How to blend two schools of thought about cleaning under one roof

Lacey writes

I was reading some old posts about how to keep your place clean which is a battle I am always fighting.

My husband and I have different philosophies on cleaning. I would rather do a little cleaning every day and he would rather take a weekend and clean everything at once. He hates me nagging him to do chores and I get overwhelmed when the place it too messy.

I try to do daily cleaning until I get behind and overwhelmed. Then he will take a weekend and do a massive cleaning. We both end up feeling like the other one never does any cleaning. How can we find a better compromise?

Oh, the cleaning battle. I know it well.

My husband and I found that the root to our different cleaning styles could be solved by streamlining the house. If your house is getting terribly messy pretty quickly, it might be because it’s hard to keep clean. I believe constant messiness in some area means that it’s not fulfilling its designated need very well. If our foyer is always covered in shoes and ice melt, it’s probably because there isn’t a convenient place to keep whatever we’re keeping there. Maybe it’s a hassle to put your shoes away. Maybe there’s nowhere to sit so you just go into the house with your shoes on, only to abandon them elsewhere.

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What if you get a couple beers and have a casual house meeting and agree on the messiest area in the house? Figure out where the kink in the hose is (“Our bedroom always has clothes on the floor because I need a place to put not-clean but not-dirty clothes, and I don’t have one.”) Basically have an OH BASKETS! discussion.

Once you’ve sussed out the problem, see what you can do to fix it. Maybe it means you need to buy a dish drying rack for the sink because otherwise the dishes never get washed, or maybe it means you’ll flip your bedroom so his dresser’s on the other side.

There isn’t one big compromise you can make to land on the same page on housekeeping, but identifying problems and solving them together will, over time, get you to an agreement. That doesn’t mean that your cleaning philosophies won’t still cause friction, but you married this dude, so you have time.

Anyone else? How have you meshed two very different cleaning styles into one peaceful home?

About the Author: Cat Rocketship

I was the Managing Editor of Offbeat Home for a year and a half. I have a rich Internet life and also a pretty good real life. Hobbies include D&D, Twitter, and working on making our household more self-reliant. I also draw things.