To think people with pristine houses are weird

[JJ17]

I try, the house is OKish, my rules being "would social services take my kids away". But there are certain sticky bits on the carpet.

The loo seat doesn't fit right and most of the wallpaper is scribbled on.

Am I alone in this?

I watch reality TV and most peoples' houses are more decorated than mine.

I can afford to do 1 or 2 rooms a year therefore the rest are for shit most of the time.

Arrghhhh I hate that saying, that is just an excuse to be messy and to make messy people feel better.

There's nothing wrong with being messy. Why shouldn't we feel better about ourselves?

My house is usually clean (apart from the toothpaste dc spit in the sink in morning & has hardened in by the time I get home in the evening!)

But am in middle of big clean for Christmas - ie: cupboards all cleaned out, coats etc & all the spare clothes that stay in utility all washed incase visitors stay over.

All bedrooms have been hoovered/tidied/decluttered.

But not a floor has been washed yet, as my mop is frozen and the mop bucket has a hole in it - am waiting for dh to come home with a new one!!

My sister's house is immaculate - she has a 2-year-old and a newborn, and 2 days after a CS she was hoovering when I walked in.......

today my house is pristine. this was because we had an emergenncy deep clean in time for Xmas.

i am not any stranger than usual.

therefore YABU

"I think it's weird to take pride in living like a pig..that's not pointed at the OP as she clearly doesn't say that. But I've read many a MN post where women seem to want a pat on the back for living in filth."

I grew up in a filthy house and there is no way I would ever want to live like that. My mum used to run the vacuum cleaner around occasionally, but never dusted or cleaned the kitchen. As soon as I was old enough I used to clean up because I was too ashamed to bring my friends home.

"Behind every immaculate house lies a very boring person."
Utter nonsense. That's just a pathetic excuse for laziness.

When I was expecting DD, the MW came round to do my booking-on appt.
He looked at DH and I sitting in out spotless, neutral living room and smiled. He said a lot of houses he visits looked like our during pregnancy - but once baby no. 1 arrives it all goes to pot.
He was very. very right.

I can't relax with mess around, therefore I am never relaxed.

My cleaner has just texted to say she can't come today. Well, I know what I'm going to be spending Christmas Eve doing, then...

We need a screaming in horror smiley.

My house is normally immaculate by Thursday afternoon, acceptable over the weekend and looks like it belongs to Mr. Trebus of a Wednesday night.

Thankfully we have a spare room where all the crap stuff can get shut away in when we entertain...

To get back to the OP, though, I do notice that most houses on TV seem to be very colour co-ordinated and without an item out of place to be seen. Kind of like they've decorated from scratch (including furnishings) and nothing has arrived there organically - our living room is a mismash of pre-DD, baby DD and current 5 year old DD stuff!

Mind you, none of them have books anywhere. When we were house hunting a while ago it was shockingly noticeable that no-one seems to have bookshelves or more than 1 or 2 tasteful books placed artfully on their shelves. No groaning double-stacked paperbacks from floor to ceiling like us... the one house we did see with books was like a home from home, it just felt so much more 'right' than all these DFS set-dressed rooms.

My dh has learnt the hard way never to invite people back to our house without giving me a warning of at least an hour so that I can hide tidy up the mess

I am the same as bunbaker.

I cannot stand mess, dirt and clutter, and would not go into a dirty house if I could help it.

This has nothing to do with being a boring cleaning obsessed bastard, but a reaction to growing up in utter filth when I was a child. My gran was a clutter hoarder, she never cleaned or decorated, she never cleaned the bath and was just a slattern. She also used to say 'only clean people are boring'. I hated it and will not have any mess in the house. If I had a dusty bathroom I would sit there and obsess about it until I cleaned it.

As for decorating, I paint the house tyhrough once a year, this is not too onerous as I have no 'stuff' to move out the way anyway. Plus is easy as all rooms are white walls and ceilings (oh, perhaps am boring bastard after all )

My house is normally untidy but not hugely so I k its acceptable if you can get it ready for visitors in under an hour.
The yardage place is actuall our bedroom i have no idea why it just seems to explode in mess everyday in a way that just doesn't make sense to me.

I secretly wis my house was spotless but with 4 young and not very tidy children I think I would rather spend my time relaxing and enjoying myself than wiping every surface 200 times a day.

YANBU....my mil's house is like a shrine, so weird, you end up sitting on the edge of your chair trying not to be untidy

I think people who live in very pristine houses probably are weird. I'm sure my step mother has some kind of cleaning OCD, I am scared to visit with the kids because if they make any mess - even move a cushion on the sofa she will have a go at my dad when she gets home from work. He has to put the hoover round when we leave, seriously. So that is weird.

That said, if cleaning is your thing and it's not hurting anyone - happy cleaning!

My own home is a cottage with wooden beams. I try to make sure I'm not ashamed of the state of it, aiming to do 20 mins house work a day (I have small work from home job). Hoover 2 or 3 times a week. I struggle with the clutter, of all of us, but mainly toys. I try and do a 10 minute tidy - set the kitchen timer and see how much clutter I can remove in that time. I believe that 10 minutes tidying will improve the look of the house more than 10 minutes cleaning will.

We have a house rule that "we only draw on paper and card". Breaking a house rule is quite serious, so DCs (3 and 5) haven't drawn on walls for quite some time.

I would be interested to know if the pristine house people judge when they go to a less pristine house? It seems from some of the replies here that they do? Or is that just because they feel a little criticised by the OP?

When I visit someone's home it would have to be REALLY dirty (think, How clean is your house?) before I would notice. I always comfort myself with that - and tell myself no one I would want as a friend is looking at my house keeping skills.

Lol at lovecat and the books.

One thing that does my HEAD in is the fact that my bookshelves are some kind of magnet for dust. Why do books get so dusty? I often grumble when am hoovering the books and DP says 'you have read those books, get rid of them '. As bloody if. He has also suggested that I get a kindle to replace all the books. Madness. I love my books, they are going nowhere.

See, I get that you wouldn't want a house devoid of books, but you don't really need to keep every book you've ever read, do you?

The worst that can happen is you might have to re-buy something you fancy reading again.

It really is freeing to get rid of the acres of un-read or once-read tomes, especially if lots of them are lit-chick or airport trash. Even reference books aren't irreplaceable; Google does the rick for a lot of info that would otherwise gather dust on shelves, looked at once in a blue moon.

I find floor-to-ceiling racks of books very claustrophobic.

Bless .

My New Year's Resolution is to get a cleaner and to be more tidy.

I might need a thread to help me get more motivated organised. I do try, but after working full time, getting home to sort kids out and doing the daily stuff like packed lunches, dishwasher, ironing, bit of tidying I never seem to get the house to be immaculate - I would LOVE an immaculate house.

Agreed GOML.

DH announced last night that he was going to tidy his study today (because of course the rest of the house is nothing to do with him...) and if he found any of 'my' books in there (he has floor to ceiling shelves around all 4 walls, all full of sci-fi novels) he was making a pile of them and putting them elsewhere. I told him if he does that he's not going to live to see Christmas... he bought me a sony reader last year for a similar purpose. Nope.

Real books are wonderful, even if they are dust magnets.

I keep every book ever, even some dodgy crap like Sophie Kinsella and other chick lit given to me by my brother ( cheers bro) which I have never read.

You cannot get rid of books. It would be like getting rid of your cats.

My books are my friends

My DP even went as far as to empty our dressing room shelves (previously occupied by books) and instead put a shoe rack up, because the show rack was in the garage and he was complaining of shoes being cold when he put them on in a morning. He proposed putting the books in boxes in the garage.

Sod the shoes. Guess who won that argument?

Cleaner do my head in more than the mess, when i've just handed over £60 and can still see dust or marks it drives me nuts.
I've never found one that lives up to my extremely low standards and yet don't seem to be able to get on with the cleaning myself. I blame mumsnet tbh too distracting.

I spent Monday with a friend who has a beautiful house, it's really fabulous, and not a thing out of place. My dd, who is 3yo was very well behaved, and she wasn't causing any trouble. My 1yo, on the other hand, was pulling all the decs off the tree, putting sticky hands on her carpet, and kept on pulling their (beautiful) height chart off the wall.

I was running after him like a mad loon, and needed a drink when I got home.

What I would say, though, is all the time ds was wrecking the joint being a typical 1yo, my friend's 4yo was running after him, with a terrified look on her face, and she was truly traumatised by the height chart thing.

Have a gorgeous house, but accept that it's a home. That's my opinion, anyway.