Text C
How we clean today
According to a recent survey, families are trying to turn the task of cleaning the house
into a sprint rather than a marathon. As a result, the average time spent cleaning has
fallen by 32 minutes a week or 28 hours a year compared to 2014.
The casual approach to keeping the dirt, grime and dust at bay suggests the nation
is a little less house-proud than in the past. It reflects the fact that the nation's culture
of working long hours means that people do not have the time to do a weekly deep
clean. It also suggests that many people find cleaning boring and try to avoid it.
Despite the claims of men to be taking on a greater share of household chores,
women are still doing the heavy lifting in the kitchen and bathroom. On average,
women spend 90 minutes longer each week than men on cleaning - the average
woman cleans for 4 hours 51 minutes a week, whereas the average man cleans for
only 3 hours 21 minutes.
Retail analysts Mintel said the availability of multi-purpose cleaning sprays that you
can use all around the house is a factor in helping people speed up. Retail expert,
Richard Hopping, said: "The average amount of time that British people spend on
cleaning their home each week has fallen by half an hour in recent years.'
Mintel found that 62% of the nation say they clean when they have the time and that
just one in three has a schedule. Just over 40% say their aim is to do the job as quickly
as humanly possible as they dislike cleaning. Around half really put their backs into it
to ensure their home is spotless.
The study found cleaning the oven is the task people hate the most with 67%
ranking it among their top three dislikes. People also loathed dusting, but
were tively relaxed about wiping down worktops, mopping, sweeping and
vacuuming. Do you agree with these findings?