AAAAARGH having to live with messy people!!!

[whereiscaroline]

Just need a rant - I feel like the choices are either to pick up after everyone else and become their de facto slave or just to accept living in a messy home.

This morning I've left the house for work - DS' PE kit is strewn at the bottom of the stairs, along with football boots. DP's socks from yesterday in the living room where he took them off. Letters opened and left out. General debris and mess just left where it's dropped. Its driving me DERANGED.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I’d still throw it away, even essential items such as PE kits, and then make them buy new / second hand stuff from pocket money/allowance. This is assuming the child is a certain age of course, which I assume the OP’s child is as she mentions football boots which they tend to wear in secondary school.
If he gets in trouble at school for not having the correct stuff then the lesson may well pay off and he might be a bit more respectful and not treat his mother as a slave in future!
As long as someone else is there to pick stuff up and it doesn’t impact him in any way then he’s never going to change.

Oh yes, I get the "but I live here too" bullshit from eldest daughter. Yes, so, what's your point exactly? I live here too and I manage to not leave my shit lying around everywhere so that's bollocks isn't it?

For my own sanity I just do it,I can't stand things being messy

If it’s dirty football kit left lying about, don’t wash or tidy it away. Then next time football comes round, when they start on about why their kit isn’t washed and ready to go, act all innocent “well you didn’t put it in the wash basket so it didn’t get washed”. Then they’ll have to wear dirty kit, until they take some responsibility for dealing with it.

Same with the mess. My DC have to tidy their stuff away before bedtime. If they refuse they know I’ll bin it. And they know I mean it - I have had to do it in the past. I’m their mother, not their skivvy, and they need to respect the space they have to share with others.

Like Poptart said, as long as someone else is there to pick stuff up and it doesnt impact on him in any way then he’s never going to change. By you he’s is certainly not biddable, but I will take him by the hand, lead him to the mess and we will stand there for as long as necessary for him to start tidying his stuff.

My youngest is certainly not biddable, that should say

Buy a large laundry basket, place it for n the hallway, throw in every abandoned item, whether it’s socks, or kit, letters, empty crisp wrappers, everything!

When the inevitable “where is my...”questions arise, send them to it. They may eventually learn when most of their stuff is crammed in there and not where they urgently expect it to be (I.e. cleaned, ironed, put away, put in the usual place by their in-house Mumbot).

Make it a VERY large laundry basket.

I like that idea greatwestern. Like the horror of the school lost property bin. You could put a couple of unwashed lunchboxes in there too.