How Often Should You Vacuum?
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Wondering how often should you vacuum? The answer may surprise you. It depends.
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The house we live in had brand new carpet when we moved in. What a treat!
Forget the fact that it’s practically white carpet, okay, very light beige. And a rental. Who does that?
Needless to say, we’ve tried hard to take good care of it. Well, as best as one can when you live in a busy household of eight people, six of them active children.
Daily vacuuming has been our first line of defense. Regular carpet cleaning has been the second. The question often comes up, however, daily vacuuming?
How Often Should You Vacuum?
Yes, daily.
A few summers ago, almost eight to be exact, I decided to instill some better cleaning habits in all of us and instituted the daily vacuuming of the living areas.
There are three carpeted areas in the downstairs, and so each of the big boys had to choose one area to vacuum every day. It’s amazing what a difference it made to the overall appearance of our home.
I’d read once that you should vacuum an area as many times per week as the number of people that regularly use that area.
So, for a bedroom for one person, a weekly vacuuming is sufficient. A room with two roomies should get a twice a week treatment.
Our main living areas? According to that formula, they should receive eight vacuumings a week!
Well, that ain’t happening. But, since that fateful summer day we’ve been able to swing a daily once over. It really doesn’t take very long to go over each area.
And, since it has to be vacuumed, all the junk has to be picked up off the floor, too! {Maniacal laughter from the Mama.}
We’ve hired the same carpet cleaner for many, many years, and he has agreed that the daily vacuuming has helped our carpet last this long. It’s cheap, renter’s carpet in beige, so there’s only so much you can do, but daily vacuuming has helped.
What kind of vacuum should you get?
For over 20 years, we’ve had an Oreck upright vacuum. The first one lasted us about 13 years. The second is almost seven years old and going strong. You can read my review of it here.
For a short time, we had Jarvis, a robotic vacuum. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as loyal to us as he was Ironman.
When we had hard floors, we loved the Shark Cordless Sweeper. It was so light even the toddlers could use it. You can read my review of it here.
How often do YOU vacuum at your house?
Originally published August 16, 2010. Updated January 31, 2018.
my fantastic husband usually instigates vacuuming the bedroom (only room with carpet), and since our 9 month-old is crawling around and eating whatever comes to hand I’ve got a constant reminder to keep everything else swept semi-regularly….
Great rule of thumb for vacuuming! Love it. (Now if we have 6-8 kids will I love it as much? We’ll see….)
oh I do it once a week- we don;t allow food in the family room area though
I am telling the family this rule about the number of persons = the number of vacuums. I have always felt that we need to vacuum more. Turns out we should double it for the downstairs. We are having the carpets cleaned next week. I’m going to try my best to keep it looking good with frequent vacuums for as long as possible. Thanks for the helpful tip!
What a great post! I seriously was just thinking of this yesterday. My aim will be a little more frequent – right now I vacuum three times a week (there are four of us plus two hairy dogs.)
Oh…I like this!
I used to have robotic vacuums in my life before children. They would do the floor while we were at work.
Now as a stay-at-home mom I need to do it daily, I actually do it 1-2 times per week. Though right now I am not doing it at all since our vacuum is broken. (Well I’m actually sweeping it regularly which is really more work. Ugh)
Never. We have no rugs or carpet – have laminate hardwood and tile. We sweep 1-2 times a week but our pets have short hair and we don’t have kids.
What a great method for how often to vacuum. I usually vacuum on Thursday and I must admit that Thursday and Friday are the best looking days in my bedroom (the only room I go into daily that has carpet).
I have hardwood throughout (well, tiled baths and kitchen)… I vacuum once or twice a week. I am FOREVER crawling around with the dust pan though. I’m thinking I do that between 20 & 25 times a week… at least in the kitchen!!! (FYI- when I DID have carpet, I didn’t vacuum nearly as much as you though.)
There is only 3 of us and we take our shoes off at the door or should, so there really isn’t much dirt on the floors so I only vacuum once a week on Tuesdays.
We have tile and a dog. Which means our floor is never ‘gritty’ (cause the dog eats everything on the floor) but my young children have a firm grasp on air currents and eddies from watching the dog hair blow about. I vacuum about twice a week and pick up dog hair fluffs constantly.