Do you clean and tidy your teenagers rooms?

[Kenworthington]

Maybe I’m an excuse for a lazy spatters but I leave the kids to do their own rooms. They are 13 and 15. I’ve just been in now and they are HORRIFIC. Food left on plates. Rubbish just thrown on the floor, the washing I’ve done for them just thrown on the floor amongst the dirty stuff. I’m so sick of it the lazy bastards. I’ve text them to say how awful it is and they have to do it when they get home. But I’m so fed up with it. They usually do it maybe on a fri for the weekend then really quickly it descends into something from a horror film. I have told them time and time again to just put stuff away as they do stuff and it won’t be a massive job and I won’t have to lose my shit but they never learn. HOw is it even possible for it to get so foul in a matter of days? Wtf is the matter with them fgs. I will withhold their phones until it’s sorted. But it’s an ongoing weekly problem. I’m so sick of it. It’s dirty and unhygienic. And it’s so untidy that even if I wanted to I can’t get in there to actually clean it. I don’t go out to work so technically I could do it. But i clean the rest of the house and I didn’t make the mess so I think they should do it. I’m right aren’t I? Just having a moan really.

I'm in the same situation as you, they only do a proper clean if a friend is coming round and they mostly would rather go out and meet their friends so it's not that often. Ive tried everything to get them to keep on top of the mess but it doesn't work. They are more than big enough to do it theirselves though and if I done it for them it wouldn't solve the problem.

Depressing though isn’t it? I just find it so bloody disrespectful ugh

I got so fed up with my teenagers rooms that I just shut the door on them. To their credit, they did always put their clean clothes straight away - although they were mostly already on hangers so no real excuse not to!

I dont clean or tidy my teens rooms (but they are older teens). If they stockpile dirtly plates etc I ban them from having food in their rooms. Clean clothes on the floor pisses me right off but its still their responsibility (I wash dry fold and return to them thats the end of my responsibility). If they chose to live in a shit hole thats their business. But if things get really rank I will make them sort it out.

My dc have been making their own beds and tidying their rooms since they were five years old, so they do this automatically (although the efforts are mixed on any given day) We have never allowed food upstairs so no plates, but the cups accumulate and I make them take them down. I do clean their rooms once a week, and vacuum twice a week. Leaving clothes and wet towels on the floor I am yet to master. I have a laundry basket placed in the centre of the room for a week and that seemed to work along with the usual nagging.

My teens are the same age as yours and I’ve given up even going in their rooms now. Day before recycling and refuse days they get given the bags and they have to empty their rooms of the crap. When it gets bad enough that I have no cups/spoons/forks downstairs then the WiFi gets turned off until they’re clean and back in their rightful place.

I bought them both big stand up laundry baskets for their room hoping they’d put it straight in there. But no. On the floor it goes. Surely it’s not harder to put it straight in the frigging basket?!! Same as putting rubbish in the bins rather than straight on the floor. I mean just why?!!

I am heartened I am not alone in this shit though. There’s also a pile of uneaten lunch sandwiches in dd ‘s room. Ffs

when mine were a bit younger, and it was toys all over the floor, I used to threaten to go in with a rubbish bag and chuck everything that’s on the floor away. Worked with my son but not so much my daughter.

My DS is the same even though he's no longer a teen. He's just been home for the summer from Uni and it has driven me bonkers - at least at Uni they had room inspections in Halls so he had to keep it reasonably tidy (although even there I think the bar must have been set quite low as he certainly hadn't dusted the whole 9 months he was living there and his although he said he had cleaned the bathroom I think that meant he'd chucked some bleach down the loo!

When he's home, I shout periodically for the crockery, throw open his bedroom window when he's out and hoover any bits of carpet I can see when I'm doing the landing! The rest is up to him (although he's gone back to Uni now so I have blitzed it).

It never ceases to amaze me that there is a bin next to his bed and yet he still chucks rubbish on the floor next to the bin. I give up!

My DD is 15 now but I haven't done her room for a couple of years. It's a mess but it's her mess, I just close the door. Two rules i enforce though,

1. No food plates/cups in the room
2. Only clothes in the laundry basket get washed.

Works for us.

They used to be tidyish at least once a week as pocket money was linked to a room inspection, but was trashed straight after that. I let them get on with it but I had to call an amnesty on glasses every so often.

I would draw a line a food festering.

Nope I dont do mine for them, if they want to live like pigs leave them to it. My sons bedroom is in the loft he was back all Summer and I never went in there once. My daughter has a big tidy up once a week then generally lets it get messy as the week goes by. She asked for a new carpet last month I just laughed and said 'why?you cant even see it '

Depends what sort of mood I'm in ..... I'll leave it and leave it, keep door shut and try to forget about it. Then I'll go in and shout and ask them to tidy up. Found a cereal bowl in one of their rooms last week which had solid milk in it, like yoghurt . beyond grim.

Oh and a tuna bagel that had gone to school and come home again, left in the corner for a few days. I couldn't work out what the smell was.

Two DSs, 16 and 14, their room their mess imo. I will change bedding and hoover but their rooms are a mess. I figure that it's their private space and if I made them keep it immaculate then our relationship would suffer as I'd always be nagging.

I have 2 dd’s (13 & 18) and we have a cleaner once a fortnight. This has been a lifesaver. I tend to shut the door on their bedrooms but I insist that people who come to our home to clean are treated with respect and this means scrupulously tidy rooms so that they can clean. DDs are aware that they lead a pretty nice life and they would hate to be accused of treating other people in an entitled or superior way, so every other weekend the job gets done properly.
DD18’s bathroom sink is so minging that I cannot believe anyone could actually fill it with water and try and wash in it! You’d make your face dirtier than when you started.
Before we had a cleaner, the threat “tidy your room, or I will” was very effective. There seems to be plenty of stuff in their bedrooms that they’d prefer me not to see, because I never had to actually follow through!
They are not allowed to take plates of food into their bedrooms. If it needs a plate, you eat it at the table but they do accumulate mugs and glasses.

If you don't worry OP and are a SAHM why can't you clean it? They are at school full time give them a break.

Don't work that should say

No - but I do insist they are at least hoovered and dusted once a fortnight.
We also have the same rules as deadringer (no food in rooms; washing is ignored unless in laundry basket)

@DevonshireCreamTea I have time to clean it, I could do. But that’s not really teaching them anything is it? It’s not to do with time. It’s abouy teaching them to be responsible (and not live like dirty pigs!)

You asked the question ! I think teenagers are learning enough about responsibility etc with full time schooling and homework. You are calling them lazy for not tidying there room when they have been at school all day then no doubt have homework...when you are the one at home all day. I think you are the lazy one.

Haha that’s harsh! Though you seem to be the lone voice with that opinion. Do you have teenagers? They’re hardly working their arses off. And although I may not go out for work for money I am busy doing stuff mainly for other people all day long every day. Anyway it’s irrelevant what I do. I just want them to take some responsibility and not be so bloody lazy and yes it IS lazy lying on your bed, chucking your food and rubbish and dirty pants on the floor. If they put stuff in the bin/laundry basket/down to the kitchen as and when then it wouldn’t be a massive big drama to clean it. I only want them to keep it relatively hygienic and tidyish. Am happy to clean it. I can’t physically get in the bloody room to do it!

Children are grown up now but I left their rooms. They didn’t eat there & if clothes were not in the laundry basket, they weren’t washed. Once or twice not having favourite clothes for a trip out solved the laundry issue. Changing bed clothes was solved when the child who did repeatedly criticised the ones who didn’t as smelly & disgusting & was echoed by friends who came to the house. I didn’t like the ‘jumble sale’ mounds in bedrooms but shut the doors on them.

I'm the same as Deadringer.

1. No food plates/cups in the room.
2. Only clothes in the laundry basket get washed.

Tended to find if thy wanted boyfriends/girlfriends to visit the rooms suddenly got very tidy...

I've made mine do there's since secondary school - a few times a year I go in and read the riot act. Doesn't make for a particularly clean house but I refuse to pick up after them.