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WHEN Robert Horowitz was growing up, his mother had a system for cleaning. There was a day for doing the laundry, a day for washing the floors, a day for polishing the furniture. When Karen Kessler was growing up, her mother had a system too. She would clean the house from top to bottom – just before the maid came.
Mr. Horowitz and Miss Kessler were married four years ago and they have developed a system of their own. ''If I don't see the dirt, it doesn't bother me,'' Miss Kessler said. ''So I just don't look.''
The not-looking method of cleaning has become a popular one in the past few years, say the sociologists and market researchers who study such things, because the women who once stayed home to scour and scrub are not staying home anymore.
''The center of life is much less the home and much more the marketplace,'' said Claudia L. Bushman, executive director of the Delaware Heritage Commission, who is researching the topic of cleanliness. ''People, men and women, are more wrapped up in their jobs and have their real lives at work.''
And even those women who are home full time do not seem to see themselves as housecleaners. ''Americans have reordered their priorities,'' said Laura Lein, director of the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College. ''They're juggling work and house and family, and when forced into a choice the first thing to go is the house.''
These changes can be seen in the supermarket, where sales of cleaning supplies for heavy housework (floor waxes that require scrubbing on hands and knees, for example) have gone down steadily in the last five years, while sales of cleaning supplies for light housework (multipurpose cleaners that can be mopped onto floors) have gone up.
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