Step daughter wanting help to gut her house and in not happy to help

[Lola234456]

I'm unwell and have a demanding physical job three long days a week, step daughter shall we say is very not houseproud barely does housework and I'm fairly disgusted with how she lives in her rented property, her dad often comments, both herself and her partner have good well paid jobs but they would simply rather goout or play computer games, she has a check by property mananger Thurs I have a long shift at work weds but am after after working two long days Mon and Tues in which I intend to spend one day cleaning and one day food shopping and relaxing, am I wrong to say no I won't spend my day off going and gutting her out I really wouldn't know when or where to start!!!

If my biological daughter went away for the weekend when she needed to have a clean house and instead asked me to help while knowing I have health issues, I’d have strong words!!!

So I might be going against the grain here with the replies I’ve read but I would help out (friends/family) in some small way. I have been the tenant and also a landlord. They really only need to give 24 hrs notice but a tenant can put it off. as a landlord the inspection was just to check there was no major damage to the property but also to check if I needed to do anything to maintain it. If a place was untidy and not perfectly clean I overlooked it. It’s not for me to decide how someone lives.

i have been the messy person or should I say messy couple. I tried to stay on top of things but it all got too much for just me and my partner was a slob and didn’t clean after himself. In hindsight I should have kicked off more but I was tired from long shifts in work and eventually i just stopped caring. The one day I realised that it was too much for me to tackle and didn’t know where to start.

I’ve also been the person working long shifts that just needs to unwind after work. So chores etc can seem too much. Again see above with messy partner. So things would be left for days or weeks (laundry to be put away bathroom cleans etc)

Maybe speak to your DH or DSD and ask if everything is ok. Sometimes mental health can affect how someone lives.

what I found worked for me was to hire a cleaner than would do all the big chores for me and I would just maintain it between times. So hovering , cleaning the surfaces in the kitchen loading the dishwater etc. ok ex was still messy but all I have to do was a quick tidy around.

Who cares if she gets mardy? You’re not her employee. She needs to get her own shit together.

Life experience

Surely her father can help them

This is something they need to do. She can hire a skip, pull an all-nighter throwing things away, take the day off work and get cleaners in for a deep clean. Her house won’t get clean until she gets rid of all of her stuff. It’s not your job to clean her house or organise her life.

He shouldn't have to. I cannot imagine having so little self respect that I'd need to enlist family members to clean my house. If I was very frail or disabled then that would may be reasonable but for 2 fit 20 somethings it is appalling.

@JS25 I read your long post, and I do have some sympathy as I was a very messy teenager once. But I have to ask - would you have expected/demanded help from others when you had swanned off having a long weekend knowing you had an inspection?

No I wouldn't her dad is retired but on health grounds abit early so I'm fuming that he is doing it but sound utter controversy if I sujest he doesn't help so I'm staying out of it, plus I'd get mad and tell her to her face previous I have helped with garden but it gets left to go back to shut so why should I, she claims she is depressed yet can go to a theme park for the day and manange a full time job so who knows I'm embarrassed by her tbh x

Not necessarily but I think it depends on how much money I would have been losing if I hadn’t gone but then I think I would have put off the inspection and said somethings come up or I couldn’t get away from work.

what the op hasn’t said is when they got notice of the inspection as I said they really only need to give 24 hrs but it can extended if the tenant can’t do it.

btw I wasn’t a teenager I was mid/late 20s. I was always a clean and tidy person but it was my OH who wasn’t and I guess looking back that was down to his parents always doing it for him and I guess he just didn’t notice the mess

Even now at 40 I still have a cleaner that comes in regularly to clean the bathrooms, kitchen, skirting boards windows, behind furniture etc really only the jobs that impact on my time. I have a robotic vacuum that does the main areas and all I need to worry about is laundry and basic housekeeping. So tidying and cleaning as I go and quick run around with a duster.

of course it’s up to the op whether she wants to help or not I just think sometimes there can be more going on and she should maybe try and address that. Maybe advise they get a cleaner once a week to stay on top of things going forward, or help with how to manage a home. I think sometimes when young people move out they don’t realise how much work it takes and how draining it can be after a hard days work. If parents have always done everything then it’s a huge shock.

It's one thing to offer to make a phone call pushing the inspection back or asking around for cleaners on behalf of SD but quite another to get scrubbing imho. There are two able bodied people plus another with no work (or home apparently) commitments expecting a fourth who has work commitments, their own home commitments AND suffers from ill health. There is support and there is being taken for a mug. I hope OP stops being taken for one. If her father wants to do it then crack on. Where are her partners parents btw, are they scrubbing too?

Your DH wanted you to because you're the one who cleans at home, he hasn't got much idea about housework by the sounds of it.
Why isn't the BF doing anything if your DSD isn't? Don't fall for it @Lola234456 , they all sound happy to leave everything to you

Update!, he's gone to clean to find out she says she felt down yesterday so went out with friends instead of attempting a start on cleaning, he says he's annoyed let's see

He's a fool if he cleans whilst she lies bed. Who goes out after a fall?

Hold the line here.
Let him be the mug.
But expect him to return and be angry with you and take it out on you.
If he does, just more confirmation that you are being abused.

Not your responsibility. Sometimes it’s better to leave people to deal with the consequences of their decisions so they learn to change their behaviour.

I'm not abused and I don't think he will have a go at me he will be unwell in general, as he's ill anyway and I'll suffer coz he will be in pain doing nothing here for a week!

Yikes! I'd have left.

The problem with scruff bag people like this is that you help once, they don’t appreciate it or change their ways…they just expect help forever more. My dad was the same- he lived in utter squalor, so bad I never went round to visit him in his flat because I couldn’t bear the smell, the mess and the filth. When I was 6 months pregnant I got a phone call from the warden where he lived saying that she had inspected his flat and that if he didn’t sort it out then they would have to evict him. My sister and I spent a week cleaning and tidying his flat because we were so worried he’d become homeless. It was without doubt the most repulsive thing I’ve ever had to do. My brother (who lives hundreds of miles away) visited my dad a month or so later and reported back to me that my dad’s flat was a state again. He’d done what he could in the time he visited but it wasn’t enough. When he’d mentioned the state of the flat to my dad and how he needed to sort it out, my dad’s response was “oh I don’t bother. The girls will sort it out for me if the warden complains again”. That was the first and only time I ever cleaned his flat.

Stand your ground, OP. You have enough on your plate plus illness without sorting out the home of two adults who are completely capable of something as basic as keeping their home clean.

She felt down so didn’t clean and went out

as she is expecting her dad to clean ?

Hope he doesn’t and this is a lesson to her

Sorry, I can't help you. If it feels too much for you, which I do understand, then maybe look into a professional cleaning company - they'll have seen much worse worse and won't judge.

Did dad get evicted? I don't blame you. What a cheek!

Sounds like SD and her partner have a cushy deal. Who wouldn't prefer to go out for the day with their friends over cleaning the house. Especially if they know Dad will come to the rescue and clean up after them. Where are the partner's parents in all this, do they get asked to help? I wouldn't be wasting my time and money buying cleaning products for them in the future. We live in a day and age where it's easy enough to get them delivered if they don't want to leave the house.

To be fair his parents arnt on the scene but where's he more to the point!!!! I will be going off my head later if he comes home tired mardy and in pain, I may just fuck off out tomorrow if that's the case and leave him to do his own meals even!

Yes, it sounds like the men here view cleaning as a woman's responsibility which is why they're trying to pass the buck onto you as the 'grown up' woman. I would definitely leave your DH to fend for himself a bit more, he may have more respect for how much time and effort goes into cooking and cleaning if he takes on more of the burden himself.