Poll for retired men- housecleaning

[34rlsa]

I built it... she can clean it.

 

[dontworry]

I do it all. The total man.

Nice!!! My kind of man!

 

[audreyh1]

I have to confess that DH does most of the cleaning in our house!

I do a lot of the cooking (but not breakfast), all of the laundry, all of the driving and money management/paying of bills. So I guess I got lucky.

 

[audreyh1]

Do you help your DW or SO with the housework? We used to have some help come in each week when we were both working, but since we've retired we got tired of having to find somewhere to go to 'hide from the maid' every week and we thought we should do it ourselves anyway.

My DW is very picky and although I want to help more, she will only let me dust, which I probably shouldn't complain about We clean every week because of the 4-legged friends in the house.. takes about half a day.

Honestly - if I already had a maid, I'd keep her, even if I had to "go hide" once a week. No "shoulds" about it.

We have weekly lawn/garden maintenance, and we shall never give that up.

 

[Nodak]

This, though I could qualify that with "as much as gets done...".

I'm relatively neat, as men go.

That's me too - dust can get pretty thick before I have to do something about it. Thank God for dishwashers.

 

[Koolau]

Does it count if I push the button on the Roomba every couple of days?

But seriously, we share the load but don't have official duties. It's sort of whoever can't stand it any more is the one who begins and the other usually joins in at some point. When we got married 40+ years ago, DW gave away all of my iron-required shirts. Now, if we even use the dryer, I usually hang up my stuff and she hangs up hers (she's picky and I'm not). If I can get away with it, I don't use the drier as it costs nearly a dollar a load with our outrageous electrical rates. DW is more likely to do her blouses (blice??) and slacks in the drier. My stuff - if I'm in the mood, I'll try to pull the wrinkles out by hand as I hang up the wet T's and slacks (my two pair).

I do the quarterly bug-spray and yearly tile-grout resealing.

Dishes - we use mostly paper plates and dispo plastic ware (picked up at fast food joints). About once a week one of us will get ambitious and start the dishes - with the other usually taking over about half way through. We intentionally did not install a dishwasher when we remodeled the kitchen. No point, really.

So, all in all, about half and half (but that's not much as neither of us has very high standards in the cleaning dept.) YMMV.

 

[Ozstache]

My wife specifically forbade me from taking on a greater share of housework when I ERed. Regardless, I have found I'm doing more yard work because I enjoy it and get exercise from it, even if I have to sneak it in when she is out.

 

[Katsmeow]

The poll assumes that men don't ever do more than half the housework.

I don't think that is a safe, or accurate, assumption. In our house, DH does do more than half the housework and always has even when we both worked full-time. The primary reason for that is that I have allergies and dusting/vacuuming tend to get them stirred up.

Do you help your DW or SO with the housework?

The wording of that sort of makes it seem like it is the primary responsibility of the DW to do the housework and that the man only "helps." Before I married my husband, I told him that if he had any such notion, he should pick a different wife. I saw housework as a shared responsibility where I had no greater responsibility to do it than he did. I also told him that due to my allergies I actually found it difficult to do much actual cleaning and would do my part by hiring someone to do it. We did that off and on during the years. Then when we had kids and they were old enough we assigned a lot of the cleaning as household chores.

We've now gotten to a point where different people have different jobs. DH does most of the actual cleaning due to my allergies, although I tend to do a lot of the picking up which doesn't set them off.

 

[davemartin88]

I don't do much of the cleaning other than bathrooms and running the vacuum but have a lot of other duties related to taking care of the outside of the house, shopping, maintenance, etc. I also like to cook and cook often along with helping with kitchen clean up. I think it all works out but afraid to ask my DW if that's true, lol.

 

[Major Tom]

I'm relatively neat, as men go.

I also used to subscribe to the view that women, in general, are neater than men. Then, over time, I realized that I have known all sorts of people, from uncomfortably tidy neat-freaks to disturbingly disorganized messy folk, and there was no apparent correlation with their gender.

I live alone, so I do all the housework (if it can be called that). The 3 cats do nothing to help out. In fact, they seem to enjoy providing convincing data to support the existence of the second law of thermodynamics

 

[Brett_Cameron]

i do all.

 

[Lucantes]

I am a very lucky man, my wife actually enjoys all of the household cleaning duties (no really, she does, I think she is happiest when she is ironing anything (even things that I thought didn't need to be ironed)) and since I care so deeply for her and only want to see her happy I am more than willing to sacrifice and let her bliss continue!!

I do cook sporadically and help with laundry and dishes, and try to help out in other places although I secretly think she actually disapproves when I try and clean anything.
She decided the rules, I just try and follow them!

 

[Khan]

I have lived alone for a long time and pay someone to occasionally clean the place. Will be moving in with someone in a bit who has also lived alone for quite a while. Both of us like cooking and laundry. We might end up paying someone to do the cleaning.

 

[martyp]

Even when I was w*rking I was doing all the cooking and dinner cleanup. I did half of the housework until I ER'd and now I do most of it. DW is still w*rking. I keep reminding her that when she retires she gets a bunch of housework back on her to do list. Maybe that is why she is still w*rking. She is only picky about doing the cold wash herself.

 

[LT54]

Since my wife is still working (teacher), I do everything....cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, etc..... We used to have a cleaning lady come in every two weeks, but, after I retired, I took it over. My brother-in-law says that I'm my wife's "b**ch". I don't argue with him. He's a retired Navy SEAL.

 

[F4mandolin]

I'm much better at things that don't require finesse. Splitting wood, mowing, digging ditches, shoveling snow. I have been pretty well banned from painting......anything. My quality standards are a LOT lower than hers, but I kick butt at chores that require sweating.

 

[MRG]

I took over cooking, we actually split it as often as not. I also was running the vacuum, before this vertigo set in. I'm still doing the grocery shopping, it's absolutely the worst thing in my life.

An hour in the grocery store, I'm wiped out for two days. It's like a bad LSD trip, with the shelves and items moving up, down, sideways, and vibrating. I keep wating to see evil clowns, or dragons pop up. That hasn't happened yet. Maybe it's all a 40 year old flashback
MRG

 

[FinanceDude]

No way I could get away with a housekeeper if I retired and she still worked...........heck I can't getaway with one now.........

 

[braumeister]

DW thinks I do a crummy job of housecleaning compared to her, and she's right. So I stay out of cleaning and laundry.

OTOH, I've done all the shopping and cooking for many years, because I enjoy it and she doesn't. I also do all the household maintenance, inside and outside.

Overall, a pretty traditional mix of duties, I think.

 

[Walt34]

No way I could get away with a housekeeper if I retired and she still worked...........heck I can't getaway with one now.........

No way would that work here either. DW spends all day cleaning the house if she even thinks someone might be stopping in.

If we hired someone to clean there would be no need to because DW would clean everything first so she wouldn't be seen as sloppy/lazy, therefore eliminating the need for a house cleaner.

 

[45th Birthday]

We have people who come in every week to clean. Much better that way for all concerned. Wife does most of the cooking, but I help plan meals and sometimes help cook. We eat out a fair bit, so that is kind of my contribution. I will do some laundry (like hunting and exercise clothes); cleaning people do sheets and towels. What doesn't go to the dry cleaner, wife usually does. We are away separately for various things a fair bit. When I'm home by myself, I usually do more house chores, but not much more than cleaning up the kitchen. Everything outside (snow, lawn, pool) is done by others. My time is better spent managing money and staying healthy.

 

[kcowan]

When we both retired in 2002, we went over all the expenses to see what could be reduced. We kept the cleaning lady who also irons. It has been the best expense of all.

As we have gotten older, we have also acquired handymen to do certain chores.

Plus we go out to eat a few times a week to lighten that load.

 

[Tom52]

On average I probably do 25%-30% of the housework including such things as cleaning up the kitchen after meals, taking out the trash, and occasionally cleaning the bathrooms. I also do some laundry and help quite a bit with the cooking. Now that we are both retired we both do the shopping.

While I may not do as much housework as DW I contribute more than she does in other areas. I do nearly 100% of the lawnmowing and snow shoveling. I also change oil and do routine maintenance of both vehicles and lawn equipment. I do all home repairs and maintenance because DW is not very mechanically inclined. I also handle all finances and investments even thou I wish she would take some of that over.

I believe that overall we both contribute about equally to the cleaning, maintenance, and running of the household.