How do I get my house tidy?

[whatamessitallis]

My house is a terrible mess, I don't know how to get to grips with it.

It's got to the point I just don't know how to make an impact on it. But I need to, this is crisis point.

I've always struggled with keeping on top of housework.
But this last year or so, I've been away a lot (elderly dad has needed looking after and mum died earlier this year of cancer).

The house has got into such a state, I can't seem to impact it. Plus I find it hard to know where to start. I work from home, supporting a family member's business. I'm good at my work, but I find it takes me longer to do than it would a "normal" person and that makes it harder to have enough time to get to grips with the house.

DH is unwell and depressed. The environment is making him worse and the depression kicks off his ailments. He's often in bed in pain. He can't bend as his back hurts. He's in a negative spiral and I'm scared what's going to happen. The house really isn't helping. I suspect he may leave soon.

I paid for a de-cluttering person to come help me, and she's been coming once a week for a couple of months. But I'm running out of money to do that, it's not cheap. We do a room at a time, together but the house is so bad, we only managed to do half the front room in 4 hours this week. And I haven't been about to keep on top of it enough between visits for it to make a massive difference. De-cluttering people work with you, they don't do it for you, and that's exactly what I needed from her, someone to do it with me. I'm basically paying her to be my friend! Really I need DP to do it with me, but he's in too much pain and we're not communicating well at the moment, so it's not going to happen. He does all the cooking & washing up instead as he can do that standing up.

The house is a bad as a hoarder's house. I'm not a hoarder - I don't cling on to stuff. But I have real problems with organisation and procrastination. I think maybe I have ADHD (I'n going for an assessment in January). I fit the profile anyway.

The kids are getting older and really want to have friends round - they used to, but not in the last 18 months, since it got so bad. I won't let anyone in. There's only so many times I can take the kids to softplay or whatever. They want to be able to play at home.

How do I get out of this situation? Can anyone give me any advice on what to do?

I tried going for counselling for procrastination, didn't make a difference. DH and I went for couples counselling, didn't help address the communication break down at all.

I need to know how to get on top of it. I tend to get very focused on things e.g. my work, and it's hard to switch focus.

I find it really hard to stay on task when cleaning. I think possibly because I feel so much guilt about it, I beat myself up while tidying, if I'm doing it alone. But I can't keep paying someone to be with me! I need to work out how to do it. Maybe I need to make it easier for myself by trying to make it fun? Does that work for people?

Maybe I should do it and listen to a podcast or something. I dunno.

What works for you? Is there anyone here who's really terrible at this kind of thing but manages to get it done and stay on top of it? How do you do it?

OP this is kindly meant, but saying you can't start with 20 minutes a day you need a big blitz is just a way of putting things off. Then the job is so big, you don't know where to start.

You've already done that and now feel you need hours/days devoted to sorting things out in order to make any changes. Like most big jobs, whatever they are and where ever they are, you need break it down into smaller bits to make it manageable.

For example, my house is mostly clean after I spent Saturday cleaning after weeks of doing nothing due to studying in my spare time. That's over now. However, it needs a really good tidy up and sort out. I plan to spend half an hour each evening after work going through things and having a clear out. It'll probably take a week or so. If I had attempted to tidy as well as clean on Saturday, neither job would have got finished.

When did it start to become unmanageable, can you pinpoint it? What had happened that meant it got out of control? Apologies if you have already said, I haven't read the whole thread.

I'd forget sorting for charity etc that just causes the stuff to build up else where and never get to the charity shop.
Hire a skip and get stuff gone. The difference you can make quickly will then give you the ability to sort the rest of the house out properly. Every time you go through your door you can throw something in it.
In an ideal world you'd be sorting stuff for charity etc but needs must in this case

I think only you know if you have the capacity for charity sorting/freecycle. For me, throwing perfectly usable stuff in a skip would cause abject misery and a real feeling of anxiousness. However I had to accept that I still had to be ruthless and that it would delay things. There are charities who will collect etc and stuff for free generally flies out in my experience.

OP this is kindly meant, but saying you can't start with 20 minutes a day you need a big blitz is just a way of putting things off

No, it really isn't.

I did 20 minutes of tackling the clothes mountain when I was last at home. And I will continue to do so.

But I am drowning under the weight of the mess. If I plan to just do 20 minutes a day it'll never get done. The idea makes my want to cry, honestly.

20 minutes a day won't get my family into a nice home before DS is in secondary!

I need to tackle it. It needs a blitz or it'll never go away. It's too big a job to sort it on 20 minutes a day.

For me, throwing perfectly usable stuff in a skip would cause abject misery and a real feeling of anxiousness

Yes, knowing stuff will be used make it easy for me to get rid of it. The advice to "be ruthless, chuck it all in the bin" doesn't really work tbh as that'll take me longer!

Once I've got going, I can rattle through sorting relatively quickly if I think it's going to be used by someone else. But forcing myself to make decisions about chucking stuff out will be unpleasant and take much longer.

My biggest problems are getting going, and staying on task!

We have charity shops near us, next to our local food shops.

Also I've found it useful to know many of the skip companies recycle stuff.

So you can't do 20 minutes and don't have time for a blitz ?

You can't just chuck it in a skip and you know you won't get around to sorting it for charity or recycling ?

You can't motivate yourself, but don't have anyone to help you and can't afford to keep paying the declutter lady ?

Looks like you'll have to work on accepting the condition of your home.

For crying out loud. You are on here and you’re procrastinating

I said BIN or charity shop. But all in black bin bags.

So there’s no little pile in the corner that you think you might take to the charity, but then you think I once knew a woman called Susan who 5 years ago said she needed a new cardigan so actually now I’ve looked at that pile perhaps I won’t take it to charity shop and I’ll try and dig out that Filofax so I can find Susan’s number. (Stops sorting goes to find Filofax)

So do you get what I am trying to say!

Op I'm guessing what you'd actually like is for someone to come and do it for you. It's YOUR house YOUR responsibility you need to just DO it.

I work full time with 3 kids. I rarely sit down. I make sure I do the basics everyday that's EVERYDAY. It's the only way to keep on top of things.
You need to stop procrastinating and just do it.

What Pain said !

pain she’s staying at her sick father’s house to help him, she’s not at home to procrastinate or otherwise.

@LovesLaboursLost
Sorry op! I missed that!
But when you get back seat with the bin bags!

You just need to get on with it. Get a skip,bin the rubbish,unwanted things. This will help your relationship by the sounds of it if you get your house sorted. Everyone needs to have a clean clutter free space to de-stress and unwind. If it's as bad as it sounds,you are definitely a hoarder,no one should live like that in that kind of mess. Also your children should be able to be able to invite friends around. Also you sound lonely,you could invite people around if you weren't so embarrassed by your house. It sounds like your dad needs carers,speak to gp,you shouldn't be staying there long term when you've got your own things to sort out. Also no one should be sleeping on the sofa,no wonder your partner has a bad back. Motivate yourself,get a skip,be ruthless,sort it out room by room. Just think of the end result.

It sounds like you have more clothes than you have room for. If the clothes are all put away then that’s half the battle and will make it much easier to tackle everything else. Even if things washed but need ironing fold them up and put them away and then iron what you need the night before. You do need to get rid of anything you don’t have room for. Honestly it works.

Also get into the habit of putting out the rubbish every night.

I'm in SE too, but it's a big area. Can you say whereabouts roughly?

I really think you need to think about paying someone to help with your dad, rather than with your clutter. How does your DH cope with the kids when you're not there? Apologies if you've said this and I've missed it.

OP I really sympathise. I've been very messy myself in the past.

I am tidy now. These are things that helped me:

Having less stuff. You don't need 3 cheese graters, anything broken, bits missing, doesn't fit any more etc. Get four rolls of bin bags and be ruthless. Charity/tip. Don't deliberate too long over anything.

Having more storage. Cheap storage is readily available. When you have a place for shoes, a place for toys, a place for clothes etc it all becomes a lot easier to tidy.

Tidy every day. Even if it's only 10 minutes. Even if it's only 5 minutes. It's the routine of tidying every day that's most important. Spend longer on it when you can. When you have downsized your stuff to charity/tip, there's only the "good stuff" left to put away and when you have better storage you can put it away quickly.

Aim to have as many clear surfaces as possible. That means just toaster/kettle/tea/coffee/utensils out on kitchen worksurfaces. It means clear bedside tables, tops of chests of drawers. Keep the hallway clear as possible. Put coat hooks up so coats are off the floor. Buy some laundry type baskets for shoes if you don't have room for a shoe rack. If you can't find a home for an item out of sight, you haven't got room for it or you've got too much of it.

Always keep the kitchen and lounge tidy and clean if nothing else. There's probably nothing more depressing than coming downstairs to start the day with a sink full of dirty pots and the table full of yesterday's rubbish, and the lounge covered in toys, magazines, clothes, dumped stuff etc. These rooms can and should be kept tidy and clean every day as a bare minimum. I don't go to bed without having done the pots, wiped down the surfaces, and tidied the lounge.

You can get to a stage where you have minimal stuff to tidy and then tidying (and cleaning) becomes easier and you don't have to do as much of it every time IYSWIM.

OP in case it helps, I have a handyman and his partner at my house today doing the stuff we've been putting off for years (literally). We are untidy, have two very small kids and we've had a weekend of 'sorting' so my house is horrendous this morning. Really - cardboard boxes everywhere, laundry everywhere, haven't even put yesterday's dishes in the dish washer. Not to mention the toys, etc. Everything DD puked on yesterday in a big pile. Mud and leaves everywhere because we sorted the garden yesterday. I've had 2 ill children so hardly able to even pull my clothes on today. I've taken the view that yes, I'm a bit embarrassed that these lovely people are at my house and it's a state but 1) I'm paying them to do a job and they're doing it and it will improve my life 2) if they think I'm manky bugger so what, it makes no odds to my life 3) I'll probably never see them again. And all my odd-jobs will be done.

For crying out loud. You are on here and you’re procrastinating

I said BIN or charity shop. But all in black bin bags.

No, I'm at my DF's. I'm not at home. I can't do it today. I can do stuff like look up skip hire and try to make a plan though.

And if you said bin or charity shop, then my comment wasn't aimed at you! Lots of people on the thread have said not to bother with the charity shop, to chuck it all away.

I was just saying, I find it quicker to sort if I have a charity shop pile. Some people obviously find it quicker if they don't have to sort and can chuck it all in the bin, but that doesn't work for me. That's all.

Skips that recycle the stuff are new to me - they sound good also.

Okay - do you are doing a bit here and a bit there then. That's a great start and something you should be able to keep up.
I'm not surprised you are finding it tough when you are not at home for the half the week. How about you have the conversation with your DB again and say the situation isn't sustainable for you?

I got a lot of stuff to go out in bin bags and got a taxi to take it to charity shop it cost about ten points and really helped. made it easier to keep tidy from then on.

Or maybe start with a room at a time? that helps me (have depression) break it down a bit

Op I'm guessing what you'd actually like is for someone to come and do it for you. It's YOUR house YOUR responsibility you need to just DO it.

No, that's not what I want at all. I need to work out how to do this.

eg when I first contacted the decluttering lady I was clear I was looking for someone to do it with me, not for me.

I have just cleared a whole house (not mine, but a full four bedroom house full of 40 years worth of clutter). The only way I could do it was to get three ginormous - the biggest you can get - boxes and start in room one. Everything you can see has to go in one box.

Box 1: Charity Shop
Box 2: Dump
Box 3: keep.

If you want to keep something, it still has to go in a box, not just move to another part of the room.

When the 'keep' box is full, you get a FOURTH box, and you transfer everything from the keep box into here. This is only for the 'REALLY keep' stuff. The second pass is everything because you realise you don't need half the shit you thought you did.

As soon as charity box/dump box are full, you get fresh boxes (or giant laundry bags - i bought 20 on Amazon), and you carry on.

In your case, I would assign yourself 4 giant laundry bags for clothes. Same system:

Bag 1: charity
Bag 2: Dump
Bag 3: Keep

Then do the same 'REALLY keep' filtering process. Do not iron anything, do not leave anything out because it needs ironing. It HAS to go in a bag. Eventually, you get an empty room. You then stack the Keep boxes in the corner of that room and move onto the next room. Do not unpack the boxes.

Clean the room - deep clean. Everything gets wiped down, scrubbed, polished. Then as you unpack make sure you have a pack of j-cloths and warm soapy water to wipe. As you unpack your keep box, wipe down anything going in the clean room. You will find that once again, you discard a few things as un-necessary.

I managed a four bedroom house in a week using this system. I did two charity and dump runs a day. It was do-able.

Don't wait for help.

Having more storage. Cheap storage is readily available. When you have a place for shoes, a place for toys, a place for clothes etc it all becomes a lot easier to tidy.

Not everything does have a place, this is part of the problem.

What storage do people have in their front rooms? This is what I have, what do I need?

Ikea Expedit shelves, like the picture (but this is a random pic off the internet, mine doesn't look so neat)! 2 of the squares have 3-drawer shelves in them, and 6 have those fabric ikea boxes.
1 of the drawers is for hair stuff (I brush and style DD's hair in the front room), 1 for pens and the rest for craft stuff & stationary e.g sellotape. The 6 boxes were all full of toys and random stuff shoved in - but I just did a cull and sent a load to the charity shop. I think I need 2 boxes for toys so I have somewhere to chuck toys from the floor. Not sure what the other 4 could be for.

Also have a bookcase. Standard Ikea one (is it Billy Bookcase? I can't remember. Very similar if not). 2 bottom shelves, kids' board games. I want them kept in the front room so the pieces don't get lost in their rooms. The rest are for books. We had a cull of books recently so I know we want all of them.

There's a smallish sized inbuilt set of shelves, with DVDs we don't watch and CDs we don't listen to on them. They need to go.

Also a sideboard, with space inside similar to the one in the picture, but if that shelf in the middle was an ordinary size. That's got more DVDs we don't watch in one side - and I'm not sure what's in the other side tbh! Stuff that's been shoved in, probably.

Also a single floating shelf to high to be useful for me that's mean to have ornaments or other stuff that looks nice to display on it, but (tall) DP tends to dump stuff on it.

Finally, a very small (and fairly attractive) filing cabinet, that needs to be in the front room else the things that are supposed to go it it, never end up in it.

The top of all the surfaces end up with mountains of stuff on them.

What do you store in your front room? What do you store it in? Should I get more / bigger storage or better organise what I have? eg I could move the sideboard to the garden room once that's clear, and get a bigger cupboard maybe.

Wow that’s a lot of storage in one room
We have a sideboard in the living room - that’s it!