Ah yes, I remember your furnace breaking down. Living out of a hotel for a while there. Not fun at all. My wife is pretty minimal herself, so we don't have a ton of clutter around our house. I have definitely found that the more you keep up on cleaning the easier it is. It only takes us about an hour to clean each weekend since we do it so frequently. I know if we didn't it would be a half day thing.
We "clean" regularly, but there is a difference between it being clean, and being organized. My wife is one of those people who cleans with an "out of sight, good enough" approach - even if where it is hidden is nowhere near where it should be kept!
Ah, okay. My wife would probably say the same about me!