Keeping the Russian Moishe House Clean

So far we've been off to a good start, but one issue we had to deal with was keeping the house clean. We have a fairly big house and it was practically brand new when we moved in so we decided that it was important for us to keep it in good condition. Of course four guys living together not to mention having frequent events with a large number of people does not quite make it easy to keep things clean. So we spent many a meeting trying to figure out a system to make things work. Here is what we came up with:

We create a weekly matrix spreadsheet designating what everyone's responsibility is for the day. Responsibilities are divided in three categories - trash, dishes and wiping. So the person that takes out the trash also sweeps the floors. The person who wipes, dusts and disinfects the kitchen area. And finally the person who does the dishes makes sure there are no dirty dishes left overnight. These tasks only concern the common area, our personal areas are up to each one of us to take care of. We also decided to pitch in to have a cleaning lady to come twice a month to clean the bathrooms and do a more thorough cleaning of the entire apartment. Between the four of us that only comes out to $50 a person a month. Cleaning up after events is designated to the person who is responsible for that event (which is a whole another topic for another time maybe). The person is responsible for either cleaning himself or delegating cleaning tasks to others. To make things fair we agreed that at least two of us should be cleaning at any one event. Finally things such as cleaning supplies and common household items such as toilet paper are bought by taking turns. For example, if I buy supplies this month, someone else in our house buys it the next.

I hope this is helpful to some of you who are struggling with similar issues.