AIBU, to think these pictures were staged

[60sbird]

Would anyone actually allow their children to make a mess like this, I know I wouldn’t
metro.co.uk/2020/10/05/these-are-the-uks-messiest-bedrooms-of-2020-13371611/

sadly I fear they aren't. I had a flatmate who wasn't quite this bad but that was only because her boyfriend used to come round and tidy up / do her laundry etc. Left to her own devices I reckon it would have been on a par with these. She was smelly!!

Most of these are not “messy”, they’re filthy.

@samosamimosa

That one with the guinea pig, the poor thing is in a cage that is too small and if the room is anything to go by it's probably neglected too.

And there are things on top of the cage so it is probably never taken out and handled. What a terrible life for a small animal :(

Nah, not staged. I know people who live like this as adults.

@SBTLove

The ones that are clearly young kids rooms are the parents responsibility, mounds of clothing not put away is not a wee child’s job. These parents should be ashamed not posting online.

And if they were put away, but the child has emptied out the drawers and wardrobe?

There's two guinea pigs in there as well so it's even worse, they have company but no room to run and play. I hope they are reported.

That is not mess. It is filth.

The children's rooms don't look filthy. The beds look clean. So saying children are removed from their homes because of messy bedrooms is a bit OTT and misleading.

Why is this shit being rewarded?

It all depends on the circumstances. If you are one person against adults and children helllbent in making a mess, there is only so much energy, time etc. to tidy. I am in that situation. I let my teenage son’s bedroom get to a certain point then tidy it.

@ImaSababa

If they are real, social services need to get involved...

Nonsense. If every child with a messy room was investigated where would it stop? There are way way bigger problems out there.

This is why when my children were little their bedroom floors had to be cleared before they went to bed. I would stand in the doorway and help with directions on where to put things but everything did have a place.

There are loads of threads on the teenagers board where parents will say all teenage bedrooms are like this. Even photos have been posted. They are not all like that. I would be ashamed if mine were.

I shared a room, and a small one at that so there wasn't a lot of space on the floor between mine and my sister's bed. We kept it very tidy but I believe that we didn't have a huge amount of stuff either.

I think when they get as bad as those photos then it becomes harder t know where to start, but they have to start somewhere.

It's the adult rooms in that list that look like actual filth. The young kids ones just look like they have pulled everything out and not made the beds.

I'm sure that I've seen picture number 3 somewhere before.

That article makes me feel anxious and stressed just scrolling through it 😱 - imagine living in it! (And I’m not even that much of a clean freak!)

Even if you're too lazy to clean why would you put clothes and FOOD in the middle of the floor? Mind-boggling.

I could smell picture 1 (not envy)

The kids rooms- my DD went through a stage of pulling everything out and her room sometimes looked very similar. The difference being that I would make her tidy it up with me rather than post a photo online!

I can't imagine the smell from two guinea pigs in a tiny cage kept inside all the time. Ours have a two storey indoor cage for winter that's massive, and it still reeks if you leave it more than 3 days.

Sadly, I don't think a lot of these are staged. I've seen worse. A family member was a hoarder and it got to the stage she slept in a double bed that only just had enough space for her to sleep on. There are hoarder support groups on facebook with some right horrors.

I’ve got at least two friends/acquaintances who live like this. And they can’t see that there’s anything wrong with it.

I agree that the young children's rooms are messy rather than dirty, but the adults are filthy. The only person I knew who lived like that, especially the food wrappers and bottle hoards, had severe mental health issues.

I had a friend when I was younger who’s Whole house was like this. It was disgusting. When her mum used to ask if I wanted to stay for dinner I used to panic trying to think of excused. I swear something moved in the kitchen one day under a pile of rubbish.

@JenniferSantoro

I’ve removed children from homes like this. This is not just untidy. This is neglect.

Really because my 2 neices and nephews live like this, with dog shot on the floors, no sheets on the bed, maggots in the kitchen. Social work are very involved, yet those children remain in that house.

Those images are really depressing.

The rooms must also stink.

The animal in a cage looks grim. Probably not cleaned out and as PP have said, the cage is tiny.

We once helped a friend move house. We knew they were messy/dirty from the downstairs (and I have very low standards), but had never been in the bedrooms. Believe me, their bedroom made these look pretty good, and we actually ended up using a shovel to get stuff off the floor (the DH was driving the van back and forth, the DW was elsewhere with their two small children as pregnancy was making her too ill to have done anything) as there were used insulin needles, used breastpads and lots and lots of dirt/rubbish etc and we weren't quite expecting it to be that bad. The kids rooms were a bit better (at least no dangerous objects), but the bathroom was absolutely filthy.
Houses they lived in after that were also really bad, but I never ventured beyond the living room, and you never accepted food or drink

Bloody hell. Where they are children’s bedrooms that’s a clear case of neglect.

Also, no child needs plastic junk in those quantities! No wonder nothing can be kept tidy when they have 100s of toys to find homes for. The gross, wasteful consumerism of it is horrific.