To think people are getting scruffier?

[HomeIsHardToFind]

I am currently house hunting, I have been in a lot of properties recently and to be honest I have been shocked by the state of them!
They look fine in the estate agents photos but when you get there it's a different story.....plates and bowls piled up in the sink, crumbs all over work surfaces, disgusting ovens and urine stains/smells in the loo!
My 'favourite' was the house that had holes punched in the doors of every room (double checked the agents pics and they definitely didn't exist at the time they were taken!).
I get it, I can clean if we bought the house etc, but if you are selling your biggest asset and you want the most amount of money possible surely you make it look the best it can for viewings? I feel like I've stepped into an alternative universe at the moment!
I have also noticed that many more people out and about stink. Not just a bit of a pong or like they have a manual job and haven't showered for 24 hours but full on makes me dry heave absolutely stink!!
I put some fuel in the car this morning and the 'gentleman' that came into the garage as I was leaving smelled rancid, it must have been days and days since he had washed🤢 I could smell him outside in the fresh air!
Maybe I'm getting on (I don't think so, only early 40's!!) but I seem to remember people having more pride in themselves, their home and their families (don't get me started on some of the poor kids I've seen with such greasy hair it looks like it's been stuck to their head with chip oil☹️).
Sometimes I wonder if its COL biting but then I think about people I've known that grew up in the 60's and 70's that were dirt poor taking pride in how clean their mothers managed to keep them with nothing but soap and hot water, so I think the only difference is that the pride has gone?
Has anyone else noticed this or am I just unluckily surrounded by scruffy buggers?!

Not everyone has high energy bills in the UK - just like in New Zealand (where I have lived and know well), there are poor quality, energy inefficient homes. Conversely, there are well insulated homes with solar technology, heat pumps, 3G etc and very low energy bills. The UK isn't a homogeneous mass as a PP has pointed out.

I'd love to spend more time on myself and my home, but I have two kids and one of them has severe SEN, so it is impossible. My OH and I work FT. We do what we can. But things like paining walls and deep cleaning often don't get done. I would literally be in a cleaning death loop and we'd never stop whilst the kids are home. I'd rather spend time with them. I think this is most families now. Lots of working, little time for cleaning and organising.

Homes are a also lot smaller, badly built and more expensive now In the UK. We spend a lot of our incomes on keeping an inadequate roof over our heads. If we all had American sized homes they would be a lot tider and easier to clean. Lots of them are mouldy, don't have adequate ventilation or utility space. We have a weird reversal in the UK of single older people are occupying family homes and families are living in cramped flats. Not the older generations fault, but the governments. You won't get immaculate homes in these conditions with very busy families living in them.

The thing that stands out most from the OP is that it's something the OP has noticed in recent years, which coincides with a huge increase in COL for most and huge profiteering by large companies. I think there is your answer really. Isn't it 14m people in poverty now? One in five people. That's a lot of people and easily noticeable. If we are all suffering collectively (but maybe in different ways to different extents), standards will shift downwards for everyone and it will be noticeable. I saw one guy buy a sandwich with all 5ps yesterday and he was quite unkempt too. I just felt sad for him, I didn't assume he was doing that by choice.

I think we are romanticised the past a bit. I recall lots of impoverished pensioners and kids who really stunk in the 80s and 90s. I was probably one of them - only bathed once a week in the 80s. Kids stunk and parents all smelt of fags as the norm was to smoke at home indoors. My kids shower daily. I think standards are higher now for personal hygiene. You will always get people who are grungey by choice, but I just don't think most people would be like this through choice.

Please don’t lump us all together. None of that is considered normal or acceptable.

Honestly cost of living needs to stop being used as an excuse for slovenliness. You can have a cold shower, it isn't nice but at least you're clean. And yes I've had no hot water for at least 2 months in the past so I know what a cold shower is like.

If you are so destitute that you can't afford washing powder you no doubt can't afford food so the foodbank gives out washing powder and shower gel!

only bathed once a week in the 80s. Kids stunk and parents all smelt of fags as the norm was to smoke at home indoors.

I was bathed daily as a child growing up in the 80s, my parents didn't smell, their house didn't smell, their friends houses didn't smell. It wasn't the norm to smoke at home for them or their friends.

Showering every other day is both normal and acceptable

I'm on the road a lot with my job and many places do look scruffy ( not just dirt , old mattresses hanging around , rubbish building up everywhere in the front gardens , windows not cleaned etc )
The council used to take things for a few pounds, but it's 12 an item where I live now ( and goes up every year too) and people just can't afford it and you can't put lots of things in the normal bins , so it's just left. Skips are a fortune to hire and you have to book a slot at the local recycling centre and have a car to get it there, which isn't always easy for many people or they might not be able to load or unload it themselves and the ones at our ' tip' do not rush to help with heavy items at all ! Maybe not allowed to , but it's not easy for bulky things on your own
Some people just don't care though , I'm sure there is an element of this too, but there are other reasons that things are not done I'm sure

My OH and I work FT. We do what we can. But things like paining walls and deep cleaning often don't get done. I would literally be in a cleaning death loop and we'd never stop whilst the kids are home. I'd rather spend time with them. I think this is most families now. Lots of working, little time for cleaning and organising. Homes are a also lot smaller, badly built and more expensive now In the UK. We spend a lot of our incomes on keeping an inadequate roof over our heads. If we all had American sized homes they would be a lot tider and easier to clean

this is so contradictory, if you don’t have the time to clean a small house, I can guarantee you a large house takes a lot longer.

I agree there is a romanticisation of the past. I think people are cleaner now than they used to be.
What I think has happened is that more people are wearing musty clothes. We seem to have more rain and damp now. It seems to have been raining for weeks and weeks. So drying clothes is hard. Tumble driers are expensive, its too wet and damp to dry outside, so lots, including me end up drying on an airer. And when its colder clothes can smell musty when they dry like this.
In the past more people used laundrettes, but many places do not have laundrettes any more.

@Janetime I have a larger house. I used to have a tiny house. A large house is way easier because you can have a playroom where you confine toys to, and a utility room for the piles of washing. In a tiny house everything ends up in the living room.

Launderettes don’t really exist much any more as 97 percent of homes have a washing machine,

drying is harder if you don’t have a tumble dryer and you can’t afford a heated airer or to put the heating on, but again we are into the minority,

people are actually now coming onto this thread from other countries ans actually thinking the British population lives in squalor and poverty, and are all mentally unwell and smell, such is the hyperbole.

Hahaha 😁 that made me smile

I have a larger house and that makes no sense, if you’re putting the toys away you’re putting the toys away, irrelevant of where they are. And I’m reacting to you saying you don’t have time to clean, not put toys away and am pointing out factually cleaning a large house takes more time than cleaning a small one.

Someone I know uses a launderette for drying in the winter and it's not that easy for them.
Nowhere to park close to it , then having to take the heavy wet items and then wait for the bigger dryers and so on. Ok if it's now and again , but weekly it's a pain and not cheap.
They get on with it, but makes me appreciate that I can wash and dry at home even if it is draped around on airers

Grey tracksuit bottoms need to be made illegal off the athletics track. It is a losing battle with my teens though.

@Janetime the point is you do not need to put everything away in a large house. You can have the play kitchen out with all the bits in a play room, all the cuddly toys lined up in a play room, etc. Whereas in a living room you are tidying them all up into containers all the time.
A tiny house looks dirty a lot quicker than a large house.

In some countries people dress smarter. But so what.
Personally I think the clothing you can buy in the UK is pretty dire.

I would quite enjoy seeing some messy houses and I tend to find the opposite and that other people's houses are immaculate!

We've just moved to a bigger house and yes, it takes longer, but it's also easier as it's tidier / less cluttered, so I'm more inclined to do it. It's swings and roundabouts.

I think maybe a small house is easier if it is just adults living there, but a larger house is easier if you have children. Largely because you can confine the children's toys more to playrooms.
I think standards in house decoration and looks have risen over the years. But deep cleaning has declined.
Most people do not have time to do deep cleaning in between work, children and life. And most people do not pay cleaners for enough hours to do proper deep cleaning. But does it matter? My mother when she was a housewife used to polish the letterbox, had summer and winter curtains, and cleaned the outside bins thoroughly. But none of this actually matters.

‘I see that on here too. If your home is clean and tidy, it’s a show house and not a home. It means something is wrong in your life. Or soon will be.’

True. Tidy = joyless.
Messy = lived in and happy.😏

And clean kids are often described as unhappy. Whereas messy kids are so loved and busy, ‘making memories’ with their families!

Give me tidy and happy any day.

Violent people who can't control themselves - yet choose to take out their anger on a nice soft internal door instead of an actual wall. But I guess broken fingers and a scuff to the paint are somewhat less dramatic.

@Janetime there is nothing wrong with having a clean and tidy home. But when people get OCD about it then that is a mental health issue.
There used to be a lot of shaming of women who did not keep their houses tidy and clean. Those women would be gossiped about. These days that does not happen unless your house is horrific. So people do the level of housework they are happy with. I like a clean and tidy house, some people do not care that much.

I see it at work. My desk is clear by the end of the day. A clear desk policy would not be an issue for me. My colleague's desk is always full of papers and personal possessions. She does not understand why I like my desk totally clear. It is simply different preferences.

I wonder if social media/ smartphones has changed this.

I know I waste too much time on my phone. I may try to spend 30 mins less on my phone a day; and put this time into the house/ garden or maybe doing something nice for me like blow drying out my hair so it looks better.

But maybe with the busy lives we have; our phones/ social media are adding to our problems?

Sure, I think we all know what ocd is, and how it can manifest.

Having worked as a district nurse for several years, it's not always dog poo I'm afraid.

Continence issues and mental ill health are brutal.