Keeping Up With Home Care

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frugalmom
Posts: 1710
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:52 pm

Re: Keeping Up With Home Care

Post by frugalmom »

It is so funny I come on here and this thread is here because I have been working with dh and my son cleaning the shutters inside and out. Usually it does not take that long, but this was like dust ground in and would not move. We had not done it since early last year because of his heart attack a lot of things went by the wayside. I used a sponge, baby wipes, glass cleaner, hot water and dawn soap-after doing all that finally used a scrubbing bubbles degreaser and it finally came off the last bits of it or the hard to clean parts. Now nice and shiny but we have been working hours at this and it is only my kitchen dining area windows! I STILL have the rest of the house to do :shock: ! Hopefully, the rest of them are not as bad as this window area!

I am tired. I know my poor son wanted to do something fun for his school break/vacation, but his dad has no desire to go anywhere anymore. He just wants to stay home these days and his knees or something always hurting or he gets fatigued doing one thing and done for the day,so he doesn't want to go he says! But then he wants US home with him! So I feel bad for my son who growing up other than an occasional camping trip really only went to basketball tournaments and nowhere else. Luckily, he does not like plane rides so he is not into traveling a lot, but he would like to go to the beach,etc.

Back to home care, because my husband is cheap he will do it all himself or with us-we are the cleaning crew! I don't know how others do it but it seems like my house is a never-ending cleaning chore of some kind! And my dh is a drill sargent esp with getting the kids to do chores! When he was in the hospital with his heart attack, I ended doing his chores and like I could not believe all the stuff he does on a daily basis-just too much. So I thought before he came back I would have a lot of the major chores done so he wouldn't try to do them and could rest! I couldn't believe the prices though-like 700. for cleaning windows and screens and rescreening(I don't remember if the rescreening was a separate charge I think it was). Cleaning the gutters was a few hundred dollars too and I only had like one side really. My dh would do it with my son and even one time fell off the roof(luckily he landed in mud/dirt and only had a chipped elbow on that fall!). So I spent quite a bit getting major chores like that done for his sake-but when he came back home he was not too happy I spent that much money!

And I would think if he really dies next time around what am I going to do because there is no way I can do all the stuff he does with my back and neck issues. And I want to get rid of a lot of stuff that accumulated over the years because I like it empty, but now he hoards things because he says everything is going up and so expensive and if there is a greater depression he wants to have stuff around to use so he doesn't have to buy material. On top of everything, we have like a little homestead farm in our backyard-he is growing vegetables and fruit (he doesn't like to do it well except the fruit trees he likes, but he does it for me because I want a vegetable garden to be self-sufficient as possible. Then we have birds (swear it is a Club Med for all sorts of birds, possums and raccoons and stray cats even though we have a dog!) which are his pets-no way I would take care of them the way he does when he is gone, I would just let them fly away. He laughs and says they will come back to their home that is the way they are so sheesh cannot even get rid of them! So like he says he gets tired after one thing but he spends all day doing things and is like a busy farmer!

So Idk what other people do, and I will be watching how others keep their house clean but it is like non-stop for us! I have a long list of things to do everyday! The problem is I have no energy to do it anymore and he is too cheap to hire out anyone so we have no choice but to do it!
LogicsHere
Posts: 3126
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2015 9:49 am

Re: Keeping Up With Home Care

Post by LogicsHere »

From the time I left home after getting married, I've lived in an apartment and never had to do any of that sort of work as it's been done by our apartment complex staff. Actually I'm kind of happy about that as I don't see myself as a kind of outdoorsy type individual. For the first time last year, I put out some solar powered Christmas lights, other than that just take the garbage to to the garbage area and that's that. The co-op takes care of the landscaping, building maintenance with exception of work within our apartments which I don't understand (painting yes, but to not do the plumbing and electrical which they say they are responsible for just doesn't make sense to me), and gardening
ohjodi
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 3:57 pm

Re: Keeping Up With Home Care

Post by ohjodi »

About once a year consider thinking about buying a pot of flowers to put on my front stoop. Meh.

I always said that if I won the lottery, I'd just rent a nice house. Because I don't even want to bother calling around for a plumber, tree people, or whatever.

I had a cleaning lady once a month until about 18 months ago. She moved out of state, and I hadn't looked for another yet, then Covid happened, and I still don't want someone in my house. But I think I'll hire someone before winter. It's hard for me to do a lot of the things, and I don't want to do the easier things, either, LOL

It was so nice to just leave the house and come back a couple hours later, and it was all sparkly and smelling really good.
ohjodi
Quilter51
Posts: 2815
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:04 pm

Re: Keeping Up With Home Care

Post by Quilter51 »

I am also.about to hire a cleaning person for perhaps every other week
It's a list a two bedtoom.and one bath but my bending and reaching.abilities are slowing down so if they did the bath and kitchen and vacuumed and dusted I would be happy.
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2263
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Keeping Up With Home Care

Post by SandiSAHM »

Dh and the kids do the mowing, weeding, edging, trimming, gutter care (we don't have trees that would make a mess in the gutters, what we do have is occasional need to remove a nest before eggs are laid - OK gets some major storms in the Spring, any bird who thinks she's safe in there would be in for a big surprise), fence maintenance, and lugging the trash & recycle bins to the curb once a week.

Beyond that, outside, DH is a veggie gardener who wants as many bees and butterflies in the yard as he can get, so there are all manner of flowering things out back, most for beneficial insects, some just because they're pretty. Most of it is on the side of the deck where the garden is, some of it on the other side just to even things out. There are nice plants and some pots with flowering stuff in the out front. It looks good.

When the time comes to paint the outside I'll try to talk him into getting a good painter. However, he's picky about prep and paint application methods, and the last time we had to paint a house he did it himself over a vacation and a few scattered weekends. It was pristine, but it was a LOT of his time. And that house was a "low" ranch, only one side had any kind of peak / gable that needed paint. What we're in now is "all" brick but there's trim, and that trim, in some areas, is so far off the ground (it's built on a hill, the back is much "taller" than the front despite being 1 story) we don't have a ladder that tall and I'm not sure he'll want to have to do scaffolding on his own. He might just have to find a professional painter.

Indoors is all on us. The guy can fix anything and do tile, any kind of flooring, do some plumbing and electrical work and minor wall repair; I do wood repair and enjoy doing interior paint. Cleaning is on us.

Any kind of routine maintenance - caulking, touch-up, whatever, we do ourselves.

Motivation: Pickiness overall (and on his side a little need for "zen" in his garden).

Was the house that was sold and is being cleaned out someone's "last" house and the kids are having to take care of stuff the former owner could no longer handle? Some friends of ours are doing that now, going through their parents stuff, hold an estate sale and getting everything out, one way or another (bin).
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2263
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Keeping Up With Home Care

Post by SandiSAHM »

Ellen mentioned shutters. We have ONE set of "faux" shutters on the laundry room window because the builder thought they added to the aesthetic (meh, it'd be fine either way)- but they don't "shut" - which used to strike me as weird, that people would have shutters that don't, because when we lived overseas with the family, the shutters were shut every evening then opened again the next a.m., but I'm used to it now (though I think real shutters would be good here in wind country). Every now and then they get hit with the power washer; outside of that I guess when it comes time to paint they'll come down and we can decide if they need to go back up.

We also sealed all the concrete outside, seal the privacy fence every couple of years.

If we stay here - which pretty much is dictated by DH's job, as long as he's where he is, we'll be here - PAST the point where the kids are up and gone, I guess we'll just 'stay.' It's not so labor intensive that having other people mow and do maintenance would be cost ineffective. I admire the patience condo and apartment dwelling folks have, but I don't think I could do it, I'm not great with noise from outside sources, nor do I want to be told I have to walk more lightly or whatever - too used to my own space. This has to have been an adult-onset thing because while with my parents I lived in a lot of base housing, often shared with several other families. It was nbd then but the idea makes me tense now.
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