Be honest! What things do you judge in other people’s houses?

[Teaandsleep]

Just a fun post.

Recently doing a huge renovation in our own home and am absolutely mortified at the dust everywhere, I keep having visions of visitors coming to the door and seeing all the dust everywhere, it is thick!

I also currently have a spatula sticking out my down pipe drain as we have just unblocked it and it’s to catch any old leaves/moss until it’s replaced 🤣

Dirty toilets

I couldn’t be doing with cats on the worktops. I wouldn’t judge as such but I wouldn’t accept any food or drink. I mean I wash my hands before going to prepare anything in the kitchen, cats walk through dirt and outside on those paws. And outside of that their hair/fur. No, it wouldn’t suit me at all. And surely it’s quite easy to close the kitchen door to keep the cat out.

I wondered if I'd get any comments re my pine cones, stones, feathers & fox's skull, but I guess they are acceptable if my loo's clean & my bookshelves are nicely stacked! :-)
I think the main thing is being made to feel welcome.. my mum faffed around with coasters so that I felt the furniture was more important than my company.. then left me sat there while she went to peg her washing out. :-(

Good grief I've got to the derailed part of what was a really good thread. @Puffalicious you are so rude and everything you accuse @Badbaddog of being!

Intrigued by the books thing. Who reads their books more than once? How often do you refer to any of your books? Why keep them all on show? This seems purely pretentious to me now that I'm thinking about it. Is a visible Kindle even worse than having no books on show, or is that OK?

Honestly.. Hoarding. Crap piling up everywhere. Bits of paper/junk. Mess really. I can live with a little dust. My NDN is a good friend and has an identical house to mine and mine just feels so much more spacious as her house is filled with junk. I work full time and have a one year old and still manage an hour of house work and washing etc every day x

Aldi dupe reed diffusers sitting next to Jo Malone bags as 'decor'

I’ve read some of my books more tab once, or DH/DC might read them at some point. I don’t keep them to show I’m like well clever and that, just because I’ve paid for the fucker do I’m not chucking it straight out I have an astigmatism and it doesn’t like my kindle when I’m tired so I buy actual pretentious paper books.

@CrankyFrankie

Intrigued by the books thing. Who reads their books more than once? How often do you refer to any of your books? Why keep them all on show? This seems purely pretentious to me now that I'm thinking about it. Is a visible Kindle even worse than having no books on show, or is that OK?

Oh, I've got several favourites that I reread. And it's nice to have them out somewhere so you don't forget you've got them and sometimes catch sight of one you'd like to rediscover. We have a lot in the loft and I really should "rotate" them more.

It's not about liking a display of books. Lots of people do, for many reasons, and the communal areas are often where the space is for them. It's about performative and pretentious bloviations about what an extreme bibliophile you are... to the point where you're saying things like you couldn't ever befriend or think well of people who don't have shelves and shelves of books on display because you crave stories and inspiration and perusing books on a wet day etc etc.

The comment about not being a heroine in a Gothic novel was brilliant.

If I love a book then I pass it on (with the exception of reference books, cookery books, etc). If I can't bear to part with it then it tends to end up in a box in the loft, which is silly I know, but at least it isn't gathering dust. I say this as an english literature graduate who earns good money writing as a career (hate myself for adding this but just so bemused by the snobbery).

Some of the more visceral pro-books-on-show comments are pure gold though, I admit!

Yes 100% agree @DrSbaitso

@naemates

Aldi dupe reed diffusers sitting next to Jo Malone bags as 'decor'

Do people do this? Very sad.

My friend gave me her hairdressers number as I was after a new one. She worked from home so I went round for an appointment and it was pretty messy... ok fair enough we are all clean freaks no drama.

Then I went upstairs to wash the colour off my hair and dirt knickers on the bath room floor

This is unforgivable. Never went back

Of no use to anyone but I love the smell of ferrets!

Rats are cute too

I have a friend who I met at work

She was always clean,smart and had nice hair and make up
She’d been to mine a few times-and only (openly judged me) on the size of my kitchen-it’s tiny,which I can’t do much about

I went back to hers once and fuck me,it was filthy
Grime everywhere,crap on top of crap-you couldn’t sit down or make a drink for stuff everywhere-the toilet was black-I darent look behind the shower curtain
I had at least 3 fleas land on me and she openly admitted to having mice behind the fridge
I said there was no shame in having mice as long as you did something about them-I’ve had mice and it took me about ten days to be fully rid
She’d had the nest for well over a year!
And she thinks there is one behind her telly too
She was hinting at me to buy her mousetraps and to set them up as she was skint
Not too skint to buy her dog two/three maccys milkshakes a day,takeaway coffee while she bought the shakes,salmon for the cats and new clothes every week
I offered to help clear some of the stuff she’d hoarded but she turned me down so I offered to help clean what I could and she refused-seems she’s happy to live like that

Yes-I bloody judged-my house is far from showhome perfect but it’s clean

Milkshakes from MacDonalds for a dog????

My kitchen is falling apart and it looks shit but it’s always clean and if anyone judged my house for not being perfectly renovated I wouldn’t class them as someone I wanted in my house!

So I judge bad smells, a toilet that hasn’t been cleaned for years and has a build up of stale urine and all that gunk in the loo, days of not being hoovered, really cluttered and untidy, bin bags left in the house things like that. Your home could have 70s carpet and missing cabinet doors that can’t be helped if you can’t afford to change it but it can be cleaned. Only time I wouldn’t judge is if it was someone with poor mental health, elderly or disabled. I have four kids and my home is usually clean (might not be uncluttered and perfectly tidy) but there’s no dirt on stuff because I tackle that quickly

Wow I would love to be a fly on the wall in some peoples houses.
I remember years ago a woman used to come into where I worked and she absolutely stank of cat wee.
You could smell her before you saw her it was so bad. Apparently her NDN complained and the house had to be fumigated. She had many cats and never, ever let them out. They used used her house as a giant toilet .

Dirty smelly fridges / that’s where you put your food?!

General dirt you can see but too lazy to clean.

Cluttered kitchen everything piled up on the sides or pushed back, put stuff away? Bin it!

Overflowing kitchen bins - again pure laziness
Smelly kitchen bins clearly dirty and needs cleaning

Filthy crumb infested cutlery draws. 🤮

Broken hoover - turns out just full 😡

People who don’t have cleaning supplies - literally 1 cloth that is stinking and no spray

I have a real problem with laziness if I’m being honest, no one and I mean no one truly loves cleaning or having to maintain living standards if we all had a button and it’s done we would push it but we haven’t.

I have 1 friend who talks the talk calls out people for living in filth- her house is banging dirty! And I mean bad!

Another friend doesn’t have very much at all started again after break up but her home is lovely kept and she cleans I love going over.

Best reply yet @pictish 🥰

There are doggy smells and doggy smells, most family and friends I visit who have dogs the house doesn't smell at all, maybe a tiny bit if they've been holed up a lot with bad weather and haven't been able to let a bit of fresh air in. Even a friends old dog who couldn't always hold it to go our and cock his leg didn't smell as she washed the blankets and suchlike every day. But I have been to someone's house where on opening the front door the stench hit you like a thick fog. You had to take a deep breath if you went in, and make excuses to leave as much as possible. And she had a baby and a small child in there. Changed my clothes and had a bath when I got home to get rid of the smell. Another time took vick on a hanky and pleaded a bit of a sniffle. Still the same years later. So glad I don't need to go there any more. I'd judge mouse poo on the kitchen where it was obvious. As long as it is safe I don't judge any house really, over the years have been in houses that haven't been updated since the war and new ones with fashionable decor and furniture. I might judge houses where the children didn't seem to be allowed to be children. Not personally keen on word art stuff to be honest. But if it makes the people who live there happy that's the main thing.

I only really judge dirt or smells tbh, your house can't be tidy 24/7 if it's lived in and I have a toddler so it's always messy, no judgement for mess here.
Smells though, we viewed a private rental a few years ago, they had two big dogs and although the dogs weren't home at the time there was no denying they lived there, the place stunk. Put me right off which was a shame because it was a beautiful house.

@DemBonesDemBones

Good grief I've got to the derailed part of what was a really good thread. *@Puffalicious you are so rude and everything you accuse @Badbaddog* of being!

Oh, we're over that DemBones.

Me and Badbaddog are banter buds now.

@crackofdoom

Houses with massive TVs but no books.

^This