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Original poster

To want to know what they mean by "horribly messy"

140 replies

MrsPreston11 · 04/04/2018 11:16

Just had the plumber leave mine, I always offer workmen a cup of tea and while he was finishing it he thanked me a lot saying he didn't get offered a cup the job before, but he was sort of grateful as the house was so bad.

On another occasion someone who works for a letting agent said I wouldn't believe some of the things she sees (school mum who I'm not friends with but we were having sort of a group conversation waiting to be let in, so I couldn't pry)

Now my brain is going crazy wondering what these people see on a daily basis. I mean I've seen those shows abut hoarders etc, but assume that's very rare.

Any of you in these lines of work? I want to know what it is folks who get to go to lots of homes see!! (Pure perverse nosiness on my part)

OP posts:
Butterymuffin · 05/04/2018 09:20

I like that story unlimited. It's clear from the many threads on changing bedsheets on here that standards can vary wildly.

GrumpyGoose · 05/04/2018 09:28

We once had someone out to fix our dishwasher and he started making comments about how grubby it was underneath and behind said dishwasher. Do people regularly pull them out and clean behind them? I think our floor (and my back) would be fucked if we started doing them weekly. We just ignored him thought because he refused to ring our doorbell because "he didn't believe in ringing doorbells" so we never heard him both times he arrived Hmm

Cheekylittlenumber · 05/04/2018 09:28

My nan was a hoarder. Her five-floor house was full to the brim of rubbish. She had piles and piles of broken toasters, old clothes, egg boxes, general bric-a-brac. every room was piled from floor to ceiling including her bed, although she kept a tiny area to sleep on. She had no way to wash but I believe her toilet still worked. She would also stack things high on the stairs and one day tripped down some books that were on the landing and caught her leg in a spindle of the stairs, twisted backwards and died by chocking on her own vomit. My dad found her.

My family all live in clutter but now I have my own home I am constantly bagging up stuff for charity, having clear outs. We've just moved home and still living chaotically and it's making me feel ill!

ohfortuna · 05/04/2018 10:28

he didn't believe in ringing doorbells
So did he stand outside and whistle or try to contact you telepathically?
😁😄😅

notacooldad · 05/04/2018 10:33

An article on the news last night reminded me about this thread.
The sons of May Appletonwere finally evicted from their home by Weaver Vale yesterday.
They had numerous chances to declutter over 60 years of things they and the mother had collected.
The house was absolutely crammed with 'stuff' it had become a fire hazard.
I'm not judging on this case as there is a lot going on behind the scenes.

JaceLancs · 05/04/2018 10:40

Worst I came across when working in child protection was someone who took ages to answer the door - I had to try and see them so peered through letterbox ready to try shouting and attract some attention to find them with a large shovel trying to clear the waist high piles of rubbish to get to the door!

ohfortuna · 05/04/2018 10:43

Hoarding is recognised as a mental disorder as far as I know, I think animal boarding is also considered a separate category
many of these cases seem to involve keeping animals in circumstances which are inappropriate such as the pigeons mentioned earlier or just way too many pets in a house

Perhaps sometimes the condition of the home is a reflection of some inner chaos and turmoil?
Perhaps a rebellion....a refusal to abide by societal norms?

With animal hoarding sometimes people seem to get very emotionally attached to animals and then they collect more and more of them.

LEMtheoriginal · 05/04/2018 10:46

What a wonderfully judgemental thread

ohfortuna · 05/04/2018 10:46

He won’t clean so neither will she and they’ve been in a deadlock for years. Could easily afford a cleaner too but can’t/won’t as they would have to pick things up first
This makes me think of those threats were someone says my partner won't do any cleaning what can I do and the advice is to stop doing any cleaning so as to force them to pick up their share of the responsibility.
Obviously this could develop into a dangerous game of chicken which ends up in an intractable mess 🤤

rockshandy · 05/04/2018 11:59

I read this thread and it spurred me into cleaning the bathrooms and hoovering.

The bathrooms weren't even dirty and DH hoovered last night.

I am a naturally messy person and in the past when I was depressed I definitely let my house go to the point I was ashamed of it. But now its fine. Usually a bit of washing up to be done as our dishwasher is broken and I hate washing dishes, but that's it.

When my eldest was a baby a friend of mine had her second child and I went to visit her. There was a literal path the width of one foot from the front door through the hall into the living room to the sofa. I didn't see the rest of the house but the hall and living room were piled high with stuff. The baby was still in her snowsuit a couple of hours after they had been out and in desperate need of a nappy change. It was so sad. She eventually lost both kids because she was totally incapable of prioritising them, but SS worked with her for over a year trying to get her to improve the house. She was just oblivious to it all.

RoseWhiteTips · 05/04/2018 12:24

LEMtheoriginal

What a wonderfully judgemental thread

My thoughts exactly. How depressing that some people are almost gleeful as they contribute to threads like this. It must make them feel sooooooo good about their own circumstances. I’m sure there is a label to fit such “interest”... Hmm

As for the OP’s interest in such living conditions, well, words fail. Weird.

RoseWhiteTips · 05/04/2018 12:25

Oh - and I am not a hoarder, before anyone jumps in.🙄

RoseWhiteTips · 05/04/2018 12:27

Loving the way some of you who have worked in “child protection” or in “ss” are contributing. Wow.

notacooldad · 05/04/2018 12:40

Loving the way some of you who have worked in “child protection” or in “ss” are contributing. Wow.

Why's that then? Rose

GrumpyGoose · 05/04/2018 13:20

@ohfortuna he knocked on the door but you can only hear the knocking in certain parts of the house and it was just luck that my brother was walking down the stairs and heard the knocking. He answered the door and said something like "why didn't you use the doorbell? We can't hear knocking through 2 sets of doors into the house" and I shit you not he said he doesn't believe in ringing doorbells so he doesn't. He returned the following week to fit the part he ordered and didn't ring the MFing doorbell. Baffles me.

WineAndTiramisu · 05/04/2018 16:46

It appears done people on this thread can get offended about anything...!

My parents rented a house out years ago and ended up needing to completely strip it out, the carpets were threadbare from wet and the floor boards were rotten with urine and faeces (human and animal), I've no idea how a family were actually living there when I saw it.

sunshine11 · 05/04/2018 17:38

A question - should you report houses/families like this to SS? I've a friend who lives like this and it's horrific. There's not actually anywhere in their house that isn't cluttered or dirty. They have no living room because it's full of stuff floor to ceiling. There is nowhere that's restful. The kitchen is a state, never tidied, festering food everywhere. They have four kids who are often in dirty and ripped clothing. The kids all have behavioural issues, which can't be helped by living like this. Meanwhile parents are both articulate intellectuals.
I am extremely concerned about the kids but it seems wrong to report.

Jordan4531 · 05/04/2018 17:43

My husband is a courier and he always comes home telling me about the awful smells he has to endure at mucky houses when people open their doors. I'm obsessive about smells in my house so I don't understand how people can cope.

silverbirches · 05/04/2018 17:56

My dh has been in quite a few places where he's said you feel the need to wipe your feet on the way out.

Schlimbesserung · 05/04/2018 18:01

I know there are a lot of people who just can't cope and that's really sad, but there are also a lot of people who are just disgusting.
The filthiest person I've ever come across is incredibly rich and privileged. He has a cleaner about 10 hours a week and she still can't keep on top of his filth. It simply wouldn't occur to him that tipping his ashtray out on the floor because he didn't want to empty it in the bin isn't okay- after all, the cleaner will clear it up. (This is the mildest example I can think of).
It goes without saying that his cleaner bloody hates him!

wooo69 · 05/04/2018 18:06

I work in social housing and would never accept a drink in any property I visit. Lots of properties are like the ones on documentaries on tv but the people that live in them cannot see what the issue is and we have to be very careful working with them to bring about improvements in living conditions

Turquoise123 · 05/04/2018 18:07

and what did you do then thepurpleladys I hope this story has a happy ending....

Caribou58 · 05/04/2018 18:08

We rented our house (4 bed detached with conservatory, in great condition) out for 4 years - to the same family - whilst we lived abroad.

When we got it back, it was cleaner than when we left...the carpets (oatmeal throughout) were, quite frankly, as if newly laid.

I'm telling you this because not all tenants are pigs.

Goldilocks3Bears · 05/04/2018 18:09

I'm a cleaning freak. I don't mind a bit of mess and I don't coordinate my entire home to magazine standard, but I do like clean.

Some of the above stories are horrendous but I wanted to add that I also know two families from school who live in very messy and dirty conditions. The parents are all professionals and I do wonder how they perform at work when their homes are covered in old paperwork, washing on the kitchen floor next to the cat litter, and broken this and that never seeming to get fixed. Saying that, their collective children are all lovely, sociable, well fed, happy, well adjusted humans and they all perform in the top half of their year groups in school.

So I do sometimes wonder if I'm too focused on the visual element of creating a nice home but this is just the way I was brought up and I'd be ashamed to welcome people into a dirty home, be that friends or workmen of any sort.

LotsOfSlats · 05/04/2018 18:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.