My house gets disgusting and it's embarrassing for my kids

[keenunkempt]

I feel really down because my kids are getting older now and are starting to notice how messy and disgusting our house gets. The worst thing is it's a really nice, newly built house. It's decorated really nicely. If I could keep it tidy it's a gorgeous home for them to grow up in and the last thing they'd need to feel is embarrassed but I just can't seem to do it. I read these posts from people saying they grew up in a messy home and now have the tidiest houses ever, but I'm the opposite, I too grew up in a very messy dirty home and I seem to be replicating it entirely for my kids. I will spend a whole day getting it perfect and it just doesn't last a day. I think I'm just a total slob. I want to be a better mum but can't seem to pull myself together. I don't keep on top of their washing so they have nice clean clothes, I don't keep the house tidy, I don't remember to get things out the cupboard or fridge before they go mouldy, I don't remember to charge their nightlights or put new batteries in their toys so they just stop using them. I want to be a better mum than this and have these moments of achievement but always end up back here. How do I sort myself out?

People just have way too much stuff now I think.

Spend a bit to hire a mini skip and be brutal about what you chuck. You'll find the amount of space after makes tidying and cleaning.

Also invest in storage.

Have you been screened for ADHD? Depression? A lot of people who cant keep on top of their home have something else going on.

My advice/notes as someone who has helped a lot of people get their shit together:

• Work on any perfectionism issues. Your home doesnt have to be perfect it just has to be acceptable and safe. Decide on the non negotiables. For example your kids absolutely need to have clean clothes, a clean bed, clean kitchen for hygiene etc and start there. I have found that people will do the Big Clean and then it all spirals at the first full laundry basket or sink of dishes.

• Have a really deep clear out. Ime messy people almost always have too much stuff. This particularly applies to clothes. Its easy to let the laundry pile up when there are lots of clothes to go through.

• Can you get a cleaner in once a week to do the kitchen and/or bathroom? They dont have to do the whole house, you can just have them do the kitchen and clear/check your fridge for example. Outsource as much as you can afford to.

• Get plug in nightlights. Its one less task.

Good luck. You can do this.

I've got ADHD and bipolar and it can be hard. I'm 44 now but it's taken me ages to get a basic level of coping with house work. This is what I do

De-clutter as much as possible.

Empty the fridge of out of date items and bin them before you go food shopping. Put items with a shorter shelf life at the front of the fridge, longer at the back.

Do 1 load of washing every day. Fold yesterday's drying, and put away.

Clean the bathroom once a week, right before you have a nice long bath.

Have a box for each person on the stairs. Every day, random clutter/toys goes into the correct name box and when the kids go to bed they take the box up to their room.

Once, I sat down and went through my day step by step with a piece of paper and I wrote down every little thing I needed that would help with any step. For example, having multiple washing baskets, a packet of pens so there’s one in every room, big packs of batteries, rolls of bin liners, anything, and I just did a mega Amazon shop and bought it all. Kids like a particular snack? Buy a box load instead of a bag at a time. Can’t ever find a hair brush or bobbles? Buy four brushes, four sets of bobbles and four plastics boxes and put a box in the living room, the bathroom, your room and the kids room. Run out of drying space? Buy another clothes horse. I just threw money at every problem - it didn’t even cost very much but I’d solved about ten niggling issues that took time and mental energy to deal with every day.

For general maintainence The Organised Mum Method is great for structured little and often cleaning. Her TOM Rocks/ Rock The Housework podcasts (additional subscription) talk you through cleans/ tidy-ups/ general chores from 5 mins to 60+ mins. They've been a total game changer for me and really help that you're just making the house a bit better at a time, not being demotivated by inattainable perfectionism.

Dana K White (a slob comes clean) is great for practical tidying/ decluttering. She breaks it down into managable chunks.

Clutterbug, Minimal Mom are other good youtubers. Flylady has a good system although it's not the right one for me. There's loads of cleaning on youtube (Aurikatarina, Mid West Magical Cleaning) and those kinds of videos can help you appreciate the difficulties of home maintainence and what can be done.

Ultimately, to be tidy, you need a place for everything. It can't be tidy if it's overflowing. If it's overflowing, it needs items removing and taken off as waste, donations or actually sold. If you can't cope with the process of selling, donate; don't get hung up on potential value.

Have a look in the Housekeeping section of MN, there's loads of useful threads and ongoing discussions from people in or who have been in a similar position. All skills in life have to be learned. Many such as driving, we outsource to professionals to teach us. Some people have to learn how to clean and tidy more conciousy than others and find standard advice harder to follow than average.

There is a disproportion of ND home care influencers who often had to manually work it out the hard way themselves.

How old are your children?

Do you have a partner?

Why is it all your responsibility?

Make sure everyone is tidying up after themselves.

Make a list of chores that need doing, assign them. Make sure you have the daily and weekly chores on the list.

If you're getting it tidy and it doesn't last a day that reads to me like a family who allow you to tidy and then don't do their part?

I use the organised mum method, great for me cos it's short bursts every day (30mins) to keep on top of everyday jobs. You tick the jobs off so really helpful if you're bad at keeping on top of task lists yourself. Currently mid deep clean boot camp to reset.
If your kids are old enough to be noticing the mess then they're definitely old enough to be helping out as well.

But if you don’t do it it just means that you’re with always thinking about it or it’s so bad that you’re spending more time than necessary to do it. You need to blitz it and then do a little everyday. I vacumn everyday as I think that just makes the place look a lot better then remove all cups etc from rooms and bring the washing down. Then I may give one room a day a quick clean. Every few weeks I zap it again and repeat.

It's really hard. It almost sounds like possible ADHD, not sure if you've ever considered that or not . The forgettfullness, the lack of motivation and being able to stay focused. My husband takes medication for his adhd now and can finally hold down a job.

I recommend the organised mum method. I enjoy her guided cleans on Patreon, they really do help me

If you are cleaning every day it can't be dirty surely ? It could be messy but not actually dirty. Have you asked others opinions on how they view your house ?

If you have Baskets And storage compartments its easier.

Who only cleans their toilet/bathroom once a week?? 🤢

I really relate to this. I'm the same. And it's not even a nice new build it's 100s of years old so the dust is intense. And there's a hole in the roof so we struggle with black mould. I do my best to keep on top of it but I fail really. Like you the kids always have clean clothes and are themselves clean... I mostly keep on top of the bathroom... but beyond that.. it looks like a bomb hit it
I have 3 kids and it's a big house so u can imagine the state. I feel like any time I get on top of one room the others have all got worse.. I'm ashamed to have anyone round and my kids suffer from lack of having friends round. It's only in a good enough state for that like once every few months.

I do not know where all the crap comes from.. I feel like every weekend I've taken bags upon bags to charity and to the tip and yet the house looks like it's not even been dented

Hey OP. Cut yourself some slack. I also have mouldy food in the fridge and dog hair tumble weeds across the floor ( I hoover as often as I can!). I work full time. My kids love my home and so do their friends. It’s full of arts, crafts, food, music and games. It’s welcoming and kids feel at home here. It’s not dirty but certainly not a show home. Life’s too short. Keep the loo clean and the kitchen clean. Kids can tidy up after themselves if they’re worried about it. Enjoy your kids and your life. A show home is not homely.

I grew up in a very cluttered home. Stuff on the sides, piled in corners, shoved into cupboards there was just SO much stuff. I feel I’ve sort of gone down that route but not to such extremes. I regularly declutter and go through my kids wardrobes but I think we just haven’t much stuff overall. What has helped me massively in tackling jobs is visually seeing them written down. I got 3 whiteboards off TT shop, one daily, one weekly and one monthly and it really helps me to see which jobs need doing and when. So e.g monthly would be sort out kitchen drawer or go through paperwork. Daily would be wipe down sides, do a load of laundry etc and then I just tick them off as I go. Definitely get the kids to help, my 9 year old loves getting jobs delegated to her. Good luck!

Write up a plan for what you're going to get done on specific days.
List everything and enjoy removing them once you've done each particular job.
I've been doing this during the Easter holidays and as the house has gotten better and better as I went along I've felt pride.
As for week to week responsibilities, set reminders for certain days. Like dark wash set to go on overnight on Friday nights, same with light wash Saturdays. Ironing uniform on Sunday nights.

I "Monica'd" my house over a year ago and it took weeks but every room is organised, drawers, cupboards, boxes in the loft, everything. Then I just kept on top of it daily.
Organising stuff is great but it's actual cleaning I struggle to stay on top of.

It's a bit like dieting, it's very difficult to start.

But, unlike dieting, you can pay someone to make that start.

So, get a cleaner in for however long it takes. Then you have a clean slate, much more manageable starting point to DIY from then on.

Also, do some serious decluttering. The mess you describe is down to having too much stuff.

Teach the kids how to clean up after themselves and how to hoover.
Mine have been doing little tasks like wiping the fridge, putting their dishes in the dishwasher since they were very young.

Have a tidy up at the end of the day, clean the kitchen after dinner and straighten up the living room and hallway.

I do my fridge the night before the bins are collected. That way any food that needs to be binned gets binned and the fridge gets a quick wipe.

Adhd late diagnosed here.

Its totally fixable, I have just done it and its life changing.

Heres the thing. You do not have to change. You have two options - change the environment or adapt the task to make it more palatable. I'm exactly the same person I was and yet I'm so much less stressed because the system works.

I listened to a lot of podcasts and really recommend doing that - can be listened to while cleaning, even better.

Clutterbug is good - she has a quiz on organising styles and tips.

Laundry baskets at the point where clothes are taken off. Folding things straight off the line. Or put things on their hangers to dry. Delay start a lot on the washer so the clothes can come out of the machine in the morning, another load can go on, then by evening the first load is dry and be put away. Alexa reminders.

Charity and the dump and anything worth selling is sold.

Pick a space. Set a 10 min timer. Declutter. Get everything out of the space and sort it into categories. Not used it in 6 months or more? Consider if you need it. Then put things back organised using the categories. You might use boxes and a labelling device etc.

Have things that catch mess. A basket in each room for stuff that doesn't belong there and is in transit back to other rooms. Take a full basket from room to room and put things back.

Tray for paperwork and a place where it gets done etc.

Some people love clear plastic fridge organiser's (Dunelm have these, they also do white boxes for storage).

A charging station for devices.

Part of my early evening routine is to go round and plug in whatever needs charging (I have a list of what they are).

My weekly schedule is written on google calendar as events with time blocking and more detail in the notes of the event.

You're not alone as genuinely I think many people just have too much stuff.

Lol are we supposed to clean our bathrooms daily?! Get real

Who messes it up? Is it just you who cleans?

Takes allsorts to make a world and you're certainly NOT slob when you make an effort each day but it feels as if you're running just to stand still.

Maybe you could do with a bit of organisation - several of the posts on this thread seem useful and pragmatic.

BUT don't fall into the habit of measuring yourself by other people's standards (or the lifestyle/lifecycle they claim) and certainly take the items in magazines about "how to have a life like mine" with a bloody big pinch of salt!

It's like at Christmas - all those laughable articles about "the perfect family Christmas" - you know the thing: the Christmas dinner table with immaculate place settings, Ma in a crease-free cocktail frock holding a champagne flute, Pa ditto except he's in a tuxedo, and en famille gathered round a 17' Xmas tree grinning like village idiots! (And no farting granny, who specialises in inappropriate observations.)

It's called Real Life - you LIVE it. It's not a soap opera.......and you only get one chance. There's no time for wasting on angst, guilt or wondering if grass really IS greener on the other side. It seldom is.

So much good advice already but it can be so overwhelming and get messy so quickly. TOMM/ Flylady have been helpful for me.

But do what you can, try not to beat yourself up. Do you think you may have executive dysfunction? If so, I am not an expert but I think a task list or TOMM guided cleans or sth like that will help. Remember, you probably didn’t get like this in a day so it will take more than a day to start making it better.

• start by doing ‘just’ the 15 minutes per day and then work up to 30/ 45 if you can, maybe split with partner.

15 mins (Level one on TOMM)

• make beds, dc can do own if old enough
• clean one/two things in bathroom
• 3 min hoover high traffic areas, ideally with cordless hoover if have one.
• 5 minutes working on load of laundry - put in washing machine, fold - whatever stage you are at.

30 mins Mon - Thurs (L2 on TOMM) :
Mon - living room
Tuesday - bedrooms
Wed - hall, stairs and landing
Thurs - kitchen
If 30 minutes is too long, go for 15. Anything is better than nothing.

Fri is a rotation of tasks to declutter. This is great but tbh I rarely manage this but use it as catch up day. I tend to do a declutter over a week once or twice a year in the summer and winter but little and often would probably be better.

Tidy kitchen each evening after dinner and do dishes once per day.

For the washing, you may have to do more than five minutes each day at beginning to catch up. Can each family member put own clothes away? That’s the bit I struggle with.

The Secret Slob on YouTube is motivational to me, as well as Rémi Clog.

Sorry, such a long post! All the best @keenunkempt 🌸