when did you get tidy ?

[ethelb]

Just that really.

I sort of got it aged 14 after being an utter slattern.

I have friends who suddenly snapped after leaving university.

And I have a sister who at 16 acts like a hurricane in every room she enters!

When did you start being tidy and clean, or as tidy and clean as you are now iyswim

Never

I'm still waiting......

Post university. Although I still have lapses.

1. My mum was a horrible slattern, she used to leave the washing up for 3/4 days & the stink of off milk was enough to get me to wash up.

She used to throw proper fits of rage if one of us tided up something.

When we got our own house, not when I moved in DH's house I mean OUR house. Gone from messiest, untidyest ever to slight OCD!!

Sarca, I still have lapses too :-)

When I bought a house after renting one. Owning made me feel like I loved it more and had more of an interest in its prettiness

Not yet. Am a bit crap really :(

noisy I rent but still have to keep it clean. In case the landlord gives me notice of a visit!! Even though I don't own it it's my home :-)

when I got fed up of saying to visitors 'sorry for the mess'. Now its always just the right side of tidy....

...Until daughter comes home from uni then it looks like a bombs gone off in every room - even rooms she doesn't use!

Have always been tidy.

25, after DD was born (6 month ago!)

November 1993, a week after my mum left. I was 13 years old, and it was just me and my Dad, so for me it was (a) necessity and (b) a coping mechanism.

I can be really obsessed about housework and get very stressed if things aren?t right, which really winds DH up. It never really occurred to me that there?s a reason for it. I shall have to discuss with DH, might help him understand a bit. He?s the complete opposite and will live in a pigsty given the chance, so we argue about it a LOT.

When I had my first child at 26. I'm still not all that great at housework because I fucking hate doing it, but I do maintain a certain standard that wasn't present before.

When I got my own house!

Now! I've a 2 year old and a 6 month old and I'm just realising that I really don't want them growing up thinking the current squalor in our house is normal!

In fairness, a lot of it is because they're so tiny, but it's also because DH and I are lazy, and that I can do something about.

Unfortunately I'll be back in work fulltime in 3 weeks, so I'm going to have to work hard at keeping things going.

About 2 years ago when we got mice. It was a horrible experience. I know they go anywhere they can get in but it was the only thing that got my 4ds' to realise that it's important to keep the house clean. Finding dead mice & droppings all over the house was a disgusting wake up call for them.

Btw if they lapse I make them watch one of those hoarder programmes.

Ha ha, I'm still working on it, which is why I post on here- I'm not boasting when I list my Ta Da's, it's more a case of "I can do this" I do keep the house tidy, it just doesn't come naturally to me.

I will say that 14 is a messy age (aren't all the teen years) and before that you were a child OP not a slattern. Tsk, we don't qualify as full slatterns until adulthood dontcha know

My DDs have seen a bit of the Hoaders programme, so I have a little amo with that. we're currently decluttering to try and sell, it's a painfull process!

Alternate decades.

I've steadily got tidier since the age of 14.

I think through uni I was tidier than most people, it was just hard to tell as I lived with tornado type people.

When do you have to give up hope with some people though

After grotty student life. I still can tolerate a level of mess though!

6 days ago (too early to say if the habit will stick).

17, when DS was born. I felt strongly that he deserved to be in a nice home. I have since realised that I deserve to be in a nice home too.