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!

kidlacky how does growing up in a clean house mean she’s ‘mollycoddled’? And what has money got to do with it? The OP hasn’t said that they’re struggling for money, just that her DH and her sons don’t clean up after themselves.

I would have murdered your dh with in a week.
There's a cleaning group thing, the organised mum method, that may help you to declutter and then maintain but you certainly need everyone else to pull their weight too or contribute to a cleaner.
Your main problem is getting dh to limit his crap to his office and not all the house. Good luck and stand firm x

www.wilko.com/en-uk/home/household/c/370

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Nothing will change until your DH changes as everyone else is following his example.

You gotta get tough girl. Start throwing things away, stop doing jobs for other people and eventually they will get the message.

This is your house too, make a stand!

Sorry but that is no excuse. I have 4 children, eldest being 14 and Autistic yo youngest being 3 years. My kids are the cleanest they clean after themselves. You teach them from a very younger age. My youngest 3 year old has started already. You make them start from throwing their wrappers and stuff in the bin at that stage and as they grow you introduce little by little.

My house sounds not dissimilar to be honest. My dh is the only naturally tidy one of the five of us, I have moments of getting pissed off with the mess but we are all so busy that I let it go sometimes. Dh is very tidy but does have a habit of starting DIY jobs and leaving them half done for months which doesn't help.
Can't afford a cleaner. I do worry that anyone who comes round is judging us though the lounge and kitchen mostly look reasonable. 13 year old dd mostly lives in a pig sty. Yesterday I helped her / made her tidy it for the first time in months. I can't be doing with the stress of constantly hassling the kids about tidyness to be honest, life is too short.

You're like a little worker bee running round taking care of all the drones. They need to be clearing up their own mess.

I have a messy family (DH, 3DC teens!), We live in a messy house, it it used to be a lot worse. To get them to do anything, usually involves asking many times and then loosing the plot at them.

Even before kids, my husband was messy, mainly due to having a mother that would do everything for him.
He would put all his clothes/junk on floor next to bed, clean and dirty mixed up. I warn him in 3 stages. 1/ black bin bag on top of it all. 2/ everything in black bin bag shoved at bottom of his wardrobe. 3/black bin bag in garage or bin. Took years, but now step 1 works. Once in bag, I will not wash any of it, he has to.

We have laundry baskets in each room. If they want clean clothes, they bring their laundry (not in basket, in box) down to the washing machine on their specific days. Clothes go back to their rooms in a the box, I don’t put it away. Miss their days, they have to do without or do it themselves. Only shirts get ironed, nothing else!

I have boxes to put the crap around the house into and separate it out and dump it on their beds.

I call them back from whatever they are doing to put plates in dishwasher, pick up crisp packets, turn off lights etc

If they don’t put their shoes in the shoe rack or hang their coats up after being asked several times, I chuck it out of the front door whatever the weather and tell them that’s where they will find them.

I make sure the communal areas/bathrooms are kept on top of, and ask them to hoover, help etc. Their rooms, are their embarrassment, with occasional meltdowns from me, especially when we have no plates or cups left, or if I see a wet towel on the floor or bed!

It does sound very cluttered imo.
I couldn't cope with that.
Your DS's are bone idle and need to start picking up after themselves. Maybe you should stop doing their washing?
If my DS did this and was working full time anything he left on the floor which I've asked to pick up/put away would go in the bin. He'd be working he could pay for it again. Lesson learnt.

Family meeting
Tell them all they have a week to remove all their detritus from all public rooms and to tidy their own spaces. Anything that is not tidied up will go in the bin. Follow through with this, even if you just bag it and put it in the attic/garage without this knowledge. If they do not wish to tidy their stuff then inform them you will be kicking them all out!

As for your dh he cleans or he sleeps on the sofa.
As the great quote goes...
In life you can either be a puddle or an ocean. People walk through puddles. Oceans destroy cities. Be an ocean!

My mom opened my window and chucked everything out once. I kept it hella clean after that lol

Cleaners won't tidy for you. You need to get a few boxes to put stuff in, then keep the boxes tidy!

I'm not sure the GF is necessarily rude. She probably told her boyfriend that he lives like a pig. And he's related that to his father as if he bears no responsibility for it. The GF should probably run a mile if she doesn't want to live in a pigsty for the rest of her life (and may well be trying to see if it's possible to change her BF).

And you hate the mess too, OP. Your DH and your sons can and should do more to stop the house being a mess. You deserve to be happy on your home.

It doesn't sound like a cleaner would help. Cleaners clean, and you (by which I mean the collective inhabitants of your house) need to give them a reasonably tidy house so that they can do that.

I don't think the girlfriend was being rude, she stated the obvious. I wouldn't ever live like that or date someone that thought living like that was acceptable. The fact that the son has no shame in showing the house to his girlfriend says a lot, whats next is he going to blame on you? Her reaction was exactly what many would have... and I understand that the will of repeatedly cleaning after them as became pointless and nonexistent but if something isn't done it will only get worse.

OP, you need to approach this problem from another angle.

It is incredibly expensive to live with mess. Items get lost and need replacing because no-one can find them. Objects get damaged. Furniture gets ruined. Fixtures don't last as long as they should ...

... but, moreover, every pile of mess occupies space you pay for in terms of your housing costs. You have paid or still pay for that study that no-one can use because it is full of crap. If you bought your house, you paid for it in the higher house price for a property with a study. If you rent, you pay for it every month in the higher rental cost for a property with a study.

And the study is not just the problem. It's the other areas of your home that you cannot use as well, and cost money to either purchase or rent. And primary housing is expensive space, far more expensive than a storage facility or unit rental. Ask yourself what your reaction would be to the notion of renting monthly storage space to house the mess. Would the cost make you balk? If so, that's the kind of money you are regularly wasting by housing the mess in your own home.

What you also need to recognise is that your messy house is not down to some kind of personal internal failing about hygiene and cleanliness. Messy houses tend to be down to one issue: that the people living in them have too much stuff. You cannot tidy your house and keep it tidy if you have too much stuff.

Put simply, if a cereal bowl can be kept in a bedroom for a week or more, then you have too many cereal bowls. Same goes for mugs and plates. If a piece of underwear can live on the floor for months, then someone has too much underwear.

That is the problem you need to tackle first: the stuff.

I reckon you ought to claim your space, a particular room in the house, say ... and clear it. Then make it clear that any item left in the room out of place will be removed, kept for a week and either thrown away or charged for storage. And yes, I would charge under the argument that 50% of the house belonged to me, and that 50% was being "stolen" by mess.

You need to recognise that you have partially created the situation by facilitating it. You are washing clothes that are then left on floors; this is hugely disrespectful to you, your time and your labour. Just stop doing it. People run out of clean clothes, tough shit. They are adults, they can deal with it.

You have to stand up for yourself.

Agreed on getting a cleaner. It makes you at least tidy up a bit fr the cleaner. If you all agree to spend an hour at the weekend having a bit of a blitz it really helps.

I say this also having an untidy DH who this morning has a pile of freshly laundered clothes on top of "stuff" which has been there for six months at least. I should say everywhere else is ready for cleaning- the cleaner herself also has an untidy DH and sympathises. She just hoovers round his pile.

My ten year old also is terrible at putting things away, DD1 (14) used to be but has got much better in the last two years. I hope DD2 will get there in the end. I do understand procrastinating and being overwhelmed and try to keep modelling how to deal with it by breaking it down, even if DH doesn't. I think I'll have to stage an intervention and help him (again) with his pile of stuff.

I totally disagree that the op needs a cleaner.

Even if you have one, there are so many day to day household chores that you can't escape. Laundry, clearing up after meals, wiping down food prep areas.

I'd imagine if they got a cleaner, their complacency and laziness would only be magnified.

Even my 13 year old does his own washing. Get them all together and say this weekend you are ALL cleaning. Rope in the cheeky girlfriend as well. Then tell them they have to clean up and do their own washing or get OUT. Then get a cleaner to do bathrooms, loos, floors etc.

@Packingsoapandwater

That's such a good way of thinking about it, I've never considered the wasted space being something you're already paying for despite it now adding no value.

Ugh I feel for you. You sound overwhelmed by stuff and mess and all of you sound like you haven’t any good strategies for dealing with it. Gf comments are mean but ultimately they hit Abercrombie because they highlighted something you feel. Call everyone together and make and make it clear you cannot continue you like this- it will be affecting your mental health. If you can hire an organiser. I used to be one and I was always told it was like having therapy. Own your situation and make a decision that you will not go back on that this will change. Clutter, mess and disorganisation is detrimental to everyone’s mental and physical health I promise you.

No idea why my previous post said hit Abercrombie was meant to be hit home!!!

BINBAGS - throw the piles into named bin bags if kids and husband haven’t tidied stuff away (neatly) after 2 days it goes in the bin - failing that Yes you need a cleaner

I'd imagine if they got a cleaner, their complacency and laziness would only be magnified

Not necessarily, there is still a lot to do, but they don't have to do the regular jobs and the regular cleaning. They could focus on the big jobs - the big sorting out/clearing out tasks, finding a place for everything but there are a number of routine jobs they wouldn't then have to do.

I have never felt when working FT that I have the time to organise, tidy up and then spend a solid 4 hours a week that it takes to keep the house clean, so I contract out the last bit.

This is how I tackled it.

Let everyone know. THat's it. The free ride is over.
They use it, they put it away. No, if or buts.
Leave it an loose it.
Money left where it shouldn't be. Good luck to finding it still there. By the way, I'm off to the shops.
You haven't got any clean clothes. How is this my problem? A child can use a washing machine.
What's for dinner? Do I look like I am cooking anything? No so why ask me? What's wrong with you looking?

Make it their problem. Stop doing things for them. What benefit is it of yours to run around this ridiculous adults? Fuck that nice feeling, that nice feeling doesn't get me a dinner made or a cuppa made without asking for one.

Amazing how quickly their arses move when they start loosing stuff.
Forget turning off tv's and stuff. I just unplugged the wifi box and took it with me.

When they started to relapse. Haha, good luck with that one.

I haven't cleaned another person room since they were teens. And a grown-ass adult can jog on.

I really do not understand how people get infantilised in such way. When there's a simple solution. Stop doing it. So what their feelings get hurt. How much did they think about you as they sat and watched, or walked in to find everything done for them? Nope, they are thinking got it made here. Why do I have to do a thing when some daft sod will do it anyway?

And forget piling things up for them.
Putting their things into named whatever.
Bin, shred, burn whatever.
They clearly don't care about what it is, so surely that's rubbish, right?

Oh, you threw that work-related thing away.
Why was it out of the office?

Can you help me find? No, if you would have put it away in the first place you would know where it is. Why should I spend my time doing something when it shouldn't be an issue?

And lol I don't pop a baby out and start making them chip in. Leave that for when they are mobile and they help put their toys away. Help dust, with dinner, washing etc.

It's not a cleaner you need. It's a clear shape up or go live somewhere that you can peacefully lounge around and do nothing. Good luck with that one 🤣

And the one that comes and visits and does this, needs a verbal kick up the arse.