Feel so embarrassed about our house

[Whatinthe]

Last week my kids had some friends over to play and one of the girls kept commenting on how messy our house was. She's lovely and it was just observations rather than her being rude and I laughed it off with her. Thing is, it really upset me and I felt so ashamed that our house was noticeably messy to an 8 year old. I had spent the whole day tidying their rooms and doing the housework but the sides were all cluttered and, whilst much better than it had been, she was right, our house is messy. We've been through a lot healthwise and are both struggling with stress and anxiety...and I'd say it shows in the state of our house. It's not dangerous or dirty but clearly messier than other people's homes.

My kids have another play date tomorrow and I'm dreading it- i have today to get the house sorted but just feel embarrassed for my kids that I can't keep up with the house and their friends can notice that.

Urgh just wanted to vent somewhere and hope I'll find I'm not alone. I feel I know the theory to sorting this out but we just keep falling back into things being a mess.

@CorsicaDreaming I wish...but our house is an absolute tip most days and the floors are not usually clear!

We have slightly unusual jobs and will often have dinners at ours which are part social/part work related. Thankfully all very low key, no 3 course meals here!

The PP that said about setting up good habits for my kids is so right. We had no expectations on tidying up in our house and my room was a spectacular mess (was always proud to say I knew where everything was though!). A couple of my friends absolutely loved my room because they had to keep theirs tidy however, in hindsight, it would have been so helpful to have been expected to contribute and have some standards. I suppose there is a happy medium.

@CornedBeef451 it sounds like it has been such a help for you. I'm definitely going to check it out - I think I start too big and I need to start slow and steady.

@CorsicaDreaming those all sound really helpful and realistic - thank you!

@Whatinthe it really has made such a difference.

I could never do Kon Marie and if the cleaning routine ones like Mrs Hinch but I can cope with 5 mins chucking away things we never use. It just takes a lot of 5 minutes!

Dana is also good as she says no matter how little you've done it's still better than it was, I found that helpful as I always want to do a big project of reorganising but it just doesn't work.

After reading this thread yesterday I realised everywhere looked a mess again but it really did just take 5 mins in each room to make everything tidy again, it's revolutionary!

Hope it all goes well for you.

Can you buy some big plastic storage boxes and at least clear the floors?

When DD was little we had a couple of big plastic storage boxes with lids in the living room to put all of her toys away. This is a simple and quick solution.

@CornedBeef451 I listened to her first podcast yesterday and I've honestly never felt so understood - she could have been describing me and my life. Thanks so much! I'm going to do the same as her and start with the kitchen, then gradually go on from there.

I feel like other things I've tried have been made by people who are inclined to either just be naturally tidy or to over clean (like tomm where the time limits are to stop her cleaning all day) whereas I feel like I can fully relate to Dana so I feel more hopeful about it working.

I'm so glad it helped you 😁

@Whatinthe I'm so glad you liked the podcast! I love Dana, she's so honest and funny.

She has some good YouTube videos where she help people declutter parts of their houses. It's quite reassuring to see the state of other people's homes.

Good luck with it all, it can be really freeing to just get rid of all the stuff!

Sorry, I did have paragraphs but they seem to have disappeared.

I'm in a similar position, although I'm pretty sure my house must be worse than yours! Can barely see the floor in most rooms, which then makes it impossible to hoover or clean properly. Constant battle shuffling stuff around to make space, even just to eat at the dinner table. I work from home, and my garage is rammed to the rafters with work 'stuff' and that keeps on overflowing into the house which makes things even worse.

I'm a single parent of 3 DC (age 8 to 13), and trying to clean and tidy up after them is hopeless, just chasing my tail. Juggling domestic duties, parenting, and working seems almost impossible, just leaves me constantly exhausted. I try to concentrate on one small area at a time, but if I harass my kids into tidying their stuff from that space, I then find that they take it just out of site and then plonk it down on the next available flat surface (even on the stairs). They won't help with any cleaning/domestic chores, despite attempts to bribe them with pocket money for it. So I've near enough given up myself.

Definitely need to do a massive declutter, and I've got loads of stuff that is too good/valuable to just throw away, but never get around to listing on ebay etc.

I've not had a single visitor to my house in 3 years, because it's so embarrassingly messy. I've been in a relationship with someone for 4 years, and they've never been in my house (mainly because I don't want them to see just how bad it is). Won't even let the kids have friends round because they won't even tidy their bedrooms to make them presentable.

Spent ages decluttering and tidying the kitchen last week, Thought I'd made a decent improvement, but not quite got it all sorted. 24hrs later and it's back to looking a mess again. Feel like I'm drowning in my own junk!

@cool4cats2020 that sounds really hard! You do probably just have too much stuff. Instead of tidying one small area can you just declutter it instead?

A Slob Comes Clean does a bit at a time. Rubbish bag and recycling box, if you find something that lives somewhere else, take it there right now. If you don't know where it lives, ask where you'd look for it first and take it there right now. If you wouldn't think to look for it, chuck it.

Once you've gradually worked your way through the house you can see if you can keep it tidy, if not, get rid of more things.

I've found our house finally works now. It was trashed at the end of last week but it just took me an hour to get it visitor ready whereas before it would have taken days. Even the bedrooms were ok rather than me just chucking everything in my bedroom and shutting the door.

It's a slow process but you can just do 5 mins while the kettle boils, no need to do hours at a time.

It's taken me a year or so but for the first time ever someone else replaced the soap in the bathroom as it was easy to find, in a logical place, and in a labelled tub rather than rammed in the cupboard Jenga style. Very small victory but it was unreasonably exciting.

We still have too many under bed storage boxes but I'm working on convincing the other inhabitants to get rid of more things but it's taking a while.

Good luck with your house but give yourself a break, it must be really hard to do it all by yourself.

Again, what happened to the paragraphs?