to think that saying "my house is messy but clean" is a big fat lie?

[SwordViolin]

People say this all the time, my house is a mess but it's always clean but how? If your house is a mess then who knows what filth lurks under piles of papers or clothes or boxes. Anytime I've ever been in a messy house it has always been pretty dusty and unclean. Times when my house has been messy its much harder to actually clean, I need to tidy everything up and organise the space to get ot properly clean.

I mean it's fine if your house is messy and not cleaned because that's life we all have different tolerances of mess and dirt, we all have different circumstances but why say "my house is messy but clean" when it is so obviously not true?

I think there is a difference between untidy and dirty

I suppose a house could get messy after it had been cleaned so would continue to be clean for a while.
A house that is always messy and cluttered cannot be clean. Parts of it may be like the bathroom and around the kitchen sink but otherwise it's just getting dirtier and dirtier.

I think when people say this they don’t mean messy-messy, just not a show home.

Maybe they mean that at least their kitchen is clean, and their bathroom is clean, even though the home is messy.

Depends how messy.

I think there can be temporary mess...so toys out which your DC played with that day. Some school bags dumped in the hall. A basket of clean washing which will get out away later. Then there mess which is like permanent clutter and chaos. If the latter then it can't really be kept clean.

My kitchen right now is clean but messy. I cleaned it very thoroughly while kids were at school today. Right now the dishes from dinner are on the surfaces and DDs homework is all over the kitchen table. I will go and clear it up in a bit...will take me ten minutes and will be respectable again

My house is a mess because my daughter out barbies all over the livingroom. But I hovered before she did that. So it was clean but now it’s untidy.

My house is messy but clean. Walk in now and you'll find school bags strewn, toy cars, a few pairs of wellies. My daughters wardrobe has just been decanted on to the floor as she searches for a perfect outfit. But it's absolutely clean.

Sure if you clean then things get a bit messy sure it is probably still clean but that isn't what I'm talking about it is people with cluttered messy homes all the time claiming their homes are clean. like they may wipe the bits of the worktop they can see but most of the area's where stuff is all round the sides of the area are not moved, put away and cleaned. A messy unordered home is probably not really that clean.

I clean a room or a floor, the small children come and spread chaos and havoc. I clean the next bit. They move their chaos on. You could see it tidy if you came at the right moment to the right room...

I can clean and scrub my house top to bottom and then 10 mins later my DC will have pulled out all their toys and covered the floor with dress up clothes and books. So yes, it can be messy but clean.

So, my house is untidy, not messy but it is clean. A very real example right now is my livingroom, it was clean this morning 🤣 dusted a couple of days ago, vacuumed this afternoon, however there's dinosaurs and cars all over the floor as ds was playing before bed, dh hasn't put them away yet, I've been up doing bedtime, so I'll do them after I've had a cuppa. Then it will be clean and tidy 😀

Well... I'm bad at tidying (basically because I can't be arsed) so I am known to e.g. "declutter" the kitchen worktops so I can clean them, by moving all the clutter onto the dining table. And then when I want to clean the dining table I move all the clutter back onto the worktops. Ditto with piles of toys (onto the couch so I can hoover, back on the floor so I can clean the couch) etc... It just goes on and on. So yes, messy but clean 😂

Messy but clean sums up my house. It's untidy but the bathroom, kitchen etc are always clean.

It just isn't a priority to have a show home or to get a cleaner.

oh yeah I have the type of home that’s show home for 10 minutes each day then it’s a bomb then show home. No bigger ever turns up during show home home 😅 always just after the teenager has showered while I was batch cooking and the youngest was painting while dh was gardening “butchering”

I have a cleaner come every week but yeah it gets a bit messy in between cleans. I think its clean though. Maybe you are the sort of person who thinks you need to hoover every day? If so then no it is not.

There's a difference between short term messy and long term messy

Long term piles of paper or clothes or boxes probably do mean a house isn't properly clean

Short term toys strewn across the floor from a kids playing session etc can still mean your house is clean but temporarily messy

I think people who say things mean that they tidy and clean regularly but their house frequently (often due to children) gets messy quickly inbetween but that mess will then get tidied and cleaned again, instead of people who leave the same mess lying around all the time

I clean things like the floor and surfaces, kitchen and bathroom daily but if you came around my son's toys would be all over the living room so it might look messy but I would think it is clean?

saying that I would tidy up before you came as well...

My home isn't a show home nor do I hoover everyday but it is tidy and well organised which makes it easy to keep clean.

My house gets messy quickly but I clean about average.

i pick everythig up and put it away or move it to clean. And then within minutes it feels like there is stuff everwhere again. Like on my dining table, which i wiped down after dinner, is now a washing basket of clean washing i brought in from the line, a sun hat, a water bottle and my handbag I mopped the floor and now the kids have kicked their shoes off in a messy pile and husband dumped a laptop bag.

It is possible to clean an untidy home - you just move the piles of stuff around!

I'm the opposite. My house is fairly tidy, but it's not that clean . I hate cleaning!

A bit of dust isn’t going to make you ill (as long as there’s not a medical reason) as long as bathroom and food preparation area are clean then what does it matter?

This is what I mean when I say it.

See I hover everyday so even if I was cluttered then my house is cleaner than yours even if you believe yours is cleaner 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm allergic to dust so in my case that isn't really true.

I often think my house is messy but clean. I properly clean each room once a week. Bathrooms/ kitchen every day. I then do hideously messy things like dump clean laundry on the sofa for sorting. Kids leave 40 felt tips on the coffee table and scraps of paper. Dog shreds something and before you know its a shit tip. It’s not dirty or dusty really just pointless mess that wouldn’t take long to put away but kids/ activities/ full time job/ working in evenings to catch up as I skipped out early to get dc to aforementioned activities.