Is anyone else's house showing a lot of wear and tear

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I guess it's because everything happens indoors now. We have very active teenagers who would normally be at school and then at football training or football matches, and they are ricocheting around the house instead. DH would normally be away at least a couple of nights a fortnight or working at the office but he's always here too. I would roughly reckon that we've had around 5 normal years of wear and tear in just one year of mostly lockdown. Everything is looking a bit tired, stained or damaged.

Yes and no . Sitting room sofas tired and grubby. Bought new huge throws the other day. Kitchen needs decorating. During lockdown we had karndean laid, new doors in hall and decorated one bedroom including new bed. DS office chair is wrecked, he's spent hundreds of hours in it studying, his desk cracking too, bloody IKEA furniture

Yes, yes, yes. The sunshine today has peeped through the clouds to reveal the dust, spilled food and stained walls. I am not sure I ever understood the feeling of wanting a spring clean before.

My life has come to the sad point where I am looking forward to taking annual leave once schools restart in order to spend the day cleaning!

We found grass sprouting in the grouting by the sink last week. It is that bad.

My house is in a terrible state and until now I've never even considered it's because we rarely leave it now.

I'm in Ireland and it's essential tradesmen only under Level 5, so I can have someone in to mend a broken window or fix the boiler but not a painter. Not that I could anyway as everyone is home and trying to work or study so it would be impossible to decorate or lay a new carpet around them. DD won't go back to school until 12 April. I'm not sure about DS, I'm hoping he'll go back on 15 March, but he might be 12 April too. And as for DH, he'll be back in an office in June at the earliest.

We seem to have accumulated so much stuff. I'm forever throwing things out but there's still ever increasing amounts of clutter, I don't even know how it's getting into the house. I do feel like just power-hosing everything out and starting again with minimal stuff. Except for my yarn and fabric stash, obviously, that'll need to stay.

I have burned through a dishwasher. My sofa is looking really tired and grubby.

And I am sick of everything! I would normally be out and about and would pick up the odd thing to brighten a room or replace something. Nothing new in over a year!

That's the problem with the sun coming out at this time of year. All the dust has such long shadows!

Ds2's bedroom carpet is utterly wrecked. It's had so much abuse.

Our wood floor was never the best quality (was here when we moved in) but it's pretty much given up the ghost after a year of 5 of us being here pretty much 24/7, plus home exercise.

The teens have killed a dishwasher and a toaster through excessive use 😪

Our dishwasher died, too, but it was about 14 years old.

Gosh, it's comforting to find other people feel the same!

I thought it was just our house looking sad and tired.

Yep! Four of us at home all the time and it’s like a football team has taken up residence. Usually it’s just me at home during the day and everyone else at work or school. The mess drives me insane.

Yes! I’m convinced my stairs are going to give way with my two adult sons running and thumping up and down them. All my floor boards creak like never before. I need to paint through out but don’t have the energy to start

Yes! We moved into our brand new house in June and it already needs a full painting 😡. There’s only 3 of us in a big house and we’re tidy people but the walls are just getting constantly marked and it was painted with that crappy new build paint that basically melts off the walls if you look at it funny! If we’d have been out and about as usual it would be much tidier 😭.

Yes and we can't blame lockdown either. We moved in nearly 9 years ago and only did minimal redecoration because we had a newborn baby, a toddler, a dog, no money and a depressed me. So far we've done 1.5 rooms.

The carpet in our room is almost threadbare.
The gloss on the banisters, skirting boards and the door frames is chipped.
The wallpaper is torn in places (and held on by pritt stick in one bit!)
The whole place feels tired and grubby (but not dirty iyswim) and needs a complete overhaul. It gets me down but we haven't the money or the drive to do it up.

Glad it's not just me. Five of us create so much dust. I used wipes in the hallway the other day, and went through a whole pack, each one turning completely black with thick dust! It's depressing.

Hasn't helped that we got kittens in lockdown 1 and they've clawed all the carpets to death. The edges are now held down with gorilla tape in places!

Yup house has taken a battering

My dishwasher broke day before yesterday. On a day when it was full, AND I had just made a roast. Took me 2 hours to wash, dry put away, repeat (because the sink and drainer are too small to do the lot in one go).
And the carbon monoxide detector has given up the ghost - just waiting to see what will be the third thing!

Yes!!!!

Dishwasher is now on last legs. Definitely overuse. 3x a day.

Carpet is flat and weird looking. (Blaming Joe wicks for that)

Knocks, bumps and scrapes to paint.

Dust everywhere, cobwebs 🕸 galore. All I do is clean so I don’t understand.

Bathrooms need a deep clean. Kitchen needs re-painting.

Waiting for the window cleaner to return so we can see out.

Maybe it always looks like this, but now we are in so much we see it?

OMG yes. It is starting to get me down and it feels a bit overwhelming to actually get on top of it.
So dusty and it feels like everywhere I look something needs wiping or scrubbing.
And I am struggling to care enough to really clean it anyway.
It's me, DH and 3 DC all here aged early 20's-and I feel like if I mop the floor in the kitchen 5 ppl need coffees immediately and then what was the point of mopping.
It just feels like there are giant ppl everywhere and the poor house is buckling under the strain.
I am starting to try and come out of the lockdown fog but it is really hard!!

Everyone I’ve spoken to IRL says the same about this, our homes are under siege and there’s bound to be more mess as well as wear and tear.

If it helps, I cleaned my windows inside and out on Saturday after the recent sunny spell highlighted just how filthy they were. It’s actually had a knock on effect of making the grubby inside of the house look better because your eyes are drawn to the sparkly window in each room iyswim. So that might be worth a go, it’s also less soul destroying than hoovering/dusting as 2 days later windows still look clean whereas all other housework looks like I’ve never done it within 10 minutes of finishing

It's the amount of rubbish that's doing my head in, the bins are overflowing. I actually get excited when i know it's only a week until my black bin gets collected. How my life has changed 😞

Yes. However this is almost all due to 12yo DD smashing it up during a meltdown. I've had nail varnish on walls, smashed interior window panel, every door frame is cracked due to slamming and dents on doors. Every thing in the house is damaged. And I've had the bikes in the house for a year as the shed was falling down.
I fantasize about a white box new build.

We had the kitchen and dining room painted in September.

Since then, two more lockdowns, plus a second dog (puppy).

That's two children, a 6yr old dog and a puppy careering around the hallways and open plan areas which now look like they were never painted.

I can't even clean properly next week as I spend so much time walking the dogs and DH is on almost permanent team meetings so I can't make any noise.

Im holding out for september.. DH back to work in London, DC back to school including the young one to secondary school with the older one - out of the house from 7-6.30. I intend to ship the dogs to the dog sitter for two days and CLEAN!!!

Pre lockdown if I spent too much time at home I would notice issues / things that needed doing / that everything seemed grubby. However if I then went on holiday and came back, I would think how nice the house looked - and it hadn't actually changed whilst I was away. It's definitely related to spending too much time indoors, it makes you 'over notice' in a way and I think it's a version of familiarity breeds contempt

To a visitor (I know we don't have these right now) your house would no doubt look perfectly pleasant

DS has a high bed that he's had since he was about 16, so 10 years. Just a few days ago it finally gave up and the bed is coming away from the supports. I suppose it's had a good run, and he probably needs a more adult bed anyway, but I can't help thinking that the sheer amount of time he's spent in the bed this year (including remote school) has increased the rate of disrepair.