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 have a tidy house that is not clean. If it was untidy… it wouldn’t be clean, it takes forever to dust, mop or vacuum clean around the mess. Honestly… not happening.

I describe my flat is messy. A pile of stuff on the ironing board and the table, both of which were clear last weekend, and a few cat toys on the floor doesn't make it dirty. YABVU, not to mention judgemental.

Maybe people who don't mind mess have a higher dirtiness threshold?

What?! I have a cleaner and obviously don't clean too! Why would you clean in top of your cleaner's cleaning?!

So the period between your kids taking out stuff and leaving it about and then putting it away, your house is, for that moment in time, 'messy'. You also say your house is clean. So that period in time where your house is 'messy' but clean, is what people mean.

Not like, big cleaning! But cleaning as I go after cooking and stuff... I'm not a lunatic 😅

Surely you clean your worktops of crumbs and if it gets say jam or butter on/wipe the sink if toothpaste gets on it/clean up crumbs off the floor if you or the kids spilled some? You wouldn't leave those things lying for days till the next time the cleaner was in, would you? No judgement, I'm not exactly the cleanest person! Just asking.

I'm really not trying to be funny but what kind of person let's this type of absolute nothingness occupy their mind, like, why do you care, how is this an issue in anyone's life! Remarkable!

I always think it’s a load of defensive bollocks when I read it on here 😂 if it’s messy, it ain’t clean. If it’s cluttered, it’s not clean.

It depends on if it’s perpetual or temporary clutter I guess: if your house is always full of the same stacks of stuff etc then no it isn’t clean, it couldn’t be. If it’s a mess at the end of a busy day but you scrubbed it down last night and will again tonight then it’s messy but clean.

My house is messy but clean. I have a 7 month old and there toys and laundry everywhere. But you could eat your dinner off the floor.

My DP is a clean freak, so the house gets plenty of cleaning. Our DS, however, is a tornado, so his toys don't stay in the boxes much longer than the cleaning takes, and there's often a t-shirt and trousers strewn across the living room when he decides he needs to strip off down to his underpants to be a superhero. Our house gets messy throughout the day, and I'm pretty certain Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor are still on my living room floor downstairs, but it's still clean. Just messy

My home is within respectable limits.
That is all. I do not really care about how clean or tidy it is. Kitchen and bathroom clean. Life is lived in the rest.

I hate to be that poster who says this but fuck it, it's how I feel.

Can anyone here imagine a thread full of men posting like this, or about this?

It just shows that despite it being 2023, many women still feel the need to justify themselves about how clean/messy/not messy etc their houses are.

But I guess sadly, most people still judge women for the cleanliness/tidiness of homes rather than the men.

It would be unusual for anyone to walk into a messy or dirty home and think "He doesn't keep it very clean, does he?"

Sad.

I tidy my house every other day I clean doors, oven, bathroom, skirting etc every weekend, right now my house is messy as I just cba tidying the kids toys and sorting washing etc so yes my house is messy but clean!!!

It’s a spectrum isn’t it, what people consider clean and what people consider messy.

I usually refer to our house as messy but clean. It’s not a tip…. Just toys get pulled out daily, basket of laundry say waiting to be folded, homework out on the table etc. we clean and tidy all the time but the stuff reappears daily!

I'm messy and clean. Clean allll the time. But today tried about 40 outfits on for an outing and all are strewn across my bed. I'll probably move them tomorrow. Place looks like a tip. Still clean though.

When I say mess I mean kids toys everywhere. Piles of laundry to put away, shoes not put away. School bags dotted everywhere. It's just life clutter but the house is clean.

Because a mess can be made minutes after a big clean.

I do a big clean on a sat, by that evening it's a mess. Kids will do that in minutes.

On Wednesday afternoons after the cleaner has been, our house is tidy and clean. Then it gradually gets messier until Tues afternoon/Wed morning when I yell at the family to clean it up and run around picking up the shoes/bags/bills/pegs/cat toys and random bits of crap so the cleaner can find the surfaces to clean them. And we start again. So depending on the day our house would be tidy/clean, untidy/clean, untidy/dirty, tidy/dirty.

I take it to mean that they have toys out and their scatter cushions and throws aren't neatly arranged on the sofa. I agree that long term messy is unlikely to be clean because mess gathers dust and no one is going to move it, clean thoroughly and then put it back!

I totally get the kids make a mess within minutes of cleaning the house.

But, I also had friends who were in to arts and crafts, had no kids but their homes were always messy but clean. And I can tell the difference.

Projects in various states of completion strewn about the place. Shelves disorderly and clutter everywhere. But, you can still lift clutter and clean underneath. Sometimes people like to put their clutter back exactly how it is otherwise if it’s tidy they won’t be able to find anything.

So, it is possible to be messy but clean. There’s an art to it. Organised chaos.

I think you need a hobby

Not necessarily a lie, no.

I've known people whose homes were definitely not dirty they were cleaned very frequently, but with three kids and a hectic lifestyle, plus cats, dog, near constant stream of other kids through it... there was mess, yes.

The mess would be moved pretty much daily, and then replaced by more mess.

I definitely spent enough time in such homes to know that if you had to go rummaging for something (and you generally did) you would not find nasty yuck lurking under anything!

My house is spotless right now, cleaned, bleached etc. In about 6 hours when my dogs have their mad hour, they will upturn their toy box and pull the stuffing out of their toys. It'll look like I have toddlers in the house. The house will still be clean just messy with dog toys.