My 2 Best Options
1. MAID. I always thought hiring a maid was a Richie Rich extravagance, until I learned how much they actually cost. Average across different places I’ve lived? $50 for an individual once a week, $250 for a team to come in once and deep clean. WTFO? That’s less than a daily latte, a visit to my mechanic, or calling up the plumber or electrician. Well I can make my own damn coffee, fix 90% of my mechanical/plumbing, I can sure as hell add a maid-budget for when I’m living with other people who are driving me effing craaaaaazy on the cleaning front, or having a bad go of it.
2. FUN ROUTINES. IE FIELD DAY. Thursday nights at Casa de la Friday = pizza & beer are ordered in, music is cranked up, and we bust out a deep clean for 2-3 hours. Plus a 15minute BLITZ clean either first thing in the morning or near the last thing at night, depending on how our lives are working. (Clear off flat surfaces; counters, floors, all of it. Gone. Poof. Bye bye!) They’re USMC holdovers. As is doing weekly laundry on Sundays (sheets & towels on Sundays, clothes we wore yesterday done daily), wacky laundry done on Field days (shower curtains, pillows, etc.).
^^^ Everyone has their own patterns where they start, work out to, finish & what “feels” right. My mom has learned the hard way, during Covid when we had 3.5 families in the same house that attempting to micromanage HOW people clean? (I don’t want this room done first, I don’t want this put off until the end, I don’t want the floors done before everything above it, we’re not going to order a pizza on a Thursday, if we’re going to have Pizza it’s on the weekend and WILL be followed by movies not cleaning, I don’t care if you’re not asking me to clean I don’t want you baaaaanging aroooound while we’re trying to enjoy our dinner, Not this way, not that way, do it like this, start here, breathe in, breathe out)… Just makes people stop. They’ll do a little bit here and there, when people aren’t watching/commenting, but it stops being a daily/weekly pattern creating a clean living space, and just becomes an ongoing resentment betwixt EVERYONE. <<< I figured this might just be a me&my family thang, but one thing Covid did was put a whoooooole lotta us in multi family homes driving and being driven crazy by everyone else in them. Chores & how/when people do them? Seem to top everyone I personally know list of “I will not throttle people I love” vexations. Followed closely by “things people who have never had roommates/housemates seem unable to learn” (like personal space, fridge & food etiquette, don’t touch/take other peoples things without asking, etc,).
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So, FOR ME, if the other person is an unmovable object, they’re about to meet my unstoppable force; as I implement my own routines -or- hire a damn maid. BUT I am not going to fight about it. Full stop. The moment it becomes emotionally charged? I just quit cleaning. I can live in bombed out rubble, and goddamn thrice cursed decaying filthy nasty ass swamps and mud, and not bathe for weeks. I won’t be happy living in a clusterf*ck, or ever feel like I’ve come “home” (ahhhhh! sanctuary!), but it’s better than fighting over it. They wanna micromanage? Or get angry? Or nix the fun? They can do it themselves.
