Is cleaning a shared responsibility, or does one partner do and care more about it than the other? Is cleaning heaven or hell? However you regard it, it’s our business here at Brightr! We wanted to find out who does most of the cleaning in UK households, and we did so earlier this year by compiling a 16 question national survey.
Our research was somewhat surprising; it seems that sexism is still alive and kicking when it comes to domestic chores, with one household admitting that they divide the work into ‘pink and blue jobs’, while another said ‘the Missus does it all’.
Our survey entitled ‘How Dirty is your Partner?’, got down to the nitty gritty about the roles and responsibilities of cleaning within UK households, with 44% of participants admitting that cleaning is indeed a contentious issue within their relationships. Here are some further highlights from the data we gathered.
- 69% of participants said that a clean house is very important to them.
- 77% of participants had a male partner and 22.45% of them don’t even notice the mess!
- 40% of partners who notice a mess will leave it and see what happens!
- 6% of people only put a wash on when they have had to wear the same shirt twice!
- 5% of participants say the kitchen should be the cleanest room in the house.
Within our survey, there was one question which required a free form comment in answer to the issue of cleaning relating to a partner. Some of the answers certainly made for interesting reading! Read on to see what some of our participants had to say.
- He is a lazy pig who expects me to do everything cos that’s what Mummy did. If he were to lift a finger to help, I’d be checking his temperature to make sure he was feeling alright. I teach our son how to do chores as I refuse to raise a lazy, chauvinistic piglet!
- As with most men he leaves it all to me. He pretends he ‘can’t’ clean. Boo bloody hoo! I’ve even taught him step by step how to clean the loo, but he seems to have permanent amnesia afterwards!
- Cleaning has never been a contentious issue in our house because on the rare occasion he does something, he does such a poor job that I have to do it again, so what’s the point? It is quicker to do it myself.
- Our relationship will be ending with the issues caused by his lack of effort being one of the main reasons.
- In general marriage would be a lot happier if men helped women more around the house. It should be a team effort with the mutual goal of enjoying spending time in a clean and tidy house and not be worried about unexpected guests turning up.
- When did ‘because I hate cleaning’ become an excuse for not doing it and leaving it for your wife?
- He’s happy to live like a pig in the proverbial!
- It annoys me that the majority of cleaning still seems to be done by females. Males generally just don’t seem to see it. Gggrrrrr!
- I like the bathroom clean. Who wants to bath in someone else’s’ DNA?
- Not too worried which room is the cleanest, the Missus does it all, so it’s never dirty!
If you would like to access our survey you can do so here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GBLC7J8
