How long do you spend vacuuming?

[DaisyO]

So, boring question alert...

How long do you spend vacuuming your house, and how often do you do it?  I'm trying to vacuum once a week, but it takes me a minimum of 2 hours to do the whole place, and sometimes longer.  Does that sound normal?

This is problematic because I work, so I'm not able to spare the time as freely as I'd like.  We only have a 2-bedroom apartment, but I vacuum pretty thoroughly.  In the past, my partner was the vacuumer, but now it's me.  I am kind of moth-phobic (we had some of them eating up woolens and I assume they're ours for keeps now--we were unable to get rid of them by dry cleaning and stuff--so I'm just trying to make it less inviting for them around the apartment.  They can eat dust behind bookshelves etc.) so I really like to keep the dust levels down behind furniture and in closets, and I also vacuum along every floor/wall intersection.  Also, I just want the house to be clean.  I didn't grow up in a very tidy or clean place, and haven't put much energy into cleaning as an adult, so I'm trying to train myself with some good new habits. 

My 2-year-old daughter tends to get pretty bored while I'm vacuuming, and trashes the rooms in advance of my vacuuming them so that tidying up takes a while.  Tedious!  She dislikes the noise and fusses when she sees the vacuum come out (I can relate--I hate the sound too).  I do try to trick her into thinking that the vacuum is cool so she won't grump too much.  I hate how much of my little-girl-hangout time this eats up.

Anyway, the amount of time I'm spending on vacuuming has become burdensome and I'd love to hear how other people do this.  All of my girlfriends claim to spend about as much time on it as I do, but they're all SAHMs.  If you have any tips for me, I'd love to hear them.

thanks!

D. 

[Bruebee]

Hi! I vacuum every day and it takes about 15 minutes. Thats Just my kids room, hallway and livingroom with minimal furniture moving. If I were to do all you do it would probably take two hours as well.   One thing I can think of to make it easier on you and your daughter is to maybe break it up a bit. Like do a room a day on a rotation. Good luck and I hope you find something that works for you.

[scruffy too]

I vacuum every other day and it takes about 10 mins.  All my floors are laminate and I use a small shop vacuum on a really long extention cord so that I don't have to plug it in as I move about. 

[rnra]

I live in a 2 bedroom home as well and it takes me about 10 minutes to do a good job vacuuming the whole thing.  Our square footage is probably different but, even so, it should not be taking 2 hours to vacuum your house unless you live in a giant mansion.  There's no need to move furniture and vacuum along the baseboards every week.  

This blog post isn't about vacuuming, per say, but it is about finding ways to maintain a reasonably clean home without it becoming obsessive or over-taking your other responsibilities.  You may find it interesting:  http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/2010/06/moderate-clean-two-secrets-to-keeping.html

[MrsGregory]

Well, I vacuum once or twice a week, but my carpet areas are not "high traffic" areas.  My vacuuming takes about 30-40 minutes for the living room and two bedrooms.  I sweep the tile areas in the front entry, the kitchen, dining area and hall every day, that takes about 20 minutes.  When I sweep the master suite and bathrooms, there's another 20 minutes.  Don't even ask me about mopping.  I like to use a deck scrubber on the tile, and it takes a while.  Then I follow up with a steamer.  I have decided I don't need to deck scrub every week.  Running the steamer on all the tile takes an additional 30-40 minutes on top of the sweeping in advance.

What will work for you is what will keep the home clean and pleasant without leaving you loathing and avoiding cleaning. 
 

[blessedwithboys]

Two hours?!  Wow.

I vacuum every day or every other day.  Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry room, giant kitchen, foyer, living room, dining room, family room.  Two thousand square feet maybe? I doubt it takes even 20 minutes.  I have an Oreck that goes from carpet to vinyl without adjustments, and it has little brushes on either side to sweep out crumbs from the baseboards.

Every three months or so, I get my Oreck handheld and do the baseboards, behind furniture, and along the ceilings with the hose.  That takes less than an hour for the whole house plus garage.

[DaisyO]

hmmm...interesting.  I did think 2 hours was a bit long, but I really don't see how it can be done so quickly as you ladies are describing!  Wtf womyn!  I do have six rooms in the apartment--2 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, kitchen, bathroom...all of them are either pretty normal or small in size.  I guess I spend an average of 20 minutes per room, but I do spend less in the kitchen and bathroom.  So I must be spending more time elsewhere.  The only thing I can think of doing is sectioning the apartment off and doing 2 rooms a day for 40 minutes a day or something like that.  It just seems better to get it all over and done with at once, that's why I do it once a week.  Did you mean that you vacuum a little of the house every day/every other day, or the whole thing!?

I can't even understand how you can physically accomplish vacuuming a whole place in 10 or 20 minutes.  What do you do?  Just run the wide floor attachment quickly over the floors (I also have an attachment that works on hard floors and short carpets) without switching the attachments?  Run around the apartment at top speed?  I feel confused.  Clearly I didn't learn how to do this properly.  I do feel that it is important to go along all the baseboards every time, but I only do things like ceilings and walls (for cobwebs) every once in a while.    

I feel like I can't face vacuuming once a day or every other day, but if it really only took 10 minutes I would obviously do it.  I'm seriously not a neat-freak; I so don't have a compulsion to have cleanliness and tidiness everywhere I go--quite the opposite, in fact.  Honestly, you should see my apartment and you would know it doesn't look like a decorating magazine (unless it was some Providence squat house-type mess in Nest).  I just can't figure out how to vacuum my smallish apartment thoroughly in under 2 hours, it seems physically impossible, especially if 20 minutes is normal.

[scruffy too]

Originally Posted by DaisyO 

Did you mean that you vacuum a little of the house every day/every other day, or the whole thing!?

I can't even understand how you can physically accomplish vacuuming a whole place in 10 or 20 minutes.  What do you do?  Just run the wide floor attachment quickly over the floors (I also have an attachment that works on hard floors and short carpets) without switching the attachments?  Run around the apartment at top speed? 

I vacuum the WHOLE house in 10 minutes.  To physically accomplish this feat, I go fairly quickly, with the widest attachment.

I never change attachments.  I don't have to waste any time unplugging and plugging in the cord (as the vacuum is on a long extention cord.)

I don't do behind couches or anything, but as far as I can stick the vacuum UNDER the couch. 

I take off the attachment to do along the baseboards/cupboards/island in the kitchen to get crumbs, but that's usually it. 

All I'm trying to do is de-fur the floor, and fur isn't hard to vacuum up. 

I use a different vacuum to do my one area rug, but that doesn't happen too often.

When my mother visits (she's a neat freak and hates fur) she vacuums the whole house every day and does a better job than I do, and it still only takes her 15 minutes, and that's vacumming the cat tree, too.

FWIW - my house is about 1500 square feet.

[onlyzombiecat]

 We have zero carpet in our home. I don't usually vacuum at all unless there has been broken glass.

I sweep with a broom or use a microfiber dust mop on the living room, dining room and kitchen floors daily but don't do the floors of the other rooms in the house daily. I feel that doing the floors in the bedrooms and bathrooms every day is not necessary.

We have large rooms and I probably spend about 5 to 10 minutes per room when I sweep- no moving furniture every single day except the dining chairs. If I moved furniture it would take a lot longer but I feel it is only necessary to do that every once in awhile.

If you vacuumed or swept the main areas every day you could go a bit faster because less dust, fur, etc would be built up.

Edited by onlyzombiecat - 2/5/13 at 3:35pm

[Miso Happy]

I vacuum about three times a week.  I look at it like exercise and do it pretty fast and sloppy.  Every couple weeks I move furniture.  I force myself to pick up toys first the majority of the time.  I'd say it takes about 20 minutes to do the whole house and it's a good-sized house.  We have a sweet old lady lab who sheds like crazy.  

As far as keeping your toddler happy, we have a super-cute kids Dyson vacuum that MIL gave them.  Almost every time I vacuum one of the kids gets it out and "vacuums" with me.  It's been broken for two years in that it doesn't make noise anymore and the little beads don't go around in the canister mimicking a real Dyson but they still push it around.  My youngest is two and loves it and he doesn't even know how awesome it used to be.  My only complaint is that it doesn't really vacuum.  I'd like to look into getting them a dust-buster or something so at least their effort would actually help me out.  Their vacuum even comes with a hose attachment which they love to take off and pretend is a microphone.  

[CoBabyMaker]

Perhaps I don't understand the moth issue because we don't have them where I live but... Could you just do floors and maybe the edges if they visibly need it on a weekly basis?  Then do the more detail stuff once or twice a month? 

[DaisyO]

Originally Posted by CoBabyMaker 

Perhaps I don't understand the moth issue because we don't have them where I live but... Could you just do floors and maybe the edges if they visibly need it on a weekly basis?  Then do the more detail stuff once or twice a month? 

Well, that is what I do!  Of course, I do the edges every time and also under the bed and behind the couch and stuff.  Maybe that like doubles the time it would take, which would still put me at 1 hour of vacuuming, which is more than twice the time others spend.  Very weird, I guess I'm just slow.

I think your point regarding moths is a good one.  I do need to do a certain level of cleaning to maintain some control over them, which is probably the factor that's mangling my vacuum routine so much.  If it weren't for them, I honestly wouldn't be such a wild cleaner of baseboards.

Anyway, I totally respect all of your points of view on this.  I guess that it's just going to be 2 hours a week for me, which is certainly better than 4 or 6 hours a week.  And better than spending 2 hours a week like watching horror movies or doing some other activity I hate even more than vacuuming!

[vtgreenie]

Ive got one carpet in my giant livingroom- I vaccume daily (a little obsessive) it takes about 15 min as Im cleanin up toys at the same time- I would NEVERspend 2 hours straight doing it espically with a toddler- your going overboard- do a room or 2 a day if not for you for her-or have your partner do 1/2 and you do the other 1/2

[skreader]

In theory, we vacuum the living room/dining room & hallways every day & it takes less than 10 minutes. In  reality, it's probably only 5 times a week.

We vacuum the bedrooms about once a week (dust first). I'd say maybe 10 or 15 minutes per bedroom - so 30-45 minutes. But that means under the bed and around the wardrobes & base boards and window frames.

[inkslinger]

We have zero carpet in the home, but I vacuum behind/underneath things about once a week. H has a very large gem and mineral collection full of large pieces that need to be vacuumed around every week. It probably take about 30 minutes to get everything vacuumed. I sweep the main living areas (kitchen, living room ,and hall) daily and mop once or twice per week. If I'm doing ALL of the floors (sweeping and mopping) it takes about an hour or so. Our house is 1400 sq ft.

[jenniferlynne]

It takes me about 20 minutes for the ground floor, which I do once a week, 15 min. for the basement (every couple of weeks), and 20 min. for the top floor (also every couple of weeks).  We have all hardwood with area rugs, so I will sometimes just use a microfiber sweeper in the basement / top floor, and the dining room and kitchen get vacuumed quickly every day after dinner or as needed.  It's really just the dining room and kitchen that need the most attention and I have a cordless upright that DS uses after dinner each night.  It's just part of his chores and takes less than two minutes.  These daily quick pickups let me stretch the time between vacuumings quite a bit.  For the real vacuum sessions, I don't move furniture but I have a canister that can pretty much get underneath all the furniture.

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