Not quite a teen

[WillIEverBeASizeTen]

Not sure if this is the right place to post but will try...

My DD is 21. Never given me a days worry, goes to work and generally a nice girl (woman). My issue is her untidiness. Her room is disgraceful, presently sleeping on an unmade bed (despite being given clean bedding). Unfortunately this squalor follows her everywhere, so basically she will leave a trail of destruction in her midst. What do I do? She is an adult (so can't be grounded etc) so am at a loss to what desperate measures I take as it really is impacting on my relationship with her. Her DB (14) is following very closely in her footsteps and whatever sanctions/incentives I use has no effect.

This may sound very common and, in the grand scheme of things, trivia, however, it is making (has made) me miserable as sin.

Any advice/suggestions/wine would be much appreciated

We've got this issue with a (much younger) DD2 - at 14 it's normal but it's vile, absolutely vile, you can't see the floor, her room smells, she sleeps on a dirty bed covered in make up residues because she doesn't clean it off at night (and thats if she can be bothered to put bedding on), theres mountains of old dry crispy make up wipes, baby wipes, dirty clothes, school books, rubbish, empty bottles, empty crisp packets, piles of dirty plates and a whole community of glasses and cups, forming their own lifesigns. If you give her clean clothes to put away she just dumps them on the floor and walks over them. She also spreads it around the house.

We actually operate both of Maryz ideas. On a day to day basis, anything that she has left strewn around the house gets dumped in her room like everything else. Then the bin bag threat works for us when it gets to the point of utter diabolical mess, she gets a date that is the deadline, and if it isn't tidy by bedtime of that date, then we will go in and remove everything that isn't put away, everything that is on the floor and put it in a bin bag and put it outside.

But we have never had to carry out the binbag threat, as the idea of us going through her stuff is enough that she gets off her backside and tidies it, even if she does leave it till the day of the deadline!

I don't understand how one person can live in so much disgusting mess!

Thanks ladies:) I'm not incredibly tidy myself but it's just daily mess rather than a build up of weeks/months, nothing compared to their rooms:(

Maryz I'm going to give the Ikea bag a whirl (full, and right over the garden fence) and see if that has any affect. If not then option 2. Unfortunately moving out really isn't an option but my oh my what a welcome one. I do love them both but find this so difficult to live with:(