How Often Should I Mop?
Monday July 6, 2009
My mother mopped the entire house daily. Every day she would tote out her big mop bucket and her Pine Sol. Every room received the same attention to detail. Once a week all the appliances and furniture were moved to do a thorough cleaning. As a child, I loved the feeling of a freshly mopped home, but as an adult, I get annoyed with the steps it takes to get to that place. How often should we be mopping our homes? Is once a day, a week, or less the norm?
Comments
How much traffic do you have going through your house? If you live in the country and have children coming in and out on a regular basis and they don’t remove their shoes, you will have to mop more often. However, a much better solution that is the norm in Eastern Europe is to insist that everyone coming in from outside remove their street shoes and put on some house slippers (mules)that you supply, whilst in your house. This will
-stop germs and other muck from coming in to your house from the streets
-keep the carpets and floors clean
-cut down on your mopping and vacumning
I have also made gas meter readers and other service men remove their outside shoes whilst in my house. Afterall, it is my house and especially if I have young children crawling around on the floor I don’t want their old germs inside. It is quite acceptable in much of Europe and it is high time it was a habit that developed elsewhere. If you do this you can get away with only mopping the floors occasionally – when it gets dirty!
Let’s face it–shoes are meant to be worn! While I would never wear dirty or wet shoes into my own or someone else’s home, I am not comfortable removing my shoes and prefer to be completely dressed, especially with company. Floors are meant to be walked on and they are expected to get dirty. I believe it is over-obsessive to ask everyone to remove their shoes just to keep you from having to clean your floors. Also, unless the person walked around in waste material, they will not track in germs. Germs come from humans and animals–not from plants and dirt.
Back to your original question, regardless of shoes or no shoes. We live in a different time than our mothers. We now hire landscapers and use quick car wash services, which our fathers would have never used, but because of time constraints and other obligations we justify the need. Therefore, it’s unreasonable to expect that we should mop our floors daily. As a mother of 2 teenage daughters and a Director at a large organization, I try to set the right example for my daughters when it comes to cleanliness. I have not hired a cleaning service (which I sometimes question my sanity) because I want them to see that it is still something that we have to take responsibility for. So ever evening we gather up the dishes and put them in the diswasher, we wash clothes at night and dry them the next morning (not the routine my mother had) but then again, I don’t have her routine, either. So as regards the mopping, I do it as I see fit. Obviously, when a spill happens – I pull out the mop but it’s less as often now that my girls are older. Every Saturday, we do a good ‘ole cleaning, which includes mopping, dusting and vacumming…but to be honest, I don’t pull out the refrigerator and/or furniture to gather all the dust bunnies from years gone by! We save those ’special occassions’ for when we have guests coming for a visit – like when my mom is coming to stay with us – then the furniture is moved and the house smells like a collection of pine, grapefruit and lavendar! Mom would be so proud. So while my mom left her impression on me – my daughter’s will have a different memory of our cleaning days – daily pick ups, Saturday mini clean ups and an OMG Grandma’s coming to town cleaning!
Shoes are meant to be worn? I guess, with that argument, then it would be perfectly acceptable if you should wear your shoes and walk on your bed. Unfortunately dirt and grass aren’t the only things that we step on. We traverse oily, dirty streets, etc.