does anyone else feel their house is always a mess?

[thirtysomething]

Just wondering how everyone else copes with the permanent mess created by small children - I always feel ours is a complete tip despite tidying it up every night when the kids are in bed (and I have a cleaner and I don't work!!) plus I secretly think my dh cashes in on the kids making a mess thing as he never tidies any of his stuff either, leaving coins, shoes and post everywhere! It's even worse when the kids have friends round as stuff migrates from one room to another in all sorts of strange ways...I don't think I'm even particularly house-proud !! Does it ever get any better (dd is nearly 3 and ds is 5) or should I just resign myself to it once and for all?

LOL at the dig, Janh! I took a car full of Stuff to the jumble sale, so there's a weeny hole in the garage which I can now fill with more Stuff. When I went to deposit all the bags at the Gguide Hut the heavens opened and I got soaked - not fair!!

How long does it take everyone to fully unpack after moving? We've been here a year and still have a few boxes...

I do Stuff in Boxes too. Sigh. It's just all so sad and depressing. Where does it all come from?

we'll have been here a year in mid dec and haven't hung the pictures yet. or unpacked our 10,000,000 books, because this house has hardly any bookshelves and I haven't managed to sort any out yet....
project for 2004 I reckon

I am the opposite when moving I'm afraid. I like to do it all straight away. This summer when we moved to the new apartment we were moved one evening (finished at 2am ) and we were unpacked by the following evening and the boxes gone and out the hosue. Mind, we really have no storage space so we'd have been treading over them the whokle time. And DD would have had them unpacked HER way of we hadn't.

YES! YES! YES!

am sooo depressed about our house at the moment, always feels like an uphill struggle, and here I am playing on the compoooter rather than doing something about it. DH is wonderful and does kitchen counters/oven/hob and the bathrooms. The washing - well there always seems piles to go in the washer, to iron or to put away. We used to have a cleaner when the girls were younger. Right I'm off to clean the kitchen floor as the pear juice form last night is making it walking across flypaper.

If I wanted a tidy house (which I do) I would have to throw away DH, it is mostly HIS mess and DS learns messiness from him. Have not had a cleaner for 2 weeks, I have done bathrooms and toilets and kitchen area only, nothing else. I do agree that having a cleaner does not make your house tidy. We have even given up tidying up before she comes, she helps us do it when she's here, which means she has no time left for actual cleaning...

This is why I am antisocial and not able to invite people to my house, it'd be too exhausting to make it presentable.

Hate to tell you this JJ but we still have a box that has not been unpacked since a move we made in 1977!!! Many moves later, it's been shifted from one attic to another. I must take a peek in it one of these days......

Wish I could blame the kids for our mess, but DH and me were terminally disorganised before! We've got too much stuff in too small a space, I feel like I'm always throwing/giving stuff away to try to make room.

Suedonim, that's actually extremely reassuring.

suedonim I was born in '77 for gods sake!!!
cheered me up that has I think I might turn into you with all the boxes in our loft!

Hey, Fio2, you're younger than my oldest ds!

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What a thread, I am constantly pleading, "All I want is NOT to live in a hovel - is that so much to ask?" Then I have a few days off work, get the place ship shape and then it starts all over again.

My mums house was always tidy and she had four kids not just (JUST?) two, mind you our dad was a control freak, perhaps that's got something to do with it.

Oh well 16 years to go

thans for starting this thread - you've finally forced me into clearing our table top & even the room downstairs, which was so messy (half way through about 10 jobs, you know) that I had to keep the door locked! I'm terrified of going into labour with a messy house. I swear, I'll be running round with a bin liner & duster before I give the hospital a ring!

anyway, I found fly lady a pain in the bum, but I think it was her who suggested identifying 'hot spots' ie dumping grounds for the dreaded 'stuff' - in our case every single surface in the house, so i've just chosen a couple - dining room table & freezer - I really focus on keeping them clear. Zero tolerance. Then when it's 2nd nature to not dump on these, turn your attention to the next 'hot spot' .

Thanks again - I've even cought up with the ironing

I will just say I feel much, much better after reading this. Sometimes I think the mess is the hardest thing to cope with; dp is chronically untidy too, while I would love to live in a pristine neurotic display of arty tidiness. Fat chance