About Cohabit

Why cleaning lists?

I made Cohabit because whether it's a partner, a friend, or a family member, we've all shared a home with someone else. And when you share a space, you have to share the responsibility of keeping it clean.

For me, this has been a pain point all my adult life, and not necessarily because who I'm living with isn't pulling their weight (I'm certain I've annoyed more than I've been annoyed by!). Rather, it's because all the options for managing cleaning are either too much work or too much conflict.

I've tried a lot of cleaning systems over the years, and I've found that they all fall foul of either being unclean, painful to organize, or both:

• Tick lists (keeping a tally of critical areas and adding a tick when you do them) - These are the most common solution I see and they're the worst. They're unclean because they're not planned, so they don't cover everything that needs to be done. They're painful because it's impossible to hold anyone to account and when stuff inevitably starts to get missed, everyone gets a sense that others are slacking. Ouch.
• Everyone pitches in (no rules, assume on trust that it will be done) - This is the easiest solution, but it always ends in tears. Do I need to say more? Everyone starts with good intentions, but it quickly becomes impossible to keep track of what's been done, and what needs doing, and as the dirt accumulates random guesses get made at who's to blame. It's a mess, literally and emotionally.
• One person organizes (someone takes on the task of organizing themselves) - This is, by far and away, the most functional system, but it's far from perfect. It's a lot more work than it looks like, and doing it well can quickly take as much time as the cleaning does.

Enter, Cohabit - an all-in-one solution to build your cleaning list to a professional standard in a tiny fraction of the time, reflecting exactly the items in your home, and executing it by rotating tasks around all your home members fairly and equitably.

This is a passion project by John Harlow (opens in a new tab).

Have ideas for Cohabit? Feature requests, furniture suggestions, or just want to chat about my work? You can get in touch at john@cohabit.homes