Social services coming to assess us tomorrow, at my request.... Do I tidy up?

[smugtandemfeeder]

Im slightly worried.

I contacted social services to ask for help. I wanted Direct payments to help us have a break and to help to look after DS. They turned us down for direct payments without an assessment (thats another thread...) but referred us to a social worker who is from another team (nothing to do with direct payments) who IS coming to assess us.

House currently looks like something from a Kim and Aggy show. Do I stay up late making it spotless or leave it for Kim and Aggy? Do they have a right to look round the whole house and can I say no if they ask? Should I say no?

I currently look a bit like this but somewhere underneath all the messy hair and smelly clothes if I made an effort I could look closer to a Boden-esque mumsnet mum.

I told social services we are not coping because we are not. Wouldnt it be pointless covering up the not coping? Its just a fine line isnt it between not coping and the house being dirty and them writing something dodgy in a report.

Need your wise advice please.

Troll

For the sake of answering to this senario, which I'm unsure is even real;
Of course you need to get scrubbing. If kids lived in a house from kim and aggy's show, they'd be a health and safety risk.
From what I know of SS they could do anything from asking you to stay elsewhere and giving you a small time frame to tidy up, to actually removing the children.

ummmm im not a troll. im fairly regular on here!

ok I may have written it in a bit of a jokey way but the scenario is true!! Gosh! Ive never been called a troll!!!

I was joking about the state of the house but it is fairly messy. I spend most of the day seperating the children and trying to stop DS hurting DD. I have asked social services to help us have someone to help out for a reason. We are struggling. I have written lots of posts on here about how hard we are finding things. Crikey. Wish I hadnt asked.

Really? Oh my gosh, lol
I wrote a great big page of advice, then deleted it all at the 'realisation' of this being some hillarious troll. hahaha. It was the picture, I think.
You're really serious?
How old are DCs?

Ds is three. DD is 10 months and puppy is 11 weeks. Its chaos!

DS poos and wees all over the house (not a joke either!!) as does the puppy. Its all I can do to clear up after all three of them. This does actually sound like a joke but its not lol! Search for my previous threads, please!!!!

i know you are not a troll. empty the bin and get rid of any obvious health hazards/cigarettes/alcohol but otherwise be as you are. don't worry about your personal appearance either. how you come across verbally, which is usually well on here, will count as much more important.

but in reality I have no experience of SS so what do i know...

I am so tired I will probably cry. I usually come across fairly articulately. Sometimes I say too much which is worrying.

I dont know what has happened to our lives. I used to be smart and neat and tidy and well dressed. Now I look old and haggard!

I can tell you that I called SS myself many yrs ago, telling them I couldn't cope, needed a break. They refused respite care, so I exagerated a bit about not coping, they offered to take DS into fostercare for a few days. I agreed. They NEVER gave him back, and adopted him out against my will.

If you're serious, just be very careful. I have SS involved over special needs of one of the two children I have now.
I'm afraid I would chose not to tell them if I was struggling now.
If they see a child 'at risk' they'll want to rescue them, and sometimes certain social workers won't listen to you.

Get your house tidy. Say help from them will ease the strain. (they never seem to have funds to help anyway).
But beware that their only options may be to leave you without support (due to no funds) or to get a care order on your kids.

You're right to ask for help when you need it, but please try every other avenue first.

I'm so sorry you're in this situation.

Be as you are, making sure there are no health hazards and the children have beds and there is food in the cupboards. I had SS today for an assessment. It was chaos and mud on the floor throughout the house thanks to ds walking through in his wellies. The bin was full but not overflowing. Half the laundry was hung up, the rest was in a pile that ds had thrown across the room.They asked to see in the fridge and in the bedrooms. Not sure why they asked to see in the fridge considering ds had given her a great long lecture about the shopping man visiting yesterday! It was clear I needed help but was trying my best.

They may take a very serious tone with you and blatenly tell you to get rid of the puppy, if he's causing a health and hygeine risk to your kids.
And if your house is a health and safety risk then they'll take that seriously.

I would call in favours from all angles right now if I were you. You have very small children (don't mean to scare you, but the smaller they are more risk of being 'rescued and given to a perfect family').
Get anyone you know to come round and help you tidy pronto, and clean. Get a truck load of febreeze. Have a respectable looking relative sit with you through the the visit.
I would get them off your back asap, and search for other avenues for help, in all honesty.
*There are other supportive agencies.

Again so sorry your going through this, I hit rock bottom too all those years ago. But you not coping is a temporary fixable problem, you don't want to risk a perminant solution of adoption being enforced, which is what they did in my case.

No health hazards. DS has no fear of danger, DD is 9 months old and the puppy is tiny so the house is as baby/ASD/puppy proof as it ever could be.

DH has emptied the bin.

They are coming at 10am by which time I will have been up for 6 hours and DS will be in a terrible, manic, distressed state. Im probably exaggerating about the mess, its not that bad, its just so hard to make it properly tidy and the puppy really has not helped matters. We stupidly bought a white rug for the sitting room which the three little monsters have trashed in 4 months. The puppy smells of puppy which I am overly consious of.

DS has his own bedroom its got two lovely 17th century beds in so they cant complain about his room. Its empty apart from that as he doesnt sleep so we minimalised the room.

Everyone has different experiences of ss, im just worried I might get a zealous one.

Is there anyway you could fence off an area indoors for the puppy and put some newspaper down! An area that the kids don't have access to? That would help for tomorrow to show the assessor that the kids can't reach the puppy mess! A large dog cage would be perfect - do you know anyone who could lend you one for tomorrow! If I thought for one minute I lived near you I'd bring ours over but there's the small problem of the Irish sea :)

Ok, just to confirm that my house doesnt actually look like something out of Kim and Aggy. Its just a bit messy. No H&S hazards. No poo on the floor. Just messy. Not hugely messy. Just toys, clothes and a few plates which I am just about to wash up. Its just not spotless and it really needs a few hours cleaning to make it spotless and to be as we would like it to be. Basically exactly what you would imagine a good mums house to look like if she was awake all night and her DC spent all day screaming, hitting kicking and you had to spend all day supervising a three year old to stop them from hurting themselves or others.

I very much regret my tongue in cheek first post here......

Ha thanks 1980Sport! We have a cage for the puppy. It even has a padlock on it to stop DS from letting him out and hurting him. Its just exhausting when puppy comes out of cage!!

We had SS around a while ago and found them very supportive (despite coming around for an alledged child protection issue). They interview myself, my DH and my DS1 who perfomred like a trooper for her. She did ask to see his bedroom and I apologised for the mess as he has no thoughts of tidying and quite frankly I've given up picking up toys and books. She said - this isn't untidy, it's lived in!
I hoovered my living room floor and generally put things away, but it was far from a show home. If it is too spik and span, I think that would cause alarm bells. The reason they ask to see the bedrooms is because the SS in the Victoria Clumbie case and Baby P case, never checked out their rooms which is where the poor babes suffered!

Oh goodness - sounds like you'll be grand! By the way I laughed out loud at your post. We had SS here on Friday I thought I'd tidyied fairly well until she sat on one sofa (where i never sit) i realised later she could see directly under the other sofa - not pretty!

I think my first post was obviously a bit too funny! I am fairly sarcastic which I will have to make a note to try not to do tomorrow.

Its all the piles of paperwork which get to me. I just cant seem to make progress with it all. Tax credits renewal, DLA form, hundreds of referral forms for DS and medical letters.

Underneath the sofa is defo not going to be cleaned. I wouldnt know where to put the toys if I did fish them out.

Jeezus I was really concerned for you, with the possibility of initial post being serious. lol
Reading the rest of your posts, I'm sure you'll be fine! :)
clean but lived in is a good mix

Right.

Dishes loaded into dishwasher. Sitting room can be tidied tomorrow. Joss-stick lit so house smells nicer. MN profile filled in and photos added to prove im not a troll

I like your profile!
I just thought that someone may have set up a scenario to cause an argument about whether someone in that situation should or should not hide how they're not coping from social services. Because it is something people feel strongly about from both angles.