How long do you spend on housework?

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I once complained that vacuuming the entire house took me three hours (and made me really mad, because I was convinced the vacuum cleaner had a personal vendetta against me), so my partner said from now on he would do it. I was so pleased with this offer that I neglected to stipulate the details. I should have insisted on him doing the entire house (or at least the rooms that have been used) at least once a week. As it is he tends to vacuum the carpet in the centre of each room every few weeks, leaving cobwebs festooned from the ceiling and dead woodlice piling up in the corners below. Once we even found a mouse nesting on the futon we then had in the living room; I hadn’t noticed because I never had time to sit down and he couldn’t understand it because “I vacuumed in here!” In case you think I’m expecting him to do everything; I clean the bathrooms (and fix the plumbing), clean the kitchen, do most of the laundry, most of the gardening, most of the grocery shopping, so it isn’t unreasonable to expect him to do the vacuuming. The reason this is on my mind just now is that I have recently started occasional work as a ‘relief housekeeper’ for historic building preservation charity and holiday accommodation provider The Landmark Trust. So basically I go and do the housework when the regular housekeeper is unavailable. And the regular time needed for two people to clean a three-bedroom house is 6 hours. So that’s 12 hours in total, and it’s generally cleaned every Monday and Friday unless guests are staying for a week, so that’s 24 hours per week. It’s making me feel like my own house is nowhere near clean enough. It’s almost twice the size and of course has more ‘stuff’ that needs to be worked around, so takes more time. If an empty house needs 24 hours of cleaning per week, then cleaning ours to the same standard would need 48 hours per week! How much time do you spend on housework? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2026.