She's 19 now and this problem has not gone away

[Usernamesarejustnotavailable]

I am at an absolute loss. Since her early teens my daughter's bedroom has been an absolute filthy mess. Clothes everywhere. Mountains of plates, cutlery, cups, glasses and food packaging under her bed. Makeup everywhere, including smeared on the carpet and on her mattress. Eaten chewing gum thrown behind her bed which has landed on the carpet. Stuff piled up on the windowsill and every other surface that exists. Wardrobe doors hanging open. No sheet on her mattress because she just kicks it off.

For a few years now I have just stopped going in there or trying to clean it. I can't cope when I walk in. Today she's at work so I went in and cleared out the rubbish from under the bed. That's all I could bear to tackle.

Over the years we've argued about it. We've also had mature conversations about it. I've offered to help as well as leaving her alone to do it herself. I'm really at an absolute loss. I just don't know what to do.

I'm even more concerned now because she keeps catching colds and bugs. More so than anyone else in the house and I wonder if it is because of her poor hygiene. Please advise me. I just don't know what to do.

How old is your daughter? It seems unfair she has no place to retreat to for privacy during the day. Is she your only child? Or do the other children’s rooms have other functions in the day?

it is self explained in the post - Because I needed my daughter in the living room with me, supervising her daily activities while growing up, so she never used her bedroom as a tip or a place to engage in activities online I cannot supervise. - the result - amazing tidy, clear of all wrong doing adult child, with her bedroom impeccably clean

We did this while our daughter was away travelling. Cleaned, tidied, redecorated, bought cheap new storage. It looked brilliant and she was really happy when she got home. It lasted about a week before it was back to a pigsty 😂.

I’ve given up. What I can’t see doesn’t hurt me. I know it’s partly ADHD on her part; she gets totally overwhelmed (but doesn’t seem to realise if she just put stuff away in the first place it wouldn’t get to chaos levels). I’ve also never allowed food in bedrooms so at least it’s not a health hazard.

You dont need to stop a teenager doing it if you stop a 9/10/11/12yr old doing it and embed the house rules and consequences from a younger age.
My kids know who pay the bills and who is in charge in our house and know there would be major consequences.
Ive never had to tell them not to take food upstairs they just know that if you are eating you sit at the kitchen table. They also dont help themselves to food without asking - they arent the ones planning and preparing meals and shopping for the food so they dont know is and isn't needed for something else until they've checked with me.

I was like this until I had my first baby.
It soon dawned on me that I couldn't bring a baby up in this mess and I sorted myself out.

Not great advice I know, but just to let you know that people CAN change and clean up their act.

I was that teenager. I'm 30, married with 2 kids now and my house is still like this, I've tried and tried and tried. It gets cleaned if visitors come that can't be avoided. I've just been diagnosed with ADHD and after lots of grieving what could have been, I'm just starting the mountain of figuring out how to keep a home tidy in a way that works for my brain. Clutterbug and secret slob YouTube channels are helpful so far.

When I talked and cried to my mum about my self esteem issues and depression stemming from ADHD type symptoms, she was shocked. I'm pretty successful and happy outwardly.

Something to think about maybe 🤷🏼‍♀️ Look up ADHD in women/girls you might be surprised at the symptoms

I don’t know why we are giving health diagnoses for pigsty rooms. Mine is the same but it is mainly clothes and stuff, parcels opened and packaging just left in the floor, cups and plates, nothing put away. Not depressed, social life, boyfriend, working, looks perfect and polished head to toe when she leaves the house, not depressed, only thing would be an endless shopping habit. The truth is she is an absolutely messy slob and I go in and tidy periodically. The room literally looks like a bomb has gone off in it.

She's doing what you've always allowed her to do.

This is a byproduct of your parenting approach.

Well I'm on ADHD meds and my ability to keep a home clean has absolutely transformed. After 10 years of research and trying absolutely everything. Of course it's not always the answer but this isn't a normal way to live even for a teenager. 🤷🏼‍♀️

ADHD is no justification for being unhygienic. Sorry

Thanks for this post it’s helpful

ADHD/ASD my son only started removing food from his room when he got a plague of fruit flies. It's still super messy, but at least it's non organic these days.

All my kids are adults now. I had 2 whose rooms were like this and 2 who were tidy.

In our case it's the two ND kids who are tidy. In part I think because they are fairly minimalist in nature and don't own a lot of stuff between them. The messy two never saw a shopping opportunity they didn't grab with both hands. Add small bedrooms to that and they would get overwhelmed easily by stuff and maybe a mindset of just having more important things (to them) going on.

All of this seemed to resolve itself to an acceptable degree upon moving out and living with people who aren't their Mum.

No absolutely not. It's a path to a solution to stop being so bloody unhygienic! 😁

Also, are you my mother in law? 😅

Edit - for some people obviously. I presume there are some that are genuinely just lazy messy slobs for no reason. I was just suggesting it might be worth a look into

OP I was like this. I didn’t know at the time but it turned out I was autistic and it was a kind of autistic overwhelm. I actually hate mess and find it really stressful but I didn’t recognise those feelings at the time and didn’t really feel any embarrassment having friends over and seeing it.

Eventually I saw it as the problem it was and found methods and techniques to tackle mess and found ways to keep on top of it.

Not saying your DD is autistic but maybe worth considering.

My DD was exactly the same but I did forbid her eating in her room. When she moved out the upstairs smelled so much better. She's 35 now and her house is an absolute shit tip. Her problem, not mine.

I'm really messy, it's not that I can't tidy or don't know how, it's just that I don't value things being tidy enough to want to devote any time to it. So I live in mess.

I've learnt a lot about depression and mental health through various YouTube channels that I watch who go to people's homes which are in a terrible state and they clean them. Mack at Midwest Magic cleaning talks a lot about it and clean with Barbie, may be interesting for you to watch to see if this could be similar to your daughter.

Of course. That's MN's determination of most behavioural problems. Undiagnosed ADHD or autism.

Because girls can heavily mask ADHD and most people have zero idea what it actually means. It’s not hyper active boys bouncing off walls.

Being untidy is a strong indicator of ADHD. Most people don’t want to live in squalor. There can be issues with lack of dopamine- motivation to get started on tidying. Or just not seeing it. It’s natural for people with ADHD to lack focus and move on to the next task. So cupboards left open/ cups left lying around/ make up with no lid on. Then the mess becomes overwhelming.

Undiagnosed ADHD can have a huge impact on somebody’s life and outcomes. So it’s worth a consideration if there are other signs too. And worth reading up on it. It kind of has the wrong name..

I'd be very glad of any advice on how to fix it please, either for OPs daughter or just for myself tbh, I feel like I've tried everything except a medical diagnosis now.

Endless shopping habit…so dopamine seeking…

I go in my two teen girls bedrooms once a week and putting everything on the floor in a bin bag! They then have 24 hours to put it all away or it goes in the bin.
No food upstairs!

@Usernamesarejustnotavailable How is she with other areas of her life?

• Is she on time for uni/work or is she rushing at the last minute?
• Does she have everything organised for study or is it all a bit haphazard?
• Does she work steadily towards assignments, or is it all last minute?
• Does she make little mistakes that she has to correct a lot?
• Does she seem to have a good awareness of time, or does she leave too little time for tasks?
• Does she leave far too early for things and seem anxious about being late?
• Is she good at budgeting or does she spend all her money at once, or not spend money at all?
• Does she have an appropriate healthy appetite, or does she either get so sucked in to what she's doing that she skips meals, or binges, or eats at the wrong time?

The solution for this problem will depend on the reason she's behaving like this.

Tell her to start tidying up at a set time every week, say Saturday morning at 11 am to 1 pm. Write out a list of all the tasks she has to do in her room. At 1 pm every Saturday you inspect the room and make sure she's done all the tasks. If she can't do this, tell her to find somewhere else to live.
It really doens't matter why she's doing this - she needs to start learning good habits before it's too late.