Just been told we live like pigs

[ILoveJoeBrown]

DS has just told DH that his GF says we live like pigs. We do I suppose.

The house is a shambles, with piles of 'stuff' all over the place. My living room is still full of sh@t from DHs latest fish tank project. He has promised to clear it up but no sign of that. I have tried piling it all up one place, to make it appear tidier but out it all comes again during the week!

We both work FT, as does DS2 and our 3xDSs are all 'grown up', so usually there are 5-7 adults at home at weekends.

DH is very messy and I have to stand on a pile of his disorganised clothes by the side of his bed in order to open the curtains. He also wfh a lot, so has virtually taken over the kitchen table. He has a study upstairs, but it's covered in all his stuff that I take upstairs when I get exasperated with the mess downstairs. I can wfh but choose not to as I'd rather be out of the house.

DH occasionally puts the contents of his pockets on my dressing table when he undresses as his bedside table is - guess what...? I remove his stuff and pile it up on his bedside table anywhere I can find a space.

The boys' rooms are a tip and I end up putting their clean laundry on the floor on the landing as I have given up sorting it into little piles for each one of them and they can't seem to be bothered collecting it from the pile that accumulates in my bedroom!

We are lucky to have a big house, but that just seems to encourage big mess! I used to work PT so would spend my afternoons cleaning. I can't / don't do that now.

I even write '1 chore each' on a whiteboard in the kitchen that they all ignore.

I've stopped worrying about it [kind of - apart from the odd rant] so as a result we don't host dinners or socials like we used to. I can't have people over as the house is a tip. I try to keep on top of the hall / kitchen as they are 'more public', but I'm losing that battle as they won't hang coats up despite the coatrack; they dump school / work bags in the hallway and just drop wet umbrellas by the door!

Christ I have anxiety just reading your OP!

Haven't read all the comments but this s what I would do:

Inform the family including your husband that on the next available weekend (give date) you will be hiring a small skip. If people's crap has not been tidied or moved from any communal area of the house by said date it will be going in the skip. That message needs to be drilled into your DH.

In the mean time I would collect all your DH mess up and fling it into his study and close the door on it all. His mess should be contained to one room which he can do what he wants with. It's not your problem if he can't access items in that room. Repeat this process until the message sinks in.

Sorry I couldn't live like that and it's time to get tough with all of them!

Quartz2208

I have read some of your previous posts and it is so sad how you are living. With a husband who does nothing and interacts not at all with his sons. With sons who dont eat the food you want and one who hoards

But it doesn’t make you sad does it? Because you’ve wilfully rooted around to kick Op when she’s down - where’s the help? Advice? Solution? None - just a big slap - what a horrible post.

If you had 3 young kids I could understand but 5 functional adults in one household and it’s in that state?! I would be opening up a can of whoopass on your adult kids and telling them they either clean up or ship out! It’s totally unacceptable and piss taking to expect you do all the housework when they are perfectly capable! I would not stand for that level of lazy and your DH it seems is even worse that the kids! Tell your hoarding DH that he either gets rid of his crap or your putting it in the bin!

This is your home and someone invited into should not be commenting on how tidy it is or isn't.
In saying that, it obviously bothers you. I'd sit them down and demand they move their own stuff and put it away. Tell them they have exactly one week or it's all going to the tip and do it. If they want to keep stuff they clean up after themselves, your a partner and mother not a fkg housekeeper.

I would give them a date to clear up their mess and if they don’t I would put the lot in bin bags and put outside on bin day. Decent stuff I would take to a charity shop.

I think you need to start with your husband. You two should be the team that sorts the rabble out, but he seems to be more of a problem than the “ boys”. Do they all enjoy living like this? It sounds kind of like a student house, where everyone thinks everyone else is “ doing “ it, or they just give up. It’s easy to keep on top, if at least one person is in charge and gets behind everyone else. In your case, it sounds like it was only ever you, which was fine until you got your full time job. Your husband should be getting more involved. The boys are not going to care while they see their father behaving like a slob, even if one of them has a girlfriend who likes things clean and tidy. Conversations need to be had and I’m afraid you’ll have to instigate it in a houseful of men. Maybe you should get the girlfriend to back you up! Good luck😊

My daughters house is the same i cant even stay for a coffee as i just cant relax there im not a clean freak but it would drive me mad . You all need to take responsibility for the mess . No excuse all being adults really

Clearly the men in your household are not doing their share. And it’s a warning to the GF about your DS. Steer clear. Get a cleaner and bill the men for the pleasure. If the are grown up maybe they should have their own pigstys! (Sympathy’s - I have an endless battle with 2 messy hoarders. They are oblivious and I am left tidying.) Don’t take it as a criticism of you, it’s a wake-up call for them.

If you're bothered then you need to tell them to take action
If they wont you could move out?! I dont know what you can do if it's been going on for years tho.
I would find that horribly depressing and would want to move out!!
But if you're not bothered then it's not a problem.

Sending some , OP. It does sound grim, tbh and your DH is part of the problem.

I do what some posters have suggested and have a family meeting to decide how you're going to declutter and tidy up. Make it very clear that the current situation is intolerable.

My lot are messy as well, not as bad, but not great at putting things away. It does take repeated warnings and I've used the occasional bin bag to make a point.

The point in having a cleaner is not to clean, it's to make you tidy up so that you can clean, and to shame you into not being messy. The OP is not at this stage, she needs to have a massive clear out first. Getting rid of stuff you don't use is massively liberating. Then get a cleaner. And stop doing their washing!

What did your son say when his girlfriend said that? Have you spoken to him about it? Maybe she'll shame him into doing something about it.

The house I grew up in sounds similar to yours - we didn't much care but my mum hated it - it really upset her. But like you, it was a house with two hard working parents. We had cleaners but they didn't tidy and my mum would stress about that too. My dad is still a bit of a slob, bless him and my mum still gets upset about it.

I always say that if people come over and see my house and think "pigs" then they can go home feeling better than me and that'll probably make them feel good about themselves and so I consider that my good deed for the day and assumew they'll filter themselves out of my life. If people come over and think "thank god her house is as messy as mine", hopefully they'll feel better about it and that's also a good deed. And those people are my kind of people.

Give it 2 weeks then get a skip in and bin the lot

Maybe keeping your house tidy and clutter free isn’t high on your list of priorities. Perhaps you have things you feel are more important to do with your limited time.
It also sounds like it’s not really bothered you all that much until your DS’s judgy girl friend slagged you off to your DS.
If the situation bothers you then that one thing use this as a catalyst for change. Other wise don’t worry about what this girl thinks; She might not be a permanent fixture anyway.

Maybe at the next family meeting tell them that they all have to do their own laundry from now on, and that laundry means:
putting worn clothes in a basket, never on the floor,
washing clothes,
putting them out to dry or in the dryer,
taking them in, folding or ironing, or taking from dryer, folding or ironing,
putting them in the airing cupboard and then into drawers or wardrobe,
or just putting them away and skipping the airing cupboard.
Basically, clothes should be on you, in the basket, or being washed and dried. Never in a pile anywhere.

Also tell them that any clothes, coats or other stuff on the floor of any room anywhere in the house the following weekend will be dragged out into the back garden and left there, in the rain or whatever.

I recommend Marie Kondo, but if you have so many clothes/so much stuff that there is no way the piles can easily be put away, the exercise of taking them all out and making a decision on each one can take ages and is very stressful.

My heart goes out to you, it's incredibly stressful and lonely to stumble through a house you don't want to invite anyone into.

I'm glad they're taking a stab at tidying up but as mentioned above, there probably isn't a place for everything to be tidied to so maybe they're just moving things around and hoping for the best.

Do your finances allow you to hire someone who does this for a living? Having someone impartial crack the whip on getting rid of useless stuff (I'm tempted to say "like your husband" ) and implementing processes that can keep the house neat could take this huge burden of wifework off your shoulders.

And if you do hire someone make the men in your house pay for it.

When I went back to work, getting help in was the biggest single improvement in our standard of living. She's been coming every week for seven years now and has become a trusted family friend. No more worry or shame about untidiness, or weekends and evenings ruined by housework that never gets done. I love coming home on Thursday and finding the place pristine and ready to receive guests, who like coming here and say nice things about our home. You can clearly afford it: a professional cleaner will explain that they need a couple of weeks to 'get it down' and after that it's just a maintenance job. You'll also notice that you and the family will 'get ready for the cleaner', it will shame them into taking some pride in their home.

Doesn't matter what state your house is in, I'd be having a word with DS about how incredibly rude his girlfriend is.

Why is the girlfriend rude?

Would she be rude for saying the sky is blu

When she comes round next, wear a pair of tracky bottoms, hair in curlers, buy if need be, get some fags, light one up , hang it out the side of your mouth, when she comes in ask her to dance ,,,,,, put on the sex pistols. PRoblem solved. She wont come back. She,ll go back to her mollycoddled life ..... and find a rich bloke called Barry and get an audi converable. Go on !!! Let her av it !

I would move your DH stuff up to his room. Shove your son's stuff in their rooms. Then tidy the rest of the house.

Tell them that they can keep their spaces as messy as they like but that you need the rest of the house to stay uncluttered and clean. And that if you find anything dumped in the communal rooms (including DH's latest project that he really shouldn't be doing on the kitchen table) you will bin it. And do it.

They'll only try it on once (or maybe twice) before they realise you're serious.

You will, of course, also have to stick to these rules and not leave your stuff all over the place either.

@kidlacky

Do you really think that the girlfriend has a mollycoddled life, just because her own home isn't a complete mess?

Buy some rolls of black sacks, give them one roll each, then tell them to clean up or you will. I once opened bedroom windows, lobbed all their clothes out into the rain then cleaned their rooms. You need to be firm. Your OH needs a shed!!

You are a saint, but do not be a door mat.

Just rift and I'm so glad that you had a melt down at your family, sometimes it's the only way some people will take notice. Someone mentioned up thread the risk of getting vermin in the house with filth / rubbish piling up . This is the point that you need to continually repeat during your family cleaning planning meeting. Once you get rats in the house, it's really hard to get rid of them.

It sound like your dh has too many clothes if he can leave piles on the floor with our running out of things to wear. Encourage him and your children to donate old and unworn clothes to charity, that will drastically reduce the washing pile. I've been taking a carrier bag of clothes to the charity shop weekly since September & it's made such a difference.

Break jobs down into chunks, assign people tasks and do it little and often. It sounds like an accumulation of junk has overwhelmed you into doing anything so it's time to take control.

Good luck. You can do this.

Kidlacky you have made unreasonable assumptions about the gf based on one single comment she made that, evidently, most people on this thread agree with. It sounds like something I would have said/thought but I’m certainly not ‘mollycoddled’ or money obsessed like you’ve suggested the gf is- quite the opposite in fact. (I’m not sure why you even brought money into it but ok). Expecting to walk across a floor in a house without standing on piles of dirty clothes is not an unreasonable ask, it’s basic hygiene that most of us learn when we’re children.