To say no to request to clean his house?

[Rose789]

I feel like a bitch and I’m awake at 1am worrying about it.
My brother and sil have 3 kids. Between ages of 4-10 (so all in school)
Brother works full time sil works part time (3 days a week)
Kids spend every Saturday night at their grandparents house.
Sil has been signed off for work for depression and is struggling and finding it difficult to get the motivation to do anything.
I text sil and told her if she ever needed any support or someone to listen I’m here for her.
Spoke to my brother told him if there was anything I can do to help let me know e.g if they wanted me to have the kids overnight or if they got stuck with the school run.

He’s messaged today saying what would be the most helpful is if I could go round and clean the house as it’s a bomb site and sil isn’t doing any housework and he hasn’t got time with kids.
I’ve said no for several reasons

1. I have my own house to clean. Yes it’s hard trying to clean around kids I understand that. But that’s the same for everyone. The oldest 2 are more then old enough to start helping in the house but they have no chores at all. They will eat sweets and just drop the wrapper on the floor. Have a drink and the cup just gets put anywhere.

2. My dad has a lot of health issues. As a result I spend at least one day and one evening a week cleaning his house doing his washing making meals, getting shopping. My brother occasionally visits and doesn’t help at all.

3. I was ill at the start of the year and spent a lot of time in hospital. Dh managed to clean the house, look after the kids and visit me, and work full time. Brother and sil picked up dd from school on one day. No other help- or offers to help.

4. the kids are at their grandparents every single Saturday night. Blitz the place when they are gone if you can’t do it when they are there.
   I would kill for a night off every single week.

I know my reasons are valid. But I do also feel awful for sil I have been in a similar position where everything was just too much of an effort even getting out of bed. While the mess and dishes and washing piled up around me. It’s an awful place to be and it might help her if the house is clean and tidy and she doesn’t need to worry about it. But she has a husband who is just as capable as she is at stepping up and doing the cleaning.
I’m such a people pleaser I’m really struggling to stick to my guns and refuse to help.
I’m not being unreasonable am I?

Don't feel bad for turning this down - I offer 'help' a lot when I've had friends or family in similar situations, but I'd never for a minute expect for someone to ask me to clean their house. Nor would I agree to it. I think if you did it for them once they'd probably ask you again.

I've not read the whole thread and I think it's been mentioned already, but it's more appropriate for you to offer to have the kids to give them the time to clean themselves instead.

Well, you've helped clean, now. I wouldn't be doing it again. If he'd rather get drunk and play than do some cleaning, I guess living in a bomb site must not be so bad, so they can continue to do so until his housekeeper wife is sufficiently recovered.

If I'd come back with the kids and found that he'd done almost nothing, I don't know if I'd have lifted a finger to help. That's just pathetic on your brother's part! What a jerk!

Obviously offering to help comes with implied conditions and limits. But according to literalists, I guess we should be providing a very specific list of options instead of casually saying we are available to help.

[quote Annasgirl]**@Lucilia, @biddybird - clearly it has moved on since then. But no doubt the OP appreciates the passive aggressive tone. Only it works best when the "helpless man" has not rained on your parade.[/quote]
My bad, I didn't see the latest message of the OP! Read all the rest though. Well, that's a shame she hasn't been rewarded for her good actions.

I don't understand your comment at all @Annasgirl, firstly I'm saying the opposite of biddybird and secondly how could my message be passive aggressive when I'm clearly agreeing with the OP and her initial reaction? Odd..

Your brother sounds like a pisstaker.

Well done for being the cleaning whirlwind that you were. I'm sure it will mske difference to the kids and SIL.

You are a good person OP.

To all those who said OP should suck it up and clean just because... have you ever cleaned a house that is an actual bombsite?

I have friends who are a childless couple with MH issues and struggle with cleaning. I helped often and once it got bad enough that a full top to bottom clean of the small, two bed house was needed. They both helped as did my DP and another friend. It took us all two full days 8am-8pm. None of us had kids or big commitments like OP does and there were five of us.

Cleaning like this is not a minor undertaking.

That money he pissed away on alcohol could have been spent on a cleaner.

I've been on both sides of this; when I was depressed years ago my best friend and her mum came and spent a whole weekend helping me to declutter, organise and clean the house, and then another weekend helping me to decorate my bedroom. It was really lovely that they offered (insisted) to help and made it much less overwhelming and was so much nicer to be in the house when it was done. When one of my other friends was going through a bad episode of bipolar me and another friend went and stayed with her for the weekend and helped her sort her flat out. The difference here is that help was offered rather than directly asked for, and was a helping hand rather than "can you do all my cleaning for me cos my wife can't atm". You've been more than accommodating OP.

It is very time consuming cleaning an already messy house.
It strikes me the brother had no concept of that fact.

But you did saying ‘anything’. What else is he supposed to take from that? He can ask and you can say no but you were the one who originally offered. Just saying. If you had a list of things that were off the table then you should have said it can help with XYZ but not XYZ’

No wonder women end up as overwhelmed as they do with the bullshit that surrounds them.

Go skivvy for anyone and everyone.. that's all you are good for...you are an uncaring bitch if you don't work yourself to the bone helping others.

My daughters are being reared to love themselves first, take care of themselves first, value their lives first.

I never hear men being guilted in this bullshit.

They end up being praised and lauded when they do the bare minimum.

Boils my piss.

@EmbarrassedUser

But you did saying ‘anything’. What else is he supposed to take from that? He can ask and you can say no but you were the one who originally offered. Just saying. If you had a list of things that were off the table then you should have said it can help with XYZ but not XYZ’

Are you embarrassed because you haven't read the thread? 🤔

So anything could have meantt, sort out our garden, clean the gutterings, fix a loose tile on the roof, paint the kitchen....

Silly OP not to have spelt out absolutely everything that she wasn't prepared to do🙄

Was the op seriously meant to go and try to do a job whose equivalent in the two cases in Hobnobsandbroomsticks recent post took three people two whole days.

It was a totally unreasonable request to make imo which possibly shows someone who has no inkling of what sorting, tidying and cleaning a home entails.

@SallySeven

And that was without three kids who leave their stuff where they drop it (as said by OP in her opening post). Even if OP did go round and blitz the place, sounds like it would be back in it's original state in less than a week, especially as her brother seems to think turning the washing machine on counts as being productive, I don't count really laundry or things like emptying the dishwasher as cleaning, they're the basic 5 minute jobs that need doing daily, if her brother isn't even managing to do those then the house must be in a state.

If you look at the opening post there’s a small link at the bottom that says ‘see all’. Then you can read all the OPs posts on the thread and stop writing stupid shit at the end.

@ Lucilla - sorry yes you were supporting her, It was biddybird who was chastising her.

@BessMarvin

@billy1966

No wonder women end up as overwhelmed as they do with the bullshit that surrounds them.

Go skivvy for anyone and everyone.. that's all you are good for...you are an uncaring bitch if you don't work yourself to the bone helping others.

My daughters are being reared to love themselves first, take care of themselves first, value their lives first.

I never hear men being guilted in this bullshit.

They end up being praised and lauded when they do the bare minimum.

Boils my piss.

Oh @billy1966, every day, on every thread, I feel like I have crawled back to the 1950's.

YANBU, OP, and I'm sorry that it seems as if people here have guilted you into attempting to clean for him. When I read the OP I didn't think you were BU but after seeing your update I'm even more positive that YANBU.

You offered help and gave examples of the sort of help you were able to offer, given your own busy schedule. As many have said, you could look after his children while he cleans the house, but he's lazy, CBA and is looking for the next nearest woman to saddle with the cleaning chores he clearly never has to do.

I feel as if a lot of people are skimming over the fact that he's simply not doing anything beyond 'looking after' the kids in the evenings after work. He's presumably as able-bodied as OP, who also works full time and has children (and looks after their father!), so why is she being guilted so much?

@Rose789

Well that was a waste of time. Dropped the kids off at 5 asked how it was going. Brother has spent most of the day recovering from a hangover. “It’s alright though I’ve done some washing” Sil was in bed. So I broke local lockdown rules and went inside. He had done nothing since the kids have been away for 24 hours except a load of washing that was still sitting in the machine. So I put the washed clothes in the tumble drier put another load in to wash. Got the 10 year old to empty the dishwasher and put away the clean stuff. Refilled it when it was empty and set it away. Took the bins out. Got the 7 year old to sweep the floor. Did a load of dishes that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher and mopped the floor. 7 year old dried the dishes, 10 year old put them away. Handed brother a duster and some polish and a black bag and got him tidying the living room. Gave the 4 year old the job of picking up all of her toys and putting them away. Then sent brother off to clean the bathrooms. So for everyone saying I was unkind by not helping when I said I would do anything. I have now helped. He’s had 24 hours childfree to drink some beers and play computer games. Now I’m home with a mountain of my own washing and ironing to do. My kids are asleep without me saying goodnight- when I was dropping off my nephews and niece I said I would be 20 minutes and we could read a story together before bed. My husband is pissed off that he’s looked after 2 children That aren’t his all day spent about £60 entertaining them thinking he was helping someone struggling and it turns out he was just getting drunk. He’s done bath and bed by himself made the packed lunches. He’s pissed off we’ve barely seen each other all weekend.

I know I am late to the party but I need to add my chorus to 'he's a twat'.

Line in the sand.

No more for him, OP.

Why don't you go round at the weekend when his kids are away and your kids are with your OH and suggest that you and sil hubby (assuming your bro) clean together and blitz the place so it is manageable for him to keep on top of...?

If he isn't used to it, working full time, looking after kids and a depressed wife isn't going to be easy... I struggle keeping my house straight with just me a DD

Oh. My. God.

Are some people just taking the piss now & pretending not to have read Op's posts?

I'm really shocked that 43% of people have said OP is being unreasonable even just based on her first post. How can you read points 1 - 4 by the OP and think "yeah, YABU to not agree to being your brothers replacement skivvy". Sounds like you've got enough on your plate and your brother is taking the piss completely.

It wouldn't be unreasonable but you offered to help... So help them clean up or pay for a cleaner as a treat.

YOU don't have to do anything you don't want to but I'll only help with the things I feel like not what you need is a pretty hollow offer.