How is your house not a shithole?

[Give0fecks]

Help me. I’m drowning. I just feel so overwhelmed by the never ending mess and clutter and shit everywhere. I spend HOURS everyday tidying and cannot get on top of it.

I have a 3yo and 1 yo, a dog, a lazy husband and we are all at home a lot. So 3 meals a day for the kids and I. Toys everywhere, plates/packets everywhere always on the kitchen sides. Colouring pens, scraps of fucking scribbles, play doh, Breadsticks under the table as the baby constantly lobs food everywhere. Clothes all over the floor upstairs, out of the drawers/ “floordrobe”.

I just cannot cope. It’s not like I leave it and it builds up, it’s just a tsunami wave of mess constantly and I cannot keep up. Everyday the dishwasher goes on, laundry in, kitchen sides/table cleaned, etc and it lasts 3 seconds and it’s like a bombs gone off again.

im not exaggerating that it’s actually causes me anxiety!

both of you not working and a couple of kids is obviously going to make it busy. Throw on a husband who does nothing but create mess and there's your answer. Can he not go out and work?

But I also get help. I rarely do the dishes - DH will do that along with other jobs I have an aversion to.

I also always give the toilet a clean after EVERY use - keep flushable wipes in a nice rattan box for this purpose. Dh does the same now. Plus I wipe the sink and counters when Im brushing my teeth. I’m constantly chucking white vinegar over the bath. Feels like I get a clean bathroom all the time with very minimal effort.

Teen daughters make more mess and have more stuff than when they were small…plus the foot stomping…so it is not over yet, if you have a dd

"it wouldn't be such a mess if you'd raised your child to clean up after themselves" on repeat.

Lazy husband needs this drilling into his head. “Don’t put things down, put them away, if you open it then please close it, if you drop it then pick it up, if you spill it then wipe it up. If you lift it up then put it back down. (Loo seat) if it smells then open a window “.
To the procrastinators (guilty as charged) turn off the podcasts, telly, MN, step away from F/B for an hour or two a day or half a day. and see how much you manage to get through.
But when kids are small it seems to be never ending and if at the end of the day everybody’s been fed and nobody dead then it’s been a good day. I’m off to stare at the ironing pile for a bit.

Tell him:

I am not exaggerating when I say I need time to myself without the kids sometimes and if you can’t help me while we live together, maybe we’ll end up divorced and then I’ll have the times when the kids are with you to look forward to.

So, leave.

I don't mean LTB.

I mean get up, get dressed and announce airily "I'm popping to the shop" and LEAVE. Walk out the door and let him do it. Do to the shop. One with a cafe. Phone on silent.

Re the lazy husband stop washing his clothes he will soon have to get up off his arse and help .

I have very little sentimental attachment to ‘things’.

When I moved out, my mother gave me all of the greeting cards I received as a new born, 1 year old and 18 year old. As well as a box of holy communion candles, plastic horse shoes in boxes, my first ever pair of shoes and a china doll. I took it all straight to the tip.

All my son’s firsts…if they didn’t fit in his baby book, they went in the bin. I never kept any pictures he did at nursery, unless I glued them into the book, or one got framed because it was actually a pretty good painting of a shark (for a 9 year old).

My husband’s mother buys him crap for his birthday despite him telling her not to, for example a pack of cards that each have a magic trick on them. Straight down the charity shop this stuff goes.

I have one pair of work shoes, one pair of running trainers, one pair of nice trainers, a pair of heeled boots and some flip flops. I don’t buy new until the old ones are worn enough to chuck. Same with coats etc. I own one. I hate ‘stuff’.

The less you care about stuff, the less you have to find space for it and the easier it is to keep clean and tidy. It might sound a little brutal, but I could pack up tomorrow and move out very quickly 😂

OMG I could not live with someone who leaves cups on the side and wet towels on the floor!
Everything needs to have a place and people need to learn to put things back in it when they've used it.
There's no excuse for clothes on the floor, that's just bone idle! If it's dirty it goes in the laundry basket and if it's clean enough to be worn again you need some hooks on the back on the bedroom door.
Sort the kids toys into boxes so that they learn where things go and they have to help tidy away before they go to bed. The 3 year old is old enough to be able to help and even a 1year can pick things up and put them in a box under supervision! During the day you need to accept that there will be toys out everywhere!
Get a handhold hoover to tidy round under chairs after meals, or put the highchair on a big plastic mat (a piece of shower curtain is useful) that you can pick up and shake outside. Or get a dog.....they're also good for clearing up dropped food!

Do not flush even "flushable" wipes, particularly after every toilet use. You WILL end up with blocked sewers!

I should of added you should be a team and share the whole load . The house , the kids it's not all on you.

1. this book
2. this podcast (start from the beginning
3. And this fact: housework is cyclical not static. Your house is not supposed to stay tidy and it is simple not possible that all your dishes are done, floors swept, laundry put away, cooking completed, windows washed, children bathed, bathrooms gleaming at the same time. Some are on a daily cycle, some on weekly or monthly cycles. Instagram/tv/magazines have this strange gaslighting effect on our perception of reality.

Do you have any plans to return to work, OP? If I were you I’d be seriously thinking about it.

In the meantime, enthusiastically seconding the A Slob Comes Clean podcast or audiobooks, a give no fucks attitude to the ILs (‘Yes, it’s really messy as it’s overwhelming at the moment and to be perfectly honest with you your son acts like a third child and is no use at all around the house. I’m very upset about it’) and sticking stuff on FB or Freecycle if you can’t get rid easily another way.

I don't have a lazy husband, is the honest answer. He does his share of the domestic shitwork and parenting. If he didn't, things would be very different and I probably wouldn't be married to him.

Is it olio, the app where you can give stuff away free? Though it can be annoying with people not showing up when they say they will etc. I just put it on the doorstep and let them know it's there if they don't, if someone else takes it in the meantime then oh well.

Many are recommending a declutter. Start by getting rid of the lazy husband. You will free up all the space consumed by his belongings and no longer have to deal with his dirty cups, scattered laundry, or toothpaste in the basin 🤮

@NotFastButFurious even biodegradable wipes?

No advice OP, just solidarity.

some really useful tips on here from people who obviously have their shit together more than me! I’m going to try some of them- starting today!

I pick one room a day, and focus on it.

Also, husband needs to help too! Have you told him you feel like this? I was very recently signed off Work with stress due to everything building up like this. Don’t let it get too far.

Big hugs x

If your husband is working part time and also not chipping in with housework but says that he CAN'T do more (why not? Energy levels, organisation, motivation, no idea?) - could he be struggling with an underlying issue? E.g.

ADHD, autism, anxiety, OCD, depression.
Thyroid issues, sleep disorder, undiagnosed allergy, vitamin deficiency?

GP can do blood tests, thyroid check and sleep study and run through some screening questionnaires for mental health issues etc.

Clearly the answer is not just for you to magically pick up the slack as it sounds like it's making you ill.

BTW, some of the tips you're being given won't be applicable/won't help, because when you're in a state of total chaos you need to dig your way out of that first before rules like one in one out, or 15 mins a day type routines, instilling habits in kids etc will make sense and work properly.

no, not even those! If you'd seen the research and "standards" they have to achieve to be classed as flushable it's absolutely astounding and wipes of all sorts are still the biggest cause of sewer blockages. The instructions also say to only flush one at a time on a full flush which i suspect most people don't do! If it's not pee, poo or paper it shouldn't be going down the loo!

Mine’s currently a shithole because I’m at the tail end of maternity leave where the baby is down to two naps, one on the school run, and otherwise creates destruction, we don’t have storage because it’s a fixer upper so no coat hooks, alcove shelves, proper kitchen cupboards etc, and I’ve fallen behind on decluttering so too much stuff and stuff without a home.

The baby starts nursery in February but I don’t start work til March and I have like a 10-page single-spaced bullet-pointed Monica Gellar action plan. I’ve also drawn insane floor plans we can’t afford to do that would totally work, but the long and short of it is: much less stuff, that stuff needs a proper home, and everyone who lives here needs to learn the “touch it once” rule. Particularly DP, who will open post, put the envelope on the on the counter, later on move the envelope off the counter to a shelf so he can use the counter, later still idly pick it up and say “I need to put this in the recycling” but instead move it to the windowsill…

I have two bags for life: one gets filled with the children’s shite each evening and dumped unsorted in the playroom. They’ve never managed the “put something away before playing with the next thing” thing so my solution is to deliver unto them their chaos. The other gets filled with DP’s detritus. So I’m still clearing up after him but in a 30-second blitz, and he has to undo the bag of chaos, while I enjoy the newly tidy house for the brief evening hours.

But really, to have a tidy house it needs to not have people in it during the day. Cannot WAIT to boot the baby out! Live for the days DP goes to the office! Dread the school holidays! Dream of an empty bothy somewhere windswept with nothing but a broom for company.

Also a handheld stick hoover thingy to constantly quickly blitz the rice cake crumbs. No pets.

Dream of an empty bothy somewhere windswept with nothing but a broom for company.

Amen to that, sister!

My teens were appalled recently when I told them I’d be happy in one room with minimal possessions if it meant I never had to pick up after anyone ever again.

I moved into a doer upper with four kids in tow so I feel your pain lol
At one end of our room we basically had a fortress made out of boxes 😂