Is your DH the same? Guest prep

[Leothebear]

Every single time we are prepping the house for guests, here the things my DH thinks are absolutely essential and starts to do tirelessly:

Clean the toilet? NO
Prep the food? NO
Dust? Hell NO

Clean the kitchen drawer no one will open? HERE WE ARE
Reorganize the file cabinet? SURE THING
Vacuum the garage? YES YES YES

Is my DH the only one? And Why???

My DH too!
AND if I say I’m cleaning toilet, dusting, prepping etc. He says, the queens not coming you know….argh!

It's because they don't understand the concept of the critical path. My DH will decide to tidy our his bedside drawer rather than lay the table, vacuum downstairs etc. I've started asking him if <insert unhelpful activity here> is on the critical path and that usually results in said unhelpful activity being terminated and his attentions being diverted to something that is actually useful.

I thought it was just me. I can't believe how relatable this is!!
My DH likes to start picking up my stuff when I ask for help cleaning; toys all over, his shit out all over, kitchen a state, my DH 'where shall I put this handbag? Do you need this piece of paper' 'where does this lipstick go' ARGH!!!!

Mine used to do this. I think he thought that that given day/time was dedicated to “house” stuff that couldn’t be avoided. He knew his tools/ car/ office stuff didn’t even register with me, certainly not enough to clean them, so he took them on as his and given it was mandatory “house” stuff time, he would do them then. Never mind the actually real “house” stuff that had to be done then and there.

After the one year when I stood in front of him open-mouthed with incomprehension at the inexplicable stupidity of what he was doing, and mentioned he had literally 51 other weekends in the year to do this stuff but not the other, he saw my point. Never happened again.

I have one of these. My family arrive tomorrow so he's cleared the shoe cupboard and cupboard in the hall. They will see neither. The contents of the cupboards were then on the kitchen surfaces or piled up in the hall, in the way of everything I was cleaning. I booked an appointment at the tip for him. Meanwhile I cleaned the bathroom. Knobber.

I would have kept opening it. Might even have given guided tours!!!

”I need to measure how high our energy meter is off the ground”

Uh, I have questions.....

My DH is overly helpful in crap ways ... guests coming in half an hour, I say 'can you run the hoover round quickly please (5 minute job, tops); 20 minutes later I discover he is moving really heavy furniture to hoover under and doing the under stairs cupboard while he's at it.

OMG THIS!!!!! I was running round like a twat yesterday tidying and he goes "I'll help after I've got a quote for contents insurance, see if it's cheaper"

Then "sorry this is taking ages"

He did help after... But why do they start doing random jobs? That aren't high on the priority list

Because they are invisible jobs and no-one will know if they have been done or not. Including you, because you’re running around trying to sort out the actual shit.

If you put up with this, the blame is on you.

Not trying to figure out, “But why? Why do they do this?”

Because they can and they do. And you make up for their shortcomings. Sort it out.

Yes to all of this.

Sorting out the magazine rack was a top priority in the hours before my MIL visited apparently. Then he thought that maybe his work bag needed organising. I lost my shit a bit and told him to put the work bag in the study and get on with shifting laundry.
The work bag remains in the study- unorganised. So possibly not all that vital then?

Batleaf25 we appear to be married to the same man!

Oh gawd mines the same. He had the day off work last week, intentionally to clean and prep for Christmas guests. What did he do?

Emptied some already organised drawers into 3 carrier bags and moved them from the living room (where everything was tucked away and orderly) into the guest room. And wiped the top of the kitchen cupboards, you know that bit where they don't quite reach the ceiling and nobody sees them anyway? Yeah, that bit that doesn't have a purpose.

So what did I have to do? Retrieve said bags, resort and organise, return the things to where they belong, tidy dust sweep and mop the lounge, dining room and kitchen, hoover the 2 flights of stairs and the 3 bedrooms, clean the bathrooms (X2) and the guest room, make the beds and set out towels etc.

Oh and I'm 6m pregnant and was also doing this with the toddler in tow.

Wow this thread is so true.... how have I not clocked this before?! Cleaning the car, mowing the grass, cleaning the windows and patio etc yes they need doing SOMETIMES but totally unnecessary before guests whilst I do the stuff people are actually going to see eg cleaning toilets and kitchen! It is totally so they look busy and doing something useful yet avoiding the shit jobs.... is there some kind of universal manual they pick this trick up in?

He'll tidy, but he won't clean, not even his own areas or his car. He'll make them look neat but wouldn't dream of taking a cloth and spray to anything.

The pressing job that always needs doing when there is not a minute to spare is clipping his toenails and fingernails. The number of times I've been standing in the hallway with coat and shoes on because we need to leave the house NOW, when I hear 'snip...snip, snip...snip' from upstairs. It's like a nervous reaction to being under pressure.

Yep! Christmas morning perfect time to change a light switch…..

@QueenofLouisiana oh yes mine regularly has to organise his work bag obviously as it's so important!! Or tidies his sock drawers etc then moans my drawers are untidy... they are extremely low priority as only I see them... well perhaps I'll take a leisurely hour to reorganise them whilst he does the rest of the cleaning and watches the kids....

My DH fills the bird feeders in the garden.

This is my DH too - he spent 4 hours on Xmas Eve cleaning our average size bathroom. At once stage he came down to get a screwdriver - no idea why!

It was spotless though, I’ll give him that!

I once went out and asked DH to clean the kitchen. When I came back it was in the same mess, but he was in the middle of cleaning the oven with chemicals. He wouldn't bother cleaning for guests, although he did once hide my tampax because they were on show.

Ha! Mine has scuttled off to bed without contributing anything to the discussion.
I expect he saw the glint in my eye and decided that discretion is the better part of valour.

Oh dear, I have just had a fit of uncontrollable laughter reading some of these. DH kept looking at me as my laughter was making our bed shake!

Oh god I have one of these too. Last time we had guests he spent five hours 'tidying the garage', despite me telling him numerous times that they would have no interest in entering said garage (which, of course, they didn't). It drives me round the bend....

Sadly this is too relatable.

My contribution - deciding that half an hour before guests arrive for lunch is the perfect time to start cutting the dc hair in the dining room…..