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.

Ps agree with the cordless hoover. Dh is much more inclined to doing now that it is easy to pick it up and wizz it round.

Definitely me.

I've got so much stuff that it feels completely overwhelming. I keep the main areas clean but I don't know where to start on the mess. I would be completely mortified if anyone dropped round.

Yes.
My youngest (10) is very destructive. My life revolves around clearing up and repairing after her meltdowns. It's constant damage limitation.
I can't get to the stage where I'm tidying up to make the house look nice and cosy.

I'm ruthless with things, get rid of toys that are not played with, don't have loads of nick nacks,keep kitchen surfaces clutter free, fold and put away washing when dried(i hardly iron anything) Wash dishes and put away soon after you have eaten.

WeepingWillow I feel your pain about living in a “project” - our kitchen and bathroom are very tired and old and no matter how much I clean, they will never look “perfect” because the paint is peeling off the walls, the units have rotted a bit inside some of the cupboards and so on.

Having said that, I’m planning on starting the Organised Mum method which I read about on here. It sounds doable for me but I’m not going to lie, I’m dreading the bootcamp stage - I’m exhausted just thinking about it!

Weeping willows you don't need to hoover/mop floors every day on organised mum. That's just the "high traffic" areas. If you have a cordless hoover it takes less than a minute or two to do this. In the 15 minute slot you put a load of washing on, make the beds. Basically adapt it to your home. If you are all out of the house for 12 hours a day there shouldn't be much traffic

The boot camp is good to get started. Sorry if I missed whether you have a partner, if he does half then it's only 15 minutes a day

I use to feel this way until I my eldest daughter gave me a Mother's Day card about fingerprints and being small, you should read it there's lots of version on the internet. It's basically about leaving fingerprints everywhere and messing up the house but one day all that will disappear. They are only small for a short while so enjoy it. As for your husband we'll get a basket and put all his shit in there tell them at the end of the week if he hasn't sorted them it's going in the bin!

I use an organiser app - which has all the household jobs and how often they need to be done on it. Don’t focus on how long it takes or how quickly it gets messy again as it doesn’t help anyone - if it needs doing just get on and do it. Split the cleaning in to a manageable amount a day - for us hoovering and mopping needs to be done every day as we have dogs, but the upstairs bathroom only needs to be done properly twice a week - we probably do no more than an hour of cleaning a day during the week and two hours a day at the weekend.

In our house everyone has to do their fair share. Small jobs for the children and the rest split between me and DH - we both work full time and neither one of us should have to do it all,

I always have a quick tidy round before before bed - nothing worse then getting up in the morning to yesterday’s pots and wet towels on the floor.

Inspired a little by the thread I'm off to start decluttering. Third floor first. The two eldest kids rooms. Pretty sure we can part with some toys

goatyoga what's the name of the app. Sounds like something I could do with .

Sparklyfee I do have a dh. He is great with the kids but lazy around the house. It's not he does nothing but his philosophy is very much happy to leave things to weekend whereas I hate mess. He also is like a child in that he leaves clothes everywhere, never tidies up after himself as he goes along. Does more of the cooking but leaves spills and mess and doesn't wipe up. He often cooks himself a supper when I am in bed and never makes the kids open curtains, make beds or put breakfast stuff away so no matter what I do I get home from work and the house looks like shit. My personal hate is scraping dried on weetabix from the table. I make the kids tidy up after themselves when I am here but it's an inconsistent message so takes longer to sink in.

I know I have a dh problem but it's split up or put up with it. For the kids, I put up with it but make sure he does his share at the weekend. Is it ideal. No.

I really struggled with this up until recently and it all comes down to "stuff". I had to clear all our surfaces as soon as toddler DS could reach them, so now it takes less than a minute to dust and polish all the surfaces in our living room. I stopped being sentimental over belongings and now just have one plastic box stored under the bed that has a lifetime of sentimentality in it - everything else got binned/recycled/donated. When you have less stuff, cleaning is easier. And when you have young children you just need to lower your standards. I clean my living room windows once a week but if they get sticky fingerprints on them ten minutes later, it waits until the following week. DS has as many toys as he can fit in a toy box. The house can be messy all day long, as long as once the kids are in bed it can be tidied up in ten minutes and I can enjoy the evening in a calm and tidy room. Prioritise the living room and kitchen because that's where I spend most my time, and try to keep bedroom floor clear.

I've recently got rid of about ten bin bags full of stuff and it's made such a difference. I just thought "if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and die, and DH has to go through my belongings, most of it will get thrown anyway as they are sentimental to me, not anyone else". So as long as I have the memory of it or maybe a photo, I can let go of it now.

@Conseulabananahammock I use one called Family Organizer.

It looks like this. The ones with ticks need doing. The ones crossed through are done.

I've just googled a year to clear. My house is always so messy. All of these youtube gurus look like wealthy housewives whose children are (at the youngest) teenagers at college. That was my impression of Stephanie Bennett Vogt. I'm a single parent, work ft, two teens, tiny house. During the week it's chaos just making sure we're all where we need to be with the right equipment, forms, etc. If I could clear my house in five minutes a day, that could work.

I will look up Dana White.

Marie Kondo works but again, I did it when I was working part-time, not sure I could go at things with such focus and energy now.

Def follow the organised mum method. Has made it so much easier to keep on top of things here

I totally hear you. I get very anxious about it, borderline depressed.

Husband will do day to day things like washing up/kitchen but the amount of stuff he just leaves lying around the house (especially mail) gives me the rage.

I have a fortnightly cleaner but that adds to the stress tbh because I have to do a mad tidy before she comes.

I do think decluttering is key but find this really hard. We all hate putting stuff in landfill so although I recycle and give away/sell a lot there's an awful lot that you can't do either with so it just piles up while I try and figure out what to do next.

My husband is not as bad as his parents but basically is the son of a MAJOR hoarder. When I first went round to his parents house when we first met and I saw all the mess and clutter (his mum had long since given up trying to sort it) I remember thinking "omg I could never marry into this family"- now look where I am 😱😱😱

haven't steam mopped the floor since I moved in but I do like the idea of having a day for certain things.

This is why I'd never get a cleaner...I'd be paying someone to clean something that my dc will destroy within a day.

My dc aren't even toddlers...they are 8 and 10! They still manage to get food all over the floor and table during every meal. When does this stop ffs?!

The other day, my ten year old ds had ketchup on his hands so wiped them on some clean washing I had hanging up

I have childfree friends with immaculate homes...the irony is I probably clean more in one day than they do in a week.

My house is tidy most of the time and I have 3 kids 7,6 and 2 but to be fair the kids do tidy up after themselves and make their beds in a morning etc. But the crumbs when eating are the worse! I hate it when I have visitors coming round and rush around cleaning up. I do most of my cleaning when the kids go to bed, I can't go to sleep knowing I have a messy house.

Thankyou goatyoga will have a look.

I do think the organised mum method relies on having a decent cordless Hoover. I would never be arsed getting the big Hoover out every day but zipping round the hall and food areas every day or two makes a huge difference to how it looks and how I feel about it all.

Do you know what really helped me? Losing the plot at my lazy dh, reminding him it is 2018 and we both work full time, therefore, we both need to do equal share of the cleaning. Saturday am became cleaning time. The more responsibility he took for big jobs, the more initoative he took in the week to maintain the house. On a daily basis, if I put the toddler to bed, dd7 tidys up the toys and dh stacks the dishwasher and hoovers. If he puts the toddler to bed, I do it. Dh has been on a school trip this past week, house was immaculate. He came back friday and I had a spa day yesterday. Today the house looks like a bomb has exploded. Guess what dh is doimg this morning? Taking some responsibility and cleaning. Dd7 is doing her bedroom as we speak. Anything stuffed in a cupboard, under the rug or not put away properly goes in the bin. I aound like a brutal dictator. I am. Im not sorry. Afterbeing driven to tears taking sole responsibility and working full time I had enough. Write up a chore list and get your dh doing 50/50 and the school aged kid involved in cleaning. I threatened divorce more than once.

If someone is crying every day about the state of their house, it's unlikely that they are going to have the mental and physical energy to change the way they are bringing up their children. But you are all right - they do need to be 'trained'.

I would suggest starting small - go for low effort and big returns. For example, toddler could help with putting toys away. Everyone apart from toddler could fold and put away own clothes. Everyone has job to do after a meal.

If you can afford a cleaner, that would obviously help. I've never had one, but friends say they aren't worth having unless you have a tidy house because you're paying cleaning money for someone to move stuff around. A cordless or robot vacuum cleaner is a gamechanger.

I wash, dry and iron laundry on the same day. Someone else puts it away. When I had kids, it would sometimes be on the line for a couple of days - better that than lying around in the house. A tumble dryer cuts all of that out, but again it is expensive to run.

Essentially, you can't do this on your own. You need to decide on priorities and everyone needs to pitch in. Decluttering is the number one priority.

Thanks to this thread just decluttered eldest kids bedrooms and took 3 bin bags of old toys out. Looking much better already!! Just really need to declutter I think .

Really struggling to stay on top of the house here too. Planning to start TOMM! Those doing TOMM with young kids do you still feel the picking up behind them, constant mess etc is never ending though?!