the dirty grubby habits of teenagers

[azA99]

I am relieved to read people's accounts of their daughters having poor personal hygiene. Mine have got a lot better but this was quite alarming to me for a while as I wasn't expecting it! I don't find myself giving reminders to wash, for example, anymore, but I certainly did. There's something really confusing about the combination of obsessing over appearance and yet not bothering to clean teeth or put things in the bin!

But I wanted to start a conversation just to marvel at the squalor.

I'll start with a mild one: cotton wool and towels covered in make up, everywhere. And just litter, everywhere. Litter under the bed. This one has also got better in our home so I am beginning to see the humour in it, but at times it has felt like burglars or a kind of assault on the home!

Clean clothes carefully placed in the pile of hair on the floor ?

After working at Xmas DS1 went back to University. Unearthed in his room - 7 packed lunch boxes culturing various level of mould , 4 mugs, a lot of cutlery and plates and an empty peanut butter jar. Empty contact lens packets all over the floor. Other rubbish. Eeww.
He's 22 now, I give up.

Crisp packets, apple cores, all manner of rubbish shoved down the side of the sofa. Every week (ish) I muck sofas out and remove carrier bags worth of rubbish.

Same in bedrooms. Found 7 chocolate wrappers under ds2's (12) pillow and I am really strict that food should not be taken upstairs. I suspect there are mice in the loft and I do not want them abseiling in for tea.

Shower never turned off at the pullswitch. Bathmat left in bath. Dripping towels shoved behind the bathroom door rather than hang them up.

Bread, crisps, chocolate and fruit forever disappearing. I can take the dog out for 20 mins and come home to find an entire loaf missing and the aroma of fresh toast.

3 dses, 14, 12 and 7.

DD2 (12) is the favourite for sofa mess - pens/pencils, coins, hair ties, earrings, earphones, cutlery. As well as rubbish as above. Similar to be found in blazer pockets (perhaps minus the cutlery).

DD1 (17) cannot see her desk. One corner firmly covered in used make up wipes which I am forbidden to bin without her permission. The remaining space seems to have replaced her floordrobe. Ahh well, at least we can see the floor now.

Foodwise in bedrooms, nothing worse than sweet / choc wrappers and empty water bottles as no proper food allowed upstairs.

dd 14's room is flesh-crawling - cups of tea with mould on them, bowls of cereal, endless discarded make-up wipes, floor literally invisible under piles of clothes. Have tried for years to say that food should not go upstairs but was simply ignored. Letting the bath out is a foreign concept. Latest is used teabags left on kitchen counter. Argh!

I don't go in DD's room anymore in bare feet - treading on dried out disposable contact lenses is yuk.

The bottle of ketchup ends up on her bedside table more often than not (I don't use it very often so I don't notice).

She doesn't have a good sense of smell so sometimes I have to give her a nudge towards the deodorant (she does wash, but tends to re-wear school shirts and not realise they are a bit stinky after a full day in a school of 600 girls).

Long blonde hair everywhere - but about 2 years ago I read the tip about putting cheapo hair removal cream from the two Euro shop down the drain, so I haven't had to do a hairy plughole clearout since then!

Excellent. i only have grubby boy teens and i often wondered what it would have been like had they been DDs. i am not missing much by the sound of it.

i have to endure toenail clippings and pants still inside trousers. Plus cups stuck to desks.

abseiling mice makes me laugh so much. The cheap hair remover cream down the plughole is genius. And that smell of damp towels:urgghh. And I don't know what it is about make up wipes or make up wiped off on anything that I find so grisly. And the graveyard of dirty tea cups!andand...

abseiling mice makes me laugh so much. The cheap hair remover cream down the plughole is genius. And that smell of damp towels:urgghh. And I don't know what it is about make up wipes or make up wiped off on anything that I find so grisly. And the graveyard of dirty tea cups!andand...

Used sanitary towels still in pairs of pants. Makes me apoplectic.

OMG turn and there was me moaning about pants inside out in trousers.

It's beyond grim. And not an uncommon thing amongst teenage girls apparently when I've been ranting about it.

Yes, I've encountered that one before too, on more than one occasion. It's such a relief to read how typical this is! And also this assumption that only boys are grubby - it made me realise I wasn't such a feminist after all. (Expecting girls to be cleaner, I mean.)

Yup didn't mention dd's period-related disgustingnesses!

It's been a momentous day today, my Ds(17) has changed AND washed his bedding, without being asked. Last time he changed his bedding was at the end of August, after me threatening to take the router to work if he didn't.

Wow boys here too. They can be a bit untidy but nothing like this.

They are obsessive about hygiene. I didn't believe DS2 (16) when he told me that his friend's bedroom was much worse than his but maybe I do him an injustice?

My main complaint is him not putting clothes in the wash. I managed to get him out of the habit of throwing everything in the wash basket even if only worn for half an hour. He has a "wear again" pile. Trouble is there is more on there than actually in the drawers...

I found a dead, desicated magpie under my daughter's bed once. Frightened the living daylights out of me.

Must be spring fever brightwell as my Dd has picked up dozens of pairs of dirty knickers and vacuumed her room today as well. It seems twice the size when it is tidy.

Hedgehogthats gross WTF?

Skidmarks!! In spite of constant nagging for many years-

Funny thread. at magpie!!

I once found several used sanitary towels rolled up in DDs bag. She had been to a sleepover and said there was no bin in their bathroom so she thought she would bring them home to dispose of ...... but forgot for a couple of weeks.

Girls also leave pants in trousers. I noticed last weekend that DD2 still had four school shirts hanging in her wardrobe ... she had worn the same one all week. I can't understand why she doesn't smell.

Once found banana skins pushed UNDER the carpet lining. Not nice.

Dd regularly completely runs out of knickers because they are all shoved down the side of her bed

She also cannot put anything in the bin -it appears to be a physical impossibility

I'll second the 'used sanitary towels.

YY To the make up wipes. And mine wants obscenely expensive shower gel and shampoos, which she now has bought out of pocket money, but she never uses them. She's Spent a small fecking fortuna just To stay grotty.

And the actual make up itself. Why bother removing yeserday's? You can just plaster moré on top, no?

Also, the hair must be Straightened daily or it looks "hideous", never mind the grease, it just has To be ramrod straight.

She does use the expensive body lotion though because that smells nice. The fact that she herself could smell much nicer simply by the application of running water and a little soap is of no importance

The stepson is much better now though, fully fledged- home owning- full time working adult, but he had his day too