My M&D have always felt comfortable with a bit of clutter and grime in their house, whereas my motto is “a clutter-free life is a stress-free life”! When my siblings and I lived there, a lot of the mess was blamed on us. That was a good excuse for a while, BUT the last bird flew the nest (taking all their belongings with them) nearly a decade ago now and since then the situation’s got a lot worse.
Nothing is ever thrown away at that house and there’s not a centimetre of surface space that’s clear of toot. Fair enough it’s their house, but the more serious problem is the lack of hygiene as months go by without a hint of actual cleaning. The worst part is the kitchen – everything’s sticky, cupboards never wiped down, off food hanging around, never-mopped floor. They also have a dog, so as you can imagine a lack of general cleanliness is not going to make for a happy home.
We now have children and would love to take them to their GPs house to so that they can spend quality time together (we all have fond memories of weekends playing at granny’s house). But it’s so disgusting with all the mess, dirt and chaos there that neither I, nor my siblings feel we can spend longer than five minutes there, let alone let our children play amongst it all.
A couple are coming up to crawling age and there is NO WAY we’d want them crawling on their carpets.
Right now we avoid spending any time there and are always having to make excuses as to why we don’t want to leave our children there with them. It’s really sad, because they’re amazing people and we trust that they’d look after our kids brilliantly.
Over the years we’ve tried to drop subtle (and not so subtle) hints, but Mum especially doesn’t take too well to it and states that it’s her house and she can live how she wants. So how should we best go about helping them realise that their messiness is mucking up their relationship with their children and grandchildren?