I cannot keep my house clean

[baybaybays]

I'm depressed, chronically ill and feel like a lazy failure. I cannot keep my house tidy, it's always a fucking mess. I'll get it to an acceptable point where I'm happy with it and can relax and in less than a week it's messy again.

I don't have a dishwasher so washing up piles up, there's always stuff on the floor everywhere, I don't know how or why I can't do it. I'm tired all the time and can't find the motivation to do it.

It's nothing meg too terrible but I can't live like this. I can't relax. It's not fair on my son. A cleaner would help a little but that won't help the messiness. My son has also spilled things on my carpet that I can't get up.

I try to clean/tidy as I go along but it just doesn't happen. I try to dedicate time to it but it doesn't work. I'm embarrassed.

Does anyone have any advice please? I'm desperate?

I am on a support group for chronically ill and there was a chat about this the other day. Someone on there does what they call commercial cleaning, so in the adverts they do one job, such as take all th dishes to the kitchen one advert, put a load of washing on. They then rest whilst the show they are watching is back on.

in less than a week it's messy again

You can not seriously expect to run a house and for it to stay tidy for days.

The trick is to do something every day. If you leave it for two days, it will start backing up.

Basics include:
making your bed every morning as soon as you’re up.
A quick squirt and wipe in the bathroom daily, literally a two minute job.
Empty bins.
Sweep any hard floors.
Wash up and wipe worktops.

These are the minimum you must do daily if you want to keep at least ‘top tidy’

I’d suggest you invest in a decent hand held vacuum so you can clear up any crumbs etc easily from carpeted floors.
Allocate jobs. Even the youngest member of the household can learn to pick up toys, pull their duvet straight and put shoes and coats in the correct place.

Give yourself easily achievable goals. For instance promise yourself you’ll do 15 minutes in the kitchen. That’s long enough to clear the breakfast dishes, wipe the surfaces and sweep the floor. Then you’ll have a coffee, two biscuits and watch an hour of Ruth and Eamonn.

Then a few hours later, promise yourself you’ll do 30 minutes of ironing and not a moment more, then you’ll reward yourself with some other small treat.

Make dinner 6 nights out of 7 and if you can have dinner at your parents or have a take away on the 7th night, then have 3 of those 6 dinners be simple one pot meals or beans on toast type meals. Wash up as soon as you finish eating. If you sit down, you’ll not want to get up again.

Have a place for everything. Have a clear out and throw away any broken toys, outgrown clothes, unwanted gifts etc. That Baylis and Harding gift set from Christmas 2019 that’s cluttering up you airing cupboard can go.

When you store bedding, put the bottom sheet, 3 pillow cases and duvet cover into one pillow case. Makes changing bedding quicker and easier.
Store towels by rolling and stacking, easier to pull out a rolled towel if you’re after a particular one rather than you keep using the same top ones from the pile iykwim.

There are loads of helpful tutorials on YouTube about keeping tidy. Or alternatively, watch an episode of How Clean is Your House, that’s a terrific incentive to clean house.

I think the difference between people who keep tidy and those who don't is to do with mindset. I doubt there's much difference in actual labour I think the tidy ones see it as a small everyday/ongoing thing rather than a big overwhelming once a week tidy up.

It's about changing habits , which is bloody hard when you're ill.

Declutter as much as possible. Work out how many forks, plates, mugs, saucepans etc. you need for you and the usual number of visitors. Put the others buried deep in a cupboard and use them for breakages only. Helps to cut down on the pile of washing & makes you do it more often but less of a chore

I don't have a chronic illness, but I have always struggled to keep the house clean. We didn't have a clean house growing up and although my house is much better than my childhood home it is often really not great, and I live in fear of the dc being too embarrassed to have friends round (as I was as a kid).

Some of the advice given about breaking the cycle of blitzing is really good.

While I don't do TOMM properly, I do like some of the principles. It helped me get the idea that I need to clean and tidy every day, and that I need to clean even if a room is only mildly messy/dirty rather than waiting until it is awful. I realise this sounds like I am lazy or stupid (I don't think I am either), but I think I missed out on learning how to keep the house tidy when I was younger. I also liked that it means me and dp have an agreed list of what needs to be done, and that if we have done half an hour cleaning we feel like we have permission to leave tasks that aren't done until next time.

Thr big things that have made a difference are reducing the number of things we own so cleaning is quicker and easier, ensuring everything has a home (I realised I had loads of things that were difficult to tidy as I didn't know where to out them) and trying to remember that doing something is better than doing nothing. It is OK to clean for 5 mins and then stop - if I start cleaning I'm not commiting to doing the whole house.

I was overwhelmed and did the Marie Kondo method, it was a game changer. The less stuff you have the easier it is to keep clean and tidy. And you end up surrounded by only the stuff that you actually like.

I'm the same but no chronic health issue other than some intermittent depression / anxiety which does affect me I know. I have piles of stuff to sort out and declutter.i try to keep bathroom tidy and it's always clean. Kitchen hygienic but always messy. Rest of house a mess and not cleaned as often as it should. It gets me down and I can't understand why I can't have a tidy home like other people.

Definitely get a dishwasher if you can - if things are piled up on your kitchen worktops, you can't clean them, which means you can't clean the floor, and so it goes on, and nothing gets done. It's an absolute game-changer.

I find putting an audio book on or sometimes watching a show on my mobile while cleaning the bathroom for example helps.

Schedule chores for when energy is best. One a day, dishes done every night, laundry using the delay start timer.

During bad spells I have used disposable plates etc.

I think you need a change of mindset here.

First, be a bit kinder to yourself. Unless you're in hoarder/mice in the kitchen levels of untidiness/uncleanness, chances are it's messy but ok. Few people reflect they wish they'd done more cleaning on their deathbed (unless lack of cleaning is what killed them ).

All that said, for many people the state of their living environment has a bearing on their mental state. I find living in a cluttered mess makes my brain feel very cluttered, so I'm very tidy. However, I don't like cleaning and rarely do it significantly.

I am a great believer in little and often.

Using the bathroom sink/shower/bath - rinse it after you use it (you can do this while in the shower so it feels less like cleaning). Stops the worst of that grimy bathroom buildup.

Wash up as you go along when you're on your feet in the kitchen anyway. Not only gets rid of the worst but as there's so much less after your meal to deal with, you're more incentivised to do it.

Get into the habit of never leaving a room empty-handed. If going from the kitchen to the bathroom upstairs for a wee, take up the clean washing sat on the counter top. Not only does it clear your kitchen but you're more likely to put it away quickly if it's in the right room.

Invest in storage. It's a hell of a lot easier to keep tidy if everything has a home that's easily accessible.

If you can't clean the carpet, put down a rug maybe?

Train your son. My DC do their own washing/ironing (although none of us iron very much as I purposefully buy non-iron clothes) and packed lunches, they clean the toilet themselves after a poo (and have done since they could use it, albeit with less effectiveness at 3 years of age), etc. My rule is that no adult should expect another adult to pick up or clean up after them unless illness or disability are involved. To get to that point requires graduated training as a child. Never underestimate the mental niggling that comes from finding something in a state when you left it tidy. Ensuring everyone does their bit helps avoid that and will help your mental state.

2-min tasks feel less daunting than a blitz day and can really help you feel on top of it.
Good luck. It's not easy when you're mentally exhausted anyway, but little steps can really help.

Baskets for toys are good too so you can scoop everything up and sort it out when you have energy never in my case

It’s hard with a toddler as they can pull things out again faster than you can put them away sometimes! Does your son go to nursery? That could give you a chance to tackle some areas without hindrance?

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

My theory is if you have a tidy sink and always wash up (as you go) or load the dishwasher and put away it spreads to the rest of the kitchen and once you're used to keeping your kitchen tidy it doesn't seem like an effort and then you can do the same in the bathroom.

So for one week ,keep the sink clear and tidy and shiny and you'll get pride from that and it'll become a habit. Then choose another area to concentrate on for a week.

I think you're bang on with that, for me at least! When I let a pile of dishes build up that's when the mess starts to spread to other rooms. Because I think ugh I don't want to deal with that huge pile of grotty washing up, so then I think what's the point in cleaning the rest of the kitchen surfaces while the sink is a mess. Then if I'm not doing the counters what good will cleaning the floor do and then that mindset seeps into the rest of my flat and before I know it the place is a riot and I feel like shit!

You've inspired me to tackle the washing up today and try and keep on top of it. The most annoying thing is that when I eventually sort it, the actual task is never as laborious or time consuming as I imagined it would be and I always think "why didn't I deal with that before? I've wasted days avoiding it and feeling bad for no good reason".

Also OP, I had a really bad bout of depression mid last year and the mess was really getting to me. A friend told me to set a 30 minute timer and start tidying up, binning any rubbish then stop after the timer went and it honestly really helped! Knowing I didn't have long until I could stop made it seem less of a mammoth task and just doing that 30 mins of work actually made a big difference to how the flat looked and I felt more able to relax after that. Obviously if 30 mins is too long just reduce that to whatever you can manage.

Oh, and others have mentioned cordless hoovers. My parents got me one and I am hoovering much more now! I didn't realise how much the thought of lugging the big one out of the cupboard then winding it all up and putting it away was putting me off hoovering. My dad screwed the charger into the wall of one of my cupboard so now I just have to unclip the hoover then click it back into the charger when I'm done so it's always ready for me.

You've inspired me to tackle the washing up today and try and keep on top of it. The most annoying thing is that when I eventually sort it, the actual task is never as laborious or time consuming as I imagined it would be and I always think "why didn't I deal with that before? I've wasted days avoiding it and feeling bad for no good reason

I'm like that with putting away clean washing! That's being tackled though as we're fitting huge clothes racks in ds's room soon which will help enormously.

I agree about setting a time limit and not starting anything you can't finish or stop and put back withing 15 mins. Even clearing away a drawer or sorting the bathroom cabinet makes you feel better.

For me the saying tidy house tidy mind is true, I don't care about other people's mess but I need to be fairly tidy or I don't feel like I can settle.

Robot hoover and a cleaner.

I hear you! I’m not chronically ill but single mum to one DS(12) and a dog and work too. My clean-blitz lasts approximately 1day! Then back to chaos, stuff everywhere… it’s soooo annoying! But like one of the PPs mentioned don’t be too hard on yourself. I think it boils down to getting into a good routine. Spending half an hour a day to ‘tidy round’ in the evening. I’ve had to set mini-rewards so my son gets on board and helps where he can too. But i know the feeling it’s like one-step forward and 10 back. I think mess is normal especially in a lived-in household. But cleanliness is important. I’ve thought about a cleaner but i’d feel ridiculous paying someone to clean for me. It’d make me feel so lazy!

Before I got a dishwasher I got into a habit of using paper plates to help cut down on dishes. It made a huge difference to me.

It’s hard being a single mum to a young child. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

Honestly, I loved living in a clean, tidy house before becoming a mum. Then when dd was about two onwards it became harder. I’d clean the house and less than 2 hours later there would be toys, craft stuff and all kinds of mess. I was exhausted. Teaching her to pack away her toys is still a big job to this day.

So, I have relaxed my standards a bit. Also, I bought a freestanding dishwasher that connects to the laundry tap. That has helped a lot. And I bought a dryer which has also made things easier.

I clean sections of the house on different days rather than trying to clean the whole house.

This is a comment on another thread that might make you feel better:

AnneTwackie
Clean enough to be healthy, dirty enough to be happy. The people I enjoy visiting most don’t keep their houses like show homes so I try not to care, more important to enjoy my family. If it were my last day on earth I would be gutted to have spent it cleaning!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4339339-how-tidy-do-you-get-your-house-every-day

You don’t need to blitz. You do it every day and it never builds up

Maybe a schedule for stuff like washing windows
Cleaning bathroom

OP I was in the same position and just went loco and binned everything in sight or donated to a charity shop. I had three bags, black, recycling and charity and I emptied every drawer in the house and got rid off everything. I'm trying to go as minimalist as possible and am about to do the same again, I tend to do it every six months or so.

You can donate stuff and they'll come and collect from British Heart Foundation. That includes furniture.

I love A Slob Comes Clean website and podcast as she is brutally truthful about her own inability to keep things clean and uncluttered.

She has very simple rules and timetables for cleaning, the first thing she always says is do your dishes every day no matter what! After that it all gets easier.

I find Flylady and the organised mom a bit much, a needed a much gentler approach to tidying and cleaning.

I'm quite messy and not very good at cleaning.

I have had a cleaner for about 18 months now and it's a massive help: it forces me to tidy every single week so she can clean. It's incentivised me to change my habits so it's not hell getting it sorted.

I think if it is feasible to get a dishwasher it is worthwhile, it makes it easier to get on top of everything.

One thing I do which really helps with keeping things tidy is having boxes/baskets.

E.g. the coffee table is a gathering ground for "stuff" - TV remotes, hair ties, loose change, glasses cleaning clothes. You name it. So there's a basket on there where all those things can be shoved and then they aren't covering the whole table. Similarly I have a cutlery drawer organiser in my bedside table so all the random bits that gather there can go in the relevant compartment. And I have a box which lives at the bottom of the stairs for all the things that need to go up to be put away so they don't end up sitting all over the stairs. This also saves having to do lots of trips if your chronic illness makes it harder to use the stairs.

I've just googled the Organised Mum Method that someone mentioned and to me it just sums up the issue. Like you I'm chronically unwell and my house is a bit of tip. The OMM says that everyday you should:

• Quick floor clean of main living areas. This obviously depends on what floors you have (carpets, tiles or wood floors). If you have hard flooring mop at least once a week.
• 1 load of laundry
• Quick clean of bathrooms, this includes a mop of the floors at least once a week.
• Make beds

It says these are quick jobs and you should do them all in under 15 minutes. WTF!? There's more chance of me winning the lottery than getting those jobs done in 15 minutes. Just cleaning the floors in the main living areas would take me 2 hours plus recovery time. 1 load of laundry including pegging out time, half an hour. Bathroom, half an hour. Beds also probably half an hour but need recover time as it's a physicaly demanding job for me.

So 15 minutes of work translates to 3.5 hours plus recovery time for someone who isn't well. No wonder my house is a tip. Because I've still got to do the school run, the after school activities, the cooking, the bedtimes and baths on top of that.

I used to also have an immaculate, super organised house until I got ME and its really hard after that and I have a DH.

What we have found helps is firstly get rid of anything you don't need - we do room by room but you can do it item by item. I prefer room by room so at least you can see one room improving.

Then get rooms sorted one by one - if you can afford help with this stage I would get it.

Then you are left with ongoing stuff - I would do anything that makes life easier like shopping delivered, if you can afford to have a dishwasher installed do it. Things like Ikea Kallax and boxes can be used to put kids toys in quickly. I love Dr Beckmann's carpet cleaner though now also have a carpet cleaner machine, they can be very heavy though.

It may help to think about what bothers you the most and focus on that doing a little each day. Some days you may not be well enough though. I do find the housework is good for exercise though as well and as I do more I get a bit stronger each time. I do struggle with breathing and often need to take breaks.

It will also get easier once your child goes to nursery a bit - at that age as fast as you are tidying they are messing things up elsewhere.

Lots of families have messy houses so you are definitely not alone and this may not work for you but its what we have used.