Are small houses easier or harder to keep clean?

I really feel like I'm cleaning morning, noon & night!   ::)I'm moved here when I was 25 & married, so essentially I haven't had my own large American house (yet!) but just wondered what those of you who've had both thought....

we clean constantly, but it's more b/c we have two young children. 

one thing that helps if you live in a small space is to have NO clutter.  get rid of it.  give it away or sell it.

Not being funny at all, I think there is more dust here in the UK.  I am not sure why that would be, though.  Maybe from not having screens in the windows?  I feel like I have to clean constantly.

Not being funny at all, I think there is more dust here in the UK.  I am not sure why that would be, though.  Maybe from not having screens in the windows?  I feel like I have to clean constantly.

 I thought it was just me! Our room gets so dusty! I have to dust everyday. Back home, I could get away with dusting once a week and it still wasn't as dusty after a week as it is here after one day.

Ditto Expat on the clutter.. it makes things seem a lot messier!  Especially if you have a smaller living area.

Also I have noticed the dust thing, but it's more to do with the fact that we live in a city instead of a suburb I think.

Our house really isn't small so I can't really say much about that.  The one thing that does drive me batty though is that by living in an older property things never seem as clean to me.  I also have the constant battle with cleaning skirting boards, chair rails and picture rails.  I need a telescopic duster!

I vacillate between loving the character and the dents and the dings and wishing I lived in a new sparkling home. 

I find it hard not to have clutter...  I love music, books, magazines.  I just wish the houses here were bigger - and for that matter, that the economy wasn't in the toilet!

I wish we had more storage space. It is so much easier to be tidy if you have a couple of nice big cupboards to hide away all those nick nacks that you don't use very often.

I've noticed the dust thing too.  It was especially bad in London, but even now that I'm living in a rural area approximately the same size as I did in the US, I still notice that it's dustier than back home.

We have nearly no storage space and are about to have less as our guest room is about to become the baby's room.  I keep saying that the baby is going to have the neatest, nicest room in the house!!  Ah...no complaints there!  As it should be!!!

I've recently become vaguely obsessed with clutter. I realised not too long ago (thank you flylady) that clutter was why the house always seemed dirty to me. So now about once a week I do a massive clear out of magazines (I'm pretty brutal - I jot down anything I want to remember to check out in a little notebook and then send it to the recycling bin rather than wonder if I *might* someday want to re-read it, which I never do.) I tuck cooking mags into the sideboard in a nice tidy stack, and I recycle all newspapers whether they've been read or not (I'm horrible for holding on to the paper and then on Friday wondering why Tuesday's news might still be of interest!) I also go around every evening for about 10 mins and put DVDs, Play Station games, and CDs back into their cases and onto the shelf.

My apartment in SF was VERY dusty so I don't really notice that it's worse here, but it's definitely just as bad!

Check out www.flylady.com - there's no reason to have to clean every day once you have a handle on things....   

I do get a lot more dust here, but I think it's because I keep the windows open so much -- nearly year-round. In the US, it was usually either too hot or too cold for that.

Check out www.flylady.com - there's no reason to have to clean every day once you have a handle on things....   

Ohh, i used to visit flylady all the time.  I lived in a tiny apartment in SoCal and we had to cut down on clutter.  it's amazing how unsentimental you become when you have no place to house it. 

Here, we live in a big house but there is no practical storage.  Eventually, once I know we'll be staying for a while, I'll start creating some. But for now, there is clutter.  My best cleaning solution is an 11 and 14 year old.  My policy is I ask, they do.  Things had slid for  a bit at home and on thursday night, i insisted we clear up and clean up.  Within an hour the house was spotless! I have to say, the kids do a mean job on the kitchen as well.

Good tips - thanks.  I know having a 2.5 yr old & a new born dosn't help - all the stuff a new born has is unreal! Can't wait to get the kids to chip in!  My husband is horrible with clutter - he can't part with anything which is 99.9% of the prob.  Has anyone divorced over this??!!

Oh expat I wish I could get rid of clutter. I am a habitual horder (its a genetic thing)

AnneR- I got tons of mags (bought ones, freebie ones) I just can't get rid of them. Newspapers- ah you make me laugh at myself.

I do sometimes get around to looking at last years Time or Newsweek and always surprised that I hear myself shout out about some article being outdated, when of course it wasn't at the time of publication.

Asda/Tesco etc mags - ooo its got all those recipes that I will never use.

I have a spare room (ok it could be spare) but I can barely get in it. I will try and read that flylady (I have already marked it and saved it - see I even horde electrons. oh god is there hope for me?)

My father was a one bag man, my mother is the genetic link. When we were kids and moved to Germany all of our stuff was stolen so maybe there is this fear/need since I have nothing from my childhood.

To show you how bad it was - when I got divorced I made 6 trips to the tip just for magazines and newspapers. I do not know how the floorboards held all that weight. I won't tell you how many more trips to the tip for non paper collections (pipes, wood, wire, componets, old light fittings etc - I just know one day I will need this item or a piece of that item. It is embarassing at times.

I'm a hoarder too.  And am being faced with disposing of most of my wonderful collection of useless things as I prepare for the move.  The house already seems cleaner though. 

I imagine if I had a bigger house I'd just collect more junk - so it would look the same but have more floorspace to keep neat.