to add!!). Most kids seem to be fine, but my girls were very embarassed to start with. However we now have one girls who spends more time here than she does at home. I apologise for the mess, but I think that is what she expects now....
 
Unfortunately my kids are now also becoming immune to mess and chaos, so when I yell at them to clean up they look at the mess and cant see it anymore.
 
Re Ironing - totally agree. In a small spaceiIroned clothes fit better and  kids always go to school in ironed stuff, and it is an excuse to watch telly, but otherwise life's too short.
 
Just to confirm that my girls also have 100% attendance record, although we think youngest may be developing an allergy to plaster dust. At least is it not a fear of dirt :-)
 
Jo
 

[SallyintNorth]

Iron?     I had an iron, once, I think... 

[smallholder in the city]

My parents in law turned up for a suprise visit when we had the goslings in the conservatory.  Conservatory full of gosling poo ( they seemed to like throwing it out of the cage) and straw, last nights dishes and several empty bottles of wine dotted around the kitchen (despite having a dishwasher- no one wants to empty it) and the remains of a roast chicken on the kitchen floor that the cat had liberated. It's not usually that bad but if they will turn up without warning.
 
And anyway they have one houseproud domesticated daughter in law who cooks and irons they don't need two.     

[jaykay]

anyway they have one houseproud domesticated daughter in law who cooks and irons they don't need two

absolutely not, variety being the spice of life 

And if people turn up unannounced they have to take what they find - I have ducklings in the hall at the moment so have complete empathy about the mess and smell 

[funkyfish]

Thank you for writing this post, and to everyone who has replied!

 We have a small holding 25mes away from there we live (1st floor flat in a s town). So we have just put out the goslings but now have chicks and more in the incubator. We also have 3 cats and 3 dogs. The chicks r brooding in our living room as we have a lodger in the spare room (covers fuel costs to he field)- luckily he is a close friend who loves animal as much as we do and is unfazed by random animals in our lounge! Everyone else thinks we r nuts!

Bedroom is a huge pile of clean washing that never gets put away- just moved to the dirty pile once used. But kitchen is reasonable and bathroom clean. Lounge is half tidy and half boxes and poultry feed/water containers waiting to go bk to the field etc. A big throw goes over it and a quick spray of fabreeze sorts it out when visitors come!
I am mortified if anyone pops round for a cup cos god knows what the dogs/cats/husband has chews/brought in/ left out when my back is turned!

But my house my rules! I work long shifts and do Oncall from home which is when I catch up on house work if the phones are quiet.

[suziequeue]

We are living in a caravan at the mo whilst the house is being rebuilt. Me, OH and the dog.
 
We have a sort of system - muddy wellies etc come off in the composting toilet and change into clean crocs. Path from composting toilet to caravan is clean and mud free. Take crocs off at caravan door. However, this doesn't apply to the dog and he just bounds into the caravan filthy. Towelling him down is an option but that just unleashes a cloud of dog hair etc.... and in an emergency we are both guilty of sneaking into the caravan with our wellies on.
 
I work away during the week and take the washing with me on Monday monrings to wash and iron during the week  becasue a). we don't have wash and iron facilities in the caravan and b). I don't want to waste valuable weekend time doing washing and ironing.
 
OH does a "Friday tidy" in the caravan but I've ususally wrecked it by Monday    He has the patience of  a saint. We did have a "Scooba" - a floor cleaning robot which we used to put on the kitchen flooor each night in the old house. We did have a vacuuming robot too but he couldn't cope with the flecky carpet so he went to my MIL.
 
I have promised OH that we will get a cleaning lady once a week in the new house, plus the Scooba, plus me taking the washing and ironing plus the integrated vacuum system..... hopefully we will get there in the end 

[Small Farmer]

I understand that from time to time there is a quaint odour here and that the front door may occasionally be unusable because of the stock of animal feed/ironmongery and cardboard boxes of stuff blocking it.  Nevertheless people keep coming round because we're interesting to visit. 


Being interesting is, to my mind, the essence of the situation.  Those people with perfectly clean homes and pastel carpets have nothing interesting in their lives beyond the latest episode of Eastenders.

[jaykay]

Exactly   

[suziequeue]

Hear hear 

[plumseverywhere]

I grew up in one of those awful clean and spotless houses, Mum cleaned from morning to night and Dad insisted in 100% cleanliness in everything. They are divorced now and his house is still pristine, you can see him cringe when he comes here to visit! I think he's getting more used to it now he can see that the benefits of our lifestyle far outweigh any disadvantages

[McRennet]

I have also worked out that is you fold things a certain way......and then let the pile build to a decent hight, the clothes press themselves. Simples! 

[WarescotFarm]

Oh I am with you there 3 kids under 5 and alot of animals!
I hoover the middle of the room if someone coming over, makes the whole place look smarter, have one of those mops with a spray on it so can quickly do kitchen floor and I use dettol so it smells clean
Never iron, never dust (maybe twice a year)
I have also bought a powder disinfectant from a horse shop that you put on stable floors, it is working a TREAT! I used to muck out every day to try and keep ontop of urine smell. Now just poo pick and full muck out once a week. This stuff kills the urine smell!
Good luck, have a glass of wine and don't worry about it x