Loggerheads with my kids over their messy rooms

[FlakyJadeSnail]

I have teenagers who are very messy. It spills out of their rooms into other areas. I’m not a show home instagram person, we live on a tight budget but we tried to make a nice home for us that’s clean and functional.

The mess includes - food, drink, wrappers, paper, pens, general rubbish all over the floor. Paracetamol tablets, piles of dirty clothes and towels. Plates, cups, toiletries and cables/wires strewn everywhere. I’m sure this is what is apparently a typical teenager and loads are like it, but I never did this as a teen and was expected to pick up after myself and keep the room in reasonable shape. DP was not allowed by his parents for rooms to get in this state. They are allowed to decorate and have their room how they want to. They have desks and storage. No one has any learning difficulties or mental health issues. We offer to help and improve storage and declutter, and it’s better for a while then goes back to being dreadful again. I’ve also tried being reasonable and talking to them about making small improvements (like using a bin) and shouting and ignoring it. I don’t do their laundry or clean the rooms.

We have stopped having family gatherings at our house as the kids all like to hang out upstairs and tbh it’s embarrassing anyone seeing their rooms like this.

We are moving house and worked very hard for years to buy our first home after renting for many years. It’s a nice interior new build with nice carpets and fresh paintwork. They are no longer toddlers so is it unreasonable to expect that they do not continue to trash their rooms?

they say their rooms are theirs to do with what they like and they like it this way and I’m making out like it’s way worse than what it is. AIBU?

I’ve heard that wild rice (the brown grains) scattered randomly might work!

Once a week there's a room check. Any plates/food /cups etc are taken out and rubbish needs to go in the bin.

Decide on the consequences for them not doing this and stick to it.

I would separate the mess out into categories and stop fighting against all of it. Things like pens, papers and cables are things that are allowed to be in the room, so it shouldn't matter so much if they're there in a messy capacity. Wrappers and paracetamol tablets, if by tablets you mean they're lying loose and not behind foil, are rubbish and should be in the bin, not lying around, however neatly. Towels should be in the bathroom.

Mine are the same, so no strategies but sympathy. The rooms get to a certain point, I bollock them, they get huffy and roll their eyes and clean them. They reflect afterwards that it’s so much nicer to have a clean and tidy space to live and work in, and they’ll make more effort in future. They then do fuck all for three weeks until I bollock them again. Not ideal really but I draw the line when odours start to permeate the hall, or I can’t even find enough carpet to put a foot down.

If they want to sleep in a midden then let them. But make it clear that of a night you will be going around communal areas with a bin liner and anything of theirs that they have left lying around and not put away goes in the bin liner, then the bin. A few mornings of wondering where their stuff has gone should do it.

Not quite at teenager stage yet, but we have never allowed food into bedrooms. So you could start with a new house rule where all food has to stay on ground food to protect the new house carpet and walls. (This cuts down on plates and food mess but not all of your problem).

My dd8 gets pocket money for tidying her room to the point the floor is clean enough to be vacuumed. This only works if she is motivated so most of the time her room is a mess but occasionally she is mercenary and takes up this offer.

Mine are also disgusting. We've had mice - and yet! - apparently it's got absolutely nothing to do with them taking food upstairs and leaving wrappers everywhere.

PS I don't "allow" food upstairs but I can't police what goes up and down.

Anyway, I've taken to giving one of them a binbag every weekend and telling them to empty the upstairs bins and then pick up all the rubbish and bin it. The other two then do their own rooms. Every couple of weeks I will sit on their beds and supervise as they put things away - particularly useful for eldest who has a tendency to get distracted!

Honestly they're not as messy as I was, but I didn't have food in my room. Mine was just piles and piles of clothes and other "stuff".

Same here except for the food, they've only ever been allowed to eat at the table and snacks on the sofa. If they ever spilt anything they had to clear it up so they usually sit at the table to eat snacks too.

Every now and again I threaten with a bin bag and or collect up their stuff from the communal areas and dump it on their beds. This seems to be particularly effective if there's dirty laundry involved. They're slowly improving. Sometimes.