To ask if you've ever experienced a house get out of control

[atthelake]

That gives a weird image of a tantrumming house but the truth isn't so funny.

House is disgusting. Repulsive, awful, dirty. I just can't seem to manage it. I used to be able to. Now I'm struggling so much.

I'm talking washing up on the dirty sofa and piles of dirty clothes and crisps trodden in carpet upstairs and bathroom full of clothes and cat wee (thanks cat) and empty bottles and half full bottles of drinks and tin openers in lounge and cobwebs and muck and dirt.

Am i trying to have my child taken off me or something? :)

I semi confided in a friend yesterday who said she had found it hard until she went on ADs.

Is this the answer? When I've taken them in the past I just felt flat but maybe I didn't try the right ones or for long enough.

It's getting me down, it's getting everybody down but it's as if I cant. Sometimes I make some vague attempt to clear some rubble but it barely makes a dent.

I haven't LeBear

It's helped motivate me and I've done something but when threads get long they often get a bit circular, I find.

Then you end up saying over and over again no, can't get a cleaner, dH works away, no one I could ask ... and you get accused of ignoring advice then which isn't fair and the thread gets argumentative.

So I'll leave it, it's like a long car journey sometimes when people get fractious with one another. Thanks for advice I have taken some. I'm just really VERY tired.

When I first posted I didn't realise how far on you were in your pregnancy and how young your first child is.
It could be physical fatigue as much as depression.

I hope you will reconsider accepting some help as a one-off.
Otherwise just bin as much as you can-put it in black bags and take to tip and fill the sink with hot soapy water and wash everything up. Then rest.
Fly lady is good because it stresses baby steps and not perfection. Eventually it makes an impact but not overnight.
One piece of advice for moderate depression is to do one thing for mastery (a job you have been putting off) and one thing for pleasure every day.

Sorry cross-posted.

OP - when you do see your GP it's probably worth asking for your vitamin D levels to be checked.
Even though it's the middle of summer it's still possible for it to be low as you've had two pregnancies so close together, your body uses it all up making babies.
The main symptom of vitamin D deficiency is tiredness and depression.
I hope you feel better soon xx

Unless your DH also has mh issues then I don't see how he's doing what he can.

He's doing very little if your house is full of cat pee and rotten food. This is a health hazard and an immediate threat to your own and your children's health.

Does he also suffer from depression?

I'm going to be fairly brutal here. People who have gorgeously clean homes either
a) have a cleaner
b) Put in the effort and actually keep it clean (all household members)
C) both.

No quick fix, you just have to get on down, kick yourself up the backside and get on with it. If depression or something else is dragging you down and stopping you, you need to get it sorted. I have sympathy (depression is a bastard) but it's just not acceptable to have children living where the bath is full of cat piss. Where do they bathe? And what about mice/rats etc - only a matter of time. Really not healthy for anyone. And then longer you live like it, the more they are learning that it's normal and they will live like it too. Messy is fine, dirty is not.

Deal with the dirt, for everyone's sake.

Threads get circular because there is an expectation of progress rather than stagnation.

Good luck op (although I do think that you need to see a doctor because you seem to be constantly tired).

Lake, did you make a GP app at least?

I know I was iron deficient when pregnant. I know you said you don't want to take pills while pregnant, but ADs are a bit different to supplements, if you're low on iron, (for example) it might be that the baby also needs iron. You have to look after yourself to look after both of you. But defo ask midwife as I'm not sure any more which supplements are okay to take during pregnancy.

There is the problem - the husband works away.nThat is not equal marriage. That is unacceptable for many of us

Situations in life very rarely stay the same. If you don't change them yourself then the natural course of life will change them eventually.

In OPs situation if she doesn't get the place sorted, the catalyst for change will be the midwife coming in for the new baby in a couple of weeks. She'll see the state of the house. She wont just see the living room, she'll make the excuse to go and wash her hands after touching the baby, and go to see the bathroom and/or the kitchen.

I hope then for the DCs sake the midwife will force change. Sorry OP.

OP whilst I would echo those saying see a GP about ?depression etc, you need to take the bull by the horns here. You're either going to need to get others to help you (which you say you can't/won't do) or you have to find the grit and determination to do a sufficient amount yourself with your DH whilst he is here. Yes it is hard, yes you are tired, yes you are pregnant with a young child, yes your DH works away a lot but basic standards really need maintaining regardless - what you've described in far beyond being a bit untidy and cannot be healthy for your child.

And don't kid yourself things will be better when the baby arrives. You'll have a newborn to deal with as well as a 1 year old and you'll have far less opportunity to rest.

If you and Dh don't get a serious grip on this situation as a matter of great urgency then I doubt your midwife/HV is likely to consider this acceptable for either of your children and then you may end up with SS involvement. But you can cut all of this off at the pass but dealing with it now. You've had lots of good advice on this thread about how to tackle the situation - take action and this within your grip. Don't be a victim of the mess, take control.

But I do think that sometimes especially in AIBU threads can become very circular in a very short space of time, with everyone baying for immediate results which just isn't realistic.

None of us are owed an outcome or an update. I appreciate people are worried and/or frustrated especially given the urgency of the situation in this case, but none of us can fix the problem, and repeating the same posts over again doesn't make it magically more easy to do. The OP can fix it but she needs motivation to do so which is obviously the issue. Keeping posting the same suggestions that OP has already said she can't, or won't, do is unhelpful especially when not adding any new information. (Though I think the outpouring of offers of help is fab )

I think that she is well aware of how urgent and serious it is but is still finding it paralysing. I have been there. Reiterating how urgent and serious it is makes you want to run away and shove your head in the sand some more. What helped (at least in my experience) is a concrete scale of what is most important/what needs to be prioritised, the idea/reassurance that it is possible, that it can be broken down, that it can be done. I don't know whether the OP finds the same things helpful or not but I do know that coming up against the same repeated advice makes you feel as though you are talking to a brick wall.

I used to be really messy and have managed to get on on top of it.

I have a timetable:

I wipe the bathroom and kitchen daily (takes 5 mins each)
If I can't be arsed to do the washing up, I stack it up in a spare washing up bowl in the kitchen so it's confined to that room
I hoover and mop on Thursdays and wipe down surfaces in the bedrooms and living room
I also tidy as I go, don't leave anything sitting on the floor or sofas and put things straight in the laundry basket if dirty
Washing clothes - do it as soon as the basket is full. I get up at 5 to go running, put a load in and hang it out so it's done before I go to work.

Being strict with myself makes the house work seem so much more manageable as it's broken up into chunks.

I sympathise because it is very easy to stop noticing some things. You asked how tidy people keep their houses tidy - well people with tidy houses would not be able to walk past crisps on the floor even once without cleaning them up. You and your dh are walking past things you could tidy up fifty times a day. They've turned into the awful background, not something you act on immediately the way you'd act on them if they were the only messy thing in the house. Because there are just too many things like that for you to act on them all immediately, you end up acting on none of them. (Been there done that.)

I understand about feeling defensive with a dh in this situation too. You actually do need help, but the last thing you want to do is focus your dh's attention more on how bad it is, when he's being reassuring at the moment.

If you look round, some things will stand out as the most indefensible, if someone like a tidy friend or HV (or the midwife doing postnatal checks) was to be in the room with you. Invite them in in an imaginary way, as seeing the detail of things through their eyes will help. The chances are if you look round any room there will be something that stands out as the absolute worst of the worst - maybe it's a top covered with wee or a bit of carpet covered with crisps or a plate with mouldy food right next to the playpen or high chair. Deal with that one thing first, however small, then pause and look for the next worst thing. While you're doing that, don't look at or think about the big picture, because it's overwhelming. Even if you flop back down again five minutes later each time, keep getting up to do small things.

I'm sure you are going to sort it.

Ok. So posters are saying of course this isn't your fault as you are 38 weeks pregnant with a one year old. That your partner does what he can at the weekend, but that the house just gets messed up again during the week.

This does not match up with what you have said about the house - it sound like it hasn't been tidied or cleaned for a long time. A house that is properly cleaned every weekend never gets as bad as what you are describing here.

You absolutely must prioritise a GP appt. If they do diagnose depression, then you can have medication ready for right after baby is born ion the next few weeks. A plan can be put in place, you don't have to take the tablets yet if you don't want to.

If you are depressed, then there is a fair chance that it will get worse after the birth, so you need to start being proactive (easier said than done, I know!!!!). Do you go out much? Have you attended all of your ante-natal appointments? Have you been honest with the midwife when asked about your moods? Do you take your dd to the park/to meet friends/ to parent and toddlers? Was your iron ok when last checked and are you eating well, how is your appetite? I don't expect you to answer me, but just want you to reflect on those questions and discuss it with the GP/ and or your midwife.

I apologise in advance for not having read the entire thread, but I can't go without contributing - and have a boatload to do today.

13 years ago, my house was so bad it could have been condemned. I mean that if SS saw the house, DS would have been removed immediately - that bad.

Emotionally, I was in a very bad place. Trying to clean caused me anxiety because I couldn't seem to make headway, and the environment itself made me feel subhuman. My XH did nothing to help fix the situation, only contributed to it.

Fast forward to now - after leaving (fleeing) XH, my house isn't a showpiece, but I learned that the environment was less about the mess around me, and more about the mess within me.

However, the behaviour that led to it is ingrained. So, now that I have the house under control, I have a personal list of daily, weekly and monthly tasks posted inside a cupboard door (so as to keep it out of prying eyes). I still tick off tasks as they are done, and give myself permission to skip each daily task one time a week.

This gives me a chance to put it somewhere other than bouncing around inside my head, and has reduced my anxiety about keeping house in a huge way.

My DCs each have their own task list, too. While our house isn't perfect, it is clean enough to be healthy and if I get a call from a friend (or anyone else) to say "I am coming over", then I can have the house presentable in less than 30 minutes.

It is important to look critically at your house, though. Does it look like that because you can't be arsed? Because you have more belongings than space? Because you are overwhelmed with DD's care? Because your partner doesn't contribute? Does cleaning it make you anxious? If so, do you know why?

If you have friends who you can be honest with, and who will help you without judging you, now is the time to go hat in hand and ask for help. Get together at a cafe and sit with (ideally) a group of 4-5 friends and ask for one day. Explain that you can't do it on your own, explain that you are trying, but ask them for one full day of help to get you to a place you can maintain. It is that part, the getting from here to there, that is the toughest part. That is what causes the real anxiety.

Also, try not to isolate yourself, it makes the developing mess less visible to you. Have a regular visitor, say a friend who pops by for a cuppa every Thursday afternoon. It will give you a fixed point weekly at which you say "back to my reset point". If the friend who comes by is one of the ones who helped with the big day of cleaning, they can also see that you are not wasting their time and effort.

You and your family are worth it. You deserve to live in an environment that calms you, your DD will fare better if the groundwork is set and she becomes part of the team early (as a toddler, for example, she can fold flannels with help, separate socks from the rest of the laundry and big socks from small socks, put one you away before she gets another out).

Many people see housekeeping as drudgery, but in actuality, it is self care. You can do it. It is a slow change, but you'll get there.

Just to reassure people a bit.

The 'worst of it' is tackled. Yesterday I sat down and looked around and thought 'God I live in a shit pit'. The 'worst' (cat wee, crisps, washing up) was done yesterday before I went to sleep for the first time.

Today I have managed a little more.

Thank you for your support.

It does sound like you are shattered, and while you might have the energy for a 10 minute clean, your house needs 4 hours, and as you haven't the energy for 4 hours, you aren't doing the 10 minute start.

Lifefubar's post above is very good. If there are dirty dishes in your front room, you must be walking past them to the kitchen now and then without automatically picking up one thing. Granted, you can't carry them all, but everytime you walk in or out, you could carry one thing.

Imagine the HV is coming round tomorrow, do just a 'guest' tidy of your front room. you'll feel better if you've done one place.

oh sorry, x posts! sounds like you've made a good start! I'm not a naturally tidy and clean person, it's a constaint battle.

That is fantastic op, well done!!

I have to admit that my house is nowhere near as clean as it could be and that I mostly keep on top of the big-ticket items (laundry/washing up/floor clutter) and let the rest pile up until either I or DH announce that we can't stand it anymore. You're really not alone in leaving things be for a bit.

Small things like having a scorched earth policy to leftover food, drink and other wet waste can make a massive difference. Dry mess doesn't tend to go off or smell, whereas wet mess does. Always tackle food/drink/biological mess first and dry stuff after IMO. And rehome the cat

Yeah there's not really a queue of people wanting incontinent cats

She doesn't sound incontinent though, because you said that she uses the litter box if she considers it clean enough. So she might just need a bit of training, which you understandably might not have time to do.

Yes, but people still aren't going to be queuing to rehome him and if they WERE it would be at the expense of another cat - this is his home!

Ok, right. Does he go outside? Could you increase the amount of time he spends outside? That might reduce his opportunities to wee on your clothing.