Let’s be honest. We all hate doing housework, don’t we? Or at the very least, there is that one task that makes you want to tear your hair out.
Well, today, we’re not offering too many cleaning tips, but mostly, big sympathy and a little space to blow off some steam. Take a sneak peek into the Homes & Gardens team group chat, revealing our most hated chores.
Do you agree? Or have one you’d like to add? Drop your most hated household task in the comments below, we’d love you to join our conversation.
The most hated household chores in the Homes & Gardens office
Anna Aylward, Social Media Editor: Cleaning the oven. I hate it, it takes so long and it's such a pain. I will trade other cleaning jobs with my sister, so I'll do a few other things if she does the oven.
Don’t worry, I’ve let Anna know Reddit users have nailed down the best oven cleaner and the Easy-Off pro oven cleaner (available from Amazon, which is fume-free and melts baked-on mess 'like butter'.
Charlotte Olby, Style and Trends Editor: Hard agree on cleaning the oven – I bribe my mom to come and do it, lol. Also: cleaning the trash can.
The good news is that hot water and dish soap, such as your regular Dawn from Walmart, plus a broom to scrub your outside trash bin works a treat, and a simple multipurpose spray (I like Method’s plant-based cleaning spray, available at Target) will do the job indoors.
Lindsey Davis, Content Director (Lifestyle Ecommerce): Mine was also cleaning the oven until I bought The Pink Stuff. I hate cleaning the bath – scum collects on the bit that is the hardest angle to scrub. Probably speaks to my poor upper body strength, but kills your shoulders/arms. In fact, I hate cleaning the bathroom in general. My next house will NOT be in a hard water area
Jo Bailey, Print Editor: Mine is a pretty basic one – dusting. The never-ending battle between clean surfaces and floating fluff. One swipe forward, two specks back.
Spoiler: the Damp Duster is life-changing.
Chiana Dickson, Content Editor: 100% cleaning the shower, but specifically the shower drain/hair trap. Me and my partner lose hair like there is no tomorrow, so it is always rancid.
I feel Chiana’s pain because I’m the same and lose a lot of hair when I’m feeling ill, which as a chronically ill person, is all the time. I use one of those pour-down-the-drain-overnight-and-rinse-the-next-morning bottles of hair and gunk dissolver. However, the Drano Max Gel from Amazon works in just seven minutes.
Dan Fauzi, Home Tech Editor: For me, it's cleaning anywhere that's covered in stuff, whether it's a windowsill full of ornaments or a shelf full of plants. Something about this multi-tiered cleaning task makes me put it off for months (I'm looking at my desk rn and I can't remember the last time I cleaned under my speakers).
Zara Stacey, Managing Editor: Cleaning the fridge! Takes soo long to unload everything and take all the shelves out.
Trying to do the whole thing in one go can be stressful, so I've shared with Zara that I do one shelf at a time, over the course of the week, bringing the task down to five-minute bursts so you don't have to clean when overwhelmed.
Katrina Harper Lewis, Head of Lifestyle: Limescale is my absolute nemesis and however much I scrub, I can't seem to get rid of it in tricky areas such as around bath taps and shower heads. I've thought about getting one of those under-sink water filter things. The kettle gets sooo bad too, I am constantly descaling it!
For sure, this is such a constant nuisance in a hard water area. I keep a squeegee from Amazon in my shower and always wipe down the glass and tiles before exiting, and this keeps the limescale build-up to a minimum.
Hebe Hatton, Head of Interiors: Bookshelves! The dusting is a nightmare.
Argh, this one makes my hair stand on end too, because of the texture. Other than using an attachment on your vacuum, perhaps it's one to bribe your other half with...
Jennifer Ebert, Digital Editor: Ironing. I was told as a teenager this would be my favorite chore once I was an adult, but I am still waiting for that moment of supposed joy to kick in. Thankfully, my partner does the majority of the ironing, the vacuuming, and the cleaning in exchange for me doing the cooking. Lucky me.
Hard relate. I took somewhat of an unconventional approach and ditched ironing all together. It's been 22 years since I last turned my last iron on. Don't judge me!
So, how do you tick off your most dreaded chore?
Do you eat the frog, bribe your mom, pay someone else to do it, or simply leave it for another day? We’d love you to join our conversation and share your most-hated chores (and solutions) in the comments below!
