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?

OP you sound very judgemental. Some people struggle to keep a house clean and /tidy for many reasons. Or maybe they just prioritise other things in their lives like maybe having fun?

My friend used to say this. She was wrong. The house was so messy that it simply couldn't be clean. You can't hoover when the kids clothes and toys are all over the bedroom floor (and no she didn't pick them up when she hoovered). If she spilt something she would wipe it up, but would pick up things near the spill to wipe under it, so there'd be a ring of mouldy coffee around the bread bin etc.

Plus dust collects so much faster in a messy home.

I lived with her for 6 months and it was awful. She'd "clean" the bathroom but wouldn't move the shampoo to clean under it because she never binned the empty bottles so there was loads on the side and she wouldn't move the bath map to mop under it.

I always wonder if there are these judgy, competitive cleaning threads on men’s forums?

Mine is currently tidy but quite unclean 😂

If it’s short term mess, eg kids toys on floor clean laundry to be sorted then yes. A good gauge is the question - how long would it take to clean up the mess? In these cases less than 30 mins.

If it’s long term clutter, then I agree OP it’s not possible. I think people have very different standards of what constitutes clean and messy.

I have children, I go to bed and my home is spotless a show home would struggle to compare (in my opinion) I enjoy a wine in my efforts and get a coffee to savour in the morning but once the children are up it’s a mess it’s clean just a mess

Messy but clean sums up my house

Surfaces cleaned, floors cleaned washing done, bathroom cleaned etc but there's the pile of folded laundry I finished this morning on the table waiting to go upstairs, the toys my daughter got out waiting to go away and the bags of shopping (not food) I got on my lunch break on the floor waiting to be put away.

It looks messy but it is clean

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.

How can you say it's clean if you don't Hoover and wipe everything in sight down with zoflora twice a day?

Mines the opposite, I’m very good at tidying, it’s neat as a pin most of the time. Bathroom and kitchen get done frequently, but there’s outrageous levels of dust around the rest of the place.

Everybody has different standards, I think. Some might think their house is clean and tidy but I or you might go in to their house and think it's dirty and messy. Or vice versa. We all have a different perception of what is clean or tidy, basically.
Personally I don't know how anyone with children can choose not to vacuum daily or clean the bathroom. Those things have to be done daily in my house as a minimum.
My children always say that I love cleaning - I don't, I detest it - but I have high standards and love living in a clean home. Some people don't and that's fine, fortunately I don't have to live with them and they don't have to live with me!

Mine is messy and dirty. It's not disgustingly filthy and it gets cleaned, but it's rare that I would move the sofa to hoover behind it. There's dust around. I clean before people come round so no one will ever use a dirty toilet in my house, but I wish I had the kind of home that I didn't have to clean before visitors because it would be acceptably clean all the time! Once the children are at school I plan to spend a day every week on it...

That always pop up. I really hate this implication or accusation that a tidy home means you have no life, or your children are neglected and not allowed to move a finger.

I have seen so many bitchy comments on parenting forums or groups, in the line of: if your home is too tidy, your health visitor will have concerns about you 🙄.

Be tidy, be messy, you don't live in my house, I don't care.

But having a tidy home actually saves a lot of time, energy and mental space.

See that doesn't sound messy at all to me. Messy here is bits of paper and lids off random pens all over the floor, odd socks under the radiator, junk mail in the hall, an assortment of kids paintings, clothes pegs, pens, bits of string, more junk mail, toys, on the side in the kitchen, odd shoes lying about, etc.

It's subjective isn't it? Pretty sure mil thinks I have OCD around cleanliness...she's a hoarder though and her house is total chaos.

Some stuff we clean daily, like surfaces, laundry, dishwasher etc. Floors and bathroom etc once or twice a week. The rest of the time there's craft stuff and duplo pretty much every where. I'd say that's messy but clean.

My house is messy but clean. We are crap at putting stuff away so it's always pretty messy except the day the cleaner comes where everything is tidies up and the house is cleaned top to toe.

It's perfectly possible to pick up the piles, clean under and behind them, and put them back where they were.

For me, kitchen, dining area, bathroom, kids bedroom and hall are actually clean. Living room and our bedroom not - basically dusty. I run out of faff for these, especially as living room is overwhelmed by being a workspace. But it's dusty rather than dirt like you get in hall, bathroom, kitchen.

My house is clean but messy! I also hoover everyday (4children &2 dogs) I bleach the house also everyday but you bet come 3pm there's toys everywhere blankets and books in the living room and hand prints on mirrors/glass!

Honestly, who cares? So long as homes aren't bio hazards, have them a tidy/untidy, clean/dirty as you like.

If DH was gone for 2 weeks, our house would be clean but untidy. I am the one who gets the vacuum out, wipes surfaces, mops floors etc and I do it a lot. But I'm not great at tidying - cushion will be strewn around, clothes too etc. Piles of paper etc less so as I tend o gather those up and put away (not file ) regularly.

If I was gone for 2 weeks however, our house would be surface tidy, but filthy. He might clean the bathroom, once. And he'd wipe down surfaces in the kitchen daily. Maybe he'd vacuum but only once. There would be neat piles of stuff in various places but no, they would not be clean underneath etc.

But I do find that some houses that are messy do feel dirty, usually because the floors are never vacuumed.

Hmm, always felt this conflict with my MIL - her house was FILTHY I mean kids' socks were black from her floors, dusty, cobwebby, greasy plates, sheets not changed between visits, makeup on the phone handset...but oh so tidy!
I had higher standards of hygiene/clean but low compared to a lot of people, but tended to be a bit untidy, especially with young children. She was always tutting at my house, but I didn't really say much about hers!
I think there's basic cleaning, like worktops and eating tables, toilets, floors done fairly regularly, and then there's spotless, and I think you have to be quite tidy to keep it spotless. I will never achieve this, except maybe one room at a time for a few days, but I am happy. I have plenty to keep me busy!

Obviously it's possible to lift up piles of mess, clean under them and then just drop them down again. But most people don't do that. If you could be bothered to pick stuff up and clean under it, why wouldn't you then put it away/throw it away etc.

In my experience, there's a large correlation between people who can't be bothered to put things away and tidy up after themselves and people who can't be bothered to clean.

That said, I wouldn't consider houses with toys out being played with or just generally day to day living stuff out being used as "messy" unless they weren't being tidied up at the end of the day. That's just living in a house. A house doesn't have to be a show home the whole time - it needs to be lived in. As long as it starts the day clean and tidy and ends the day clean and tidy what happens in between is just normal life!

I think when people say this they just mean it's clean as in the kitchen wiped down, toilets and bath cleaned regularly, clean up spillages etc, no dirty plates out. Most people don't care too much about dust. A bit of mess and dust is pretty normal.

My kitchen is messy but clean. I cook a lot though so it’s super tidy and then I just undo it (I’m about to bake and make dinner for instance).

I have been in plenty of tidy houses that were dirty.
My MILs was very tidy but only surface cleaned and only the main areas, bedroom floors were never cleaned properly or very often. My feet were black staying there.
Friend only used to clean the middle section of her front room, not behind TV, furniture or under. She had laminate, it was absolutely filthy behind and under sofa.

But why does the day have to start clean and tidy and end clean and tidy?
Why does it count as acceptable mess during the day but not acceptable overnight?
I find this interesting because it is often just the biggest waste of time moving things backwards and forwards to achieve societies view of tidiness around some socially constructed view of when life must reset and restart, (night time).
I have to admit I've slowly laxed about this. 3 kids under 7 and I'm not going to keep moving things one way at night to have them moved the other in the morning, or move toys into bedrooms at night just to have them dragged down again after school the next day.
I prefer to tidy less often, and then clean, rather than tidy constantly just for it to be messed up again.