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

[MrsPreston11]

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)

The dog was sick last night diarrhea on the balcony soo gross woke up to this partner asleep on the sofa I've been cleaning all day eurgh I need a drink and some scented candles

When I had a home delivery the midwife and her student were chatting with me between contractions. My mum had just made them tea and the midwife said what a lovely clean kitchen I had (I'd had a mad burst of nesting the previous day and it had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life.) She said she always checked out people's kitchens in case they offered tea. She said it was since she drank a cup of tea in a house and then went to put the cup in the sink to find all the dishes lying under a layer of nappies, some just wet but some dirty. She realised that was where he cup had come from.

I worked for a social housing provider and one property I visited to try and help the tenant in avoiding eviction was so bad we decided to evict for breach of tenancy conditions as well as arrears. There was dog faeces all over the floor, I couldn't sit down as it was so rank. I don't mean one or two piles I mean a dozen or so. I've seen properties that are so full of stuff you can't see any furniture. Boxes and boxes of stuff and loose items everywhere. The second case he was a hoarder. Both t clearly had mental health issues, but when rats are in the property eating the wiring etc due to the amount of debris everywhere you can't not take legal proceedings; it isn't fair on the neighbours. If they won't engage . . . what else can you do

@Lotsofslats - yes I agree, that's entirely possible. There is of course more to the story but I'd rather not out myself. And I do feel it's a little 'those glass houses etc'. I do feel they need some serious help.

I stopped visiting with my kids because I felt it was a health hazard!

We had tenants for 12 months. The house was clean when they left and everything fine except they appeared to throw mugs of coffee up the bedroom walls, it was bizarre as everywhere else was OK but you could see mug fulls of coffee, or similar coloured drink, had been thrown with some dents which I assumed was where the mug had hit the wall with the liquid contents spilling down the wall. Just the one bedroom. The mid boggles.

The only other issue was in the bedroom that I assume their son used. He clearly had an air gun or air rifle and did target practice in his bedroom as their were pellets in the walls and door. I just can't imagine letting kids play with air guns in their bedrooms.

I'm sure we all do things that puzzle other people.

There is dirty and there is cluttered.

I'm not interested in cleaning. I seldom find it satisfying. It's work. I do it bc the alternative is disgusting but a bit of dust or shoes on the floor? I have other things that are more important than chasing after every bit and if dh or dc can't be bothered, I'm certainly not spending all my time cleaning up.

I have a limited number of days on Earth and I'm not spending most of them cleaning.

That said, unless I'm really sick, the house is clutter perhaps but seldom dirty.

I have a lovely friend, a highly educated medical professional, who lives in utter, utter squalor. She has three large dogs who are at home all day while she's at work, so there's quite often dog faeces lying round the house and the carpets are soaking and stink of ammonia. Her kitchen is full of dirty dishes and unemptied bins/bags of rotting food. She's been sleeping on a sofa downstairs for over a year because her mattress is soaked with dog urine. I cleaned the whole place for her once (with her permission), steamed and shampooed all the floors and got it absolutely lovely, but it was back as bad as ever within a couple of weeks. I've offered help on numerous occasions but she just brushes it off and says firmly that she'll 'get round to it', so I've had to accept that it's her choice to live like that, for reasons I can't presume to understand. She has a busy, active life outside the home, a good job and loads of friends and walks absolutely miles with her dogs before and after work every day, so I guess the house is just not a priority for her.

Many years ago, a parent was telling me that although she is a self confesserd hoarder, some bits of her house were clean enough for the baby to play. She was worried now that the baby was crawling as it had started eating the mouse droppings!

I once saw an interview in one of the Sunday papers with a well known politician (can't remember who it was) and his wife. They were in the paper because it was election time and the wife was standing as a candidate for the other party, so it was all about how that impacted on their relationship blah blah. What was interesting about it was the photograph of them together in their kitchen. Their filthy, messy, stuff on every surface, stuff overflowing onto the floor, broken cabinet doors swinging off their hinges kitchen. It was utterly bizarre. They clearly couldn't care less otherwise why would you have your mess pictured in a national newspaper. Diff'rnt strokes and all that.

I remember doing a cleaning job once and the house was horrific
rotting food everywhere, rubbish rotting on surfaces.
the saddest part of it, was I went into the 10 year olds bedroom and it was immaculate. that poor kid only had his room as a sanctuary as his parents clearly had severe mental health problems and the rest was total squalor. I felt very sad for that little boy on his own

AlbertaSimmons that is interesting. My husband, a retired policeman, always says there are people who are houseproud, there are people who are messy and would like to be houseproud and people who are messy and couldn't care less. He reckoned the middle group were the worst off as they are always apologising/ashamed of the state of their houses whereas the messy and could care less brigade........ well they couldn't care less. Obviously the houseproud must be happy I suppose.

Hunting that is sad.

This was our house growing up: beetles in the carpet and cupboards, graffiti all over the walls, things growing on the kitchen walls. People were visibly shocked and covered their noses when they came in. My parents have cleaned up their act slightly now but I don't visit much. My mum describes me as 'houseproud' because my place is generally pretty clean but I'd say I'm fairly average.

Sometimes it just becomes too much. There are some great videos on YT of people tackling their own homes and turning things around. My New Me is the name of one. It's good to see it can happen.

My husband is, he’s seen houses with walls and woodwork completely stained yellow/brown with smoke and the place absolutely stinks.

Carpets so manky there’s inches thick of hair and/or dog/cat mess just left. Said some times he wipes his feet on way out.

Worktops dirty with spills and sticky brown patches with cat hair stuck to it, piles of dirty dishes with mouldy food on, baby bottles with curdled milk in.

Bathrooms with black rings around the sink and bath, toilets so minging he wouldn’t even pee in them. Layers of pubes on everything. Sometimes there’s dirty underwear/old nappy’s lying on the floor..

I could go on. But some of the stuff he describes is disgusting. Not just a bit messy or a normal untidy/lived in house.

My sisters house is awful. There is rubbish everywhere, dirty clothes and broken toys piled high. The toilet is black with grime and you stick to the flooring throughout because of the dirt on it. The fridge is filthy with rotten food in it and the children's rooms stink of urine. She see's this as a normal way of living though?

My dads house is also quite grotty, the cats run riot and he has smoked in the house for 30+ years. The smell is vile.

There is mess as in stuff around the place and there is mess as described above with faeces etc.
Not quite that bad but when I first started work I visited a farmhouse (wife had passed away) where literally every surface in the kitchen had dirty crockery and it had clearly not been cleaned - well since she died I guess. He offered us tea and it was a challenge to appear to drink it. The irony was that in its day this kitchen must have been state of the art - I had never seen so many (by then) vintage kitchen appliances. I just felt so sorry for the guy - he clearly could not cope. I guess that goes for a lot of these cases. Mention this one only to show it is not necessarily something new.

I have been there. When I was younger I struggled to maintain a tenancy. I was very mentally ill. My first house was disgusting. I have improved significantly over the years. When I had DD1 I managed to turn things around once I seperated from my husband.

Now I am at a stage I cant bare messiness or dirty as I get panicky.

Phew, and i thought i was a slob! A relative of mine disinfects door handles before people come to visit, and compared to that i’m Fag Ash Lil but i could never bear to watch that programme ‘how clean is your house’ because it was so nauseating. I can only imagine that some of the people described above have given up on life and themselves and have serious mental health issues. No-one should keep a dog in those circumstances, let alone a child.

My hubby has a job where he has to go into houses... the worst one I can recall was where there was small children/ toddlers crawling around amidst dog excrement and he could see flees jumping about. He had to come home to shower and change before he could go in to his next job.
It’s seriously scary how some people chose to live. 😳

Our house is a home. Never immaculate but clean.

I have never witnessed a property like the ones described on here. Both my midwives and hv commented about how tidy my house was with a newborn. Imo it wasn't. I they, the hv in particular, were filthy though. Both accepted tea. My house is not as immac as the houses of half our friends.

I once taught a child whose parents had both died from drug overdoses. The children had been taken in by relatives but every single item in the house , apart from the clothes the children were wearing - which were then disposed of by the relatives (the clothes not the children) - had to be burnt . The social worker told me she also destroyed all the clothes she was wearing after being inside the house for a couple of hours. She said words could not describe the house, the stench, the way some items moved.........

I often wonder what happened to the family, the relatives were lovely people and devastated by what had happened, they had lost contact with the parents and the situation spiralled out of control.

2 worst houses I've been to belonged to Mumsnetters 😮

I’m really paranoid I’m going to recognise myself on this thread soon 😂

Back in early 2000, I was offered a house by the council. I arrived there was a pile of rubbish (broken sofa, bit of carpet, rubbish bags, etc)in the front garden. The housing officer walked in with me, we both heaved with the smell of urine and feaces. The house had been emptied, but not cleaned, there were lumps of chewing gum on every stair, pets of some sort had been kept in the utility room, so the concrete floor was seeped in urine and the doors had paw prints (in feaces)all over them. There was no kitchen, as in the cupboards, sink etc had been ripped out, even the window sill was missing, chunks of bare concrete. In the back garden, half the fence was missing, there was a supermarket shopping trolley full of house bricks, and a couple of half full, used, cat litter trays. The back half of the garden had concrete tipped over the grass, part of a childs bike(rusty)as well. Upstairs, the toilet floor was so soaked with urine the floorboards were rotten , and the wall was so worn away, you could see through to the bathroom, which had been decorated in polyfiller (you could tell by the way it crumbled)and was dark pink and lime green. The house had fleas as well.
We saw all this, in the 5 minutes we could bare to be in there, the housing officer apologised, and expected me to decline, but, I suprised him by agreeing to take on the tenancy. Ive grown up on programmes like How clean is your house? Changing rooms... etc lol, and have a great imagination.
Had a few more problems once we'd moved in, within the first week we had a police raid at 6am (looking for one of the previous tenants), baliffs twice , and mini cabs from different companies, turn up on three consecutive nights around 9.30/10pm