Growing up in a dirty messy house

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I am one of three children. When we moved in when I was tiny my parents had started DIY so house had no carpets in some rooms and old furniture. The house was a basically a sh*thole. Clothes and crap everywhere, nothing was cleaned, I remember the microwave had old food in it. Sofas had stuff spilt down them. My bedroom had floorboards until I was 12 or 13. Bathroom did not have a proper floor until I was in late teens, just floorboards. I remember being so ashamed and embarrassed when I did have people over, which was not often. Just wished we could be normal like others. Parents both worked full-time in "professional" jobs.

I am so conscious now of not ever letting my kids go through this. Not a clean freak but house is clean tidy and warm, and I can't stand clutter. I don't get it, when I look back. I just don't get how they could not be embarrassed for us and want us to have some normality. It breaks my heart a bit. To think how easy it could have been for them to make the effort. I try to have compassion but I find it hard.

I'm so sorry you went through that sounds a bit like my mother except without the cleanliness. I left as soon as I turned 16.

Grew up the same house is now impeccable that I have a child of my own- well I try to keep it that way but was actually stressing myself out about it to the point of becoming obsessed. Mother now even calls me OCD and crazy- no understanding of how my childhood has impacted my adult life

I can understand why @Kanaloa is pushing back at the everyone has different standards

My point has been missed entirely. I'm not saying that in anyone's world, squalor is acceptable and if you object to it your standards are too high. I just thought it was an interesting anecdote. My friends reaction to a plastic beaker in my glass cupboard and four toys on the floor was as if it was actual filth and squalor. Honestly she was genuinely shocked.I thought it was mildly interesting. Obviously not

@Kanaloa

And obviously nobody is talking about being ‘afraid to drop a crumb.’ This silly hyperbole just makes it look like you have no understanding of balance - as if the opposite of ‘food piled up’ is being terrified to spill a crumb. Spilling a crumb is fine. Cleaning it up is also normal.

I think people ARE trying to suggest understanding of balance of though - as you point out, spilling a crumb or even a few is normal, but to not immediately clean it up can also be normal. If the crumbs sit around for a few hours or even a few days, then that is fine too . But you perhaps do not think so. Someone with very high standards of cleaning may view other’s mess as squalor, when in reality it may not be too bad. Some people on here may now be feeling needlessly guilty or ashamed if their house isn’t clean or tidy enough.

Is anybody saying they have trauma because there were crumbs left after a meal? A) it's part of a pattern of mess/dirt and embarrassment for a child. B) a lot of us who grew up in filthy environments are now hyper-aware. I do not like things like this because it makes me feel like I'm losing control and it will spiral into mess of I'm not on top of it.

Sorry I think it's disgusting if they sit around for a few days.

Then I tend to live in houses with animals who would either try to lick up some crumbs and/or were old and liable to having insects/rodent infestations if care wasn't taken to clean up regularly.

I don't actually know whether our house was 'mucky' or not after this. There was the smoking and flicking ash everywhere. My mother was an obsessive washer upper, laundry, sides in the kitchen etc done. It was the slovenliness and laziness of my dad that was the problem. He had the same pair of socks that he dropped by the side of the bed and put them on the next day. I know this because he had one pair of West Ham ones and I remember the colours. He wore this one pair daily for four weeks at least. He said he didn't think they stank when I asked him about it. Jesus only knows how my mum put up with it. He would never flush the toilet if he only went for a wee. Said it was a waste of water. The whole house was ramshackle. Furniture that is probably now vintage and cool but embarrassing to me. Hand me downs I think. Ancient curtains. Wallpaper from the 1950s that had been on for 30 years.

It’s not my job to make sure others don’t feel ashamed about their home. If your home is acceptable then you won’t feel ashamed. If you do feel ashamed then look at the state of the house and think about whether or not you find it acceptable.

For what it’s worth I wouldn’t leave spilled food for days. I don’t see the point. If food spills on the floor or furniture I clean it up immediately when we’re done eating/cooking. Leaving it longer makes it more difficult to clean and can lead to staining or smells. Why leave spilled food for ‘a few days?’ It wouldn’t suit me but I certainly wouldn’t call a few crumbs ‘squalor.’

And once again, this thread isn’t about people with ‘very high standards of cleaning’ who are judging normal mess as ‘squalor.’ This is about homes that have a pattern of chaotic living standards. Nobody is here saying ‘my childhood was so traumatic, once I spilled a few crumbs of a cake on a Monday and it wasn’t cleaned until Thursday.’ To minimise it by acting like it’s just people with high standards being judgey is really dismissive.

My dad was a hoarder as he was a war child. He had so little growing up that he couldnt part with anything. I have inherited his traits.

Parking myself here to read to keep motivated as I have a disabled child and when I'm super stressed the house is a tip. Sometimes you want to do better but your demons pull you back.

Yes to being embarrassed about friends coming over. I can't remember having any friends over at all from the ages of 6-15. After we moved house when I was 15, my boyfriend used to come over on a Friday evening most weeks. From Wednesday onwards I was on tenterhooks about the kitchen being in a decent state and I would start tidying/cleaning etc.

My 3 dc have always had friends over and I encourage this. I love to see them hanging out in the living room or garden without having to worry about the house being clean enough

@Kanaloa Not trying to minimise the cases of true neglect at all. But I feel that due to depression, finances, exhaustion or even just juggling the demands of parenting with a job, that some people may struggle to maintain a clean and tidy or updated house. There are already enough pressures in modern life and fearing that the family home may cause trauma to their children will certainly not help, especially if it’s just a case of mess and shabbiness.

That's a big IF. There's untidy and dirty. A dirty house is unacceptable a messy house yes where you have not put things away yes but not dirty.

When there's 2 parents there's no need tbh and I say this as a single parent. I'm shocked that people can't see the difference here. Having no flooring in your house must be horrible. OP clearly stated this was the case for her ... in the bathroom up until teens. That surely isn't normal!

I once went to a friend of a friend’s house. Floors were bare, walls were bare. They had actual pigeons flying around inside the house, and the floor and everything else was littered with bird shit. That’s squalor. I’ll never forget that, and as an adult, I feel so sorry for the kids who lived there (now adults obviously; wonder how they turned out?)

I feel hot shame that sometimes my kids don’t have clean clothes, and often they have to rummage in the pile in my room for their clean clothes. I’m completely and utterly overwhelmed and feel so depressed sometimes like I just want to step off the earth. I’m starting to think I have some element of ADD.

I grew up in a very cluttered house. It was at least hygienic in the kitchen and bathroom, and clean where we could reach to clean, but sometimes we couldn't sit on the settee for clutter and stuff was inaccessible in cupboards with piles of crap blocking the doors. My wardrobe was full to bursting with hand me downs clothes I never liked but wasn't allowed to get rid of, so the few clothes I used would be wrinkled and smell a bit funny.
I have only read the first couple of pages so far but I am feeling a strange relief that I am not alone (although obviously sorry others had a similar experience or worse). Thank you everyone for sharing. I remember how much I dreaded friends or extended family seeing the mess and still get anxious when hosting because of this. I also had to learn when to get rid of stuff, I still keep more than I should but I will not let my DS have the same experience I did.

Except that schools do.

!00% Attendance in primary. Who's that down to? Not the child

Homework not done (yes I know it's not supposed to be compulsory) the child misses playtime to do it

It's not always thought about.

Any one struggling now, there are methods like The Organised Mum Method or FlyLady or youtubers like A Slob Comes Clean or Clutterbug that are useful on practical strategy for managing the house.

I grew up with a hoarder who was just about under control in my childhood, but has slipped into dirt and filth over decades of being a widow and issues like arthritis being a hinderence. She had a traumatic childhood, not limited to being bombed out as a child and loosing everything on more than one occasion. Everything was kept "just in case" yet in the case of things like toys it's been to no practical benefit. Broken toys were unplayable. The young family members that the surviving toys were kept for haven't been allowed to play with things.

I generally had what I needed but it was biased towards what she valued with big blind spots. I had pretty party dresses, but never a correct PE kit. She wouldn't replace things she considered still good; didn't understand why Tinkerbell pants were a problem at secondary school (aside from being too small with elastic cutting in). I spent years flatly refusing to wear the coat I was bought in y8 and failed to grow out of. It was "perfectly good" (and humiliatingly young and out of date) There was no accounting for taste changing with age/ fashion. I wasn't permitted to deal with body hair despite the embarrasment it caused because it hadn't been a thing in her youth. I shaved with an old razor I found lying around until I could save up and buy a ladyshave. Had I been a more rebellious/ fashion minded teenager determined to keep up with trendy friends I would have hit more difficulties.

My childhood wasn't neglectful or squalid like so many PPs have described, and I haven't had trauma from it, but there is a practical effect. I was the youngest in the family and had all the hand-me-downs whether I wanted them or not cluttering up my room. I'd be told "tidy your room" but I didn't know how to actually tidy. Tidy= shove everything under the bed/ in the cupboard. It was a big cupboard, built in, but not actually with appropriate shelving. I've spent adult life learning appropriate stategies to tidying. (I do know how to clean, but tidying is a constant battle)

It's possible DM didn't actually know how to tidy herself. Her approach to visitors was to bag stray stuff up and stash in a spare room. Never sorted again. There are still bags of stuff from the 80s of stuff she wanted at the time and rubbish mixed in, and woe betide you bin it because she hasn't read the fashion feature. She probably hadn't learned in her childhood either, but there was less stuff to live with then aside from the trauma of being bombed out.

Today the house has many unusable rooms filled with dangerous and broken furniture as well as decades of stuff. You go through the 50 year old sofa in the lounge. It is a barrier. She's reached the age of not travelling well, but the house is uncomfortable, univiting and reeks of cat piss/ shit that she can't smell after 60+ years of smoking.

I can easily understand how growing up with these conditions is isolating and traumatising even where parents haven't overlaid other abusive behaviours on top.

As this thread clearly shows, yes it does

No it's not

I've had elderly, infirm pets and you just clean up! There are plenty of products out there that will deal with the smell

It's nothing to do with the 'perfect' home. No one should live with the stench of faeces/urine/vomit in their home

I agree with you OP. I hate it when you see crappy sayings like “the cleaning can wait, your children can’t”.

I grew up in an immaculate house, always sparkling and clean, everything where it should be and whilst the decor wasn’t always modern, it was always very tidy.

im so grateful to my mum for making it that way. I remember friends who lived in shitholes and their clothes were never cleaned, never any clean cups or plates on the cupboards, constantly losing things etc. it looked very stressful and I was happy my mum was more organised and house proud. It sounds awful but I remember feeling embarrassed for my friends. We haven’t got the world’s cleanest house but I always go to bed with the house spotless so that in the morning everyone can find their clothes and get breakfast easily

“the cleaning can wait, your children can’t”

The sad thing is when both wait, and wait and wait.

“the cleaning can wait, your children can’t”

is such a nonsensical and pointless phrase.

I’m so sorry to everyone who lived through this. I remember the crippling embarrassment of a messy house, we loved in a wealthy area so stuck out like a sore thumb. I just remember wishing we were ‘normal’. I had eggs thrown at my shoes, awful comments, it affected me so much.

People who live in squalor are not prioritising their children over cleaning their houses, that’s for sure.