ARGH unexpected visitors, messy house

[shopping247]

I am so so so mortified. House is a complete tip right now. We are in the middle of a 'huge sort out' that has carried on longer than planned as we haven't had a chance to finish as we have had a lot going on, so there is just junk and clutter piled everywhere. It is BAD. Kitchen was a mess too. Bins need emptying. You know, the lot. Typically, I have this whole weekend free ready to sort it all out!!!

So I come home today to hear that DH had bumped into our neighbours and chatted to them about a problem we were having with something needing fixing. So of course, he invites them in, the husband with his wife in tow, to have a look. Inside our absolutely chaotic, messy, pigsty of a house. NDN are a lovely couple, their house is immaculate from what I have seen of it.

I could kill him and I just want the ground to swallow me up!!! I never want to see them again! I want to move

AIBU to ask you to please me feel better and tell me this has happened to you too 😭

Unless I invite someone to my house (which is very very rare), I don't let unannounced visitors in. I rarely get any now!

I have kept family members at the door before when they just popped by...

I would never call to someone's house announced.

If I was invited into a messy house, severely messy as yours was, I wouldn't comment at all, but I wouldn't forget it, and could never eat anything in the place.

Yeah I would move too 😂 My worst nightmare:

Best thing to do is just laugh it off and forget it, especially if you explain the circumstances. It really doesn't matter what they think- if they're not nice, their opinion isn't worth having, and anyone nice won't judge you on it, or even care. They may even find it rather reassuring.

My house is often a mess, party it's doer-upper, partly I can be a slob when I have work deadlines. I stopped caring long ago what people thought. I do clear up if visitors are expected. If they aren't, it's pot luck. I just explain the situation and if they don't like it, well, they don't have to come again.

(It's clean where it matters, like bathroom and kitchen, even if plaster dust etc. can be on things elsewhere, and that's all that's necessary for anyone nice.)

When I was pregnant with our first I had severe HG and after a short hospital stay my friend called round unexpectedly with a care package while the house was an absolute disgrace. Not just from my hospital stay but the preceding days when DH was away with work. To add insult to injury, while my friend was there the dog decided it was enough of a shit tip that it justified weeing in the front room. Mortified.

I said nothing and my friend never mentioned it for which I'm forever grateful

Eurgh my partner does this. Causes most of the mess and then just invites people in without a care in the world.

Personally if I visit a house that is untidy I genuinely could not give a single fuck. Not one. I do not care.

Yet when people come to mine I end up manically cleaning and tidying so they don't think we are slobs.

So don't be mortified. Unless they are judgemental ^^knobs, people don't generally care about other people's homes.

I love seeing messy houses, it makes me feel so much better about the state of my own! I genuinely feeling more at home with a bit of mess compared to an immaculate show home.

Try not to let it bother you. Our house is often untidy and you get friends, family, tradesmen in sometimes - so what. It doesn't reflect on me any more than it reflects on DH. We do our best but it's a battle. Nothing is unhygienic, it's just scruffy often and dusty.

I feed cats for several of my friends and their houses are far worse than mine - and they have a cleaner! They don't care - that's their standard and they're comfortable with it.

My PILs insisted on coming to visit us the day after we moved into our new house. Then MIL commented on how messy our new ( rather large) kitchen was: "Oh yes, it doesn't matter how large a kitchen is, a kitchen will always be very messy". We had just emptied a lot of boxes to look for cutlery etc. so we could feed us all.

Their reason for visiting that day was that they wanted to help us. I didn't find it particularly helpful that they spent five minutes putting up one lamp and then spent the rest of the day sitting on a sofa chatting with my husband and thereby prevented him from getting anything done. But we only see them a couple of times a year and my husband was pleased to see them.

Every time I open a thread about cleaning and tidy houses, I feel as if I have gone in a time machine back to fuck knows when.

I can't believe someone is seriously worrying about what the meter-reading-man thinks.

I know. It blows my mind. I know a lot of people, with and without FT jobs/children/cleaners, I’ve lived in a lot of countries, and I think in RL I’ve met precisely one person who would give the cleanliness of his/her house the kind of headspace that seems widespread on here.

I can honestly say that if I want invite someone I’ve run into over spontaneously, my only caveat is whether I have food and drink for them. ( I mean, obviously there’s food, but something I can prepare quickly, not chickpeas that need to be soaked.)

This exactly

The ground would have had to swallow me. No living left after that for me 😂😂😂😂
best story of the year!

Yes! It's always the bloody men that let them in because they don't care at all.

It's happened to me. Too many times. People only seem to want to come round when the house is at its absolute worst. I can keep it today for a month but the day week I don't tiday, someone will rock up 😡😭😖

I had a neighbour when my kids were small whose house was absolutely chaotic. My kids even commented on it to me
but
she was the most adored person by children and adults alike and none of us really cared. The comment was a passing comment and the adoring comments were many and far more regular.
It made me realise it didn’t really matter.

Having said that I’m am neither adored or tidy.

Unexpected visitors need to understand they were not expected and just get on with the scenario. If they don’t like it, hopefully they won’t return soon.

I don’t mind unexpected visitors, but they must take it as they find us, and that may well be a total state of chaos.

DP invited another dad (one with a cleaner and an immaculate house) and his two kids round to play with my son this week. I’ve just finished a school drama production, which always eats every moment of my spare time, and I’m 7+ months pregnant, so I hadn’t got up on a ladder and taken down the fly paper we had to hang in the living room in October when we got an invasion of cluster flies and daddy long legs. So there was a gross dangling strip with about 100 dead flies on it which he saw, as well as loads of other mess and dirt I haven’t had the time or energy to clean. I was pretty angry, but of course was told that it didn’t matter and this other dad won’t have noticed. I can guarantee he fucking did.

When you see the wife again make a joke about it..." oh my goodness you really caught us a bad moment
Trying to declutter causes more mess" and laugh
Suggest they come for a meal when you are more organised

It's always the bloody men that let them in because they don't care at all

No it isn't. Some women don't care either.

As for "when you see the wife again, make a joke about it": this is so depressing. Some women genuinely don't care about this stuff.

Reading this thread is honestly like going back to some bygone era in which women didn't have jobs or lives or interests other than cleaning and tidying.

Totally agree @RachelFuchsalot

If I'd unexpectedly bumped into someone who offered to take a look at a problem that needed fixing, I would have invited them in at that moment too. It's got nothing to do with having a penis or not.

@shopping247 I can totally relate to this. Not only was the house a tip, but they asked to use the loo, which had been used by DS earlier and was disgusting 🤢

At least you had clothes on.

DH messaged to say he had forgotten his key so when he knocked on the front door I peeked down the stairs to check it was him as I was naked having just got out of the shower. He had gone to work in a red T shirt so knew it was him through the private glass door

I trotted downstairs and opened the front door, mucking about I showed my bare leg round the door. A voice said, 'I need a signature, please'. I raced back upstairs for my dressing gown and said 'I'm sorry' to the postie', he said 'It's ok'.

I still don't know which postie it was as I kept my head down and looked at the floor.

This has happened to me before.

The only way to try and make right, was to spring clean the whole house until it was pristine, (or at least the parts where they'd go) then casually invite them round, in the hope that they'd believe that this is how we normally live, and the last time was a one off.

The only problem is, having to keep it up for the next time they turn up uninvited!

Cheeky bastard! How dare he seek you out to judge you! I am seething on your behalf.