Our home is one of the most important things in our lives. It is not only our place to rest but for many of us our houses and apartments have become an office, school, gym, garden, bar, restaurant and more, during the pandemic.
Some of us are super house-proud, and some of us are more relaxed, but which Americans take care of their homes the most? Who started to take care more during the pandemic over the past two years? Where have people decided to take better care of their gardens, begin renovations or crack down on pest control?
To find out which states are taking the best care of their homes, we conducted a study to take you on a virtual trip around America to reveal each state’s house-habits.
We used Google search trends to consider a variety of different factors including cleaning, gardening, interior design, pest control and home improvements. The data also revealed how interest in these topics changed during the pandemic.
Home Maintenance Hotspots around the US
The study reveals that currently Delaware is the US state where people are most interested in taking care of their home’s maintenance. Florida ranks in second, with residents searching for home maintenance keywords the second most, and Texas comes in third.
Gardening was named as the most popular home maintenance category over the past two years with the longevity of its popularity increase clear for all to see. Interest in 2021 is 185% higher than it was in 2019.
The study shows that Hawaiians are the most interested people in the US about gardening. Understandable, this is probably one of the best climates for plant care. Delaware ranks as the second state where people want to have beautiful gardens and third is Washington.
How has the interest of gardening changed in Covid-19 times? California, Texas and Florida had the highest search volume increase comparing the year 2019 vs 2021 in the entire country. This enormous growth appeared by 1500% in California, 1100% in Texas, 890% in Florida.
Another activity seeing a big raise in popularity was interior design. This particular home improvement category has seen a 110% increase in popularity in 2021 compared to 2019. But where cares the most about the interior aesthetic of their homes?
Delaware, New York and Virginia rank as the top 3 US states where people are hanging the most fashionable trailing house plant, getting the freshest wallpaper and the newest shades of paint.
This study shows that New Yorkers during the pandemic period increased their interest in home design by around 450% - the state with the third highest increase in this category. But Californians saw the biggest boom in interior design searches -- up by almost 1200%!
Surprisingly the popularity of cleaning has decreased in 2021 compared to data in 2020. This year, average monthly searches are down 45% compared to 2020.
The study reveals that people in Delaware came top as the most curious about cleaning their properties. Ranking in second are natives of Kansas and the third clean-home lovers live in New Jersey.
During the lockdown though, different states started to search how to clean their house more and more. The highest increase in search volumes was in California, where searches were up by 710%, then Texas with a 500% increase and Florida by 280%.
The need for hiring pest services is closely related to the climate. Those unwanted creatures are very likely to appear in warmer, humid climates like Florida as found in our previous study. Floridians are the second most likely US-natives to be searching for pest removal. In first position is Delaware, Georgia ranks in third with some of the highest searches.
The pandemic changed our basic living requirements a lot, and our research shows that people started to need pest removal services much more. California saw the highest increase in interest with a 700% rise in google searches, Texas saw a 500% increase and Florida’s searches were up by 400%. New York states pest removal searches increased by almost 300%.
