The lazy girl’s guide to housework

You waste precious hours — hours that could be spent with your feet up, sipping coffee and reading magazines or watching movies. If you’re a housework hater, you’ll love our lazy girl’s guide to cheating on your household chores.

Febreze Extra Strength Fabric Refresher is your new best friend. Go nuts! Spray it everywhere: carpets, curtains, furniture… You will trick your nostrils into believing your home smells fresh and aired out.

Give the bathroom sink a quick wipe down with a multi-purpose disinfectant, then pour some into the toilet bowl, swish around, and you’re done.

Every household should have a junk cupboard or room, depending on how much storage one needs. This is a place where you stash everything that gets left lying around, whether it’s odd socks, old magazines, toys, cardboard boxes or any bits and pieces that don’t have a home of their own. Then it’s just a matter of grabbing your laundry basket, taking a quick whirl around the house to collect things left on the floor and throwing them in the junk room to sort out whenever you can be bothered (which might be never).

Every lazy girl knows you never move furniture to vacuum under it; you go around it. But did you know that you should really only vacuum the main traffic areas, like down the hallway and the living room? Stick strictly to the areas where your family members actually walk through, and you could save yourself at least an hour. Alternatively, invest in a robotic vacuum cleaner.

While trinkets and mementoes from overseas trips might look lovely, it’s not like they have an actual purpose. They’re what we call dust collectors, and there’s only one place for them: the garbage bin. Anything that makes housework harder should be tossed, hidden in the garage or sold on eBay.

While there’s nothing wrong with cheating on housework, your mother-in-law or visitors might not share your feelings, so it always helps to have a few decent excuses you can resort to.
For example: “Haven’t you heard that recent studies show that earlier exposure to dust and allergens in children ensures they have stronger immune systems?” Or “Did you know dust acts as an insulator and actually reduces the amount we have to spend on electricity?”

Think of the time you’ll save from not having to peg all your wet clothes on the line outside. Using a dryer is also helpful for removing pet fur and the escapee tissue that makes it into the wash only to disintegrate into two million tiny pieces. Plus, giving your clothes a good shake once they’re fresh out of the dryer will help you avoid ironing.

If you don’t own a dishwasher, make sure that when your family has finished eating, they rinse their plates clean. Then when it’s time to wash the dishes, all you have to do is dunk them in boiling, soapy water and leave them to dry on the dish rack.

You might not be able to afford a live-in maid like the ones in Devious Maids, but a cleaner who comes in once a week could be just what you need. Otherwise, if you have children, you can pawn off the chores to them using pocket money as a bribe.