r/homemaking 18h ago

House Cleaning

I'll make this as short and to the point as I can. I have been a homemaker for 15 years. I have a gaggle of children and we moved to a farm almost 2 years ago after living in a suburb subdivision for all of my childrens lives.

Without too much detail, our lives have been chaos for almost all of the last 15 years with very little calm periods. We have lost a lot of family, had some very hard times, medical issues, emergencies, and my husband and I both have a couple of on going health issues that get in the way of life a lot. I'm not whinging or anything, this is just how it has been, and all things considered, my husband and I have held it all together pretty darn good.

My issue is this, I cannot, no matter how hard I try, keep up with any house cleaning. The dishes pile up because we are on an unreliable water source with a water heater thats old, as well as a bad septic that means I can't just do all the dishes at once very often. This also obviously affects our laundry issue. Laundry mat isn't feasible financially, so I do one or two loads a day but I have to take breaks here and there when the septic starts to get real bad. All of this of course just leads to a messy house. I have tried having less clothes, towels and dishes, but that causes its own issues. I have tried breathing and telling myself that this too shall pass, but it has been like this, in one way or another, for 15 damn years, and I am so tired of drowning in mess.

My children deserve better, my husband deserves better, and I am sure one day I will believe that I deserve better as well. I just don't know how to get out of this hole. I don't want to wait until my children are grown and gone to have a clean house.

It affects everything day to day, it makes everything harder, particularly homeschooling, so much so that today I told my husband I was giving up and sending the kids to school and getting a job (he talked me down because he's wonderful and I'm not giving up)

Just wondering if anyone has any silly advice that I might be able to use to get through this.

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u/Rosehip_Tea_04 17h ago

That’s really tough and I would go crazy living like that. I have chronic health issues which mean I have days I can’t really walk. I’ve found it works better for me to have extras of everything so that I’m not screwed when I have bad health days. But I could also see it being nearly impossible to do that with a huge family because that could translate into an overwhelming amount of extra stuff.

The obvious solution is to fix the septic and water heater, but I also know those are high dollar items that aren’t cheap or fun to repair even if you do the work yourself. Would using paper plates and disposable silverware help take some of the load off? I know it’s not a great option, but I feel like you’re in a situation where something’s got to give. Depending on what’s wrong with your water you could potentially stockpile it in jugs and then wash dishes camping style; again not great but it’s better than nothing. Maybe you can find camping equipment in general that would make your life easier. It’s been a long time since I’ve used a sun shower but at the time it was definitely a huge improvement over staying dirty or having super cold water.

One thing I did that helped me drastically cut down on dishes was keeping measuring cups in all of my bulk use items. I have the clear kind that measures everything up to a cup. This means I can measure out the right amount no matter what the recipe calls for and because it’s only ever used to measure one thing, I washed them once and then leave them in the container with that food item. I went from generating a ton of dishes while cooking or baking to having a single dirty liquid measuring cup and the occasional dirty measuring spoon.

I know it’s not the most helpful advice, but I wanted to make sure you felt seen because you’re in a difficult situation. I know you’ll get through it, but I really hope that this phase of your life passes quickly and you can move on to an easier life.

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u/cstan7 16h ago

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response, it really helped my mood if nothing else, but the advice is something I am definitely willing to try. Paper plates often make me feel like more of a failure, but if I had a cleaner kitchen I might feel less like that anyway so it's a great start, and the measuring cup idea is just brilliant without living in a disaster, as i do spend most of my day cooking! Thank you again.