How messy does your house have to be to have involvement from SS etc?

[Howmessyistoomessy]

How messy does your house have to be before services get involved and support the family involved? Like when does it cross over from untidy to grubby to god we need to get someone in there advising those parents?

Op if you feel happy to you could let us know which areas in particular you need help with and im sure we can advise you the best that we can!

Having done some home visits with the EWO I have been shocked by the state of some homes. But my experience is limited and according to the EWO they had seen much worse. None of the messy\ dirty homes were anywhere near SS thresholds. If there were issues around food, weight, attendance, Dv, child's cleanliness, input, school engagement, alcohol, drugs, gangs, neglect e tc they might be on the radar of SS but not automatically.

We use an app on our phone to put our cleaning jobs in. Lots of our jobs are two weekly, which helps get everything done without it seeming overwhelming.

We have also ditched a load of clutter. I watched a few Marie Kondo episodes online and we loosely follow her methods. Less stuff absolutely makes it much easier to keep the house tidy but also quicker and easier to clean.

My DS8 has everything he needs like uniform/clothes, bed (double!), hygiene utensils, food and drink, love, drowned in affection, and so many loving family members and fantastic support. However, if SS were to only take note of the paintwork on the walls and the floors, we'd be fucked

My house is clean as you like, I am a middle class professional, we had ss involvement due to my ex, not my fault I hasten to add!!! I tried so hard to get rid of him, they said I should allow him contact, etc. Turns out he is very much dangerous to dd, etc, and they were at fault (currently at a stage 3 investigation of how the hell they could have got it so wrong), contact now not allowed, court ordered.

That feeling though, that you are being judged on the state of your home, even though it was never even an issue, has never left me, the social worker used to say that she actively looked forward to coming to mine as she could take her shoes off, sit down and she could have a nice cup of tea 🙄🙄🙄 she was a complete bitch as well, got the feeling that she didn't want to have to deal with her other cases...

One of my close friends is a SW. We had a discussion a while ago about immaculate houses vs messy houses. Basically in ss view you can go from one extreme to the other. So someone who like their house absolutely spotless may have a mental health issue like OCD. Also, it can impact on the children if they're not aloud to get dirty or play with things like craft stuff for fear of mess or have their toys out because it looks untidy etc. Then the other end. A messy house is not cause for concern. Some dusty areas and Mark's on the floor are not cause for concern. But anything dangerous lying around or anything that is hazardous to health is. It's not so much whether your house looks a bit rough around the edges type of thing its whether it can be loved in safetly

The Marie kondo approach to decluttering and tidying is really practical.
Clothes first. You group all your tops, trousers etc and see how many you have. You do this with all other items. Just leave any paperwork or sentimentalities until last. You just bung them in boxes as you come across them because they can be distracting. One category at a time, rather than room by room. It really works.