To expect my teenager to WASH???!!!!

[mimidl]

My eldest DD is 19 and a goth (ish). For a few years now I've been having to constantly ask, no TELL her to wash herself, her hair, her teeth, everything.

Her bedroom (which her younger sister has to share with her) is a s@#t hole and if I ask her to tidy it I'm 'pissing her off' so she just goes out. Her clothes are all washed for her when she bothers to pick them off of her floor and put them in the washing pile. I've stopped ironing them as they just end up on the floor in a heap and mixed with the dirty stuff!

TBH I'm at my wits end with her now. She smokes, drinks, swears all the time and doesn't want to work. She's currently on another college course that's solely a way of not working, when she has enough qualifications to get a well paid job in the sector she originally trained for.

Her 'friends' are much the same. They are playing the system - most have got themselves into care so that the local authority will give them money hand over fist (which they do). She's talked about going to see one of these hostels and putting her name down for a room. Part of me wants her to go so she'll grow up and realise how much is done for her at home, but I'm torn as I don't want her ending up like the others - basically sitting on their backsides drinking all day and doing nothing except picking up their JSA once a fortnight.

The reason I'm posting this today is because she's sat ALL day playing games on the computer and I've asked her maybe a dozen times to do her room and have a wash. Simple house rules, but rather than comply she's walked out again to go and hang around the park.

Any advice?

so what if your mum is on the phone? You are an adult, your mum can go whistle.

The kindest thing you could do for her is to stop facilitating her lazy dirty behaviour.

Stop giving her any money, making her meals, if she won't pull her weight with household chores.

You are funding her education yet she won't get a Saturday job? Fuck that.

Thank you all

When she stays out after curfew she is never on her own - there's always a group of them and tbh they spend so much time in the park that they quite often sleep there, so it's not unusual but I wouldn't leave her outside if she was on her own.

The drinking - they seem to pool their money, so whoever has money on a particular day will buy it.
Smoking. She doesn't smoke much tbh, but it's almost like she's doing it to fit in. We went away for a week in the summer, she came with us and didn't smoke for the whole week! I don't give her money for it so I'm guessing she's poncing them from her friends.

Her Dads around but she has a bad relationship with him so never visits him. Her college were excellent about trying to get her through the last year, but because her gf dropped out she chose to just not go to college and sit around with her gf day in, day out.

The good news is I've just had a call from her to say she's got herself a job! I'd read the responses from last night and when she called demanding £20 for a weeks travel I said NO!
I told her I was cutting any funds off until she sorted herself out and surprise surprise, she's gone straight in and got a part time job and has decided to leave the Level 1 college course she had started rather than work (she already had two Level 3 qualifications!).

I've changed wifi provider so I'm now able to set times on each item and turn hers off should she ignore me.

DS is still at home so helps with normality with my youngest and eldest has an appointment with an LGBT hostel this week - I know deep down that she needs to go in order to realise how much is done for her at home, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Thanks again. I think it's given me some strength and resolve back!

She's 19, an adult, and I suggest you start treating her as such. Her alcohol intake and smoking is not your concern to police, it is hers and she needs to find her own level with this.
Pick your battles. Let go of the things that you should not be involved in policing due to her being an adult and instead focus on what you can enforce, namely house rules re bedroom hygiene and not smoking at home etc. The things you do choose to enforce, well you just need to 'woman-up' and get assertive with it. Who cares what she might say to her Grandmother?