Does anyone else just feel like crying over their messy house?

[Iliveinazoo]

I'm soooo sick of it.

We're a fairly typical household, me, husband, two young kids (one preschooler), both dh and I working.

I swear trying to clean up with kids and a husband is like trying to shovel snow in a blizzard.

I can't even be bothered to go into the mundane details of it all, but things like.

You sweep and mop, they eat one meal, you may as well have not bothered.

You clean the bathroom, the toddler goes to the loo, misses, yay pissy floor.

You wash every single towel in the house, 3 days later every single towel in the house is screwed up in a damp pile in the corner of ds1s bedroom.

You clean mirrors, windows, glass doors, one hour later fingerprints all over said surfaces.

I try to fold washing, toddler tried to throw it all around the room like it's the best game ever.

Husband 'helps' by loading the dishwasher, nothing comes out clean because guess what darling husband, plates down come clean when they're crammed in on top of each other.

Apparently I'm also supposed to be ironing and washing bedding weekly, I don't.

I've tried everything, nobody notices or cares apart from me.

Iliveinazoo Usually I have loads of energy. I managed to clean out about 5 big bags of Ikea stuff tat mainly from DS's room the other day, as I know Christmas is round the corner, and he'll probably get more stuff that he probably doesn't need. I wouldn't mind, but we live in a small 2 bed flat and mess can accumulate ridiculously quickly.

I remember when he was born. He had, I counted, over 20 new born hats!

Kokapetl: That organised Mum thing about the kids room is so far from my reality that it could also make me cry. 30 minutes, to do all that? I wouldn't get the floor cleared in 30 minutes, let alone the rest!

So you do what you can - one week, strip beds and clean windows. Following week, sort through all of the clothes. Next time, strip beds and vacuum underneath them.

That's why you need to declutter first to make it work properly. We all have so much stuff that just keeping it tidy is a full time job before you even think about cleaning.

*Kokapetl
*
If you bootcamp the rooms first, take a couple of weeks to do it if you need to - you would be able to do all the bedrooms in 30 mins each week.

You don't do all of the jobs on the weekly tasks but must do them all on the bootcamp. You prioritise the jobs that need doing most and stop after 30 mins.

You also spend 15 mins in the morning doing basic daily jobs like making the beds, putting a wash on and wiping round the toilets

I know it comes from a good place, and I'm overwhelmed at how generous people can be, but it can be even harder to get across, that they literally, don't need anymore stuff. I've tried.

make hom suffer the consequences of his behaviour. he gets to eat from mucky plates if the dishwasher is not doneright. or he gets to sort it and deal with the mess.

washing: fold only a few things and put them away. you can fold a few more later. no point doing it all for toddler to chuck round room.

also think how much worse it would be if you had not done any of the jobs.

hide your clean towels in the bottom of your wardrobe or something. make ds one collect towels and load washing machine. allocate one sort of towel as his. (eg colour)

use toddler as a polishing dusting machine by teaching them to play cleaning the floor with their bum on a rag or racing a cloth along the skirting boards. any way train them early and allocate a job

I bought a load of storage boxes etc to keep things in that before had just littered the sides etc.

That seems to have helped as well.

You need to clear the clutter and tidy up before you can actually clean. Feels good once it's done and you are on top of it though!

I feel your pain. 3 kids, youngest with asd likes emptying entire toy boxes one after the other. DH does clean superficially and does everyday stuff quite well, but it just looks like a tip as soon as the kids are around.

The deeper cleaning that makes it look nice is all down to me. For the last week I have given up due to work, deadlines and illness. Today I thought I would start one room at a time. Did the bathroom and ds's room (smallest one) and made the elder two sort their own room. Feel better now having done something, even though I cannot see the floor of the conservatory for toys.

Going with the snow analogy I have considered buying a plastic snow shovel to shovel up the lego and toys in the evening to save my poor feet.

I clean when DC are in bed the living room is a state though 7am-7pm every day, like an animal lives there.....

My house is a shit tip. I've come to just accept I'm a messy person. I tidy but within 10 minutes of the kids being around it's messy again. And sometimes I look at the piles of laundry waiting to be put away and just can't bring myself to do it 😂 even when my house is tip top nobody comes round, but guaranteed when it's messy as hell everyone in the world drops in. Love to be one of those tidy people with a show home but I'm not. Maybe it's genetic? 😂😂

I used to have the washing pile issue too. It was massive.

Give yourself rules and be strict - only put a wash on when the last one is put away.

And yes to whoever said get the kids to do it. Their washing is one thing they can easily manage from about 5. As is making their bed, opening curtains etc

About to drop off ( sleeping tablets for insomnia ) so place marking for later.
I have turned my house around in a week.

That's why you need to declutter first to make it work properly. We all have so much stuff that just keeping it tidy is a full time job before you even think about cleaning.

This.

The cleaning I can manage. It’s the fucking clutter that’s getting beyond me.

I was speaking to my sister today, she recently had an operation on one of her hands and the other hand needs the same operation. She has one DS who is disabled and doesn't do housework. She had a good moan about the state of her small house but she thought because I have a DH, 1DS who is disabled and 1 DD aged 37 and 39 my slightly larger house and garden would be really tidy. My DH does the shopping, cooking, washing but doesn't like hoovering or dusting. My DS only does the recycling. My DD who works does the driving sees to the pets, chickens and 4 rabbits and hoovers once a week. I am disabled, walks with two walking sticks, can only stand up for 30 seconds try to do what I can when sitting down. The trouble I is that DS is a hoarder, Lego from age 5. DD is a shopping fanatic and hoarder. My DH has no idea of sorting things out which is why we have a full up large garage, four sheds and a full up loft and every room is full up. No sign of the DS or DD leaving home or me and DH becoming less disabled and can't get rid of the animals. So the future is untidy and staying like that.

At least it's just your kid that misses and pisses on the floor...

When my four kids were young we used to play the "Tidying up game". I'm retired now and I still play it by myself sometimes. The rules are these: Everyone starts in the living room and picks up one thing which is in the wrong room. They take it to the correct room and put it away, then pick up something from there and take it to the correct room and do the same. Eventually, when a room is tidy and you can't find anything to put away, you do a job in that room. Not a big job, something like dust a table, water a plant. By this time, the kids have usually given up, but the place is tidy and because you aren't doing anything much in a particular room, it's not boring!

All I can say is Ikea Kallax unit..... I'd die without it

go to Youtube and search for "hoarders". That always gives me incentive to clean house!

ilooovechristmas I have one of those in my DS's room! Love how much the boxes can fill so much, and are quite cheap, so I don't mind if my DS destroyes them, which he is half way to doing already.

What was said up thread, he also just likes to grab the boxes out and tip all of his toys on the floor. I've given up trying to tidy up over and over, to only find him tipping the box again.

I've tried the tidying up game, but he just says 'noooooo' and runs off!

Ugh yes, speaking of cereal, what is it with bastarding Rice Krispies, ds is incapable of pouring a bowl of them that doesn't result in my stepping on the fucking things for the rest of the day.

Oh yes!!! Drives me fucking mental

Lately I've been sorting though stuff and getting rid of the broken stuff, items which are way too shoddy and need to be replaced, and stuff that I don't really need. Makes tidying up much easier.

Oh and papers. Boxes and boxes of papers that have no purpose now, just shredded them and was very happy about it. For several weeks I keep staring at the mountain of clothes though, haven't even started on that.

ohello I'm really bad for that, but it's mainly obsessive compulsive cleaners that seems to get my arse in gear haha.

@TheWickerWoman I really recommend you start reading Marie Kondo - the life changing magic of tidying up before your holiday starts. It should get you excited & in the right headspace. It's a great book!

A few suggestions from me:

Look up Dana White (A Slob Comes Clean) I listened to her declutter audiobook and it spurred me on to declutter the house. I did an hour each Sunday over the Summer and made a huge difference, must be 50 + bin bags gone to charity/tip. Dana is so much more relatable than Marie Kondo (who has no kids and talks to her socks!) Cleaning is so much easier with less.

Cleaning - I try to blitz the house each Sunday morning when DH takes DS swimming/soft play. Much easier than them being around, I manage to tidy, throw out rubbish, dust and hoover. Do you have a time limited opportunity like that?

Have also completely delegated some cleaning to my DH. He cleans bathroom and kitchen period (other than regular quick wiping I do of toilet/sink). He’s not brill at keeping on top but does a deep clean one per month and my eyes bleed he uses that much product!

Otherwise, I’ve generally dropped my standards but the house is ok.

@buckeejit

Thank you, sounds interesting, I’m going to have a look for that right now.

I'm trying the organized mum method. You do need to do a week of decluttering and deep cleaning first to get in control but after that, it's amazing what you can get done in 30 mins plus there's 15 mins of daily jobs so 45 mins in total. I have a young son and work full time and it's working for me at the moment. I was literally cleaning all evening and all weekend so this method has given me some time back! I still do a proper deep clean every few nontbhs. You also don't flip the mattress every week. You do a basic clean of the bedroom once a week and then there's an 8 week cycle on a Friday where you focus on one room at a time to do a deeper clean so one week it'll be the bedroom, then the living room then the kitchen and when it's the week to do the bedroom, that's when you flip the mattresse.