Listen to this content
Washington, D.C. has been named the hardest major U.S. metropolitan area to keep a home clean, with criteria including signs of pest infestation. The study was conducted by Zentura Cleaning, a full-service professional cleaning company based in Phoenix, Ariz. The project analyzed household conditions across 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas using data from the 2023 American Housing Survey, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Per the news release, researchers examined seven factors that can contribute to the amount of cleaning and household upkeep residents face: reported mold, signs of rodents, signs of cockroaches, inside water leakage, outside water leakage, average household size and the average number of rooms in occupied homes.
Each factor was converted into a percentile score across 20 metropolitan areas and weighted to create a final Home Cleaning Pressure Score out of 100:
- Washington, D.C. 78.45
- Cincinnati, Ohio 72.04
- New York City 69.24
- Houston, Texas 63.16
- Philadelphia, Pa. 62.34
- Boston, Mass. 57.57
- Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif. 56.09
- San Francisco, Calif. 54.77
- Los Angeles, Calif. 53.29
- Milwaukee, Wis. 48.85
- Chicago, Ill. 47.04
- Denver, Colo. 45.72
- Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas 44.74
- Cleveland, Ohio 42.60
- Atlanta, Ga. 39.80
- Seattle, Wash. 38.16
- Phoenix, Ariz. 37.17
- New Orleans, La. 36.84
- Detroit, Mich. 34.38
- Miami, Fla. 17.76
Why Washington, D.C. is No. 1
Rather than being driven by a single extreme result, the study notes, Washington, D.C.’s position comes from relatively high cleaning pressure across several household conditions.
- An estimated 13.47 percent of occupied homes reported inside water leakage, the highest proportion among the 20 metropolitan areas analyzed.
- D.C. homes also had the largest average number of rooms at 6.44, while approximately 17.22 percent reported signs of mice or rats during the previous 12 months, the third-highest rate in the study.
- The metropolitan area also recorded an average household size of approximately 2.59 people, while 10.40 percent of homes reported signs of cockroaches.
“Keeping a home clean isn’t only about how often someone vacuums or wipes down a countertop,” Zentura Cleaning CEO James Carter said in the news release. “A larger space, more people using it, moisture problems and signs of pests can all create work that keeps returning. When several of those pressures overlap, routine cleaning can become much more demanding.”
Why Cincinnati ranks No. 2
Despite not recording the highest rate of either rodents or cockroaches, Cincinnati took the second spot for high percentages in other areas:
- Approximately 12.91 percent of occupied homes reported outside water leakage, the highest rate among the 20 metros studied.
- A further 10.64 percent reported inside water leakage, while approximately 12.82 percent reported signs of rodents.
- Cincinnati also had an average of approximately 6.09 rooms per occupied home, among the largest homes represented in the analysis.
“The findings demonstrate why the final index can differ substantially from rankings based purely on pests or one individual housing problem,” Zentura Cleaning’s new release points out.
Why New York City ranks No. 3
New York ranked third overall and recorded one of the broadest combinations of household-condition challenges in the study. Approximately:
- 4.22 percent of occupied homes reported mold
- 17.01 percent reported signs of mice or rats
- 20.13 percent reported signs of cockroaches
- 10.36 percent reported inside water leakage
- 10.60 percent reported outside water leakage
New York recorded the second-highest mold estimate among the 20 metros and ranked among the highest for both rodent and cockroach signs.
Its results contrast with metropolitan areas that perform extremely poorly in one category but relatively well across the others.
Top cockroach percentage: Houston
Approximately 33.27 percent of occupied homes in the Houston metropolitan sample reported signs of cockroaches during the previous 12 months, the highest share among the 20 metropolitan areas analyzed. That is roughly equivalent to one in every three occupied homes.
New Orleans recorded the second-highest rate at approximately 29.71 percent, followed by New York at 20.13 percent, Dallas-Fort Worth at 19.42 percent and Atlanta at 18.27 percent.
“The places people see are usually the places they clean most often. The areas that get missed are under appliances, around cabinet edges, along baseboards and close to sinks,” Carter said in the news release. “Those less-visible areas can collect crumbs, grease and moisture, so a thorough cleaning routine has to go beyond the countertop and the middle of the floor.”
Note that the data only records reported signs of cockroaches, and should not be interpreted as the percentage of homes with a professionally confirmed infestation.
Top rodent percentage: Boston
Boston recorded the highest proportion of occupied homes reporting signs of mice or rats.
Approximately 24.48 percent of Boston-area homes, close to one in four, reported rodent signs during the previous 12 months.
Philadelphia followed at 19.90 percent, with Washington, D.C. at 17.22 percent and New York at 17.01 percent.
At the opposite end, Phoenix recorded the lowest rodent-sign estimate among the metros analyzed, at approximately 2.09 percent.
Methodology
The analysis examined housing conditions across 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas using AHS microdata. Individual housing-unit records were analyzed using the final AHS survey weight rather than unweighted sample counts. Seven factors were included:
- Reported mold: 18.75 percent
- Reported signs of mice or rats: 12.50 percent
- Reported signs of cockroaches: 12.50 percent
- Inside water leakage: 12.50 percent
- Outside water leakage: 12.50 percent
- Average household size: 15.625 percent
- Average number of rooms: 15.625 percent
For mold, a housing unit was classified as reporting mold when at least one of the AHS mold-location variables indicated mold in the basement, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, living room or another room.
Each metric was converted to a percentile score relative to the other metropolitan areas included in the study. The percentile scores were then multiplied by their respective weights and combined to generate the final Home Cleaning Pressure Score out of 100.
A higher score indicates a greater combined presence of household conditions associated with cleaning and upkeep pressure. The score does not measure how clean or dirty residents are, how frequently residents clean their homes, or the quality of cleaning performed.
Percentages are weighted estimates based on the AHS survey sample and may differ slightly from other published Census tabulations because of rounding, disclosure protection and differences in tabulation methodology. Complete results can be found here.
