To be fascinated by tidy people

[tangerinemagic]

I’m just not tidy. Nor is my husband. We try. Actually very hard. We have two young children and a dog but there is literally stuff everywhere, all of the time.

I live in London, so we naturally have many parent friends right on our doorstep and there is a ‘drop in’ culture where we might wrap up a playground or common trip and head to each others houses.

Ours is not fit for that kind of spontaneity but others fling open their doors at any time and it’s like no one even lives there.

when conversations come up about chores, cleaning, tidiness, I recoil. They really are extremely tidy people and with young kids. You can’t mistake walking into a tidy persons house, it just feels, different.

The floors and sofa/furniture in our house just don’t look like theirs, even if you have a whip round and tidy you can tell.

So, tidy people, tell me, how do you do it. What are the tips. Was this nurture growing up in a tidy household? Or something you learned? AIBU to be ashamed my pram, car, house is always in need of a clean.

Your distinction sums it up perfectly. I’m a tidy person, rather than someone who always tidies up.

I have a friend who lives in perpetual chaos and spends so much bloody time tidying up and yet nothing is ever tidy. She marvels at how my house remains tidy and is forever asking “how do you do it?” The clutter and stuff she owns is unreal to me. I think neither of us can understand how the other one lives.

It categorically is not what you need to do to have a tidy house. That’s my idea of eternal hell!

Signed,
An extremely lazy tidy person x

@NamechangeNightNurse Also, my point wasn't really whether I do those things immediately or not, but that once they are done there will still be more. There is literally always something. Hence me saying truly tidy people don't ever sit down during the day, except maybe to eat. Also the example with taking the tea cup with you when you're getting up anyway: the tidy people I know would finish the last mouthful of tea then get up specifically to take the cup away and put it in the dishwasher or immediately wash it!

It sounds to me like you are just bursting out of your home. It's very hard when you have small children. When mine were little I remember getting a bit overwhelmed by all the stuff thet was coming and going, they grew out of clothes, people gave me huge bags of hand me downs etc. I felt like I was constantly organising clothes, craft toys etc. I too grew up in a chaotic home so had no role model. Don't beat yourself up so much.

Some things which I found helpful. Have a dedicated memory box on the loft and put the most special item in it but everything else e.g. paintings which come home from nursery get a week or two on the pin board or fridge before they go in the bin.

Dedicated coat hooks for swim bags / school bags etc so the wet swim suits go straight into the machine and the bag is hung up.

I swapped my winter and summer wardrobe over to reduce the clothes / choices / clutter. Stored the out of season stuff in vaccum bags in the loft.
Toys got chucked into boxes and shoved in an IKEA kallax at the end of every day.

Cleaned the high chairs with a wipe while the baby was still in it.

Challenged myself to tackle one thing I was procrastinating over each day....go and throw everything off your old sofa and list it right now.
I had a basket in the airing cupboard for charity shop clothes and took them to the clothing bins at the supermarket.

When you have 90 mins while they are napping challenge yourself to tidy the hallway first for 10 or 15 mins, or unloading the dishwasher for 5 mins first.

It's not a case of tidying all day long but just building in some tidy habits and reducing the procrastination, you won't have everything tidy all the time with kids that age so don't avoid the task because it feels too big....do little bits at a time. In terms of bathroom the bathroom day to day I keep a spray and sponge in there and do the sink when I clean my teeth, or give the mirror a wipe when I do my make up, and (much to the horror of mumsnet I am sure) keep a toilet brush and cleaner next to the loo so give it a swill once a day. We use the daily shower spray after showering. It stays pretty clean. I used to clean the bath before I ran one for the kids each night.

No tidy people just complete the task fully

Make tea -leave tea, milk out on worktop
Make tea, put tea and milk back

I don't have to consciously tidy, it's always tidy
Makes cleaning so much easier.

I have a robot vacuum and the amount of threads where people say they hate theirs as it got stuck on things on the floor, I mean really !?
Do people just leave stuff chucked all over the floor and vacuum over it

@Cliffedge25 that sounds awful
I would actually do it
I'm sure many marriages break up because of filthy men

I think expecting to feel recharged seems the most unrealistic part of what I’m hearing. When the kids are teens that might occasionally be possible. In the meantime just expect to be knackered. But from 2 onwards no one walks away from their mess.

You were asking for the ‘it’s because I’m not lazy and I’m self-disciplined’ brigade to come out on this one! Lots of extremely tidy people I know - the ones who live in show homes are very anxious and unhappy women so I agree with PP on that. Clutter or untidiness makes me anxious too so I tend to own as little as possible and throw out as much as possible. Don’t think you’ll sell - you won’t and it you did the money you get won’t be worth the stress. Box it all up and give it to the charity shop. Be ruthless. Also, have you considered that you may have ADHD; it’s really sounds to me like you might.

It has made me much able to be ruthless with mess.

you have too much stuff and things don’t have a storage space.

3 prams - you and husband can only push two max surely? So why 3?
bags - hang on hook or similar. In our hall we have a kallax or similar with a box per person so kids chuck shoes in there when they get home (youngest is 20 months and knows where they go, albeit inconsistent but he’s nearly there!) Toddlers helmet is also in his, nappy bag in 20mo. The struggle for me is keeping the top clear 😂

do you NEED to sort the clothes? If it’s sort to sell/donate then just donate or recycle and be done. Take it when you next do a shop and find a recycling point en route. The space is more valuable to your comfort than 3 quid off Vinted or whatever. if it’s sort to store for a future baby then take ten minutes to flick for anything damaged or stained, stash in a box where you keep that stuff.

@tangerinemagic I'm also curious as to why 3 prams?

In the interests of scientific research I have just vacuumed my stairs and ground floor - medium sized 4 bed house (conservatory, living room, hall dining room and kitchen). It took less than 20 minutes because I have nothing on the floors that shouldn't be there.

Admittedly, I didn't move the settees this time, but the carper under the settees does get vaccuumed most of the time. I found having a cordless vacuum a game changer (ditto for lawnmower as well).

I realise that with two toddlers the OP has more to do than I do, but it still sounds too chaotic with too much stuff and not enough storage.

Me too.

I will caveat my tidiness in the kitchen though as we are in drought and our reservoirs are only 40% full and we need to conserve water, so I don't wash up as I go along, but do a load when there is enough. There is currently just me at the moment so I don't create much mess. I have just washed up last night's meal plus today's breakfast.

I am a really tidy person - it's not something I have to think about as I automatically clear up as I go. And everything always gets put away in it's place. I'm also a massive fan of decluttering! BUT a tidy house with adults only is much easier to maintain than a tidy house with young children! I had an only child and although mainly due to health issues a part of this was because I just couldn't stand the mess! I'm now a granny and after my grandson has visited it takes me several hours to get my home back to the standard I like. Cut yourself some slack and enjoy your children whilst they are young. The house can wait!

As someone said upthread untidy people just don’t complete tasks. You have to MAKE something untidy in order for there to be something to tidy up.

This has been a really fascinating discussion, and it's prompted me to post for the first time.

I struggled to keep a tidy house for most of my adult life until about 5 years ago. My mum was not houseproud in the slightest and TBH, always was a bit sneery about people with 'show homes'. Having my own home coincided with starting my career (as it does with many, I expect), and I struggled with juggling both roles.

Over the next few decades I had many attempts at 'decluttering', tidying as you go etc, but none were ever sustained.

Five years ago, 2 things really changed me.
1, My Dh and I got a motorhome and started to spend 4 to 5 weeks at a time away in it. This was a real eye-opener, in a MH you obviously don't have very much stuff, and any stuff you do have has to have a secure place to be stored as otherwise driving along would be very hazardous. With hardly any belongings, I'd never felt happier; everything had a place, and it was easy to put it back in its place. Because the van was tidy, cleaning was so easy. 20 minutes AM and PM and everything was tidy and clean and we both felt really good about that.

It gave me the impetus to properly declutter ruthlessly
once back at home, to invest in storage and actually think about putting systems in place.

The second thing was that my MIL became very frail and had periods of being very ill. I started to go up to stay and look after her, at one point staying for 2 months.

I realised that everything in her house had a proper place, and that she didn't have anything that she didn't use. She was ruthless about getting rid of anything. Operated a strict 'one in, one out' system. But, it was the systems she had running that really opened my eyes. A special rubber pot by the kettle station for teabags, emptied into the compost bin at the end of the day so no tea drips anywhere. The world's smallest kitchen bin, lined with a carrier bag. Post evening washing up, surfaces were cleaned down and the tiny rubbish bag taken straight to the outside bin.

We got talking about it, and she said that she had learned all of these housekeeping skills from her mother, no one was born knowing how to keep house. It made me realise that perhaps we don't value housekeeping as a 'skill' so much, and expect to be able to just 'do' it, and that our paid jobs are more important.

I learnt from her, and she shared her secrets with me, and I now have a very tidy and clean home, and friends comment on it often.

One of the best things, though, is how freeing it has been. I have so much more free time now, I have several hobbies because my evenings are no longer spent either moving stuff from one place to another, or feeling like I could not relax as the house was a tip.

Just my thoughts anyway.

Love this. I think a lot of messy and disorganised people think that’s just part of life and excuse it away with having children, or a busy career etc. Yes, there are times in life when it is more difficult and we all let things slide a bit. But your point about being very clutter free/minimalist, and having good systems/solutions is exactly right.

Tiny things like leaving keys, wallet, post, coins etc on the kitchen table just accumulates. Clutter breeds clutter. We have dedicated zones for things: letter holder, key hooks, coat hooks, shoe storage bench in the entranceway, clutter tray (gives a drop zone when we get home for things like wallet, coins, receipts etc that can be chucked down without it creeping all over the house)

Systems also have to be simple and effective. You can’t force yourself to work with a system that simply doesn’t work. For example, my 4 year old used to have a booklet for his Yoto cards but it was too fiddly for him so the cards ended up a mess. Now he has a simple little wooden box that he throws them all into and rummages through them when he wants to choose one. Yes, the lovely booklet looked nice and organised but in the end it wasn’t actually neat and tidy because he wasn’t able to use it easily. Now his cards are contained, tidy, and he can access them and also tidy them himself in under a minute.

I have the opposite problem. I got used to tidying up and cleaning after a life with children and then later, just with my husband ( who helped). It made me uncomfortable if things were messy. However, after he died, I ruthlessly downsized and moved to a smaller house.

It's much easier obviously to keep it tidy and clean, but as I'm getting older, and have some medical issues, my energy levels are much lower. I have days when I just stack the pots by the sink and don't fill the dishwasher, when I have several items of clothing lying round the bedroom or the bathrooms need a quick clean and the carpets need hoovering. It bothers me but I am training myself not to bother about it until my energy returns. If you feel exhausted, it's not worth making yourself more so. As soon as I feel better, I whizz round and sort everything out really quickly.

Totally agree with you that the systems have to work. That is always where I had gone wrong before, making the systems too elaborate or 'pretty'.

I grew up in rather messy, overcrowded and cluttered flats / houses and always wanted to have a minimalist space where everything has a place, hidden if possible.
So now my place is immaculate. I actually never actively tidy up, I don't have to, I clear stuff as I go and it's generally one item at a time.

I live alone and I don't have kids, that helps!

I am not naturally tidy at all. But I don’t really agree with your comment. Assuming that everyone has to tidy eventually, then a tidy person doesn’t spend less time with their children, they will just tidy little and often rather than waiting until things are a mess and take ages to sort.

I agree. This old chestnut always gets trotted out by lazy people.

I don't need to tidy up because I am tidy.

This is just not true though - I have more time to spend on the good stuff because I'm tidy - I don't have to spend hours tidying mess because there's never any mess to tidy. It takes as long to take off a jacket and hang it on a hook as it does to chuck it on the floor, as long to put clothes in a laundry basket as it does to chuck it on the floor. Put the mug in the dishwasher, not on the bench.

I'd like to think my kids had a happy childhood - they lived in a clean and tidy home (not a show home, an actual home), with parents who weren't stressed and miserable because their house was a mess, with plenty of time to go out and have fun precisely because I didn't need to spend hours cleaning and tidying, or looking for things.

Couldn't agree more. I like to be tidy and was brought up to be so but DH is a hoarder and it has taken a great deal of time and effort to be tidy in the past but he is better now - my compromise is to let him have 9/10ths of the wardrobe and drawer space for his excessive amount of clothes. I also behind him, tidying away the items that he puts down and forgets about. Another thing I do, which might help you, @tangerinemagic, is to have a routine for which jobs are done on which days. This is how I keep a tidy home.

I remember playing at my close friends' house when I was small. The two sisters shared a large bedroom and it was very untidy. This was a shock to me as my mother made sure we had tidy bedrooms. We had other friends, who had a girl a similar age to me and a boy a similar age to my brother. The house and all four members were always immaculate. They were extremely welcoming, though - it was simply as natural as breathing to them. The two children were the only children in the entire primary school who came out of school as polished and immaculate as when they went in.

Being tidy, I don't spend ages looking for things because I know where they are (DH, I'm looking at you). Everything has a place to live - shoes in the shoe rack, coats in the cupboard under the stairs, dirty laundry in the laundry basket etc.

Untidy people are under the misapprehension that tidy people never sit down. It's not true because we handle everything once whereas an untidy person will dump something down then handle it again to put it away. We are just smarter with our time.