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

We were a stop-off point on the A1 for a friend with two young children a few years back. I had only met the children a few times previously as we don't live near one another. I gave them toys, my older daughter was supervising showing them round etc. Silly daughter wandered off to leave the two young ones to unstick loads of panty liners and use them as the smile on smiley faces which they drew on the landing wall with crayons. That took some shifting! It's funny in hindsight and I wish I'd taken photos for posterity but you live and learn.

Not long after I had first left home my mum had given me a pressure cooker as she was a big fan of them.
I was cooking a beef casserole when the safety valve on the pressure cooker exploded causing a fountain of gravy to spurt out and hit the ceiling before covering almost the entire kitchen with gravy.
It was everywhere, dripping off the ceiling, covering the cooker and running down the sides, not to mention over the fridge, floor, worktops and cupboards. And I had to clean it up whilst suffering from awful morning sickness.

I'll never use a pressure cooker again. I don't care how quickly they cook!

I decided to be all sensible and practical, so my entire house has laminate/vinyl flooring, the only thing that is beautiful on my floor is my fluffy rug in the lounge, which is the exact and only place where I forgot to close the clip on FC's gastrostomy tube - twice! :(

Annoying but acceptable - food such as porridge and weetabix.

Annoying and totally unacceptable - dd aged 2 is a real foodie and will often hide food in her market stall, her brothers tractor, her dolls house - I know most of the hiding places but she keeps thinking up new ones. I have to sit with her now whilst she eats after finding jelly inside the tractor, being alerted by a trail of ants. I left her sat at the table eating it after dinner whilst I washed up. I praised her for bringing the empty bowl and spoon into the kitchen!

Annoyingly yuk - I was cleaning up 4yr old ds vomit off the bed, bath, bathroom floor and loo at 1:30am.

Just plain annoying - muddy and wet paw prints on a newly cleaned floor!

DS tipped his orange juice onto the pale carpet, and it also splattered all over the TV remote buttons, the DVD player and under a side table, which I didn't realise was sticky and dripping until several days later. Cleaned it up with whatever came to hand (it might have been Cif!).. One of the worst things about this was the timing - I was desperate for a wee and it was just before we had to rush off to school in the morning! (Better than poo or vomit I suppose, though).

2 year old.

Permanent ink pen with loose screwy thing on top.

New cream carpet.

New Ikea shelf unit.

Navy blue toddler.

Need I say more?

That, and the Sudacrem Incident, as it is known in our house.

We had picked a couple of kilos of brambles on Sunday, which I had reduced to about a litre of coulis. It was sitting in the kitchen in a lidded Tupperware jug, awaiting freezing, so I sat down in the living room with dc3 to read the Magic Key. Yet again.

Dc1 was 6/7 at this stage. I saw him sneak past the door in the manner of a pantomime burglar.

The kitchen looked as if a cow had been sacrificed in in it. Apparently, he had been doing an experiment to see if the lid stayed on when tipped upside down. And guess what? It didn't.

I stepped into the kitchen to get a better view, slipped in the coulis, flew up in the air and landed on my back (cashmere cardi, of course) right in the middle of it.

The cardi was ruined, the kitchen took about 2 hrs to sort (you would be amazed how much a litre is when it is sticky and purple and thinly spread all over the place) and the floor tile grout never did recover.

When my dd covered herself and the carpet/walls/ceilings(not quite!) in sudocreme. That stuff is like waterproof squidgy gloss glue.

oh no, the worst ever would be during our sons potty training - it seemed to take forever to get him to use the toilet, the worst ever clean up was im ashamed to say when we went to my mothers house and he had reached the stage of going to the bathroom himself and then i would go in and wipe his bottom and make sure he washed his hands afterwards. Well my mother said she would sort him out to give me a break and she went upstairs and came down and said I'd better come upstairs and see - he had smeared poo on and in the toilet, the floor, stood and walked it all over the bathroom floor, as well as his bottom, legs, underpants, clothes and hands it was on the bathroom sink, taps, the liquid soap bottle on the sides and the pump, on the cup with my mother and dads and my youngest sisters toothbrushes - and yes he had touched them too so they went in the bin cos they were coated in poo, she has a windowsill full of little ornaments - yes he handled those, the only thing clean was the towel!!! When he burst into tears I felt like joining in! I felt awful and I couldn't believe he had done it because he never did anything like that before and it took ages to get him and my mothers bathroom clean again.

sudocreme or drawing on the walls

Has to be the dreaded dried Weetabix. It sets like concrete. Have been known to use it if I run out of glue

most annoying had to be when ds (3) decided to colour in the laminate floor. It should have come off easily (washable felt tip), but no it took ages of scrubbing and still left a mark.

Plenty of poo related ones here and getting chocolate ice cream off clothes surprised me in its difficulty!

As I was running out of the door to go on holiday I knocked a bottle of cough syrup off the kitchen counter. I muttered an expletive and left. A week later the glass studded slick was a nightmare to clean up.

Potty training twins has involved a lot of washing, cleaning and patience!

I once followed a tip that advised smearing shampoo on a bathroom mirror to avoid it steaming up.
Mess does not describe it.
Oh and the talc we put on the dark brown carpet on Xmas eve as 'footprints' from the big FC, never ever again

The worst to clean up (especially in a house with a 2 year old and a dog) poo, wee and sick....every now and then it is inevitable...it takes one of them to be poorly and...bang...you're elbow deep in the worst of the worst smells...all because they can't help it...they can't help being poorly but mammy has to suck it up for the greater good and get on cleanup duty (which she never seems to be off) :P

O and milk....sour milk...spilt on carpets in places you didn't know you had carpets

2 occasions have scarred me for life spring to mind.

1. Ds vomited copiously both behind the radiatior and down the gap between the panels (of the double radiator). For weeks after, despite chucking buckets of disinfectant down there, the smell every time the heating came on...
2. DDog ate something putrid and got violent diarrhoea. Then walked it through the house. The kitchen looked like the Somme. Blerrrrgggh.

My lovely now deceased dog Buzio once opened our kitchen cupboard when we had gone out, pierced a carton of apple juice & then dragged a full bag of flour onto the floor. What a nasty sticky mess. 11 years later I still remember it.

Sick in a car, poo in a bath, or the balsamic vinegar dropped everywhere last night.

Porridge, porridge, porridge.
It might be a fantastic breakfast that keeps the DC going until lunch, but when my 2 year old eats it it does seem to get everywhere. And on the odd occasion her bowl get's tossed - goodness help me.
And it sticks.
And spreads.
And sets.
Sigh!

turnip's post just reminded me of DD1 vomiting in the car enroute to see Santa.

Not only all over car seat & back of car, but all over her winter coat and somehow every layer of clothing underneath the coat. We had nothing for her to change into and it was a long, very smelly, ride home in dreadful London weekend traffic.

Worst was cauliflower cheese sick out of hallway carpet and off of myself thanks to refluxy DD.

I can still remember the smell

Can I suggest never letting your dog eat a tub of fish oil capsules? Too much fish oil cannot harm the dog but it can harm your mother's super expensive bespoke pale green macrosuede designer sofa. Because it can cause anal leakage. Fish-scented dog poo-scented anal leakage.

The worst was when I had to clean my kids room including toys and hidden half-eaten food (yuck!) because a) they just HAD to do their homework right at that time b) it was disgusting c) I couldn't take it anymore. I once made the mistake of promising them a treat if they'd clean their room and ever since then I think they've thought it's best to let it get filthy because cleaning their room = treats. Silly, I know. Regrettable, oh yes! First AND last time for everything..

My DS was an enthusiastic but messy eater - it used to take ages to clean his high chair - and I agree porridge and Weetabix set like concrete if you don't get it quickly.