Life is busy and there is only so much time to spend cleaning and tidying. What are the non-negotiables of a well-managed home? Here, housekeepers share their tips and hacks for making a chaotic house feel more orderly.
There are four elements to a well-run home, according to Matt Church, AKA Mr Housekeeping, from Maldon in Essex. These are keeping the place "clean, tidy, decluttered and organised," he says. "I call myself a housekeeper because it's not just cleaning. Cleaning is one element, but some cleaners wouldn't tidy, empty bins, make beds, put laundry away or organise cupboards. They are all jobs I get involved with." People laugh about tidying before the cleaner comes, but they are different things entirely, Church says.
Lisa Williams is head of housekeeping at The Grand hotel in York and chair of the UK Housekeepers Association. At home, Williams says it helps to have a regular cleaning routine that you stick to, otherwise you are constantly "chasing the dirt".
"It makes a massive difference when you go to bed for the bed to be made," says Church. "It can make a bedroom feel a lot tidier than it is." Should you do it as soon as you get up? "Yes, in your own home," says Church. "It's the last job I do before I leave a client, because if you make the bed and then you start dusting the light fittings above it, you end up with dust all over the sheets, so I make the bed last." How often should you change the sheets? "Once a week is good," says Church, but more frequently is preferable in hot weather. Sam Hodges, who owns Hectic Housekeepers in Hastings, suggests twice a week if you have pets that sleep with you.
Washing the dishes and putting them away is an absolute must if you want your home to appear well ordered, says Church. He doesn't own a dishwasher and has a baby, so this can be quite a struggle: "You can spend all night getting the kitchen clean, then the next morning it is a complete mess again."
Williams says the bathroom is her number one priority: "If you've ever got people coming round, make sure your bathroom's spotless."
Church is of the view that toilets should be cleaned daily: "not a deep clean but a bit of bleach." Hodges doesn't do bleach, opting for eco-friendly alternatives instead. "For limescale, white vinegar or elbow grease usually goes down quite well." Hodges says that she discovered that a pumice stone and water can be used to effectively remove tough limescale from some surfaces.
Don't forget to leave products on long enough to work their magic, says Hodges. "When people are cleaning their own homes, it's a quick spray, then they wipe it off." Instead, "Let it sit – then you are saving yourself so much hard work from having to scrub it off."
With a fridge, "if you see an obvious stain, get at it as soon as you can, or it will set and become like glue," says Church. Regularly cleaning the fridge has the benefit of revealing things that are lurking at the back of shelves that you may have forgotten about, says Church.
"Don't leave things in the washing machine too long," says Church. "Hanging it up straight away can mean you don't need to iron as much."
Keeping on top of the laundry is about doing a little and often, says Hodges. "Sort clothes before washing and don't overload the machine or it won't wash properly," she says.
A clean floor can make a world of difference, says Church, who starts at the "top of a room".
"Make sure all areas are dusted," says Williams. Factor in time for "periodically cleaning blinds and curtains. You need to do them weekly or monthly." Hodges puts an old sock on her hand like a puppet with some diluted washing-up liquid on it to run across dusty slatted blinds. "Don't spray the actual blind. Spray the sock and then just run your hand along after you've given it a dust. It's so much easier to clean."
"I'd love to live in a well-organised home," says Hodges, "but the truth is, it's definitely not spotless 24 hours a day. Being busy and doing everyone else's homes, it's not usually the top of my list. There's always a washing pile or a cup appearing from nowhere: things mysteriously migrate from one room to another. I think the saying is 'the cleaner needs a cleaner', and it's very true."