Do you think it's a generational thing? I never remember my mum letting our house get messy, and she worked 14 hour days, 6 days a week. How did she do it??
My observation (with baby boomer parents) is that we have more "stuff" to jam into our house and more complicated lifestyles (eg, I commute 4-8 times longer every day than my parents ever did, not to mention that I *must* work to keep us out of penury since one wage no longer cuts it). Plus i have higher expectations of what I want out of life. My house might not be so squeeky clean, but I'm well on my way to finishing a uni degree.

Also, back in the day, my mum did that housework. All of it. Part of the reason my house looks ahem "cosy" some of the time is because my DH does some of that work, to his standards. I decided a long time ago that it was not my mission in life to follow around a man, re-doing things while he blissfully (and in the manner of men since the beginning of time) assumes that it is his effort that has made it so. So there might be mess, but it's honest, feminist-minded mess.