Tropes dealing with cleaning and cleanliness, from the characters who perform it to the methods that are used.
Compare Bathing Tropes. Contrast Filthiness Tropes and Disgust Tropes.
Please keep this index tidy, and use these antiseptic wipes to clean up if you spill anything.
- After-School Cleaning Duty: Being made to clean up after school.
- Ascetic Aesthetic: A setting that is very clean and simplistic, which is meant to be ominous.
- Cathartic Chores: Cleaning as a way of dealing with frustration or stress.
- Children Do the Housework: Children who do most of the chores.
- Cleanup Crew: Characters whose job it is to clean up incriminating evidence.
- Creepy Cleanliness: A clean area is meant to be creepy.
- A Day in Her Apron: Someone incompetent has to do the cleaning when the one who usually does is out of commission.
- Dirt Forcefield: Dirt simply does not stick to some characters.
- The Dreaded Toilet Duty: Someone is forced to clean toilets.
- Ear Cleaning: Using a stick/swab to clean your own or someone else's ears.
- Fanservice Car Wash: Washing a car for Fanservice's sake.
- French Maid: A sexy female housekeeper who uses Gratuitous French.
- Househusband: A married man who does most of the chores.
- Housewife: A married woman who does most of the chores.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: Using a janitor's disguise to get past the guards.
- Kids Hate Chores: A kid hates having to do chores.
- Laundromat Liaisons: Having a conversation at a laundromat.
- Lazy Husband: A man lazes around the house while his wife does all the cleaning.
- Living in a Furniture Store: Someone's house is always tidy.
- Meido: A cute (not in a sexy way) female housekeeper.
- Men Can't Keep House A man's house will be a mess without a woman to clean it.
- Musical Chores: Singing while you clean.
- Neat Freak: Someone who wants everything clean at all times.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: A bartender who cleans glasses a lot.
- Red Sock Ruins the Laundry: A deep-colored piece of fabric stains the whole load of laundry with its color.
- Robot Maid: A housekeeper who's a robot.
- Romance-Inducing Smudge: A smudge that leads one person to clean it, which in turn leads to romance.
- Scullery Maid: A maid who is considered the lowest-ranking of the servants.
- Shrunk in the Wash: A piece of clothing gets smaller when washed.
- Soulless Bedroom: Someone who lacks emotions has an unnaturally clean bedroom with few or no personal possessions.
- Spit Shine: Cleaning with your own spit.
- Spring Cleaning Fever: Cleaning up and treating it as Serious Business.
- Sprint Scrubbing: Mopping the floor with a wet towel while running.
- Sweeping Ashes: A corpse's ashes get swept up.
- Swipe Your Blade Off: Making a swiping motion to get blood off a sword.
- Toothbrush Floor Scrubbing: Scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush.
- "Wash Me" Graffiti: A joke where someone writes a message on a dirty surface to ask that it be cleaned.
- Washy Watchy: Watching the laundry spin in the washing machine is treated as great entertainment.
- White Glove Test: Using gloves or a cloth to check if something's clean.