I see several 'bare-minimum' types on here.
Types like me, in fact.

I'm not talking about people who do the absolute bare minimum to stop their house drowning in accumulated life-shite (the trendy term for rubbish). Like the kind of person who will, grudgingly, consider taking out the piles of rubbish before they walk to the bins of their own accord, in order to end the suffering of having attained sentience in such a filth pit.

That's not the bare minimum. If there's mould, you're doing it wrong. I'm talking about this 'clean but not tidy' mindset that it's so easy to fall prey to, and which people seem to regard as an adequate state of maintenance.

What it basically pans out as is, you can get it together to dispose of anything that's actually liable to become a health hazard, but don't see the need to bother with anything that isn't going to go poisonous and kill you.
I suspect this is the attitude of those who, like me, were appalled to discover upon moving away from the parental bosom, discovered that housework genuinely doesn't do itself, and while they have grudgingly come to terms with the idea, are still subconsciously waiting for the Chore Fairies to turn up again.

Fat chance if you live with people like my flatmate, who apparently doesn't notice either mess or filth (the distinction; mess is relatively sterile; filth is defined as 'anything sticky or slimy').
Anyway, lazy bastards the lot of you. Keeping things tidy is easy.

On the other hand, the half arsed attitude, or even the don't-give-a-shit attitude, are both infinitely preferable to living with the truly anal. You know the type. Nothing is out of place. EVER. They leave notes. They get pissy about cups still being there the evening of the day they were used. In the case of my last flatmate, they have the house the way they want it (empty and boring), and any attempts to imprint some form of personality on it - having DVDs or your console in the living room, for an e.g, are met with gentle but pathetically insistent polite requests that everything reside in your room, lest the flat look like people actually live there.
This guy, John, was in a class of his own. Weekends were not for socialising, or even studying, and certainly not for sitting around enjoying yourself. Weekends were for hoovering and dusting. Despite the fact nothing ever happened in the flat. And obviously I was expected to assist - or so I assume, because he never actually asked for help, but he did get noticeably more aggressive (in an endearingly passive sort of way) on Sundays and Mondays, especially if I'd left the building during that time.

And he always, always redid my washing up. And then he got annoyed because I stopped washing up. In comparison, living with a slob is a breath of fresh air. Even if I am currently surrounded by chipshop containers and sweet wrappers as I type this, I breathe free in the knowledge that nobody is going to walk in, look at me for seven straight minutes without blinking and then say "Thanks for your help, by the way.", before storming off to hoover his bedroom for the fourth time that week. Messy but clean; it's the way to go, folks!
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 19:50, 7 replies)

Hmm...
Neither's quite as bad as the one that's entirely anal about moving or even touching any of his property, but not even slightly anal about cleaning up after parties or taking the bins out.

My current flatmate, by the way.
(StapMyVitals wouldn't mind a bit of that, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 20:27, closed)

Actually, no
the anal guy does sound worse.
(StapMyVitals wouldn't mind a bit of that, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 20:30, closed)

Yeah
it's generally the distinguishing feature of those with no discernible personality.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 21:11, closed)

Erm, that might be me... I'm fairly reasonable about cleanliness, I think, though I guess you could say that I'm constantly a day or two behind. If you touch anything of mine, though, anything at all, I'll stick a knife in you. Or I'll at least be thinking about it REALLY REALLY HARD.
(Legion, Fri 26 Mar 2010, 3:59, closed)

I miss those fairies too...
(LarksaLordy, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 21:10, closed)

Man, tell me about it
My dad was the biggest fairy around. It was brilliant.

Erm, in the sense of being a Housework Fairy. Not any other sense. That I know of.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 21:12, closed)

The only good thing about living with one of those anal freaks
Is that they always have butter and milk in the fridge. And if you are bigger than them their threats are pretty meaningless.
He always made sure the bills were paid too.
(Wagane, Sat 27 Mar 2010, 12:51, closed)