... To want to give up work

[ItWasneaMe]

Ever since I went back to work ft, my house has been a complete tip. No one helps with the housework. I have 3 adult children: one who is at uni, other 2 live at home. The eldest has turned into a hoarder and his room is full of rubbish, dirty dishes and unwashed laundry. The middle son is messy too and keeps dishes in his room. Even my DH leaves his stuff in a mess - I have to clamber over his clothes to open the curtains and if he can't find a shirt, he just goes to the shops and buys more, rather than put his stuff away.

When I was at home ft, I used to spend one day a week in each room, so it would be clean. Plus all the laundry & hanging things up. Now nothing gets done. Clean clothes are in a pile by my side of the bed, which gets moved into a pile on the landing when I get fed up.

When will they ever grow up & stop assuming I'm OK with this? I've lost count of the family 'meetings' to try to sort things & the ongoing tension. I hate coming home & am too embarrassed to have friends round.

Help!

I’d get a cleaner twice a week and charge everyone for the cost of cleaner

I’d close the door on their rooms and just buy some strong bin liners. If their stuff is around the house it goes in the bin bags which get put in their rooms. Things might get broken or soiled but they learn quickly enough. Same with dirty laundry for your husband. Bin bag. Then dish up supper on dirty plates if they’ve not put them in the dishwasher. Dirty mugs too.

Alongside that make it a bit easier. Rota for cleaning and cooking. Laundry basket each and don’t do their washing - put time they can do their laundry on basket. Give a few times to each person. Hanging loops and pegs for towels with colour coded ribbon.

All the while you do it, despite talking, they’ll think it’s your job and they don’t need to. If they don’t cook on their rostered day, there is no meal. You can go and get something for yourself. Are they paying towards food? Perhaps those not at university should also be buying the supper they cook.

I don't see the point of getting a cleaner for this scenario. It's just going to be left to OP to do the night-before tidy up, and it's the tidying part that is the issue.

I support the suggestions of OP getting her own place and divorcing the H.

Sorry meant to say, should I give up work & go back to being Mum?

To two adult children and your husband??? I'd move out myself before I'd do that.

But this just sends out the message for a small amount of money, you can live like a pig and absolve yourself of any responsibility towards your family and house

how the hell can 3 adults in the house all think they have zero duty to do even the smallest amount of housework? It’s grim

This. ...and get it written down and laminated.

If that fails, leave.

I was about to suggest exactly this.

Which is a better message than giving up work to absolve them of that responsibility sends!

If things are as you describe, then I would be outraged enough to rent an air B and B close by for two weeks and just disappear. I would cry with shame if my family treated me this way.

You have three adult children and you want to give up work to clear after them?!

Are you mad? You can't spend your life cleaning up after them.

1. kick them out
2. hire a cleaner and charge them for it
3. you have a DH problem.

A cleaner cannot clean a messy house.

I don't work but my children's bedrooms are clean and tidy, I don't do them, they know what is expected of them. They are teenage boys. They learned from a young age to tidy up and that meant I could hoover their rooms. Ds1 is away at uni and his uni room is clean and tidy. He bought a mop for the floor.

I don't know what the answer is except who is going to want to live with your children as partners if this is the way they live? And no you shouldn't give up your job to become a house maid.

Crikey OP, this has to stop. I live at home alone with my 4 DC aged between 5 and 13 and honestly, they're better than your adult children and I work FT.

They have to stop this. It's so disrespectful. They're adults and they have to clean up after themselves. It's absolutely shocking you feel like you have to give up work to 'look after' adults who clearly have absolutely no respect for you.

They are lazy, selfish and disgusting for treating you this way.

In the days of unlimited phone data that is pointless!

Surely this isn't real. Oh good. Give up your job and be a serf to three lazy sods. Then your husband leaves/gets ill/loses his job and you are stuffed. For god's sake - dont be yet another statistic

I have zero sympathy for you. You've brought them up to think that a woman will wait on them hand and foot and they don't have to lift a finger.
Teaching children to clear up after themselves starts at the toddler stage so by the time they are in their late teens they are capable of living independently. Kick them out!
As for your husband, I would tell him to shape up or put the house on the market and divorce.

It's not about them automatically shaping up, it's about having them crystal clear conditions under which she is willing to stay at home

If they fail to do what's required then she can leave.

(As it happens, I do think if people are given clear written rules they do tend to stick to them.)

There's no rush to leave, I'm sure she can give them a month to see if they can keep things clean and tidy. (It'll take longer than that to find a new property.)

Echo others here OP. You have made a rod for your own back. Your the maid, the help and not the wife or mother.

Being "mum" doesn't mean being giving up your economic independence to become a skivvy for adult children and DH who are perfectly capable of looking after themselves should they wish.

I really hope this thread was a joke

This can't be a real question. Kick your kids out if they won't make an effort.

Mobile phone signal blocker then! They are about £30 on Amazon.

I agree with everyone! It's the piles of clean clothes lying around and accumulated stuff that bug me. I ignore it and it just doesn't go away.

If you agree with everyone, then what are you planning to do about it?

Well you’ve clearly created a problem by doing too much for them. If they won’t actually tidy and clean, the working adult children need to pay for a cleaner.