Why Women End Up Cleaning the House

[Boxlicker101]

Can you come do my dishes, and clean my bathroom - I'm in need of a new sub

Actually edit - I'm being polite on an author thread:

GET your fucking tight ass over here and lick my dishes!

I would, especially if you have a big strapon and are ready to use it, but my wife probably won't let me. Drat!

 

[Boxlicker101]

damn double post.

 

[Sabledrake]

On the other hand, my wife has no compunction about using a pliers on a nut, or using tape to fix a broken rear-view mirror, things that are clearly sins against God and nature to me.

My husband once caught me using a butter knife on a Philips screw, and I thought he was going to have a seizure on the spot.

Sabledrake

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Re: Re: Why Women End Up Cleaning the House

Now, Dr. Mabeuse and other husband/live-ins, a question: is this mess-blindness related to marital status? My own ex husband kept his, um, bachelor pad neat and clean but became mess-blind once he had a woman living under his roof. Is that a pattern?

No. My bachelor days were great. Functionalism was the key: as long I could live in it and find what I needed when I needed it, it was perfectly acceptable. I wasn't into cleaning for cosmetic purposes, and still don't really understand it. Learning to live with a woman has been like learning to live in an alien culture: you learn to respect the rituals and practices even though they seem to have no rational sense or purpose.

The apotheosis of irrational female housekeeping for me was a childhood friend whose mother wouldn't let anyone walk on her carpet or sit in her furniture because we'd "ruin" them. Plastic runners everywhere. We used to go over to his house and sit in the front stoop, even in winter.

---dr.M.

---dr.M.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Why Women End Up Cleaning the House

No. My bachelor days were great. Functionalism was the key: as long I could live in it and find what I needed when I needed it, it was perfectly acceptable. I wasn't into cleaning for cosmetic purposes, and still don't really understand it. Learning to live with a woman has been like learning to live in an alien culture: you learn to respect the rituals and practices even though they seem to have no rational sense or purpose.

The apotheosis of irrational female housekeeping for me was a childhood friend whose mother wouldn't let anyone walk on her carpet or sit in her furniture because we'd "ruin" them. Plastic runners everywhere. We used to go over to his house and sit in the front stoop, even in winter.

---dr.M.

---dr.M.

I could also never figure out the reason for cosmetic cleaning. I washed the dishes and scrubbed the toilet because that was for sanitary purposes. I didn't leave rotting food sitting around because it would stink and attract flies. Eventually the stoff that spilled on the kitchen floor would start to stick to my feet or smell bad and then I would clean that up, about once a month or so. Dust didn't bother me so I seldom dusted. This was for my own purposes or that of my buddies. I knew, however, that women often had this strange fetish about neatness and cleanliness so if I was having female company, I would clean up. This didn't happen very often.

I think it's still a "lady of the house" kind of thing. Girls' rooms and boys' rooms are about equally messy; it isn't until a woman is actually paying rent or mortgage payments that she starts to have a fetish about cleaning for cosmetic purposes.

Doc, those carpets and furniture was probably only off limits for kids. If adults had come over, they probably would have been allowed to walk on them or sit on them.

 

[SlickTony]

The apotheosis of irrational female housekeeping for me was a childhood friend whose mother wouldn't let anyone walk on her carpet or sit in her furniture because we'd "ruin" them. Plastic runners everywhere. We used to go over to his house and sit in the front stoop, even in winter.

I feel about women like that about how I feel about people who have their cats declawed--if their furniture is that damn important they shouldn't have cats or kids.

A somewhat more benign variant of this type pushes her kids out the door in the morning and doesn't let them in until it's time for them to eat supper.

I don't fall into any of these categories, and as I mentioned before, my house is currently pathologically messy. It's just when I do get it looking nice, everything around me contrives to come behind me and undo everything I've done.

Show me a woman whose house looks like the display floor at Haverty's and I'll show you a woman whose kids are at my place helping tear it up. I had a neighbor like that when I lived in an apartment complex. She'd have her boyfriend over and send her kids over to play with mine. When I was young and single, if I'd sicced my kids on the neighbors so I could entertain my boyfriend in the bedroom, people would have talked scandalous about me.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why Women End Up Cleaning the House

Doc, those carpets and furniture was probably only off limits for kids. If adults had come over, they probably would have been allowed to walk on them or sit on them.

I don't think so, Box. I've seen a lot of clear plastic carpet paths, and I've never seen one rolled up for adult company. It would take an hour.

There are even more ironic symtoms of compulsive neatness than using an ugly material to cover a nice one: a friend (male) requires his guests to remove their shoes at the door so he won't have to clean the carpet - now and then, someone new shows up and is embarrassed by having to reveal socks with holes in them; a co-worker hosted an office party at her home and announced as each guest arrived that no one was to go in the living room because our shoes might scuff the hardwood floor. These are people who love to entertain but treat their guests like invasive parasites (to keep the place nice for guests?) One party goes a long way.

I'm grateful that my family's clean home was clean because of obsessive cleaning and not because guests or children were forbidden to relax and enjoy themselves.

I disagree that obsessive neatness is a female trait, though; my ex hated clutter but wanted someone else to deal with it, and the first shoe-removal nazi I ever met was male.

It's also not necessarily true that men who live with clutter like it that way. There's a cousin hanging from the family tree by his prehensile tail, who is so embarrassed by the way his house looks that when his boss dropped by, he met the man in the front yard and kept him there for the duration of a half-hour conversation. It was Florida and it was August and there was a light rain. But this primate knew instinctively that even another male would be creeped out by the mess inside.

I hate to clean the house, so when I don't like the way things are I just throw away everything that isn't furniture, a pet, or redeemable for cash. Having moved often, I feel trapped whenever I own more things than I could pack and move within two days.

I'm thinking of replacing the kitchen floor to avoid scrubbing the grout. There are ways to get the house clean without cleaning it.

 

[Mhari]

Perdita said:

I think the difference for me, and other bad housekeepers, is that I feel really bad about it. I was raised to think it was my moral duty to be neat and clean (seriously).

Yeah, me too.

But I was also born with the "clutter" gene. I'll pile all kinds of junk up all over the place. (Semi-organized piles, though...makes me feel a bit better. ) I'll get around to cleaning it all up, eventually. Usually when I have company coming. The house is now semi-clean because I had a guest. Semi because we made lots of clutter while he was here...now waiting in piles to be cleaned. *grin*

I do feel guilty about not cleaning, though. I just don't ever seem to be able to do it unless something makes me.

My ex...damn, he would make the worst messes. Then try to get me to clean them all up. I don't take kindly to being given orders, so the house would just get messier and messier.... Then we'd have company come over and I'd have to clean it all up, anyway.

Honestly, I just don't trust a man to clean properly. This despite the fact that it's my father who does all the vacuuming in my parents' house. I think it is true that men and women perceive dirt differently. My ex would "clean" something...and I would have to clean it again to make it actually clean.

I won't even tell you how disgusting the house was when I returned from 3 months overseas. I was just grateful that he hadn't burned the place down in my absence...

 

[SlickTony]

There are even more ironic symtoms of compulsive neatness than using an ugly material to cover a nice one: a friend (male) requires his guests to remove their shoes at the door so he won't have to clean the carpet - now and then, someone new shows up and is embarrassed by having to reveal socks with holes in them; a co-worker hosted an office party at her home and announced as each guest arrived that no one was to go in the living room because our shoes might scuff the hardwood floor. These are people who love to entertain but treat their guests like invasive parasites (to keep the place nice for guests?) One party goes a long way.

Actually, I have never seen anything wrong with the shoes-off policy. I was exposed to this while living in the middle east and thought it was one of their customs that made sense. It does save wear and tear on the carpets. They do it in Asia too. I try to enforce this in my house, and my son does play along, leaving his shoes in the foyer like me, but my husband is the lone holdout, and so i sometimes find both his office casual shoes and his tennis shoes lying between the couch and the coffee table where he's taken them off.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Actually, I have never seen anything wrong with the shoes-off policy. I was exposed to this while living in the middle east and thought it was one of their customs that made sense. It does save wear and tear on the carpets. They do it in Asia too. I try to enforce this in my house, and my son does play along, leaving his shoes in the foyer like me, but my husband is the lone holdout, and so i sometimes find both his office casual shoes and his tennis shoes lying between the couch and the coffee table where he's taken them off.

We do the same thing in our house. We don't actually force anybody to remove shoes before entering but most of our guests have the same policy in their homes and there has never been any problem.

 

[gauchecritic]

I've never understood this shoes off thing. I do it if I'm staying quite a while at families homes or good friends but it is so uncomfortable a feeling for me I don't like to do it in ordinary friends' homes.

Feel free to take off your shoes in my house though as long as you can stand wooden floors.

Gauche

 

[SlickTony]

it is so uncomfortable a feeling for me I don't like to do it in ordinary friends' homes.

That reminds me of my dad, who insisted on keeping his feet imprisoned in shoes from the moment he swung them down out of the bed in the morning until he drew them up into the bed at night. And it drove him bugshit when the rest of the family went barefoot. I think feet should be free to breathe. He'd picked up some kind of exotic fungus to his feet while he was in the Pacific Theatre, for which he bought Mexsana, etc. by the case, and I maintain that his shoe anti-barefoot stance was the reason why the problem stayed with him years after his fellow Marines most likely got rid of theirs. I think a great many foot problems are brought about by shoes.

 

[Dirt Man]

Well, I've listened to the ranting, and raving of this thread long enough. Of all of the creatures on this planet Man/Woman kind is the messiest. And no, men are not any more messblind than women are. My own wife is a clutter freak. And I swear she didn't know what really clean meant until I showed her step, by freaking step over the first 10 years of our marriage. And it's not like I just dumped the whole house cleaning job on her once we were married either. In fact I often end up doing more than my share of the house cleaning to make up for when I'm away at sea.

The problem arises once the house is nearly imaculate. At the moment I am happiest, and content my wife goes out and brings in the mail. She opens it all, then separates the mail into piles before putting the piles on the dinning room table. Now understand, we have filing cabinets just for this kind of thing, but they are in another room in the house. After the mail is sorted, and dwelt with she sits down on the couch behind the coffee table in the living room, lights a cigarette, and turns on her favorite TV program of the hour. In no time things start to gather around her. Crackers, licorise, chocolate things, paper, and regular plates along with utensils, several glasses with differing levels of fluid in them, and the next day she just adds more clutter atop the previous days clutter. (BTW we have a dishwasher.)So that by the end of the week she has built a fortress of ruble, and food stuffs around her. Eventually, the mail is so overflowing the dinning room table that it is now piling up on the couch next to her as well. Cracker cumbs lead from the kitchen to her couch, to the front door. Cobwebs are begining to gather in every corner of every room, and the dust is so thick that it looks as if no one had bothered with it for six months instead of the 5 actual days that have passed by.

Now I have shown this woman the principle of comercial break house cleaning mind you. And for those who don't know about it it is the easiest way to keep a house clean, and never miss one moment of TV programing. Most commercial breaks last an average of 5 minutes here in the USA. The time the program is on varies greatly, but that doesn't matter. You only clean during the commercial breaks. So even if you only clean house during the commercials if you don't get up out of bed until ten AM you should have the entire house clean by the time the daily soap opera "Days of our Lives" is over, or around 2 PM if you do this on a daily basis, or even every other day as long as you clean up after yourself along the way. I have proved this to her on more than one occasion, and to other wives as well.

So it's not like she doesn't have the time. Nor is she fat, and lazy as one might think, as she often works out on the treadmill while watching TV. The truth is she is messblind. And I know exactly when she got this affliction. When she got a steady job as a certified nurse's aid working from 3pm-11pm five days a week after all of our children had moved out on their own. Now remember, if I'm not home, and away at sea that she is basically living in her own mess. So I can't even be blamed for this as when I'm home I end up cleaning up behind her now trying to do my share, and her's both.

What am I trying to say here? Well, I think the mess has a lot to do with what she does at the nursing home where she works. Cleaning up incontinents, and their surroundings probably has caused her to make her own healthy mess to compensate. But that's just a theory. When the children lived with us she was always cleaning the house. Now, maybe just once a week on her day off if I'm not home, and not at all if I am. So no, it isn't gender messblindness, but perhaps it is occupational messblindness that people get.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[shereads]

Actually, I have never seen anything wrong with the shoes-off policy. I was exposed to this while living in the middle east and thought it was one of their customs that made sense. It does save wear and tear on the carpets. They do it in Asia too. I try to enforce this in my house, and my son does play along, leaving his shoes in the foyer like me, but my husband is the lone holdout, and so i sometimes find both his office casual shoes and his tennis shoes lying between the couch and the coffee table where he's taken them off.

In Japan, you'd be sane. Here, you're compulsive.

Not because it doesn't save the carpet, but because in Japan I'd have had a pedicure before visiting. I'd know what to expect. At your house, I'd be surprised by the shoe request and I might have chipped polish on a toenail. I'd feel awful, and you'd have failed your guest.

So I'm afraid I must turn down the invitation....What? You didn't invite me to your house?





It's the chipped polish, isn't it? You hate the way my feet look. It's just as I feared.

 

[shereads]

Now I have shown this woman the principle of comercial break house cleaning mind you. And for those who don't know about it it is the easiest way to keep a house clean, and never miss one moment of TV programing. Most commercial breaks last an average of 5 minutes here in the USA.

One word: Tivo.



-------

Meanwhile, Dirt, any woman or man who cleans up after the incontinent deserves to leave a trail of cracker crumbs the size of Interstate 95. More power to her. Get her Tivo for Christmas. Spring for a maid on the day of her birthday. Clean up the stuff that bothers you. She's cleaned enough.

 

[Belegon]

Adaptive cleaning

I have actually found myself on both sides but I think it has to do with one of my main personality traits.

I tend to do the jobs that are not being done by others. By the way, makes you a very popular co-worker .

In my last year of college I accepted an invitation to move in with a frat brother. He was a S-L-O-B! There was literally a path thru the living room and a path to his mattress on the floor. No couches or chairs, no kitchen table, no real bed in either of two rooms. Just a TV on a milk crate, although his clean clothes were meticulously folded and closet full of ironed shirts. Dirty clothes were on the floor, everywhere. Moved in at beginning of Christmas break as he flew home. By the time he got back, I had a bed and loveseat in my room, kitchen table and chairs, two easychairs, a couch and coffetable and bookcases. TV still on a milk crate as it was a low priority. All clothes clean, carpet vacummed. Oh, and I had read the lease to discover the landlord paid for the heat and we did not have to sleep in sweats and quilts. All of a sudden, females were willing to visit. IMAGINE THAT!

15 years later, I mostly just vacumm and dust. These are the two jobs my wife hates. I will do laundry or dishes if she has not done them but she usually has. Have given up on the rest as she just straightens the things I just cleaned ( very annoying). She likes it that way as long as I don't ignore things when she does not want to do them. My job is to provide entertainment for her and the kids, whether it is reading to daughter or playing catch with son or buying latest Hollywood Musical to hit DVD.

 

[Liar]

I've never understood this shoes off thing. I do it if I'm staying quite a while at families homes or good friends but it is so uncomfortable a feeling for me I don't like to do it in ordinary friends' homes.

Feel free to take off your shoes in my house though as long as you can stand wooden floors.

Gauche

Fascinating. Well, kind of. The shoes off-policy is pretty cemented in Sweden and our closes neighbors. Public places, shoes on, private homes, shoes off. But that's acually the first time I've heard someone mention a reluctancy to take off his shoes. Do you mean physical discomfort, or do you feel, like, naked in a pair of socks?

My guess is that it is a habit thing. In a Scandinavian winter, it's an absoute nessecity up here in the polar regions. You don't want to drag half a glacier into the living room and having it melting on the carpets. Shoes drag in muck. I'm not at all in the tidy and neat-department, but you bloody well leave the mud, rain, snow and dirt in the hall. It's common courtsey to the guy who has to clean the place after you.

That could be one of the reasons that I actually don't need to clean the house twice a week. The only thing to clean away is indoors dust settling.

#L

 

[SlickTony]

At your house, I'd be surprised by the shoe request and I might have chipped polish on a toenail.

Shereads, I'd never make you take your shoes off--I wouldn't even request it. It's something I do, and hope that others get the hint when they see the shoes in the foyer. But I'd never enforce it on you.

As for chipped toenail polish, think nothing of it. I am not that critical of people's feet, except when I see people with French-manicured toenails and then wish I had as much time and money for that kind of thing as they have.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

One thing about messes, though. It's amazing how you can miss a person's mess when they leave. It can really break your heart.

---dr.M.

 

[CharleyH]

One thing about messes, though. It's amazing how you can miss a person's mess when they leave. It can really break your heart.

---dr.M.

I hear ya - much more than messes though -god dam irritating and annoying idiosyncracies!!!! which end up - endearing.

 

[minsue]

One thing about messes, though. It's amazing how you can miss a person's mess when they leave. It can really break your heart.

---dr.M.

That's the sweetest commentary I've ever seen in regards to cleaning.

 

[JenniferMidnight]

It's a discussion that has been taking place (mostly by women) for decades. Besides the exception of the 'nutcase tidy guy', I do agree that men just don't notice combined with don't care. Being a tad obsessive-compulsive with a touch of 'control freak' thrown in, I have spent the last 15 years of my life learning to relax about this issue. Yes, I do like to be able to locate things when needed and always feel good when I find them waiting for me in their precise spot (decided by me, no doubt)…but… a few things have helped me in my therapeutic journey. The first influence has been living with men that have tried to teach me that there are greater things in life to get myself worked up about and, the second would be having a child. I now view the household everyflowing, overflowing, constant MESS with the same philosophy I use in raising my daughter: pick your crisis (and give yourself a maximum per day). “Damn, now where are those kitchen scissors?”

 

[SeaCat]

Interesting thread.

I got married eleven years ago to a wonderfull woman who is clutter oriented. I on the other hand was more of a neat freak than you would have believed. Now though things have changed. Our place is not so much obsesivly clean as it is ordered. We can find what we want, when we want it, but we don't waste a lot of time cleaning. (The trick is to clean up after yourself.) You clean as you cook, then let the dishes soak until the next meal. If you spill something you clean it up then, because if you wait then it just gets worse, but don't go crazy over it. You have to make priorities in life.
As for the vacuum cleaners. Well, I believe they were designed by the same drunken engineer who designed Bra's and those blasted gowns they make you wear in Hospitals.

SeaCat