How messy is the average person's home?

[Astressedmumoftwo]

I have two kids, six indoor cats (two in foster) and an average sized semi detached house. While I can get my house "surface tidy" by most people's standards within an hour, if you open cupboards and drawers you'll find a very different story, and would possibly be killed by an avalanche. They're full of cr*p. Often I shove random stuff into a big reusable bag and dump them in a cupboard so they're out of sight when speed cleaning.

This weekend we are going through and trying to sort everything and throw a lot out , and I'm really overwhelmed with how much stuff we have in random places. I feel like I've barely made a dent.

Is this normal or am I bordering on hoarding territory?

I'm a declutterer, but I do feel I'm fighting a DH who wants to keep stuff like enormous photo albums (which he never looks at, as they are stashed in high-up cupboard) and a large CD collection (which he never plays because he listens to playlists on Spotify). But we have good storage and I keep chipping away at excess possessions where I can.

My house is generally lived-in as are most of my friends. Children in the house really doesn't help (one of mine is ND including dyspraxia, and the other shows many dyslexic traits so it really is a losing battle) My two also favour bitty construction toys and cards and dip in and out of things so a floor can be covered in hundreds of items in two minutes. For now, I'm pleased that I've got children that actually play at 9 & 11.
Dyspraxia also doesn't help the state of the kitchen/ dining area and it's still not far off from toddler levels of devestation after eating.

Visitor-ready requires a big blitz... unless it's one of my forgiving scattier friends 😁

The house isn't tidy right now. I could get it -quick scan tidy- in about ten minutes, but would need an hour to get it hoovered and shiny. Opening-cupboards tidy, forget about it, I'd be measuring in weeks.

It’s a standard joke in our house, my son often says, if you sit down in my mum’s house to long you will be decluttered and cleaned, i hate carry bags of random stuff. A place for everything and everything in its place.

don’t get overwhelmed, just start in one room, in one corner, just start sorting and clearing. Remember Rome was not built in a day, just keep at it and you will eventually get round the whole house .

Remaker
We went for a bbq yesterday. It’s a beautiful house, however the hosting couple spent ages after dinner cleaning everything to within an inch of its life. We all pitched in to get the platters washed when it became obvious they weren’t going to sit down until it was all washed, dried and put away. But they carried on wiping everything down, hoovering the floor, putting a wash on with the used tea towels etc. The rest of us were whispering confessions that we would have turned the dishwasher on, thrown everything else in the sink to soak and sat down to enjoy our guests’ company! I’d rather visit a lived in house and feel welcome than a perfect display home where I’m terrified of accidentally spilling something.

Thats so sad that you can’t have guest round and enjoy them and just leave the mess until they have left. I keep a very tide home but if I have a party or guests in for dinner and drinks, I may fill up the dishwasher, but that about it, it all gets clean the next morning or after they have left.

I am a bit like you. Kondo felt way too difficult and extreme. I read a book called decluttering at the speed of life and it really helped me change things around - not as extreme as kondo and it all makes perfect sense, easy to do a bit here and there.

That book is by Dana K White I think, of the blog A Slob Comes Clean.
She's well worth a look op. There are also some free YouTube videos.

Our house is always pretty tidy but that's because our kids are now 19 and 20 and we are minimalists. Once we got rid of about 80% of our belongings, it was pretty easy to keep it tidy.

I've deliberately got rid of the cupboards and shelves in our new lounge so that one room is clutter free.
We're doing a car boot in a couple of weeks so having a good clear out.

See, I couldn't live like that - knowing that there was stuff bulging in cupboards would honestly lose me sleep at night!

I think my house must be the exact opposite of yours OP- really exactingly organised (labelled) cupboards, with loads of crap lying around that no-one else can be assed sorting into my anxiety-ridden systems!

We finally sorted out all the paperwork!

It's taken me 15 years of gradual changes to get DH to consent to at least gather all the paperwork in one place rather than scattered all over the house. He used to keep important things stashed in every drawer, including his bedside cabinet, kitchen drawers and cupboard under the stairs.

Two years ago he let me put everything in themed folders (many folders), but did agree to keeping everything in one cupboard.

Last week we needed documents for selling the house so I went through it all and left him the pile of contentious stuff he previously wanted to keep.

He got rid of it!

Not all of it, but he did agree we probably didn't need anything related to 2 houses we no longer own and several long gone cars.

We now have four folders and one of those is everything to hand over to the people buying the house. The other house one only has 3 things in it rather than every council tax bill we have ever received in the last 20 years!

I was almost giddy when it was done. It's been a long road but we got there!

Our flat used to be reasonably tidy but very full.

One year of decluttering and asking if we really need all our things and it is now tidy, including all cupboards and drawers. They are no longer full to capacity, but neay and easy to see into.

We're moving overseas soon and that has really helped focus our minds. We've sold a lot of books and toys and some furniture. Bags and bags of stuff have been donated. And most importantly, we've stopped adding to the clutter!

Luckily my house is clutter free. I think it's mostly due to luck of storage! It's quite a small home with just enough space for basic furniture.

I have a clear out a few times a year: anything that I don't remember using or seems to get shoved to the back of the cupboard is a goner!

This is me, too. I spent a year where my whole focus was getting rid of stuff when we had a big move and it’s mostly visitor tidy now (I could do with one more cupboard really, and the garage needs work). It’s massively helped by my DD hitting 11, and not really having ‘toys’ anymore. There might be the odd game left out, and she still has some tat (and drawers full of stuffed animals) but not the boxes and boxes of stuff littler kids can accumulate. I Marie-Kondo-ed all my storage and have mostly kept up with it. I think I’m probably above average, tidiness-wise, although my adult:kid/manchild ratio is good, and I did bust a gut on it for ages. There are still a couple of things I haven’t tackled and should, and my office is always a home for things waiting to be dealt with, but on the whole, it’s something I consider more or less dealt with.

It’s not always visitor clean, though. I keep on top of the laundry and dishes (more or less) but mopping floors and dusting doesn’t happen much since I had to give up my cleaner.