Tell Cif about the most annoying mess you've ever had to clean – you could win a £250 voucher! NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

Cif has asked us to find out what Mumsnetters think about cleaning up their LO's mess. In particular, Cif want to find out what the hardest or least fun to clean mess your DCs create are.

Here's what Cif have to say, "We all know that children see the home as a playground, and playgrounds get dirty. But we also understand how difficult it can be to clean up after your child, so we want to help make that process as easy as possible."

So, what do you find the most painstaking cleaning task when it comes to cleaning up after your DCs? Is it the crayon drawings they leave on the table or on the wall? Or is it the jam they accidentally splatter over the kitchen counter?

Maybe you refuse to clean up after your family? Or is it your family that has to clean up after you ?

Whatever it is, we would love to hear about the worst mess you/your family have ever had to clean.

Everyone who adds their comments to this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £250 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

[manfalou]

although I have 2 small children, the worst mess I have EVER had to clean is after the cat when he got ill. He basically used the conservatory as a very large litter tray =/ Got up in the morning there were 3 piles of poop in various places of of the conservatory and cat wee everywhere. He'd peed on the sofa, the windowsill, on DS DP scaletrix. It smelt and looked like the elephant house at the zoo. Took me 2 hours to clean it, throwing away most of the things that were in there (welcome mat, sofa cover etc)

Never. Ever. again.

[michelleblane]

When DS was around three years old, I had a group of mums from toddler group round for coffee and cakes, and the children were happily playing with toys. I noticed that two of the little girls had been out of the room for a few minutes and went to investigate. I found them in the bathroom surrounded by carnage. A large tub of greasy cream had been smeared over the toilet seat, bath taps and basin taps. Shampoo was squirted down the toilet, and toothpaste 'faces' were squeezed on the floor.
They immediately blamed each other and burst into tears!! The mums decided it was time to go home leaving me with the mess. Needless to say it took lots of cleaning and the shampoo filled toilet was a nightmare!
At least it all smelled quite nice.

[Hopezibah]

we have had plenty!!! our son seems to be synonymous with the word MESS because he creates it wherever he goes. Even when he is 'helping' feed the baby porridge (and it all ends up on the floor) or 'helping' to clean the bathroom by smearing blue soap everywhere - there is always mess, mess, mess.

I think the most annoying was hubby treading autumn berries all around the house once. It was when I had newborn baby to look after and was exhausted - he offered to pop to the shops to be helpful and came back bringing red berries on his shoes and they got smeared all around the house. Took me all day to clean up!

[maximum4]

It has to be tipex - my LO painted it all over the TV as well as the table, her nails etc... Nightmare x

[Cherrygrape]

My most recent bad one was when dd climbed onto a chair and got the food colouring out the cupboard. She spilt it all over the work top, floor, clothes and over her hands!

[kelzw84]

the worst one ive ever had to clean up
was not so long ago.
me and the kids were ill and in the afternoon we all went to bed.
only the kids woke up but decided not to wake me.
i woke up half hour to find my bath coloured in blue and black marker pen. only to walk past the mirror and find my face black with pen as well.
my own fault really but i could of cried :(

[Custardo]

small children have naff all on teens and older children...CIF - invent a cleaning solution for this...

they make cereal, spill the milk, leave the cereal box on the side..in the milk spillage, this then dries and there is now left, not only stinky milk but steadfast cardboard from cereal box.

it annoys me greatly - so much so i have prnted signs in the kitchen which say " I AM VERY CROSS ..."

DS has been very inventive and used a biro to now make this say
" I am A VERY hot CROSS bun

[heavenlyharry]

The worst mess I have ever had to clean up was when I worked in a nursery and one of the teachers decided porridge play would be fun! They stuff is like glue!! Took forever to clean off the children, tables, chairs, floor!! Never again

[farrowandbawl]

Get

It's not as though it was a huge puddle, just a bit more than a few drops. Still gross and annoying though. The vet did say that having him nutered would have solved a lot of it - but DP at the time was a bloody wus and wouldn't let the vet go through with it so opted to clear it all up from that point on.

[NotAFeminist]

DC related - my nearly one year old went through this phase of really explosive runny poo's that always ended in me saying 'right, there is nothing for it - straight to the bath!' I'm pretty sure it happened at least once a day for about a month!!! one particular time, poo exploded out of the nappy, ran down his leg onto my clothes and when i lay him on his changing mat on the bed, he became soo wriggly and poo ended up all over the mat, on the mattress on the bed that I hadn't put a sheet on!!! it ended up all over DC's back, legs, IN HIS HAIR! and all over me. when I moved to the bathroom it went on the bathroom floor and stained his clothes. The whole bathroom needed cleaning after, DC needed a bath, the floor and carpet and bed needed cleaning, I needed to shower after... Needless to say, I am still haunted by the memory and cannot face Coronation Chicken anymore!!

Non DC related - my dog likes to hang around when I am feeding DC and sometimes DC likes to throw food to 'share' with the dog which usually is okay until one day (when I left the room for a sec), DC decided to share an organic rice cake. On my way back into the room I slipped on a warm, wet puddle of dog sick. There were 3 separate piles of dog sick on the carpet which was coloured pink from the rice cake. So now, the dog goes out of the room whilst I feed DC because that was just gross!!

[asuwere]

DS spilt almost a whole bottle of baby oil on carpet - horrible to clean up but at least it smelt ok.
Also stupidly left sudocreme within his reach once (and never again!)
Worst has to be when DS was sick during night, he never made it out of his cabin bed in time so did it from top of his ladder - it went everywhere! And he'd had a blue ice lolly so it was blue vomit

[ivykaty44]

Oh I read that as tell Clif about the mess - why would Cliff Richard want o know about my mess

[skyeskyeskye]

The crayon all over the flatscreen tv was a good one. Luckily it came off with wipes, but I could have cried.

Weetabix is one of the worst, its like cement stuck to the carpet!

Sudocrem is another one, smeared all over everything in sight one day.... not easy to clean as it is so greasy and water repellent!

I think one of the worst actually, was drawing all the over the UPVC patio doors with a black permanent marker pen.... wiped off it left a purple stain. It needed a white cleaner, ie CIF, to remove it.

oh and a blue felt tip pen, that leaked all its liquid all over the carpet.... the blue stain is still there..

[BadlyWrittenPoem]

I think the hardest one I've had to clean is a tie between sudocrem everywhere and washing up liquid all over the bathroom - it's surprising how difficult lots of WUL is to clean up!

[ListWriter]

My two year old pulled a tub of paint off the top of the table when I turned my back for two seconds. It split everywhere - all over the stripped wooden floors, all over his feet, all over his jeans and his shoes as he shouted at me "What happened? What happened?". I pulled him upstairs to wash him off under the shower, took him back downstairs (in only his nappy in case any more paint got anywhere) so I could clean the pain from the floor. I was on my hands and knees scrubbing at the floor, soap suds everywhere and simultaneously holding him back out of the paint, stopping him from "helping", trying to keep myself from getting my clothes covered in the paint and remaining calm whilst answering the question "what happened?" a million times. Even now, a couple of months later, he chats about "What happened? Spilt the paint".

[steppemum]

Oh I have several worst ever

1. ds in top bunk woke up in the middle of the night and was sick, all over his bed, down the ladder, splattered over the bottom bunk (fortunately his sister had her head at the other end, so it got her teddies not her face) all over the floor, the toy box next to the bunk, the toys on the bottom bunk, and into the drawer under the bottom bunk - which I didn't discover for a couple of days when I was wondering where the smell was coming from.

1. neighbours cat spraying all over our house - the smell is truly awful

1. dd2 aged about 3 was at home, Daddy was on the computer and I was taken other dcs to school. She was in PJs and no nappy, as just potty trained. I came home and she had pooed herself and trodden it all over our lovely rug, the carpet and any toys lying on the floor. That was bad enough, but she had trodden it so far because she was busy decorating, she had a purple felt tip and she drew all over the walls, the doors, the radiators, the bath, the shower curtain, the basin, the loo and the lino floor. It was a rented house. It washed off the gloss paint and the bath etc, but we couldn't get it off the walls or the radiators which weren't painted. It took 5 coats of paint to cover the lines on the walls. The radiators came off with nail polish remover very slowly, one painstaking cm at a time. It took months!

[BehindLockNumberNine]

Have just encountered one: Left dd (age 10) in the kitchen icing lemon drizzle cupcakes earlier this morning. The icing is the standard icing sugar and lemon juice.
Unbeknownst to me she had not only succeeded in drizzling the cakes but had splattered thin streaks of the icing up the splashback and kitchen wall as well as down the front of the kitchen units.

She did not tell me this.

I discovered this half an hour ago.

Icing sets like cement too. It took a green pan scourer and lots of water to get it off.... (and a fingernail or two)

[thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter]

Definitely has to be the time I'd walked out the room to get my DS (about 2 yrs old at the time) some socks only to find him squatting and creating his own bottom art on my cream carpet. In my shock I let out a high pitched squeal which gave him such a fright he jumped up and stood in it, he then got another shock standing in the poo and jumped back creating more poo footprints. We then just stood in silence looking at each other in disbelief for what seemed like 5 minutes!

I can laugh about it now...

[TemporarilyOutOfOrder]

Oh this brings back memories I want to forget. My worst one was when I was pregnant with dc3. I was having a sneaky lie down in the living room when I heard squeals of joy from the older two children. Went into the kitchen to discover they had made a "swimming pool" with a tin of emulsion and washing up liquid and were happily "swimming" in it starkers! I sobbed as I cleaned it.

[loopyloou]

My dd enjoys creating new desserts and baking, but the kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it every time when she has finished. As I am trying to encourage her in being creative and also in cooking, I have not yet insisted on her tidying and washing up, although the time is near. She spreads cake batter up the tiles and over the floor, in the cutlery drawer and sometimes even in the fridge! I practically have to wipe down the whole kitchen to make sure I haven't missed some!

When she was 2 she got hold of a tube of nappy cream and "rubbed" it into her chest of drawers, cot, bedroom carpet and curtains! That was the worst mess I have ever had to clean up, as the cream was greasy and difficult to remove.

[Iwaswatchingthat]

Sun tan lotion from a car interior. I thought dd was being quiet (age 2). On the plus side she is totally protected against the sun's harmful rays for the next 10 to 12 years!

[YoungBritishPissArtist]

I rent and so have to tolerate carpet in my bathroom (why?!) I've had an epic period accident Bicarb did the trick :) Hopefully my LL won't notice when I move out...

[Littleorangetree]

I think one of the worst messes I ever had to clean up was when my son managed to get hold of a bag of flour when he was 2. By the time I noticed he had it it was all over the entire house!

[CourjorH]

Having 3 children I have had to clean many a mess (And still do even though the older two are pre-teens) but by far the hardest mess to clean has got to be nappy cream! My first child managed to smear it over her entire body! It took forever to clean. I'm happy to say I did learn from that incident, but it does seem to just spread itself :-) I think a very close second mess has got to be a leaky poo!