Messiest house you've ever seen in real life? Circumstances behind it?

[anahata]

Just a random thought that popped in to my head. About 12 months ago I went up north to go and visit a friend with serious ongoing health issues. By her own admission, she has no interest in housework even when she has good spells, her partner is a hoarder, and her 7 year old is 'feral'. Her words, not mine.

She hasn't had the energy to ever fully set and follow up on boundaries with her lad. He suffers from separation anxiety as he's come home from school so many times and mummy is suddenly in hospital.

It was quite impressive! Sink full of dishes so several says worth on kitchen sides. Plates not scraped, flies buzzing round.Carpets filthy. Loads of handprints on walls from where her lad has eaten, then touched walls. Just stuff everywhere, but dirt both underneath and on top of that stuff. It really is just stuff, can't think of any other name for it.

Even though I know the entire situation inside out, and there are more extenuating circumstances here than most of us will ever deal with in a lifetime, it took my breath away.

So, has your house ever been that bad? or a friends? What went through your mind? It's not right, but I'm afraid to say I judged her partner over this one. He's so half soaked he doesn't care. At the very least he could've done washing up.

I did 5 bowl fulls of washing up, hung washing out, vacuumed carpets downstairs where I could, then mopped and vacuumed kitchen.

Went upstairs to the loo before I left. Oh Dear Lord. Her partner can deal with that. I have my limits I'm afraid.

I just feel guilty that she is genuinely I'll, her bloke is happy to wallow in his own shite, even though he is healthy, and that I viewed it as an absolutely Sh!t tip even though knowing the situation.

Does that make sense? I've had really strong painkillers so sorry if it doesn't.

So. Worst houses you've seen. How bad is bad?

Pretty similar to your description except no carpet, sleeping bag on sofa, blocked loo, smell of cigarettes everywhere, piles and piles of old newspapers, gone off food. And the icing on the cake - human shit on the floor covered with newspaper.

This was an elderly man who refused social care. Although he was, I'm told, fairly dirty his entire life so we cannot totally blame that.

Oh I've seen alsorts. Tbh it's hard not to judge but I never give it a second thought really after. It doesn't make me think less of them.

I've seen filthy, and I mean how clean is your house filthy states. Toilets black, poo up toilet walls, food and grime up all walls. Also got a friend who's house is quite filthy tbh, smells of wet dog and urine. But what can you do as don't like to offend and if I said anything theyd be fuming!

That does sound bad. I have seen worse, but that was a 60 year old disabled chronic alcoholic's house.

The smell hit you half way down the road - no idea how his neighbours put up with it. He kept pigeons in hutches in the front room. Bird seed and bird shit, layer upon layer, everywhere - flies thick covering it. I don't think the house had been cleaned in at least 30 years. He smoked constantly and had no working bathroom, peed in jugs everywhere and rubbish/old food just stayed where he threw it on the floor. Rats had chewed through a lot of the wiring, cobwebs thick everywhere. Oh god, the smell...

But he had no kids. I'm a terrible housekeeper, but I really don't think it's right for kids to live in squalor like your friend's house. If your friend is unable to clear up, and her partner won't do it, you need to be telling someone so that help can be organised for them. It is neglect.

My friend's house is like that OP. We live in the same sized 4 bed detached house so it's not exactly ti y, but there is stuff everywhere - and I mean everywhere. There is no space on any work surface, there is a small corridor that you can walk on to move about between rooms but every room is piled with toys, bikes, hobby stuff and so on. Dishes and basic cleaning not done for days on end.

She is literally not interested in any form of tidying. She's fab, great fun - but a complete slattern The downside is her kids are a bloody nightmare when they come to ours - absolutely no respect for 'stuff', because their house is brimming with it and no-one notices if anything gets broken

My friend is messy. There are piles of random shit everywhere, she's a bit of a hoarder and has her teenager living there too who also isn't tidy. It's beyond chaotic but she's the most fabulous person and everyone in the house, including the 2 dogs, is happy as Larry, so who am I to judge.

Probably when we viewed an apartment. DH went in and looked but I only stood at the door as I was fairly certain there were rodents in the 6 inches of debris/crap/clothes/dog stuff on the floor. There were 4 guys sharing it and one of them had a dog. I felt very very sorry for the dog. It was clear from the books/logo stuff that we could see, that the 4 of them were attending Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.

My work friend sold their first house after having DC. They loved that house. It came back on the market and there was an open afternoon which they dragged me along to for a trip down memory lane. Part of our business is estate agency so not strictly complete nosiness.

They had driven past it a few times and moaned about overgrown hedges etc. I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it in my life. You could have done a full series documentary there. We managed to squeeze along the hallway but every room was piled to the ceiling with rubbish. No seats, just piles and piles of rubbish. The estate agent was muttering about a falling out with the council and bin collection had now been sorted. This would have taken about fifty skips. You could not get inside any of the rooms. The smell was horrific. Doors were hanging off hinges, cables instead of plugs, no carpets. I wish I had taken photos to show the true horror. We drove by a few months later and it looks lovely. It was a bank sale so I don't know what had happened to the owners but it made me sad in a way. Someone certainly got a bargain price wise but it would have taken some amount of work to put back to liveable.

Mine it wasn't dirty though just very very untidy , I did have postnatal depression , a disabled baby and in a dv relationship so yep not just lazy my house is relatively tidy now and definitely clean

With me it was the house of a very nice work colleague/friend. I just think she had no idea - experienced minimal parenting herself and had no real yardstick. And she and her DH were slightly hippy/fuck authority types, so there may have been an element of "cleaning is for the dull people" going on - I could never quite work out if the house was so disgusting because she didn't know it was disgusting, or if she was making some sort of statement. But it really was awful - seriously filthy.
She made a cake once and brought it into work and to my eternal shame I advised my nearest colleagues not to eat it. It still makes me cringe - I shouldn't have said a word. It was horrible of me.

A friends house. I knew he had no standards (and mine are very low tbh) as at uni he had slept in a sleeping bag for 2 years - and not washed it. But he married someone with zero standards as well, had three children in quick succession and their house was rank. We moved them when she was pg with no.2 and I was clearing their bedroom floor with a shovel. None of them ever looked clean as the washing would be left wet in piles for days.

When I was a child I went into several houses as described in this thread, this was back in the 70's and I was too young to know about possible mental health issues or other reasons, I just knew I felt sorry for friends living in such conditions and our house was far from pristine with several cats, dog, heavy smoking parents, lack of cash and what not.
I can cope with untidy but not squalor or bad smells. I often wonder if true hoarders see the mess? I don't know much about severe mental health issues so I don't really understand the link (and I do mean understand not that there isn't one). I suffer mild depression and clean/tidy gives me a sense of control.

My FIL and his partner. The house is just full of stuff. You can smell the dust in the rooms as it's impossible dust ir hoover properly.That said the washing up gets done and the loo is clean.
Every room had boxes of crap in, there are piles of newspapers in the dining room. There used to be a rotavator in one room but they must have decluttered that!
They recently got a wood burner and all down one side of the garden is wood in various guises for this burner.
It's not as bad as some but it's a good sized house which could be lovely and it's such a shame to see.

No friends with houses as dirty as you are describing. I do have friends that are messy - house has thing piled everywhere - it's clean though, just cluttered.

Both are lovely people and have the nicest politest small children I have the pleasure of knowing. I guess they just don't feel channel minimalism!!

Mine about 4 weeks ago!

If i cleaned anything once a month it would be a good month. There were piles and piles for washing up most days, stuff everywhere and nothing ever got binned, so food wrappers and stuff just piled up. We have 2 dogs and I never vacced, so there were tumbleweed-style balls of dog hair floating around my house. You couldnt see my bedroom floor for all the clothes and there were so many empty bottles of shampoo and stuff that I stopped using the bath...

While the dogs were puppies they would wee on the floor and I would just leave it to dry...

I have GAD and only mild depression, but went 2 years without a diagnosis and during that time the house just became a reflection of what the inside of my brain looked like.

Thankfully 2 months ago I started treatment for the GAD and depression and 4 weeks ago I completely gutted the house. Weirdly, the act of purging all the grime and mess felt like a new beginning and there hasnt been so much as a plate left out overnight since :)

It's absolutely incredible what mental health issues can do to you and how, when the "fog" lifts you can completely change your outlook :)