Cleaning, Hinching, tidying, whatever you call it, there’s no escaping it. While some people love them and others hate them, household chores are a necessity everyone has to endure.
According to our latest survey of 2,000 Brits, the vast majority of us (84%) don’t enjoy doing household chores, almost one fifth of us argue at least once a week about them, and a further 3.3 million of us argue every day about who will take on each task. So, which tasks do we love and which do we hate?
Brits’ most hated chores:
- Ironing
- Cleaning the bathroom
- Emptying bins
- Dusting
- Sweeping / mopping floors
In contrast, the most loved chores include:
- Preparing meals
- Vacuuming
- Laundry
- Making the bed
- Washing / drying the dishes
Our research also uncovered the cleanest and dirtiest cities in the UK according to how often Brits complete various household chores when compared to recommendations from experts – and the findings are shocking. The study found that Brits rarely stick to expert advice with less than a third (31%) of Brits sanitising their kitchen every day as recommended, one in 10 change and wash their bed sheets just once a month, and 2.6 million of us have never cleaned our computers or laptops.
The cleanest – and dirtiest – cities in the UK
We asked Brits how often they completed 10 common household chores including vacuuming, laundry, ironing, emptying bins and dusting, and indexed responses against the recommended cleaning frequency according to experts.
We can reveal that only 14% of Brits clean the bathroom every day as recommended, 39% of us wash our bed sheets the recommended once a week; only a quarter of us clean the toilet every day; one in 10 wash tea towels every day; and less than a third wash bath mats the recommended once a week.
A house-proud nation
Despite the UK’s dirty secrets, almost three quarters of us say we’re house-proud with almost a fifth confessing to be “extremely house-proud”. Millennials (24-42 yrs) are the most house-proud generation with more than three quarters confessing to care about the appearance of their home, followed by Gen Z (16-23 yrs) and Gen X (43-54 yrs).
While Belfast secured the top position for being the cleanest city overall, our research also found them to be the least house-proud, while three quarters of Brighton residents admit they care about the appearance of their home, but ranked as the city who cleaned the least.
Newcastle upon Tyne is the most house-proud city in the UK as 80% of residents regard themselves as “extremely” or “quite” house-proud.
| Rank | City | % of people who are house-proud |
| 1 | Newcastle | 80 |
| 2 | Brighton | 77 |
| 3 | Sheffield | 76 |
| 4 | Birmingham | 75 |
| 5 | Bristol | 74 |
| 6 | Cardiff | 71 |
| 7 | Southampton | 71 |
| 8 | Leeds | 70 |
| 9 | Nottingham | 70 |
| 10 | Edinburgh | 69 |
| 11 | Liverpool | 69 |
| 12 | London | 68 |
| 13 | Manchester | 68 |
| 14 | Plymouth | 66 |
| 15 | Glasgow | 65 |
| 16 | Norwich | 63 |
| 17 | Belfast | 62 |
So, how often should you be cleaning your home?
We’ve put together a handy guide for how often you should be cleaning everything in your home.
Methodology:
2,001 Brits surveyed in January 2022 by Censuswide on behalf of ConservatoryLand, with the full dataset available on request.
Other sources:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/532909/heres-how-often-you-should-clean-everything-your-house
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92752/heres-how-often-you-should-wash-10-grimy-household-items
https://experthometips.com/how-often-wash-bed-sheets-towels-linen
