Housekeeping is the management and routine support activities of running an organised physical institution occupied or used by people, like a house, ship, hospital or factory, such as tidying, cleaning,
cooking, routine maintenance, shopping, and bill payment. These tasks may be performed by members of the household, or by persons hired for the purpose. This is a more broad role than a cleaner, who is focused only on the cleaning aspect.
The term is also used to refer to the money allocated for such use.
["housekeeping"]
''Oxford Dictionaries Online
Lexico was a dictionary website that provided a collection of English and Spanish dictionaries produced by Oxford University Press (OUP), the publishing house of the University of Oxford. While the dictionary content on Lexico came from OUP, th ...
''. Retrieved 2 June 2013. By extension, it may also refer to an office or organization, as well as the
maintenance
Maintenance may refer to:
Biological science
* Maintenance of an organism
* Maintenance respiration
Non-technical maintenance
* Alimony, also called ''maintenance'' in British English
* Champerty and maintenance, two related legal doct ...
of
computer storage systems.
The basic concept can be divided into domestic housekeeping, for private households, and institutional housekeeping for commercial and other institutions providing shelter or lodging, such as hotels, resorts, inns, boarding houses, dormitories, hospitals and prisons.
There are related concepts in industry known as workplace housekeeping and Industrial housekeeping, which are part of occupational health and safety processes.
A
housekeeper is a person employed to manage a household and the
domestic staff
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...
. According to the 1861 Victorian era ''
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management'', the housekeeper is second in command in the house and "except in large establishments, where there is a house steward, the housekeeper must consider herself as the immediate representative of her mistress".
Scope
Domestic housekeeping
Institutional housekeeping
*In commercial lodging establishments (hotels, resorts, inns, boarding houses etc), housekeeping is the work of providing a clean, comfortable, safe and aesthetically appealing environment for the guests, and the operational department in a hotel which is responsible for these activities in rooms, public areas, back areas and the surroundings. The housekeeping department has a supprt role in a hotel as it does not directly generate income, and it is considered to be a "back of the house" department although there is limited direct contact with the guests.
*Communal lodging (dormitories etc)
*In
hospitals
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...
and clinics, housekeeping is a
support service under a specific department, which is responsible for cleanliness, maintenance and aesthetic upkeep of patient care areas, public areas and staff areas. The department may also be known as "Sanitation".
*
Prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...
s
*
Ship
A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...
s. On cruise ships housekeeping is very similar to in hotels.
Workplace and industrial housekeeping
Workplace housekeeping is the ongoing process of keeping the workplace clean, hygienic, orderly and free of extraneous objects and materials which may constitute
hazards. It includes consideration of layout, aisle marking, storage facilities and maintenance, adequate lighting, and regular inspection, and is a basic component of fire and incident prevention in
occupational health and safety
Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at wor ...
.
Industrial housekeeping may be used as a synonym for workplace housekeeping, or may be nuanced toward similar processes specifically in a production environment.
Tidying
Before a room can be cleaned, it first needs to be tidied. This is an organisation process that can include activities such as picking up and collecting items that are not in their proper storage, checking them and returning them to their allocated storage place. This process reduces the risk of damage to the items and removed the hazard they may cause for tripping and obstructing other activities. It also involves organizing items on benches and tables and putting them in their allocated place. Without tidying first, these items can hinder or prevent proper cleaning. Putting out-of-place items away creates a clear space which facilitates removing dirt buildup and accessing areas that are hard to reach and clean on a regular basis. It does not include moving large items of furniture around to access the surfaces under or behind them, but may include putting them back where they belong after cleaning.
Cleaning
![A Day in the Life of a Wartime Housewife- Everyday Life in London, England, 1941 D2366](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/A_Day_in_the_Life_of_a_Wartime_Housewife-_Everyday_Life_in_London%2C_England%2C_1941_D2366.jpg)
Housekeeping includes housecleaning, that is, disposing of rubbish, cleaning dirty surfaces, dusting, and vacuuming. It may also involve some outdoor chores, such as removing leaves from rain gutters, washing windows, and sweeping doormats. The term housecleaning is often used also figuratively in politics and business, for the removal of unwanted personnel, methods, or policies in an effort at reform or improvement.
Housecleaning is done to make the home look and smell better and to make it safer and easier to live in. Without housecleaning,
lime scale
Limescale is a hard, chalky deposit, consisting mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It often builds up inside kettles, boilers, and pipework, especially that for hot water. It is also often found as a similar deposit on the inner surfaces of ol ...
can build upon
taps,
mold
A mold () or mould () is one of the structures certain fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of spores containing fungal secondary metabolites. The spores are the dispersal units of the fungi. Not ...
grows in wet areas, smudges appear on glass surfaces, dust builds up on surfaces,
bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...
l action makes the garbage disposal and toilet smell and
cobwebs accumulate. Tools used in housecleaning include
vacuums, brooms, mops and
sponges, together with cleaning products such as
detergents,
disinfectants and
bleach.
Laundry
One role of a housekeeper is often laundry such as; washing, folding, and packing away laundry items. Other duties may involve monitoring and changing bed linen and ironing.
Removal of refuse
Disposal of rubbish is an important aspect of house cleaning. Plastic refuse bags are designed and manufactured specifically for the collection of refuse. Many are sized to fit common waste baskets and trash cans. Bags are made to carry aluminum cans, glass jars, and other things; most people use plastic bins for glass since it could break and tear through the bag.
Recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
of some kinds of rubbish is possible.
Dusting
![Some dusting tools](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Some_dusting_tools.PNG)
Over time
dust
Dust is made of fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind (an aeolian process), volcanic eruptions, and pollution. Dust in ho ...
accumulates on household surfaces. As well as making the surfaces dirty, when the dust is disturbed it can become suspended in the air, causing sneezing and breathing trouble. It can also transfer from furniture to clothing, making it unclean. Various tools have been invented for dust removal:
feather duster
A feather duster is a cleaning tool that is typically made from a wooden dowel handle onto which ostrich feathers are wound with a wire. The feathers are most often long. Some dusters have a retractable casing instead of a dowel handle and thes ...
s, cotton, and polyester dust cloths, furniture spray, disposable paper "dust cloths", dust mops for smooth floors, and vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaners often have a variety of tools to enable them to remove dirt not just from carpets and rugs, but also from hard surfaces and upholstery. Dusting is very important in hospital environments.
Surface cleaning
![US Army 51089 Unsung heroes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/US_Army_51089_Unsung_heroes.jpg)
Surface cleaning includes hard surfaces and furnishing textiles, carpeting and upholstery, cooking and eating utensils.
Examples of dirt or "soil" are
detritus and common spills and stains in the home. Equipment used with a cleaner might include a bucket and sponge or a rag. A modern tool is the spray bottle, but the principle is the same.
Many
household chemicals
Household chemicals are non-food chemicals that are commonly found and used in and around the average household. They are a type of consumer goods, designed particularly to assist cleaning, house and yard maintenance, cooking, pest control and ge ...
are using in cleaning, scrubbing, and washing surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom.
Tools
Broom
A broom (also known in some forms as a broomstick) is a cleaning tool consisting of usually stiff fibers (often made of materials such as plastic, hair, or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. I ...
s remove debris from floors and
dustpan
A dustpan, the small version of which is also known as a "hearth brush and shovel” (from its use of cleaning the fireplace hearth), is a cleaning utensil. The dustpan is commonly used in combination with a broom or long brush. The small dustp ...
s carry dust and debris swept into them,
bucket
A bucket is typically a watertight, vertical cylinder or truncated cone or square, with an open top and a flat bottom, attached to a semicircular carrying handle called the ''bail''.
A bucket is usually an open-top container. In contrast, a ...
s hold cleaning and rinsing solutions,
vacuum cleaner
A vacuum cleaner, also known simply as a vacuum or a hoover, is a device that causes suction in order to remove dirt from floors, upholstery, draperies, and other surfaces. It is generally electrically driven.
The dirt is collected by either a ...
s and
carpet sweeper
A carpet sweeper is a mechanical device for the cleaning of carpets. They were popular before the introduction of the vacuum cleaner and have been largely superseded by them. However, they continue to be used in many home and commercial applicat ...
s remove surface dust and debris,
chamois leather
Chamois leather () is a type of porous leather, traditionally the skin of the chamois (''Rupicapra rupicapra''), a type of European mountain goat, but today made almost exclusively from the flesh split of a sheepskin.
United Kingdom
The Brit ...
and
squeegee
A squeegee or squilgee is a tool with a flat, smooth rubber blade, used to remove or control the flow of liquid on a flat surface. It is used for cleaning and in printing.
The earliest written references to squeegees date from the mid-19th cent ...
s are used for window-cleaning, and
mop
A mop (such as a floor mop) is a mass or bundle of coarse strings or yarn, etc., or a piece of cloth, sponge or other absorbent material, attached to a pole or stick. It is used to soak up liquid, for cleaning floors and other surfaces, to mop ...
s are used for washing floors. To ensure safety, protective apparel including rubber
gloves
A glove is a garment covering the hand. Gloves usually have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb.
If there is an opening but no (or a short) covering sheath for each finger they are called fingerless gloves. Fingerless glo ...
,
face covers, and
protective eye wear are also sometimes used when dealing with chemical cleaning products.
Outdoor areas
A home's yard and exterior are sometimes subject to cleaning. Exterior cleaning also occurs for safety, upkeep, and usefulness. It includes the removal of litter and grass growing in sidewalk cracks.
Social significance
While domestic housekeeping can be seen as an objective activity that can be done by either men or women, some people have argued that housekeeping is a site of historical oppression and gender division between men and women. Housekeeping also has a role in maintaining certain parts of the capitalist economy, including the division of home and work life, as well as industries that sell chemicals and household goods.
A survey conducted by the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2014 came to the result that approximately 43 percent of men did food preparation or cleanup on any given day, compared with approximately 70 percent of women. In addition, 20 percent of men did housekeeping chores (including cleaning and laundry) on any given day, compared to approximately 50 percent of women.
Death cleaning
The Swedish practice of döstädning ("death cleaning"), a
simple living ethic and aesthetic with the primary focus of not burdening your heirs with your belongings,
is a permanent form of household organization
which also focuses on keeping only strongly valued possessions.
See also
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References
External links
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{{Authority control
Unpaid work
Cleaning
Home
Home economics
Informal occupations
de:Haus- und Familienarbeit