I have just come back from visiting various friends in the UK and have to admit I was appalled by the state of every house I visited bar one....

[HopeForTheJingleBells]

Not just messy, which is fine, but utter chaos and filth. Ds and I stayed over at a couple of places, and I can honestly say that I did not want ds touching the sinks as I do not think that they have ever been cleaned.
And I cannot even begin to describe the toilets.

What amazed me even more was that there was hardly enough room to walk across the living room, so strewn was it with toys, clothes (clean? dirty? impossible to tell), nappies, books, plates, dvds, boxes, folders, mugs and cups with dregs of old drinks in them.... there was often nowhere to sit except a filthy couch or broken chairs, no dining table, no coffee table.

The kitchens were disgusting. Dirty dishes on every available surface, dirty water in the sink into which various things were dipped and then left to dry on an overflowing rack, crumbs and leftover food everwhere, cooker crusted over with old food, floor so crunchy it made me feel a bit ill to walk on it in just my socks...


Basically, every place we visited (except one - and they have a cleaner, which is probably significant) was like this

Now, I am not the world's tidiest nor cleanest person. Really, I'm not. Neither is my dh.
However, there is no way on earth I would let someone into my house if it looked like that. But my house doesn't look like that. And, funnily enough, I don't know anyone here whose house looks like that.
I know people who are far messier than we are, and I know people who are much, much tidier and cleaner. But none of my friends here live in this state of squaller which seemed to be perfectly normal for my friends in England .

What was even more interesting was discussions I had with a number of people when I got back (both British and other nationalities) who all seemed unsurprised and bascially said that yes, the English were known for this


So, what is your experience? Do you notice this when you go back to the UK? How is it where you are? Or do I just happen to know some really skanky people in England :o ?

[JackSawMamaKissingSantaClaus]

OP, one of my patients who is studying in the U.K. for the year is back here for Christmas and has told me the same - she didn't go into as much detail as your post but basically says the standards of cleanliness are pretty low.

I have no idea if that's true, however, just repeating what I've been told.

[kickassangel]

having moved to the US i am convinced that generally the expectations of tidiness are higher here than in the UK.

When i go home to visit, EVERY house, except one (PIL) is way messier & sometimes dirtier. however, the size of the houses is an issue. most of my friends have to keep toys just lines up at the side of the room, or have kids sharing bedrooms etc. here, a relatively cheap house has room for separate play areas, or at least big closets for toys to go into.

it is a bit of a culture shock, to find 'the door knob on the back door' is a bona fide storage space for hanging coats, compared to the closet in the laundry room. but then, if you don't have a laundry room, let alone a closet, where are you going to put things? and mess makes it harder to clean.

even so, i seem to know more messy/dirty people than really neat & tidy ones.

[sakura]

yes, when I said Japanese homes were cluttered I failed to mention that they all live in the tiniest of appartments; often parents and all children share a bedroom where foutons are rolled out in the evening and rolled back up in the morning to make space for a living room

[LaWeaselMys]

Japanese houses are not badly designed!!!

They are some of the best designs in the world, for living in a major earthquake zone. If they built houses from brick it would be like earthquakes in Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands of people would die.

[sakura]

I'm not talking about the beautiful old traditional expensive houses.
I'm talking about the makeshift shacks, they are very badly designed and don't last more than 35 years or so, partly because of the humidity, partly because of the materials used, but mainly because they're not designed to last. Everybody wants a new house, so they crush the old house and build another (makeshift) house in place.
Everything looks hotchpotch and messy

[GotArt]

When I returned from the UK to BC, Canada, I was shocked at the filth that my uncle was living in. He hadn't dusted, cleaned his bedsheets or vacuumed in over two years. There wasn't a flat space anywhere to place anything on and old plastic coffee containers filled with compost on the counter top. My grandmother lived here as well but had died 2 1/5 years (the house NEVER looked like this when she was alive) previously and he hadn't even removed her garbage from her bathroom, the floor was piled high with various fishing gear with algae growing on it from his last fishing trip that turned out to have been almost a year before. He hadn't even taken down the Xmas decorations from before grannie died. I have another friend whom I just cannot even go over to visit anymore and don't want him my house because no matter if he showers he still smells like his manky old house. Food left on plates for over a week or more, cat piss/poo somewhere, but you can't see it. Its become a bit of a joke that you need your shots before going over there or that he has the cure for cancer growing in one of the corners. None of my UK friends lived like this.

I think maybe you have manky friends, no offense; like come on, put the dirty diaper in the garbage at least.

[LaWeaselMys]

I come from NZ, where everybody wants to build their own and everything is wood and steel to withstand landslides and quakes.

Space not so much a problem though.

But was very at the brick and stone suggestion, as it might look tidy, but it's a great way to die in an earthquake. NZ was very lucky in it's last big quake, as it was overnight and there weren't many people up to be hit by falling masonry in the old parts of town. In fact no one died.

[sakura]

that sounds like a serious mental health issue GotArt

[sakura]

LaWease they could make wooden houses to last that's true, but they don't. So what you get is lots of people wanting a new house (for cultural reasons- many wouldn't dream of buying a second-hand house) but building a house from scratch requires a lot of raw materials, which are very expensive, and the end result is a cardboard-box- looking house.
YOu get some villages full of old-style traditional houses, but in the main, the houses look rickety, badly-designed and makeshift
Stone and bricks look very neat. BEautiful wood also looks good. Steel and wooden shacks do not.

[sakura]

I'M also not sure rickety wooden shacks are such a great idea in an earthquake. Kobe was full of them and the entire city perished in the last big quake

[sakura]

I mean the old-style traditional houses always look gorgeous, but in the main, people don't want this type of house anymore

[GotArt]

A little bit mental but really, he is just incredibly lazy. Incredibly lazy. The outside of the house didn't even remotely look like you would think from the inside. Needless to say, because DH and I were going to staying with him for a while, I cleaned the place from top to bottom and he didn't even once thank me. His girlfriend bitches all the time about how he just won't clean up after himself that she in now in the spare room. I'm thinking it won't be long before she's out the door.

[GotArt]

I live in earthquake central! Southern Vancouver Island will end up like Atlantis when the big one hits. We have plenty of brick/stucco houses. There all wood and steal on the inside cause its cheap. But everytime we have tremors I just envision the rock pile coming down on us that is what the house above us sits on, and we are on a cliff. EEK.

[SuiGeneris]

Bathroom carpets are truly disgusting- even in otherwise clean houses, as I doubt very much they get shampooed twice a week (which is the minimum interval between washing the bathroom floors in our house).

Why do people leave them in? I regularly visit an otherwise clean British house and cannot fathom why the switch to tiles has not been made decades ago. My only guess is that it is part of some sort of "this is the way we live and won't be swayed by foreign fads" thinking (our hosts are older and right-wing).

Though it is true that the British have a much higher tolerance of clutter (especially in reception areas) than other countries. And a cluttered house can never be as clean as a tidy one. Not unless all the clutter gets moved every time the house is cleaned. And given the levels of clutter, this is usually impossible...

[Caz10]

kickassangel I am surprised that noone else has mentioned the space/storage issue. We have moved,with one Dd and me being pg, from a 1bdm bungalow to a 3bdm up and down, and consider ourselves to be in the lap of luxury ! it has certainly made it easier to keep the place tidy, but there is still none of the laundry / utility / play rooms that Eg my family in Canada have, no 2nd bathroom etc. If we had all these things I bet my house would be in a better state!

[MadameCastafiore]

This does make me laugh - I have an OCD and wonder how people can live in such filth.

For the record two of the filthiest houses I have ever been in have belonged to mumsnetters, second to the mumsnetters are teachers who apparently are known for being a filthy breed and third are french relatives!

[LaWeaselMys]

The carpet is an older people thing and it cones from having no central heating and tiles being really cold on your feet dashing to the loo in the outhouse as a child as far as I can work out from my dad who doesn't want to get rid of carpet in his bathroom even though heat is not generally a problem in there house.

sakuro I didn't know there was so much low quality/crappy housing in japan.

In NZ it is a cultural thing especially in south island to buy land and to build your own too, although it is starting to be less common because people aren't as good at DIY (apparently) lacking the skills appears not to have put some Japanese off though by what you're describing!

[sakura]

That doesn't surprise me Madame I'M sure there's a correlation between time spent on MN and cleanliness of house..

[sakura]

It's not the skills, it's just the designs of the things, and the material they use. After coming from the UK where everything looks so solid and dare I say it quaint , you get these absolute monstrosities, where people want the biggest house imaginable, but in order to get a house that big, they need to use the cheapest materials. Gardens aren't seen as important- people would choose a big house over a garden. There's a lot of eyesores around, basically
We went against the grain going for a second hand house with a big garden, that is kind of traditional (we couldn't afford a proper traditional one) but not sure how long it'll last....

[tyler80]

Danish people generally think the Brits are dirty for not washing before getting in the swimming pool but I've never come across any sort of attitude about British houses being dirty in general.

Danish houses in general are huge though, I'd be much tidier if I had that much room for everything.

[madaboutcows]

I have never experienced that at all - all my mates and family in UK have lovely homes, very small yes - but cosy, very clean and very welcoming. Your UK friends sound incredibly skanky, where did you meet them?!! Get yourself some new friends if they offend you so much, it would do your filthy old friends a huge favour too - as it sounds like you used their hospitality then went home and bitched about them, so how gross does that make you?

[Simic]

My friends in the UK (where I was born and brought up) are as tidy and clean as my German friends in Germany. I notice too that my friends in the UK have more the expectation of tidying/cleaning for visitors. In my childhood we would spend maybe a day cleaning the whole house ready for a planned visit (particularly the skirting boards!). It still freaks me out a bit when people just drop in because I start worrying about what I haven't cleaned in the last day or two. Having said that, our cleaning lady gives me good tips on how to stop things getting untidy or dirty in the first place. Some of them seem to me a bit OTT (repainting the door frames once a month...) but a lot of them I did not learn from my parents. I must say I was a bit taken aback when my grandmother informed my DH "well, when I was a little girl, we just threw our coats down on the floor when we came into the house"???? - I couldn't understand this. She has always had an absolutely immaculate house where all the furniture must be easily movable so that she can clean behind it weekly.