When I was first married I cleaned our tiny apartments, then our larger apartments and then our first home. We moved into a larger home when we had our third child and that's when I started with house cleaners. That was 36 years ago and I've never regretted it.

Now that we're both retired and in a much smaller home I still have no plans to clean. I have a service that comes every other week and it's lovely to have the entire house clean at once. I still vacuum and dust occasionally because we do have a hairy dog. And as you pointed out - they don't do everything and they certainly don't do it as well as you would.

While you do get some exercise when you clean I really don't think it's all that much.

Okay maire-cate - I think with that you just pushed me over the edge. The house cleaners stay.

My brother and I had to help. There was a weekly schedule. Dusting, vacuuming, floor scrubbing, bed making with clean sheets was all done on Saturdays. (My mom worked part time.) Laundry was done on Monday. Ironing was done on Tuesday. Grocery shopping was Thursday.

I have no schedule. Never had a housekeeper. I will admit to keeping a cleaner house when I was working full time. It's just not on my list of priorities anymore. The vacuum is run daily in the part of the house we inhabit most and dh has taken on the toilet cleaning chore. Other than that dusting and thorough vacuuming is a crapshoot. Sorry Mom!

For many years, I cleaned this very old house but not every day as I gone a lot with a band I played with and generally cleaning just wasn't a priority(catticus, we posted at the same time). My house wasn't a pig sty or look like a hoarder lived in it, just floors not always swept, irregular dusting. Also had dogs. As I said, old house needing some TLC.

Well, in the last 10yrs. I'd say, I've finally been able to do some remodeling, making dreams come true, making the place look nice. Now I want it to look nice ALL the time! It's almost like I obsess over keeping it clean and neat looking. lol If I could hire someone to at least clean the shower once a week I would be happy.

Maybe you could compromise and do the regular maintenance yourself and hire cleaners monthly to do a more thorough cleaning.

My grandmother had to dust weekly when she was a girl. My mother and I were spared the chore. And I followed suit and did not have my boys do household chores. I am pretty sure that was a bad idea, but only time will tell. If they grow up to live in pig sties, we will know who to blame.

I don’t mind cleaning and have been doing it since I was a child. Then at age 14, my older sister, younger brother and I were completely responsible for cleaning, as well as cooking. I have used house cleaning services intermittently over the years, but not on a regular schedule. I now approach cleaning on a zone schedule: master bedroom/bath 2x/wk, common areas 1/wk and guest areas as needed. I don’t like being in the house when cleaners are here and the 1/wk service never seems to align with needs.

How do those with hired help find them? My friend has been looking for someone for a year. I know she's gone through at least a dozen. Some didn't do a good job, some did a good job but quit showing up. Some never showed up for the very first cleaning, and a couple never showed up for the interview. She has gone by recommendations from friends, reviews on Nextdoor, and a few random sources.

She's a bit picky, but not excessively so. I have helped her clean house, and her expectations aren't outrageous.

During the winter when I am not working, I have a loose schedule. It starts on Monday when DH (Messy Marvin) leaves for the day. Cleaning with MM around is like cleaning with a toddler in tow. I go by room, certain rooms on certain days. I'll skip it if it really doesn't need anything. By the end of the week, the whole house has been hit, just in time for DH to spend the weekend destroying it. And on any given day I don't spend more than an hour. I do it first thing after breakfast.

During the summer when I'm working, all bets are off. Mostly it gets done when it gets dire. We haven't died from dust poisoning yet.

We have a housekeeper and always will. I cannot imagine ever wanting to clean my own house for any reason. Cleaning is dirty. I get vaguely ill at the idea of cleaning a bathroom or cleaning out the trash can when it gets gunk around it outside the bag. NOPE!

I could not have managed without cleaning help when DH and I were both working outside the home. However, we are managing just fine since I retired last June. We still hire out bigger jobs like windows. DH shops and cooks and I clean. It is so much easier now that it is just two people vs. five when the kids were here. We still have cleaning and a yard crew at our vacation house though. If you have to shop, prepare meals and clean two houses then you might want to keep the cleaning help.

As a child I was not expected to clean. Truth be told, my late mother was a neat freak and a cleaning guru, so nothing would have been clean enough. My parents felt that my time was best spent on school and activities. We brought our daughters up the same way, expecting very little in the way of housework, other than basic cleanliness in their bedrooms (the cleaning crew dd not clean their bedrooms-just the master!) and their shared bath (which the crew did clean weekly).. Between school, sports and activities they we very busy. They are all homeowners now and neat and clean. We frequently joke that Grammy would be proud of their domestic inclinations!

Oh, hell no! Keep your housecleaner and do fun stuff with your time.

I won't be able to ever afford a housekeeper so I'm it. I do some things on schedule and other things I don't do often enough. I'm trying to reverse it so I do the not so often things first and hopefully get used to the slightly longer routine.

The jobs I dislike are sweeping up all the dust into the dustpan and emptying the vacuum cleaner. I don't mind sweeping but for some reason I balk every time I have to sweep the debris into a dustpan. I might get one of those electric dust pans that sucks things right into it. Maybe it will be easier to take apart and empty into the garbage. I find it annoying that vacuum cleaners have to be emptied fairly often and are sometimes quite finicky to get apart and put back together.

All the rest is pretty much okay and done weekly. I scrub out the bath every time I have a bath. So next time it is nice and clean and I'm not disgusted by it.

Keep the housekeeper, at least for now. I can almost guarantee you will not be sorry. Yes, I had to help out a little bit at home when I was a kid, but it mostly was to learn how to dust and vacuum via keeping my own room clean. We still had a housekeeper every couple of weeks, but I still had to learn.

I didn’t have a housekeeper in my early married days, but as soon as I could afford one, I did. When I retired I didn’t even consider letting mine go. It is so worth having someone clean house since I don’t like doing it, but I do like a clean house. I run a cordless vacuum every few days in the kitchen, bath and main traffic areas just to keep it tidy.

Beagles, I take it you're not a gardener.

catticusmockingbirdI have a veggie garden and lots of landscaping -- but I just pull weeds and plant things... we don't compost (not for me!) and my husband deals with worm or bug situations in the garden.

I don't mind dirt, like in the form of mud - I take the dogs for walks on muddy woods trails all the time. I can even deal with some bugs. It is gross food dirt and bathroom stuff and things like drain hair, that completely gross me out. (Getting ill just talking about this). Oh, and sponges! I find sponges to be so intolerably gross. And that sink gunk in the strainer at the bottom of the sink. Cannot deal.

If necessary I would forego almost any other luxury to have cleaning help. I just can't.

Beagles that's interesting because it's your dirt...I wouldn't relish cleaning someone else's dirt, but mine is okay...

I don't have a cleaner come in and I hate it frankly. I'm in pain sometimes and it's difficult...

What I would love is to pay someone a lot to come in once a year for a complete spring cleaning...Like...three people 400 a day for three days...something like that. Plus me. Except sadly I work for free...

We had to help as kids. My kids had to help, too.

I have never had a cleaner. Mostly because I don't want "strangers" in my house. Heck, I barely like having friends in my house ;). Since my kids were 3 and 7, I only worked part time, so it seemed like I should just do it since I have the time. Most of my friends have cleaners and most complain about them. I figure, I can do a lousy job for free! I'm generally neat and keep up with most stuff daily. It is just the dog hair that is hard to keep up with since I refuse to vacuum daily. My husband does help and when he was between jobs for a year it was heaven! I did not vacuum once during that year. He will retire in 2-3 years and I can't wait. I always say if I were to go back to full time I'd hire cleaners, but I know I really won't do it.

I"ll preface by saying I am a clean freak. I can't say household detritus makes me physically ill but it does make me extremely uncomfortable and uneasy to live in a cluttered or dirty environment. My kids actually have joked that I ruined their lives because they grew up in such a spotless house they can't tolerate gunk either LOL.

I have hired cleaning help for many years. When my kids were younger it was somewhat sporadic; my husband hated having people in the house and insisted someone (me) had to be there at the same time as the cleaners which was a big hassle, and it was tough finding a good individual or company.

Then I did it myself for awhile and eventually decided no more of that. I was working so would spend every Saturday cleaning the house and was on my knees one sunny weekend day scrubbing a toilet when I realized that my husband was out having fun and so were my kids while I was on my knees scrubbing a toilet. I can so clearly recall thinking 'aw HELL no', and luckily around the same time I found a gem of a house cleaner. She's amazingly thorough and her every other week visits keep my house clean to the level I prefer. Even my husband has grown accustomed to having her come; I leave a key hidden in our secret spot and she works without either of us being present. Right now we are splitting time between two houses, so she is still on the regular schedule at our current place and comes sporadically to our vacation house. Once we sell and move I hope and pray she will figure out how to keep us on her regular schedule--she's in great demand and literally has all her work days booked with regular clients. I treat her very well, when she has to miss a day due to illness or a (rare) vacation, I still pay her for her time.

What I've found is that house cleaners get to places that I just ignore on my regular rotation of cleaning. I think it's easy to get into a habit of doing X-Y-Z in a house and for me at least there's no getting into corners or little areas that may need some extra attention. I"ll be retiring in a few months and housecleaning will most assuredly stay in the budget. It's an expense that brings me a huge level of happiness. Having a clean home without spending time doing the drudgery, that's a gift that keeps on giving!

I never hired a housekeeper when I was back at the old house. It showed. I tried keeping up with parts of it, and did major stuff prior to company arriving, but it was hard with long work hours, including some weekends.

Retired now, and in my new home... decided to hire someone to come in every other week for a couple of hours. This is great! She'll do all the floors, the bathrooms, dusting, and periodic window cleaning. I do the kitchen counters and sinks, on an as needed basis (which is often since I like to cook.)

And there's Sharkey, the Shark Ion robot vacuum. He doesn't get corners too well, but I run him around periodically.

I really like the arrangement, as I live alone and the last thing I want to do with my retirement time is most of those housekeeping chores. Chores are best done with others as I discovered back in the days when I had a housemate. (Misery loves company???)

(I do clean the chicken house, and the kitty boxes, she doesn't get those jobs!)

Right now there are simply too many other demands on my money to put some towards a housecleaner but if I could afford one, I would absolutely to have someone come in once a month to do baseboards, light fixtures, deep cleaning, etc. My house is kept at a reasonable state of cleanliness. The kitchen is cleaned most every night. Things like the cooktop are unfortunately not handled as often as they should be but anything that comes into direct contact with food is always taken care of. I really should vacuum more but the dust in the desert is so bad that it is a losing battle. Frankly, I would rather be gardening anyway and that is generally what I focus on.

As a kid, I did household chores. My 4 kids do as well. They are responsible for their bathroom, their bedrooms and alternate chores cleaning the kitchen. I also have not touched their laundry in years other than to move it along. I really need to start training the youngest 2 in more areas of the house as the oldest 2 will be moving on before too long (maybe?). Dh would prefer the house to be cleaner. His mom was very clean and did all the cleaning herself. As I have made no secret of where the cleaning supplies are kept or where the vacuum cleaner resides, and he does not often retrieve them on his own, I can only assume that he does not dislike the state of the house enough to do something about it.

Forgot to say that I wasn't allowed to do chores as a kid. Mother was extremely strange about it. Didn't want us to out shine her in appearance or in abilities so she kept us down with her criticisms and lack of guidance. I still have to tell myself when I feel inept that that is what I've been told, not the truth. The wrong words at the right time can have a life shaping ability.

I tried to teach my kids how to keep clean and tidy despite having no real idea how to clean. Son looks after the suite downstairs and does a very good job despite disabilities. Daughter is very good at cleaning too so I think I've succeeded. I wasn't taught to cook either but both children cook very well.

Some of this is cracking me up. I'm sorry Beagles, but do you realize how you sound? Not being able to clean your own home?

I work part-time. Retiring in a few months. I (we) clean our own home. I do more of the inside cleaning and laundry. There are two of us and one small dog. I do not clean on schedule such as my MIL does. I HATE that. I am not a scheduled person!! I do things as needed but am much like Jojoco. Some things (bathrooms, kitchen, sheets, etc.) are done weekly and usually end of week. Other things I do as needed. I am not one for Spring cleaning. Just do it when it needs done! Most anything that people "spring clean" needs done more than once a year anyway. I do have help a few/couple times a year with deep cleaning duties. I've tried a time or two to have someone come in regular and I just wasn't happy. I guess I am too used to my way of doing things. My husband is neat and he does a superb job at vacuuming (more thorough than me - he moves everything). So, we're fine as we are, for as long as we can. We do our own yard, etc. too. I can only offer the advice of staying on top of things and then it doesn't get out of hand.

I also do all my own cleaning, yard work, repairs, and pretty much everything else, too. I never had a housekeeper and never wanted one. I do like a clean and tidy house and, thankfully, mine is small. I never envy people their large homes because I wouldn't want to clean a big house. I grew up in a home where we didn't hire things out that we could do ourselves, and that still makes sense to me. It helps that I enjoy manual labor!

Very interesting perspectives - thanks all for sharing. I'm very big on not having clutter or crap sitting around. I take care of all that myself. DH is pretty good about picking up after himself though a little help is needed from time to time. And I'm a fanatic about the kitchen being clean when I leave for work and before I go to bed. As far as actual dirt, dust, cat hair, etc. I tend to just clean it when I notice it - ad hoc if you will. I couldn't live without my small, cordless handheld vac. I do have cleaning supplies in every bathroom so clean those as I see the need. I suppose to the extent I continue to clean stuff myself I will do it as I see the need vs. on any particular schedule.

I also do a lot of outdoor work at our lake place - keeping the woods at bay, perennials and a few annuals. We live in a townhome in the city so not much to do there. I guess I would do any "deep" cleaning in the winter. I don't find that my housecleaners do anything very deep. Deep is up to me.

This year I have decided to hire a lawn service. They won't be in the house so that won't bother me. Our yard is small and I did it myself (or my son or husband did) the last few years, but I hate doing it. I do all the gardens, which is more area than the lawn, but the mowing and edging are going to be done by others now...I'm over it! When we had a large yard with a lot of grass area my son was in charge. But now that he doesn't live here I hate to ask him (even though he often offers).

I think cleaning is over rated.

"I'm very big on not having clutter or crap sitting around. I take care of all that myself. DH is pretty good about picking up after himself though a little help is needed from time to time. And I'm a fanatic about the kitchen being clean when I leave for work and before I go to bed."

Like you 3katz we have morning and evening daily housekeeping rituals. There's a big difference between cleaning and tidying IMO, and I definitely am not paying to have someone tidy my house. So beds get made daily, husband maintains the cat equipment (food/water and litterbox are done each evening). I always clean up the kitchen after dinner including the stove top and if necessary the counters; husband empties kitchen trash nightly. Dishwasher is run nightly, emptied every morning. I dispose of mail clutter daily, husband recycles newspaper to his mother in the ALF and every day puts it in his carry bag to go to her. If I let him, husband would leave his newspaper Sudoku puzzles as well as various weekly grocery store flyers out on the dining room table to peruse every day (don't ask, he's a quirky systems analyst who has some odd self-soothing behaviors). I put those away although he grumbles LOL.

From the time my kids were small, I don't go to bed till the house is buttoned up for the night so when I wake up it doesn't stress me out to see dirt or mess first thing. I don't leave for work till the house is orderly enough so that when I come home it's restful and inviting to walk in and unwind. I've always thought a huge proportion of house maintenance is just keeping up habits--when you are in the habit of making the bed, you don't even think about it. When you are in the habit of sorting the mail and trashing the junk stuff, you don't even think about it. And so on.

Before the house cleaner arrives, I remove towels, washcloths and bath mats and lay out fresh ones, and I put away anything that is lying out that shouldn't be. So when she gets there it's ready to be CLEANED. One of the best moments of life at home is when I get back from work on house cleaning days and everything is sparkling clean. Ahhhhhhh, a little moment of joy in the midst of every other Wednesday afternoon ;).

The messiest things in my house have been my dogs, and I'd love to hire someone to come by 3x a day to clean after them. I was not raised with animals in the house, but my husband talked me into an indoor pet soon after we were married. I couldn't believe how filthy they are (but I love them). And we do keep them groomed and take care of them. But they lick their arses and walk around the equivalent of barefoot outside and then come inside having stepped on gawd knows what, don't clean up after themselves, shed everywhere. The concept of animals living indoors is gross.

But, again, I love them.

Anyway, my kids have learned to clean, so I feel like I have "help." It's a life skill we believed was important for them to take on, especially in terms of being independent and having pride in ownership and respect for their surroundings. They sometimes keep their bathroom and living quarters cleaner than I would, frankly. We bought them a car, and they learned how to keep it clean, too and do maintenance, and so on.

Once they are gone, which won't be long, I'll be tempted by a cleaning service. 3katz4me, if you're used to having one, I'd stick with it unless there's a compelling reason not to.

Like Beagles, some aspects of household filth make me queasy to think about, specifically bathroom and kitchen funk. So, over and above getting my house cleaned professionally, I keep my bathrooms and kitchen very clean, all by myself. Sponges? I buy several packages, and the minute one starts smelling icky, out it goes.

Feathers, I'm in the same boat you are--I do not care to have animals living in my house and still don't quite understand how I ended up allowing not one but TWO cats to take up residence!

At the risk of generating the ire of dog lovers everywhere, I tolerate the cat (one died recently) but I would never, ever, not in this life allow a dog to live in my home. That is just more than I could stand.

I have a grand puppy who visits our house in the Keys. However she isn't allowed upstairs in our area; she stays in the kids' apartment downstairs and out on the patio. She's actually a sweet dog and my son and DIL and husband love her to distraction, but she occasionally gets so excited she pees on the floor and of course she does her business outside on my patio (the whole fenced backyard has pavers so no grass). Nose prints all over the glass sliders, and that dog smell. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I honestly don't really understand how people let dogs climb and lie on furniture and even in the bed with them. I'm just not wired for it.

And when the second cat passes on, we won't be getting any more animals. That's probably good news for cats everywhere ;).

3katz wrote: "I don't find that my housecleaners do anything very deep."

That's so true! When I was single, I could keep up with the basics even though I worked long hours. I finally hired a service to clean the high woodwork, take up the large oriental rugs, vacuum the backs, vacuum and damp mop under them. That's all I wanted. The service worked with a Seventh Day Adventist Church to provide work for immigrants from Moldova and Ukraine. With out limited common language, the actual cleaners could not be convinced to leave the kitchen and bathroom alone. One woman explained that it was very satisfying because they were already clean and she could make them sparkle with little effort. She actually knew how to clean. She was a massage therapist and left the cleaning company as soon as she got her license here. I've been cleaning house since I was 10. ("The babysitter wanders off. Pay me what you pay her, I'll do the housework to your standards and cook dinner on week nights. I don't do dishes.") Having someone else clean my bathroom and bedroom feels way too "personal." I returned to doing it myself, but not monthly.

I am no longer physically able to do all of the cleaning. A young friend does the things I cannot. I try to minimize the number of tasks and frequency that I realize most people consider "over the top." Worst case, I can take off my glasses.

If you can afford a cleaner and can find one that cleans to your satisfaction, I see no reason to change that arrangement unless it pleases you to do so.

Runninginginplace, I guess you won't be visiting me any time soon :)

Eld6161, that's a lovely brass bed they're on!

Runninginplace, dogs are more tolerable after puppyhood and before age sets in. I'm the chief dog trainer around here and once I got them thru potty training (which fortunately was uneventful), it was a matter of daily maintenance of shedding and paw prints and watching the weather to strategically plan walks. Weekly cleaning of their favorite spots to lie around. And so on.

An aging dog is the most difficult in terms of cleaning. They develop an odor but increased grooming becomes too stressful. My current one is getting on in years, and we've found a wonderful young lady who's so patient and gentle with her.

This dog also has dementia of sorts and has become deaf, which we are all dealing with. My son was backing out of the garage this morning and our dog was sitting in the middle of the driveway minding the neighborhood, as she does. She didn't hear the car approaching... I started for the door, but fortunately my son knew she was there, stopped the car and got out and ever-so-gently (that brought a lump to my throat) guided her out of the way. My kids have benefited from having pets in many ways. But in terms of daily maintenance and cleaning, they don't know the half of it.

eld, that bed is SO pretty!

As a teenager my parents paid me $10/week for housecleaning. It wasn't the deep cleaning, but vacuuming, dusting, laundry, bathrooms cleaning. Later as I got older and had a part time job after school & weekends mom hired a cleaning lady.

My Grandmother kept an immaculate house, so I always had it in my mind that that was how a house was supposed to be. But raising 3 kids, working full time and my husband having his business that I needed to help with kept me from keeping up with the house chores as I'd like, but I'd spend my vacation days doing the cleaning.

Later, when my MIL moved to our town she would come clean for us-I loved it, but it drove me nuts because she would move stuff and put it back in the wrong place. But it was so nice to come home to a fresh house. She didn't do linens but everything else was done.

She's gone now and it's fallen back on me to do the cleaning. DH tries but he's not very good-I mean, he does a decent job of some things but others fall completely out of his line of vision. He will sweep the floors, but then pushes the pile into a corner instead of sweeping it up into a dust pan. He never completes a job. And he doesn't 'mom clean' like I do-which is put everything AWAY instead of just putting it on a table somewhere.

I can't do the cleaning like I used to, I can't get on my knees so baseboards and the slider door tracks don't get done. I noticed the corner of the wall by the fridge is nasty and needs a good hands & knees scrubbing, so I'm looking to hire someone to do that. I talked to one agency once and they don't do that. Other people I've hired don't get into those deep corners either-and that is what I need done. I do hire a gal every once in a while who helps me do deeper cleaning-she'll do the get under the furniture dusting & mopping and she scrubs the oven, but she can't get it all done in one day. We have too many pets so the dust is nuts in this house.

But if I were retired, and it was somethign I could do, I'd definitely hire someone to come at least once every two weeks to freshen the place up.

Yes the pets - they do create more to do in terms of cleaning. My cats are indoor only and they have the run of the house and all three sleep on the bed with us. I cannot imagine having pets that went outdoors sleeping in my bed. Much as DH wants a dog - no way am I having a dog. My friends wash the dogs feet after every walk outside. No thanks and no thanks to who knows what brought into my house - dirt, parasites, etc. The thought of that bothers me much more than any dirt or other grossness I or my cats have generated within the confines of my own home.

Do pets cause more to do re: cleaning or are they dirtier than kids? Our little dog doesn't shed, is groomed (and we bathe her between groomings), etc. She does go outside, but so do we. We also go to the beach, get in the ocean, camp, get in the lake, etc. People who come to our house comment on how clean it is. It's certainly not perfect (it's pretty much always picked up and not cluttered), but it's pretty clean. I use a steam mop or organic cleaner (wood floors) that sanitizes (also in bathrooms). I don't live my life worrying about the germs. If you've lived through diapers, sickness, caring for someone at the end of life, etc. these things wouldn't be so "gross" to you. It's just life. Sometimes it's not pretty, it's not clean, but you clean it up and go on.

Honestly, if you have pets, your standard is lowered! That said, my home is as clean as it can be under the circumstances.

Like 3katz, my cats are indoor-only. They smell so good I can't stop nuzzling them. Honestly, we should all smell as good as my cats. After fighting a losing battle, I allow them on my kitchen peninsula. I know they hop on the rest of the counter when I'm not there, but I'm a counter-wiper by habit, so it's clean. I don't leave food untended, because I don't want them to eat it. The "rules" are more for their safety than mine. I don't want them eating people food and don't want them around a hot stove or sharp knives.

Shedding is an issue, and I need to clean up hair on the furniture and bed daily. Oh well.

Ya, you do what you have to do for the love of pets. For us that means living with cat hair most every where (and having lots of pet fur removal devices), cleaning up cat barf from time to time (usually on a rug and not any of the expansive hard surface floors), trying to keep tracked cat litter in check (how does that make it all the way up the stairs into my bedroom), sucking up floating hair balls, etc.

What I couldn't take is having my cat running loose outside rolling around in who knows what, walking in who knows what and eating who knows what. Especially since I have one incorrigible counter surfer along with three who would be devastated if they couldn't sleep on the bed. Dogs on a leash wouldn't be so bad as you know where they are and what they're doing.

Some dogs do roll in who knows what, but you can smell it and you clean them.

My own dogs only roll in the grass when it's just been cut because it's nice and scratchy. They don't eat stuff that they shouldn't---I guess they enjoy their food too much :)

What I couldn't take, is a cat that walks on the counter where I prepare food after being in it's litter box. Or having to clean hair balls or cat barf.

So. Yes. It's true that if you love your pets, you deal with what they do.

Cat hair is a major issue here. I have lint rollers throughout the house and use them daily. The best Valentine's gift dh ever gave me was the cordless Riccar vacuum cleaner. We both use it multiple times a day to snag all the tracked litter. It's especially helpful after dark, because it has a headlight.

Yup - that cat on the counter thing is disgusting - more so than the cat barf in my opinion. I cannot place any item related to food preparation on a counter - everything must go on a large cutting board that I store elsewhere. Even if I wipe the counters off that doesn't do it for me. And if I have guests - the cats must be confined to the backroom in the basement. I never had this problem with my first six cats - only the 7th and she is a hopeless case. She loves her people and wants to be right in front of them even if that is on the counter. Ugghhh...

As mentioned we have one cat who is strictly an indoor creature. She's my husband's cat not mine and he does all maintenance except for the housecleaning extra pet hair clean up. That includes litter box daily maintenance and keeping her food and water bowls filled and clean, although I will feed her when she's hungry-I'm not that heartless LOL. He cleans up the very occasional cat vomit and trims her nails. I don't think he bathes her but then she never smells. She sleeps on his bed and now that they are both mostly based at our house in the Keys, I leave my bedroom door closed when I'm not there since I prefer that she not day-nap for her 14 hour stretches on my bed.

I think I was born without a pet gene, really. I just don't particularly care for animals at all and I really don't care to have animals living in my house with me. And once this cat goes we are done. Previous cats all stayed outside but now that my husband has had indoor pets I doubt he could be happy with that arrangement so no more cats.

Signed, Cruella DiVille, feline edition ;)

We've lost the battle. Where there's a towel, there's a cat. The one on the right even "licks dry" freshly-washed utensils and such that have been set out to dry. Nobody will ever want to come over for dinner again.

Love the pictures and I find the mix of answers to be kind of interesting. I come from a family of five girls and our mother had us cooking and cleaning at a really early age. We’d do chores before school, cook or help with the dishes at night and we had a variety of chores to do on Saturdays too.

As an adult, I’ve always kept the home up and my daughter always had chores to do as well. I think it’s important that kids help out, if nothing else it builds character. To be honest, the idea of having somone else come in to clean up after us is really unappealing to me. We’re fairly organized though and my DH & I keep the house up together. We cook & do our maintenance cleaning one day over the weekend, and we routinely pick up after ourselves during the week. If I were to hire for anything, it would be the yards. They’re big and take a lot of work to maintain, especially in the fall, but so far, we do those ourselves too. As for the dog...well she is a part of the family and even though she’s usually right by me, she can go anywhere in the house she wants. It’s not for everyone I guess, but we wouldn’t have it anyother way.

Ida, I'll come for dinner!! Towels and boxes are cat magnets. Towels in boxes, even better.

ETA: My housecleaners are due in 30 minutes (8:00 a.m.!!) and I'm ready for them. Everything straightened up and put away. I don't want them having to do any of that or have to move things to clean surfaces. I want cleaning, not tidying up. I clear out so that I'm not in their way. I go off and read. My cats head for cover, i.e., between the sheets. Oh yeah, I sleep on sheets that also serve as cat hiding places.

So cute Ida - they coordinate nicely with your kitchen. se have the two level counter thing and mine likes to sit on the higher section on a newspaper or the mail. I don't think she cares for the cold, hard counter. I'm sure she'd prefer a towel like yours have. This is way more fun to talk about cats than housecleaning.