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!

Does your DS understand that his girlfriend is giving her unvarnished and damning opinion of HIM? Does she understand that?

As a cleaner- you don't need a cleaner. I wouldn't touch your house until it was cleanable. You need to sort all the crap out. Take some holiday off work and do it. THEN get a cleaner.

The girlfriend isn't being cheeky imo.

We all go to work, it's not an excuse to leave the house in a tip. It's not hard to keep on top of cleaning when there are no children in the house. Your DH and adult children sound lazy.

DH could have took the initiative to clean, but instead told OP.
This tells you all you need to know really.

"... it would seem the OP is the best person to call a family meeting to discuss the situation and try to make a plan forward"

I have done this countless times. Everyone has agreed to try harder. Everyone has agreed to do specific tasks on a regular basis. Nothing has happened.

Tbh, until the DH and the DC take direct responsibility for their own mess, and initiate change themselves off their own bat, nothing will change. In the absence of a willing and open attitude from others, the wife/mother trying to take charge and impose tidiness on others very rarely works, ime anyway..

So one is stick with "live with mess" "do it all yourself" or "be a constant harridan". None of which are particularly pleasant prospects.

I agree with Dumpty. Then, once the mess has gone, set some ground rules. You will do this again if they revert to leaving their shit all over the place.

I get this sometimes too. The number of times I have had to tell DD3 that her clean laundry will be taken to the charity shop if she doesn't take it up to her room. DH can be very messy too, though has learned to keep the majority of his shit in his man cave study.

You have to be prepared to follow through on everything.

so usually there are 5-7 adults at home at weekends

You seem to be using this as an excuse for why your house is a mess, but in my opinion it’s a reason for your house being clean and tidy... 5-7 able bodied (I assume) adults there and able to clean up after themselves.
We have two adults and three young children. Two of the children (5 and 4) are expected to tidy up their toys after they’ve played with them, 10 month old is obviously too young to do anything. So DH and I are mainly responsible for cleaning up after 5 people, which we manage pretty well between us. It would be so much easier if the children were adults who could do their own cleaning/washing/pitch in with the cooking etc!

Agreeing is one thing.
They need to take action, if you can't physically get into certain rooms you'll need 2 skips.
Have the meeting, inform them skip is arriving on x date, all be up and ready to work, booked it for a Friday you'll get the entire weekend.
7 adults would be a breeze to clear it.

My step daughter is like this. As a child she would only tidy her room on a Sunday morning cos she wasn't getting Sunday dinner which she loved, unless she did it. (We used to waft the smell of roast dinner up the stairs).
Grown up and married, she was the same, husband worked from home and did the cooking, she did nothing much and took to her bed whenever she felt like it. DD'sH did all the tidying cleaning of the communal areas that got done, despite working long hours and 7 days a week. House was a tip, could not sit anywhere for "ironing" left any old where. Then children arrived, one (DD'sDD) followed in her footsteps, the other (DD's DS) was like his dad, his room was always tidy and clean. They divorced, DD's ex now remarried and house sparkles. DD moved out and remarrying next year, mess went with her! New DD's H-to-be puts up with it. DD'sDC still the same. And intelligence has nothing to do with it, she is head of dept at a Uni. They also had a cleaner very regularly, Lord knows what it would have been like if they didn't. DD's son in the RAF, no problem with tidiness ever there. DD's Dd still a mess.
So this shows, not all men live like pigs and even if one parent is like this then the children do not necessarily grow up following the pig's behaviour.
As to changing it, you won't do it overnight. But best of luck. Baby steps I think.

Don't blame yourself OP one person can't clean up after 5 messy adults who don't want to, or can't be bothered to. You already work ft so it's not like you have a lot of free time, and why should you use it clearing up after this ungrateful bunch.
My advice is stop doing anything for them and just keep the areas you use clean and hygienic.

A thought - if your DH's home office and overspill is half the problem, then do you have a large enough garden to get him a nice big shed, in which he can put all his shit and himself ?
Sounds like clearing his shit would be half the battle. And any time he dumped any of his stuff in communal living areas, or your space, you take it and dump it in a crate by the back door to go out to His Shed. You take no responsibility for His Shed EVER. He deals with it.

And then get your adult children to sort their own shit out too.

What’s a cleaner going to do? You can’t clean clutter, as the OP no doubt knows. It’s shite lying around that’s the problem, and a cleaner can only come in once that’s tackled.

I’d suggest bin bags/skips for the men-children and saying that you can’t live like that any more.

The DS’s girlfriend hasn’t done anything wrong, depending on the age of her she could well be worrying that she’d be taking on a man child if their relationship was to progress to moving in together.

There are definitely mental health or hoarder issues going on with your husband @ILoveJoeBrown. Unfortunately the routine of mess then trickled didn’t to your children.

So you live with four adult men but it’s all on you to make sure they don’t live like animals?

• trickled down

Stanley - I agree with you that it's not always the tidy woman and the messy man - I have a good friend who is married to a perfectionist man, while she is something of a slattern herself. But when they got together, she told him up front that if he wanted a house to be of show-room standard, then he could keep it that way - and he does. It works for them.

I would tell him that if he can't tidy up the black sacks are coming out and it going in the bin.

Clear., you tidying this up or am I throwing it out? You've got until tomorrow. Then if it's still there throw it out.

My ex husband would leave clothes on bathroom floor next to the washing bin. Always! Like it was impossible for him to open the wash bin and put it in.

So I told him. You pick your clothes up or I'm throwing them out. So I did. Every day. Threw them out the window, he moshed a bit and brought them in but continued to leave them on floor so I continued to throw them out. In end he thought he would just ignore the fact that his clothes were piling up outside, thinking it would bother me them being outside. It didn't! They piled up until he had no more clothes ! I came home from work one day and he'd collected them up washed them. It NEVER happened again! Lol

I mean my uncle came round one day and said ' whys there clothes outside' I told him and he just laughed and said fair enough! Lol

Good luck!

If you like living like that then go ahead and it shouldn't matter what anyone says.

I know personally that would hit my mental health hard. I Marie kondo'd my house and it now takes 30 mins to tidy from top to bottom even if it's in a complete state. It's great!

I agree that it is not always a messy man and a tidy woman, but the onus of tidying up and the blame for having a messy home, is often placed on the woman. If you read the relationships or housekeeping topics there are thousands of posts about women taking on unfair amounts of domestic responsibility. The term "wife work" exists for a reason!

@Nannyamc a cleaner won’t tidy up

@Emeraldshamrock oh if someone gave me £100k I wouldn't live there for more than 2 days. He hates it too but he won't tell them. Not my problem🤷🏻‍♀️

You mention dumping school/work bags in the hallway, so you have a school age child?

This is not fair on them. I don't imagine they're going to want their friends over much and if I remember rightly, you've said in the past that your DS's girlfriend won't eat at your house?

All of you need to get together on a chosen weekend and give the house a massive tidy up.

I'm sure you'll all feel better after you've done that.

I know personally that would hit my mental health hard. I Marie kondo'd my house and it now takes 30 mins to tidy from top to bottom
Kondo those men (and the rude gf) out the door and the house will soon be like a new pin.

Spend one day blitzing the whole house, that means EVERY member of the house tidying and throwing stuff out/charity bags.
Done.
Easier to keep on top of.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad, I shared a flat with other guys for two years, when a student. None of us was really untidy but one was a bit OCD, his clothes were always stacked in his cupboard in size order, that sort of thing, you'd a thought the sarnt major was about to do a kit inspection! So we made sure he always had the single room. For 2 years he picked up my bag with all my books in from the hall and put it in my room, every day when he came home from work. Kinda feel guilty about it now, but we had a routine and stuff got done in a fun sort of way. My final year I lived in a sort of students' hostel and one girl, the prettiest girl in the place, was an absolute slut in that her room was so filthy and untidy you wiped your feet on the way out, (if you ever went in!) yet to look at her you'd a thought it would have been like a new pin. There really is no telling!

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