How do you keep your home clean or tidy? I really really can't do it?!

[smugtandemfeeder]

There is dirt on the dirt. Everyone except me and DH has weed and pooed on the sofa and all the carpets. The laptop hard drive has broken for the second time due to DS being rough with it. We have mess everywhere. As soon as I put stuff away DS sort of rolls it all back out again. There is a pile of clean nappies on the sitting room floor which DS has 'sprinkled' flour all over. There are numerous little bags full of random shit which DS has collected and stored throughout the house.

I can't keep on top of it.

And don't even get me started on the washing.....

Is there any point getting a new sofa or new carpets?

It's utter chaos and madness here.

Just looked at the ikea sofa spare covers, They are dry clean only so that can be expensive on the pocket for frequent cleaning.

What I have done is used/wraped waterproof mattress covers on the base cushions and under the cover of the actual sofa base. That at least stops liquid soaking into the sofa. I also put throws over the sofa so any food/pen spills can be whipped off quickly if you catch it in time.

I also have a young dog who is fine going out by day unless it rains........so I usually block him out of the front room. He is also a pain at night if he gets up as he tends to come down and wee then but cant keep him downstairs as it is the dog that helps DS to sleep. I do howeve wash the carpet/sofa with an enzyme base cleaner that eradicates the wee smell that dogs smell but we dont iyswim. Bio washing powder is good diluted in a bowl of warm water. Not tried vinegar for fear of taking colour out of my carpet, but have put vinegar in the wash.

I have Ikea dry clean covers but they wash well at home in 30C

Thanks for the tip! .

Ok so plenty of sofa wee ideas. love the mattress cover idea.

With the foul carpets I need to buy a good carpet cleaner. Or get laminate upstairs, which I really can't face yet.

Does anyone have a tidy house. One of those ones that looks like a show home?

Nope! only got one ds, (but dh is 'piler up' too! and a horder, so I constantly moving piles of stuff..)

we have bedinge sofa bed in lounge, ikea again. loose covers, (have replaced once) and as they are very loose IYSWIM, can slip a towel or one of those mattress cover thingys under the cover over the sofa.

(also has big under sofa storage box too...)

I have been campaigning for laminate floor for about 2 years, but dh says it's too hard when he falls over. (but we have very cheap carpet on concrete floor, so I don't think it will be much different) Think I may be begining to win...

sign I tidied the kitchen to within an inch of its life last week. A woman from church came over and said "ooh I love lived in kitchens"

Even my best effort is now shabby! inch of its life last week. A woman from church came over and said "ooh I love lived in kitchens"

Even my best effort is now shabby!

Reason I didn't get on the Friday Night thread was - cleaning! We had friends staying over who have a 10 month old - into everything. I think I cleaned to within an inch of my life - let alone the house
Ninja and I have this conversation often. We both know people that have show home type houses. My friend has OCD - cleaning is her mantra, Ninja's near neighbour must have help - or no fun in her life . We checked out her house when it was for sale on the website. Apparently always looks that good
My suggestions - find a partner with OCD cleaning obsessions or get a cleaner. Life is too short to clean

re the carpet - had this prob and was forever hiring carpet cleaners! Now I just buy a remnant from our local carpet shop to cover the main area - and throw it out when it gets beyond saving (sometimes buying a new one every month - got to the stage the guy at the shop is now saving me carpets )They only cost around £20 (depending on the size) and its cheaper than a carpet cleaner. The other thing is that if you are having people over it can be rolled up and shoved in somewhere put out of sight ......instant room makeover

I would go for cheap leather furniture with washable throws, as urine would run downhill into the crevices. no also to laminate floors as wee soaks into the cracks and you cant get rid of the smell. How about vinyl flooring (no cracks) ? Locks on everything especially rooms so you can keep one or two out of bounds. A complete declutter of all things homely (therefore wreckable and breakable) Heavens sounds about as inviting as an institution.

oh smug ouch!

I have to say I have one of two friends who I think 'come on in' if they just turn up.. other's I am frantically stuffing stuff in places if I know they are coming.. I left ds at our house with my bestest bud while I took dh to medical appointment, came back, she then left and then I realised she had gone into kitchen and done my washing up, with no notice taken of mess or clutter etc. (I do love her!)

sneeze - if I implemented everything on this thread my home would look a bit like an institution! I could get plastic chairs, throw all my laura ashley stuff away, all trinkets straight to the bin, vinyl flooring throught, no curtains.

It got me thinking perhaps we could still have new carpets but go all out and get these fitted over them. That would look lovely!!!

Sneezecake - you wouldn't notice our lack of ornaments and stuff, since every surface is a storage space, intentionally or otherwise, for something garish and plastic. Our house is more ELC than showhome!

farming4 - have never hired a carpet cleaner. We have a Bissell carpet cleaner which only cost about £100 at the time, which is more convenient, as well as a money saver, since we can use it whenever we want.

STF - whether your kitchen is shabby or not, the woman from church was just plain rude.

That vinyl overlay - we had some in the hallway, it was slippery, curled up at the edges, wriggled all over the place, so we chucked it. twas only in hallway tho to stop muddy foot prints.

We have a bissell upright carpet cleaner and it really is excellent and not much more work the a good hoovering, but when we got rid of the carpets there were some evil looking stains and wee soaked into the floorboards. All from incontinent dog! Other dog, bless her is now planted down the bottom of the garden, would always get onto sofas and smear dog poo - hence the cleanable leather ones. One day found blob of dog poo on the Sky remote. I wormed myself it was so disgusting.

When my children were little I just resigned myself to a home of constant mess and clutter, and DGS has CP so cant do much mayhem. Hence I do have a bit of a showhomey home - just incredibly boring with no happy dogs and kids.

Had a nice leather suite once..........the cats loved it as a sharpening post....didnt take long before it looked like a herd of prickly hedgehogs had had a free for all Best buy I had was a wooden futon that pulled out into a double bed if necessary. It was about £300 with a dark blue mattress/base cushion. Cover doesnt come off but I open it out and use waterproof mattress cover THEN I cover the whole cushion base with a pain double quilt cover, usually dark green or dark blue. Looks good and cover doesnt slip off like a throw Its a bit like making the bed every day but does look nice and it has held out for the last 9 yrs

I love everyone here too justa! Great moral support.

at worming yourself. We have a puppy here who is untrainable (minature dachshund....) who wees on the sofa if you leave him alone for 5 minutes. He has a cage but we cant obviously keep him in there all the time!

Googling bissel cleaners now. Think we will get one. And a real cleaner.

Carpet off cuts is a good idea if we ever get new carpets. At the moment ours have large brown patches everywhere which if we covered with offcuts we wouldnt want to hide the offcuts when visitors came or they would see the manky foul patches.

Ovex gave me stomach ache Bissel cleaner, big upright one like giant vacuum cleaner definitely good buy. It even cleaned all the spilt beer and fag ash off my sons carpets. (he's since cut down on cigs and gone to AA and only drinks safe limits so he tells me, but when I talk to him he does actually sound sober most of the time. He had ADHD as kid but is a reasonably 'normal' adult - if you disregard the total lack of money sense! (own house/mortgage/jobrelationships) so there is hope when your ADHD kid is tearing your house to pieces.

My DH recently babysat a house and dog, the dog was so nervous on the first day at DH he had projectile diarrhoea all over the place, so understand re the puppy!

ooh nice sneezecake

I don't live a show home, most definitely not. Thankfully now dd3 is in school we don't have so many people traipsing through the house, such a relief!

auntevil, how's the pee/pea problem and yes, my very lucky neighbour has a cleaner.

I live by the mantra that no one on their death bed ever wished they'd done more cleaning

Thank you for this thread. I am about to go to bed and, as always, worried about the not-tidy state of the house. Really gets me down. Hard to keep things clean when there is so much mess in the way!

Didn't know about the 'flylady' - have now found the site and feel momentarily hopeful, just to see the possibility of progress ahead... (who knows if it will actually happen, of course - but knowing 'where to start' is one of my problems).

Ninja I like the mantra

The only time my house really gets to me is when I used to clean and apartment for holiday people. In the 3 hours I was there it was spotlessly clean, everything white and cream and of course no clutter......THEN you go home

My neighbours must think I am an odd bodd really. DS doesnt like the sun shining in the front room when he is in it so I bought light cream curtains with no lining so they can stay shut but at least I get a nice glow of light. My back garden is lovely as although small we spend a lot of time in it and gardening is theraputic for DS. HOWEVER the front looks like the gypsies have moved in due to the fact I cant get out there as DS will run off and I cant leave him alone in house. It has its advantages though as the salesmen dont bother knocking to sell me anything

I love this thread, it's cheered me up no end just knowing I'm not alone in living in a never ending mess!!!
I got up in a fret this morning as my friend is coming over and as usual I'm in a mess, now I've read this I'm going to calm down and chill out a bit - her house is often worse and her kids are both NT, she isn't going to judge me so why be so hard on myself! Hopefully we can sit in the garden and let the kids run riot.
I can't wait until ds starts school on the 5th so that I can use the mornings to clear the debris!!!

I saw the most beautiful carved crystal bowl in a charity shop once that would have been perfect as my fruit bowl and would have looked brilliant (plus it was cheap!).

Alas, I could not buy it as I feared the next time I saw it would be when I was clearing up little smashed pieces of crystal off the floor :( It was pretty heavy but I know DS would have been able to lift it!

Sigh, I ended up getting a cream wooden one for about £2 from a shop that was closing down, which hopefully will be a little bit more robust when if it gets thrown on the floor!

I have used some of DS's DLA to hire a cleaner. I justify it to myself that my health means I can't do much, DH is crap and doesn't do much and DS is so messy but functions better when things are tidy

However she comes tomorrow and you should see the state of the house

It makes us tidy up a bit on Monday knowing she is coming on Tuesday!