How much time and money do we spend on self-cleaning

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The apartment is small, but you start cleaning - the penthouse. Sound familiar? Many do not like to clean, but few thought about how much resources the notorious order in the house eats up. Is it worth wasting your life on rags and mops?

Everything is changing! In the 1960s, housewives spent about 44 hours a week on housework, more than six hours a day. But technological progress has significantly reduced these numbers. Now you can entrust dirty dishes to a dishwasher, cooking - a multicooker, laundry - a washing machine, and the floor - a robot vacuum cleaner. Modern townspeople spend “only” a year and a half of their lives on cleaning. Stop! One and half year?!

Together with the company, we calculated how much time and money people spend on putting things in order on their own. The results were unpleasantly surprising.

Time

In 2013, British scientists conducted a study and found that their compatriots spend 12,896 hours of their lives cleaning. On average, four hours a week. And we are talking only about basic hygiene: cleaning kitchen countertops, arranging things in places, and the like. Most Brits clean the floor and vacuum once a week, and polish the windows, clean the toilet, or dust the cupboards even less often.

After analyzing women's Internet forums, we realized that our ladies spend at least 2-4 hours a week on maintaining cleanliness. 104-208 hours per year. This is without washing, ironing, washing dishes, as well as time for caring for children and pets.

Cleaners have their own cleaning algorithm. They start with living rooms: they clean up the trash, carefully sort the clean and dirty things, fold the clothes, put everything in its place, dust it, polish the mirrors, and mop the floor. Next - the bathroom and toilet: they start by collecting garbage, laying out things, wiping all surfaces from shelves to taps and thoroughly cleaning the sink, toilet bowl, bathtub or shower. The next destination is the kitchen, then the hallway. The cleaner moves from the depths of the apartment to the exit, so as not to spread dirt by chaotic movements from one room to another. All this takes about four hours. The time increases if the client orders additional services: washing windows, ironing clothes, cleaning the oven, and more.

While the cleaner is putting things in order, you can go with the kids to the park, go shopping, visit or go to the gym. It is not necessary to sit at home and watch - we have very strict conditions for the selection and control of personnel. When the cleaning is finished, the client assesses its quality according to the checklist and only then pays - in cash or by card. Usually there is nothing to complain about, but if the owner is still unhappy, the cleaner will be cleaned again, free of charge. Qlean

Men generally hate cleaning. According to the same British researchers, they devote half the time to cleanliness in the house than women - 6 448 hours. At the same time, 16% of guys admitted that they never clean up! There are logical economic, social and psychological explanations for this.

Firstly, men are more focused on their careers: when you leave the house at seven and return after midnight, not before cleaning. Secondly, most of the stronger sex simply do not notice the mess: the chair does an excellent job with the functions of the closet, and the socks do not lie around, but lie near the bed: put on in the morning anyway. Thirdly, there is still a prejudice that cleaning is not a man's business.

We only had two male cleaners. And they quickly left, as they were more interested in the secrets of the business, and not in the cleaning itself. Our staff consists of female students and women in their 40s. Representatives of the beautiful half of humanity are more accurate, methodical and patient, and these are important qualities for a professional cleaner. For example, the regulations include color coding of the premises. The bedroom is green, the kitchen is red, and so on. This means that only specific cleaning agents and tools need to be used for each color. Women do it perfectly, men don't do it very well. In general, it is easier for girls to be polite and invisible to the owners of the apartment. Qlean

So, to thoroughly wash the entire apartment, you need at least 240 minutes. Not everyone can clean up for 40 minutes every day, and the dirt accumulates permanently. Therefore, de facto, people are cleaned once a week. And often all weekends are killed on household chores: during the breaks between cleaning you cook, go to buy groceries, make an audit in the closet … The average timing is as follows: four hours a week and 208 hours a year. And this - for a minute - one year and three months of life (provided that you live 60 years or more).

Money

According to the Daily Mail, Brits spend over a million pounds a year on household chemicals. There have been no studies on how much money is spent on maintaining cleanliness in the home of our compatriots. But if you believe all the same forums, this article of the family budget ranges from one and a half to five thousand rubles.

No wonder. Price tags for detergents start at 100 rubles. The more specific and quality, the more expensive it is. So, a good spray for ceramics or stainless steel costs at least 500 rubles. At the same time, there is no need to talk about economical consumption: it is unprofitable for manufacturers to have their products for more than 2-4 weeks. Multiply this by consumables (rags, sponges, brushes, etc.) and find out how much money you spend on household chemicals alone.

We do not skimp on "chemistry". First, we value the health of our staff. The cleaner is in contact with cleaning agents for 4-8 hours in a row. Therefore, they must meet international standards and be 100% safe. Secondly, we take care of clients, their children and pets. We only use hypoallergenic cleaning products. Qlean

In addition to costs, self-cleaning is also a “lost profit”. Time-based workers know how valuable their time is in the literal sense of the word. But you can calculate how much an hour of your labor costs, even if you have a piecework salary. Divide the salary by the number of hours worked in the month. Let's say, according to the production calendar, there are 168 working hours in a month, and the salary is equal to 50,000 rubles. The arithmetic is simple: we divide 50,000 rubles by 168 hours, we get 297 rubles 61 kopecks. In other words, in this case, a person who spends four hours on cleaning will miss a profit of almost 1,200 rubles.

We do not calculate the cost per square meter of cleaning. Only the number of rooms matters: a one-room apartment - 1,990 rubles, a two-room apartment - 2,490 rubles, a three-room apartment - 2,990 rubles. Cleaners cope equally well with modest 40-meter single rooms and apartments of 120 and more square meters.

This is also more convenient for customers. Many are puzzled by the question of the area of a dwelling, especially a rented one - do not run around the rooms with a tape measure. For the convenience of customers, you have introduced discounts - whoever orders cleaning all the time saves 20%. Qlean

So, summing up expenses and lost profits, you start to believe the Internet forums. Of course, spending varies by region and living standard, but self-cleaning is by no means free, as many think.

Do you have a feeling when you just want to clean the whole apartment? So I don’t have …: (This feeling is visited, perhaps, only by cleaners who love their job. Lifehacker 40% discount on the first cleaning. lifehacker.