How to help clean the house

[@twiddlinthemthumbs]

If you want to avoid using so much paper towels (might go through a whole thing in a week), then get old clothes (old tshirts and old shirts work great, especially if they're 100% cotton), and cut them up into squares (the size of a paper towel ;)). Even boxers work if you've been doing your laundry correctly and they're clean. just need to find a basket for these clean rags. the dirty ones can go in the wash. maybe with the towels or bed sheets as they could maybe do with a hotter wash than regular clothes. For the clothes, i'll have to disagree. A chair is great because I don't like putting slightly dirty clothes back in the closet with actually clean clothes. But it does need to be taken care every week, if not every 2 to 3 days. Jeans can be worn up to 75 times before being washed (but best to smell them once in a while tho!), unless they're stained. Knits don't have to be washed all the time if they're natural fibers and not plastic. Plastic fibers end up in the wash so much more often, I can barely get two wears out of my sweaters in polyester. Natural fibers take care of the bacteria for you! letting them air on the chair is actually going to be better than folded in the closet. So every 2 to 3 days, once the knits are done airing, they can go back in the closet. Again, your nose is your best friend and if yours isn't enough, then your best friend's nose! (if they're available) (jk unless they're okay with having clothes' shoved into their faces, consent is everything! 😹) If you don't want to have a chair with a whole pile, i recommend using the furniture that's actually intended for that : a valet stand! it's a game changer.

[@LifeByJack]

This is fantastic info and I hope you don't mind that I pin it? Also you're correct in saying The Chair isn't a 100% evil concept at all times. It's useful to have a sort of "laundry limbo" where you can put half dirty clothes. A second smaller hamper that can keep them out of sight could work perhaps? The issue I have with The Chair is that it adds to the visual clutter, and if not properly handled, can eventually spill over to the bed, the floor, or other areas where it stresses me out to even set foot in the bedroom. Thank you so much for adding to this! This is fantastic.

[@twiddlinthemthumbs]

@@LifeByJack That's why I'm mentioning a valet stand. Visually, it'll look so much better. and it'll be better for the clothes as they'll be hanging and so airing a bit, whereas a second hamper means they'll buried amongst each other. and if one turns out to be dirtier than you first thought, at least, it won't get onto the other clothes.

[@Sedonacityslicker]

This video was a good reminder to take the clothes from the clothes chair off the clothes chair

[@LifeByJack]

Excellent timing then ;)

[@scarab944]

This is valuable info, even if we think we know how to do the things from a mechanical perspective. Sometimes it's about reiterating the importance of the routine things that can get overlooked; hammering the basics. It keeps us grounded. I think there's also a psychological benefit to cleanliness. Maybe that's part of the feng shui ethos, as I'm pretty sure that dirt, clutter, and an unmade bed have been correlated to mental distress. Anyway, I learned that I need to increase the frequency of some cleaning items (ahem, toilet). I never thought that I'd describe a video on household cleaning as "a banger", but here we are. Thanks!

[@LifeByJack]

Environmental clutter like dishes in the living room or clothes on the bed definitely add to stress. The same way that having an unfinished task in the back of your mind adds to psychological clutter. Finding ways to get your house to look good FOR YOU is gonna improve your mental health enormously trust me. Thank you so so much for watching man!

[@ChebuChebu]

In my household, the fridge has to be cleaned more than once per season. My MIL is a master at making it dirty. Istg, I had never have to clean my fridge(also just the kitchen in general) as often as I have to after she started living with us. It's quite amazing how dirty people can be. Also, yes - we tried talking to her about it. She is not seeing any problem.

[@ChebuChebu]

Sorry, just to add for the people who MIGHT be curious - our fridge gets to the same level of dirtiness within 1 week of me cleaning it. I don't clean it once a week. I kind of gave up. It's soo much cleaning for me.

[@LifeByJack]

Oh I AM curious 🫖 I'm so sorry to hear though. The amount of emotional labor and heavy lifting you must be doing to move your boundaries around to keep the peace must be ENORMOUS. I wouldn't be able to do this, which is why I like living by myself. But there's got to be a way to make her understand it's just not the way things are done in your house? I don't know, but omg it sounds horrible I'm so sorry!

[@ChebuChebu]

@@LifeByJack I'm not sure. There's the language barrier (even though I do speak her language a little bit, I am not able to convey the full message). She's an older person (75 years old) who never cared about cleanliness (for one reason or another, I don't really care at this point), her husband never did anything in the household either (as I have learned recently), and any time the conversation gets deeper, she gets stressed, her blood pressure goes up and she ends up saying "let's not talk about it" or she flips the script and makes herself the victim OR finds someone else to blame. For example, once she asked: "How would your grandma feel if she had to start living with her son and change ALL her habits?", when no one ever told her to change all of her habits (the conversation was about her making a mess in the kitchen and not cleaning up after herself ever); the next time we tried having this conversation, she asked "Did it bother you when the Smiths [my husband's friend's family, who moved in temporarily, because they just moved to our country] lived here and were making a mess?" - even though at that point, they had not been living with us for 6 months already and the problem persisted. Unfortunately, she came here because of war in her country and my husband wouldn't want her to go back, because of a few issues (not including bombings). Funny thing is, she made the decision to move with us, she convinced her husband to do so, too (he died since then) and now, because she doesn't like it here (as expected, immigration is hard, especially when you're old), she blames her son for "bringing her here" and one time she even told him he killed his dad (because he "forced" them to move, and the stress from the move supposedly killed his dad, which is not the case, but his mom strongly believes that). So, this is the situation, which is quite hard for me as I didn't expect to ever find myself in anything similar. Additionally, because none of them instilled good habits in my partner, he also doesn't know when and even HOW to clean (which is mind boggling to me, as he isn't in his 20s when I'd understand). So now I have 2 people to either teach how to clean, or I will have to move out. Anyway, that was a whole essay, but I decided to share my perspective in case you want to know and in case there's anyone with any advice on how to handle it. I already sent my partner your video, but I don't think he watched it (seems like he thought I sent it "for myself for later" as I often do lol).

[@starrieknight8307]

Hi, as a woman who was a spoiled princess baby of the family with ADHD, this video is incredibly informative! I’m trying to learn to not to have to marathon clean overnight for 14 hours every month.

[@LifeByJack]

Spoiled baby princess with ADHD gang rise up! Same tbh. I was taught that if I didn't pick it up, someone else would. So by the time I started living by myself (and eventually with someone else) this became a real problem. Something I really needed to work on and nail down before I could stop feeling guilty about it. And surprise surprise...bean neat actually improved some of the ADHD symptoms ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@LifeByJack]

Stop feeling guilty about not helping around the house. Learn what there is to do and just do it. There is no prize for pulling your own weight.

[@Olyfrun]

You're the guy, many thanks! Instant subscribe.

[@LifeByJack]

Thank you so much for watching! I'm not the guy I'm just A guy :)