House is a tip. I need help!

[El24]

I've been struggling with keeping on top of the cleaning for as long as I can remember. But the tip is starting to affect my sanity. Balancing that with a f/t job and messy teen, it's all a bit much. Can anyone please recommend a cleaner that could magic away the mess? I'm based in west London. Thanks so much.

while waiting for your cleaner invest in some cheap containers, cardboard boxes will do. Have one for each person and spend 10 minutes a day putting stuff that belongs upstairs in them. Then you take the boxes upstairs and put the things in their proper places. You can do the same for mess which needs to remain downstairs. Honestly it does work.

Does your teen not help?

Go and put ten things away. It won't take long and you will feel heaps better.

Ten things now and ten things in two hours. I promise it will make a difference!

Good luck getting a good cleaner!

Unfortunately my teen is not helpful at all and I blame myself for that because after waiting for things to get done, I'd get so annoyed and do it myself.

Will try the ten things approach, hopefully it'll make a difference.

Still hunting for a cleaner, but not having much luck there either. Sigh.

Thanks for the tips.

I have a messy husband - I feel your pain. If somebody in the house doesn't "get" the point of cleaning / tidying it's incredibly hard to get on top of things. I am slowly getting through to DH but it's been a long slog.

How old is your teen? Can you sit down and have a proper grown-up chat, explain the problem and that you need some help. Agree some ground rules but let your teen have an input into what they will take responsibility for. Will they respond to that? If not, you might have to get tough - do you give them pocket money? Perhaps switch to paying them for "jobs" they do around the house, so they have to earn their money?

Get where you are coming from. My daughter cant even be bothered to make bed or draw curtains. I said once she gets into that habbit i will start sorting her room. Not sure that was a good bargain....

I am getting boring with this tip but walk into a room, set your phone timer for five minutes and start to work. Do as much as you can in that five minutes (you will be surprised at what you can do in that short space of time). When five minutes is up walk out and drink coffee .

Lie to teen! Sit down in adult fashion and explain that you have found rat poo on her pillow! And now you both need to set up a rota for cleaning to stop it :)

Together write a list of everything that needs doing. Get teen to pick 5 things they will do every week alone and you pick 5. The rest you do together in allocated slot ie every thurs eve at 6pm or whatever. So the more that's done in week, less to do at that time

Otherwise yes, get bin bags. Go through one area as time, ie a drawer, everything out, bin what you don't want, then everything else back. Continue. Once this has been done, then rearrange what goes where but only after any excess is removed