Teenage boys rooms/hygiene

[YourChirpyCoralAnt]

AGHHH.

I have two DS 17 and 19.

They are both at college full time. They both help and do their chores in the main places of the house.

It's their rooms and hygiene. Ones room is an absolute shit heap but he's obsessive about washing his clothes and being clean having nice hair and skin etc.

The other one has a tidy room but will happily go days without a shower and will end up stinking to high heaven if we didn't force him into the shower.

Anyone have any advice on what to do? My youngest can trash his room within a day. I have no idea how.

Not being rude, but having seen replies on other posts:

. They watch me and dad clean regularly. Dad is hands on.
. We have shown them how to use cleaning products. They are able to clean the other parts of the house.
. We have probably about 100 times sat in their rooms whilst we show them how to step by step clean them with the correct products and systems
. I don't want to hear from people who have young children leaving judgey comments who have 0 experience with teenagers
. I don't want to hear from people blowing their own whistle about how they moved out at 19 and they don't get why it's so hard
. I appreciate I'm 'lucky' they help around the house but ones room and ones hygeine is affecting the common areas by smells
. Dont need any stupid comments telling me to kick them out or divorce my children or anything ridiculous of the same ilk

I need some genuine advice from other teenagers parents or is this just what it is 🤣 don't really know any inappropriate discipline for them at this age as they are both driving/learning to drive and are basically adults.

Open door spray air freshener close door

Enforce removal of food rubbish and dirty clothing

Thats About it

Yes this, basically.

No advice but I feel your pain!
Our 17 year olds room was like a crack den, then all of a sudden about a month ago he’s started cleaning it every day and has even tidied and cleaned the rest of the house while we’re at work!!
im not sure what’s triggered this new improved DS but I like it! 😂

They just don't seem to see or be bothered by mess in their own space. Shut the door and try to forget about it.

The personal hygiene is harder though. I presume he doesn't want to become the smelly kid that nobody wants to hang out with? Does he have a friendship circle? A girlfriend even? If so he should want to keep himself clean for their benefit as much as his own. I know teenage boys can be a bit gross but surely nobody actively enjoys the feeling of being dirty, greasy and smelly. Have you spoken to him about it? Any MH issues at play?

I have 4 sons, the youngest 2 are still in their teens. I am, by nature, on the authoritive side on parenting.

In our house the rules are simple:
-everyone showers at least once a day,
-bedrooms need to be regularly cleaned

• it's it's family, not a democracy

You say they're basically adults so does that mean they can move out? If so, suggest they do that. But in the family home the rest of the family deserve basic respect and that includes not stinking and not making your home into a shit pit.

I have to admit I haven't punished mine in years but I certainly wouldn't be paying for phones or gym or cooking for or giving lifts to anyone who treated me or my home so poorly.

I’m not sure if my advice is helpful, as my son is a bit younger, and so more of a child then yours which is more of an adult…..

however , my DS 14 would quite happily never shower or brush teeth .

the only time he ever washed without kicking up a fuss was Sunday evening, as since a baby Sunday nights every one showers and hair washes ready for school Monday ( a left over routine from my childhood, and even further back my mums lol)

the arguments were horrible and so was the BO !

we installed a new routine (rather then random days , so he knew exactly what was expected/ what he has to do )

every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday he had to shower , none negotiable. Teeth brushed every night. Any carring on and he immediately lost privileges, no moaning , no whinging, no trying to get out of it or forgetting.

after three weeks of resistance, he now follows that routine without any prompting, and has done since September.

nb I do think he’s possibly on the spectrum, and the routine of knowing when exactly he HAD to shower helped him

nnb before anyone says im mean , he can of course shower any time/ day he wants extra , I just ask he lets me sit down first so I don’t faint of shock 😳

perhaps that’s something you can do? Say you’re not willing to put up with the smell , and it’s imperative that he showers on these days , none negotiable, but if he’s willing to accept that with no reminders , perhaps you could be persuaded to buy him - insert small bribe - to make it not such a shock

hopefully that gave you some ideas x

Ahh I have one teen ds who showers regularly and does keep himself clean (not tidy, he’s never done anything to his hair beyond washing it) but lives like a messy raccoon.
What does help is having a weekly cleaner because the night before she comes he has to tidy it. I don’t know where so much rubbish comes from but he always fills a bag. All his washing makes its way to the basket.
By the time I get home from work on the day the cleaner has been, he’s been home for an hour and his room looks back to ‘normal’, ie a fucking shit hole 😂
However I know it’s clean even when it’s messy.
Sorry, no other advice other than the cleaner unless you want to go hardcore on discipline.

@Newname71 - a girl on the horizon?

I really don't think this is that uncommon and as with the person who comes up with a cure for the common cold, anyone who comes up with a failsafe answer could make a fortune.

My son has always been quite tidy in his room, I never allowed food in his bedroom, helped that no TV in his room till he was 16.
Showering was another matter. I was fairly brutal with him in the end- told him no one would want to sit with him at school or on the bus and he could forget about girls. He's 21 now, showers every day.
I've had 2 foster children, both boys. They're rooms are absolute tips. The only way I can get them to do anything is pocket money is conditional on a tidy room. So it's tidy for about an hour a week. But at least the actual rubbish gets removed.
@YourChirpyCoralAnt withholding of pocket money a bit too late for your two, but maybe it's time for a bit of straight talking of the grow up variety
I do think you have to accept that at this age, they aren't going to have the same standards as you but maybe there is room for setting a minimum standard, eg shower three times a week, tidy up once a week or you will hold taxi service or some other favour/privilege

Sympathies.

My 18 year old girl is pretty good, but her 15 year old sister is a car crash

From my experience, as soon as they get a girlfriend they no longer want to
live like stinky messes!

I have three boys - the younger two are teenagers. All have different standards of tidiness in their rooms. All have times when there’s are fair amount of mess. They tend to tidy if there are girlfriends/friends who are girls coming over. I do moan at them to bring crockery down but don’t sweat too much about general state of their rooms as I can shut the door on it.
Personal hygiene is harder and I don’t really know what else you can do except keep moaning. Doesn’t his brother give him a hard time about it? Mine shower I think predominantly for social reasons.

Saw an amazing hack on social media where you dye rice black then leave some scattered on the floor. When you 'discover' it with your child you claim it's rat droppings and oh my gosh they must be nesting in your dirty room. Cue a very stressed child making sure room is immaculate forever more!!
Maybe you could use this for the showering more too - 'they must be attracted to the smell of BO' .... worth a shot?!

Yanbu

I have a 16yo who keeps his clothes in a heap on the floor and has to be chased into the shower three times a week.

He knows what to do. There's lashings of hot water, warm towels, manly toiletries. He just doesn't see it as a priority.

When he's being particularly obstinate, I refuse to serve supper until he's showered and washed his hair.

Hopefully he'll meet a girl and everything will change. Soon! 😁

My son went through a stage of having poor hygiene and not washing his hair enough. His hair looked greasy and it smelled. He was about 14. His hygiene suddenly improved a lot overnight when we went on a walk on holiday through a field where cows had been kept, so there were quite a lot of flies around. Much to all our amusement, except his, he had a cloud of flies buzzing round his head as we walked through the field. It was JUST like in a cartoon. 😂I still laugh thinking of it now. In fact, I've got a video somewhere of him trying to flap them away and looking enraged. He stomped ahead of us holding the hood of his hoodie tight around his head.

We were a similar position. The basic rule was they were responsible for their own rooms as they were semi grown up. Their option was to give me laundry or do it themselves. I would remind them to bring dishes down and put them in the dish washer. If a room got too bad (and requests for them to tidy it up had been ignored) I would simply put a notice on the room door stating that unless it was tidied by X date I would be going in with a black bin bag and everything would go into the bin bag. They knew I meant it so it worked.
Personal hygiene wise, it helps if there are any particular types of product they like. Otherwise you just bide your time, keep reminding them and eventually they improve. Especially when a girl is involved.😄

Exactly the same as @Porcuporpoise my sons are 22 and 19 and their rooms are clean and tidy because when they were younger they tidied every day. Nothing was allowed to build up. I think it also helped that both children had medical needs meaning there were often times we were walking into their rooms to get to them in the early hours of the morning and I told them I did not want to fall on my way in or if there was a fire, for them to tangle in clothing and fall on their way out.

It is all well and good saying it is their room but they will share at some point in their lives, whether that is the communal areas at uni (and I could post some horrific photos of Ds's experience of sharing a kitchen) house sharing or living with a partner.

The same with personal hygiene. Not negotiable and disgusting to inflict that on other people so shower daily. It is all about routine, shower daily, tidy daily.

The rat droppings ones worked on younger children, you can use wild rice which looks very similar. I would put some down, take a photo of it then clean it up and tell them you may have mice or rats and they need to clear their room. If you want to be extra sneaky, hide a bluetooth speaker and play some squeaking

It comes down to being more determined to have a clean and tidy house so you have to stand over them. This is easier when they are younger and then they know you mean business. It gets harder when they are older although we have a router that can cut individual devices and leave ours still connected.

Rules, rules. My view is that I am not going to have BO in my house. It’s disgusting and I won’t put up with it. It’s my job as a parent to ensure that they aren’t known as the smelly boy that no one wants to sit next to. It would break my heart if that happened so I just don’t take any excuses. No plates and cups allowed whatsoever overnight. I will do laundry but it needs to be in the basket, At a push I will pick up clothes but give them a warning. I didn’t care whether they will think I am nagging. Tough shit if they do! They will thank me one day.

They have now moved out. They smell lovely when they visit. They have laundered clothes, one sons girlfriend admitted she does his ironing but son is a fab cook.

My job is done. Quite honestly It’s your house. You sit down with them and tell them the rules. No discussions. If they want to live in a pig sty that’s fine but not under your roof.

I thought it was just my kids who were like this...sorry no advice!

Against all MN regulars:

Leave them be

It's their rooms, they have to deal with not being able to find things. Just insist on no food

And they will be the ones avoided if they stink so will have natural conseuqences. Most you can do is "I'm not going to X with you if you haven't showered"

They are adults.

I haven't been in my youngest sons room since he was 12. He's 22 now. For years it was, i assume, a shit hole but now the hoover and cleaning products disappear into his room. As long as he is hygienic in other areas of his life, hw he can live how he chooses

19 year old DS is the same, room is a mess. 13 DD is fastidiously tidy and puts clothes in our washing basket that are not dirty by my standards! Polar opposites.

This morning I asked DS if he was going to start some washing. Looks in his wardrobe and says "no I've still got plenty of clean clothes left". I had a word about the rubbish on the floor "does that not bother you, please clean it up" he shrugged and wouldn't commit but I've peeked in his room and it's all been bagged up.

Small and often reminders nagging and lowering my standards sort of works.

I feel your pain. 22 year old ND DS.

His room was generally fine as a child, he would tidy up with me. But he hit puberty and it all went to pot (literally, at one point).

I am strict with washing up. I have rearranged the cupboards and he uses the mugs/bowls/cutlery etc from THAT cupboard. They are "his" to use. It sort of works in that I know how many of each there should be and I can say "2 mugs, a bowl and a spoon and a fork are up there somewhere". Then he brings them down. If I just say "bring down the washing up" some appears but most of it gets left upstairs. Being ND, he likes that these items are used by him.

Showering and laundry has got better since he started work. He has a uniform that needs to be washed regularly and he wants to look smart, but he will still often just resort to spraying deodorant all over rather than showering. If all else fails I simply tell him he smells of armpits and I run him a bath. He usually gets in.

Teeth are a different matter, I know he doesn't clean them enough. But he is 22 and I just point out he will have dentures by 40, so it's his lookout. But oddly, I never really noticed bad breath.

He knows that every couple of weeks I will black sack his room of anything I can't see a reason for, so if he wants to keep something it has to be put away. Its a work in progress.

I have girls. One is fine, but she is a swimmer so out at training a lot. So the hygiene is by default as she is chlorinated a lot. I don’t go in her room without permission if she keeps it reasonable.

second different kettle of fish. Really struggled when she stopped swimming to get her to shower. I think what did it is growing her cropped hair out- she needed to wash her hair more regularly to keep it looking nice. That and we got a big fancy shower.

her room is terrible. The compromise is her privacy. When it gets bad I will go in there and clean it out. No warning, no threats. She cannot tell me I’m not allowed in there. Second is washing. I refuse to wash anything that’s not in a washing basket, and if it isn’t down on a Friday night there’s no guarantee it will be done this week. Took a few episodes of “where’s my blue shirt” for it to still be on the floor 3 weeks later for her to get it.

I don't know.

I have two that are younger, but similarly, I have one with a stinky room, and one with a stinky body.

The son who's stinky is just me forcing him to shower, with the threat of me hosing him down outside (only half-joking)

The room - I just don't know - he changes his bedding (including pillow and duvet - not just the cover, I wash the entire duvet) every week (I dump the clean set on his desk, and he dumps the dirty set in the laundry, so I know it's happening), his laundry basket is emptied (and honestly, doesn't smell bad). I've tried daily window openings, air fresheners, carpet stuff, even an ozone generator, still, there's a lingering odour of teenage male.