At my wits end with how messy my 15 year old is

[Moveonward]

I have once again gone into my daughter’s room to put laundry away and found everything shoved out of sight and it’s disgusting. I’ve found dirty underwear/ clothes just shoved in her wardrobe with clean clothes she assures me she’d put away.

There was a pair of dirty trousers specifically that she had assured me she’d put in the wash basket and they have been shoved at the back of the wardrobe and her filthy

on closer Inspection I found more dirty socks, pants and clothes shoved down the back of her bed as well as dirty cotton pads for removing makeup and other bits of rubbish. Her room is littered with bits of makeup/ random earrings and bits of rubbish. I found an inch of mould in the small kettle she has in her room a couple of months ago as she just left an apple in there rather than take it to the bin.

I’m at my wits end with this. It’s been going on since she was a preteen. We had issues last year where her school bag was full of rubbish/ old bits of food and I was really worried about why this was happening.

We seem to have a pattern where i discover dirty clothes/ rubbish/ mouldy food. We have a discussion. I stop pocket money for a bit- she gets upset and tearful but can’t really tell me why it’s happening. It’s improves for a bit and then I discover something else. Last summer I discovered used/ dirty period knickers shoved at the back of her underwear drawer which was really shocking. I’m not sure if there is something else going on as I remember being a bit dirty and messy as a teenager but nothing like this. Otherwise she seems happy and popular in school and is keeping up with school work etc.

we have had a stressful year this year as I’ve been unwell and she she does live between us and her dad. But the behaviour predates my period of illness.

I’ve tried to address this with her dad as I’m concerned there are deeper issues and I could feel the eye roll down the phone!

I don’t know if it’s just pure laziness or something else. Has anyone had this? I know messy teenagers are nothing new but this seems extreme.

Not on. Best to nip this in the bud especially when she's hiding dirty underwear.

As a mum of 9 - currently 8 at home - 3 adult, 2 teen, 1 tween and 2 children. The rule is (for teens and above) - your bedroom is yours - as long as you keep the door shut and I don't have to see the mess I don't care! They are responsible for cleaning and vacuuming their own rooms. Laundry is put outside the room when they want it done and returned to the same place. I don't fold it or iron. Eating in bedrooms is discouraged and limited to a biscuit or packet of crisps. Drinks are allowed but PLEASE don't hoard glasses. Life is too short to get bogged down with a messy teenage room! They'll learn when they need to or want to! Personally I think it's a personality thing. 2 of my adults living with me are messy and 1 is very tidy. One teen is tidy, one is not. Tween and older kid are in-between and youngest is only 4 and is a whirlwind!

I do agree with letting them get on with it to a point but my DD is ND and genuinely needs some guidance and assistance.

I strip the bed once a week and provide clean bedding, she’s at the point now where she will at least put the clean bedding on the bed. I pick up rubbish and empty the bin every other day.

What you’re describing is extreme but we’ve had to deal with the same. As I said my DD is ND and shouting or shaming was not productive in the slightest, she simply doesn’t have enough executive function to keep on top of things herself for now.

it might sound counterintuitive but next time she’s at her Dad’s i would thoroughly clean her room and put some fresh flowers in there for her return. I find my DD copes better and the room stays cleaner and clearer for longer of I’ve given it a good clean and tidy.

I feel like most teenagers are messy though. Your idea of messy is likely much lower than her idea of messy.

I think just start with easy/basic rules. She might find it embarrassing putting underwear into a family laundry bin for example.

So instead maybe she has a laundry basket in her room, laundry goes straight in there instead of anywhere else. She has a bin in her room, rubbish goes straight there. It kinda sounds like she finds tidying overwhelming so it’s an out of sight, out of mind thing and she’d rather hide it to deal with it asap instead of carrying the stuff to different rooms.

Once she regularly starts doing that, can you get into more of a routine with doing laundry, emptying bins, loading dishwasher etc. maybe start using pocket money as an incentive.

Personally when I was her age (I’m in my 20s), I would just do my own laundry. I was mortified if my mum would touch or wash my underwear or if they were hung up in view of others. So I’d do my own wash/dry cycle. Plus like my mum would just bung everything in on a generic wash and ruin my favourite clothes. So I used to hate her doing my laundry in general.

I get your point totally about laundry but going from hiding dirty pants to doing her own laundry might be a bit overwhelming for her? Maybe a laundry basket in her room and a bit of guidance on how to wash things effectively if washing her clothes with everyone else’s is the problem?

I had three teenagers living under the same roof at one point, and I was of the opinion that 'your room, your mess', I could live with floordrobes and overflowing bookcases but I drew the line at rotting foods, dirty laundry and used tampons/make up remover etc. There is a difference between messiness and unhygenic.

DD (the eldest) was notoriously bad when she was a teenager and even at 26 she can make still a mess out of nothing but she does tidy up after herself (probably does help her partner likes a tidy house!) and has good hygeine / cleanilness standards. Some people like my DD are naturrally messy, I doubt my DD will ever change.

At one point I banned her from eating food in her bedroom due to food scraps and dishes being left everywhere. I had to nudge (and at times nag) DD and DS2 to change their bedding and laundry, I often did ours at the same time to encourage it. DS1 was always fairly tidy.

she doesn’t need her own kettle unless you’re in a hotel-sized house. Having it encourages idleness. take it and maybe return it when she’s kept her room clean for two months or something.

Talk to her about what she thinks might help her to be cleaner and tidier. Eg has she got a bin in her room? and a laundry basket? If not get her one. (She’ll need to empty it ). Make her responsible for her washing. If needed, a list to pin up to remind her to do stuff. Maybe she has adhd?

Messy is to be expected but I also expect my DD to clean up. I’m fairly anti food upstairs but there’s often drinks bottles and sweet wrappers. I give DD clean laundry to put away and she does but similarly there are old knickers left out on the floor every morning - I can’t understand why as there is a basket, annoyingly she’ll also put dirty laundry on top of the basket lid!

To be fair on her at least once a month, she dusts and hoovers and re organises so whilst she’s messy it’s not building up.

I go in and clear some crap and ask her to clear some, or change the liner in her bin or pick up dirty clothes and she does when I tell her but needs that instruction.

basically I’d check daily and don’t let it build up to unmanageable levels.

Ps. a friend of mine is going crazy with the exact same types of things her kid is doing - stuffing dirty clothes in corners, under his pillow, anything other than where they should be. I know that she goes absolutely explosively mental over it and other things, and if you do, consider whether your DD’s behaviour is partly related to hiding things in attempting to avoid getting in trouble.I think he is ND. But also probably scared/stressed by her reactions.

My daughter’s bedroom was also unbelievably messy. Couldn’t see a spare space anywhere. Spent so much time having a go at her and wearing myself out until I decided to just close the door and not look. Later she leaves home to go nursing. Problem disappears. Same with younger daughter. Amazing how differently they treat their own homes.

I've got one of these.

The floor has to be cleared and hoovered once a week and if it doesn't happen I will do it but assume everything on the floor is rubbish and bin according.

In between the door stays shut so I don't have to look at it.

Re the hiding of dirty clothes, she clearly has more clothes than she needs/can manage, we had to halve the amount of teen 1's clothing so she could manage them.

Thanks all. I think what I’m worried about is whether there is something deeper going on or some kind of processing issue where she struggles to follow through on completing a task. She always seems quite ashamed when I catch her out and at a loss to explain why this is happening.

She is in a highly pressured school and doing well but I worry sometimes that’s she’s using all her mental energy to keep up there and then is taking the easiest option and just hiding stuff rather then dealing with it.
I like the idea of her own laundry bin and everything needs to go into there otherwise it won’t get washed and wonder if helping her to have a deep clean over the holidays will make this all more manageable.

having said that I don’t want to be manipulated into feeling sorry for her if she is just being careless and lazy.. arghh it was so much easier to be a mum in the 80s or 90s where she would just get punished and I wouldn’t be beating my self
up worrying about possible ASD or underlying emotional issues!

I posted before but didn't mention that my kids all have a ND either autism or ADHD or both. The eldest (one of the messy ones) has a first from a top uni and a masters with distinction her study skills and organisation around academics is impecable but her room is a mess! Nobody can be everything I don't believe. I do get what one pp said about needing guidance but guidance only works (imo) if the guidance is wanted otherwise really you just end up doing it yourself! I went there with the eldest when she was 8/9 trying to get her to help tidy her room - she "lost the use of her arms and legs" and wouldn't help! My advice is just not to let it become a big thing between you both because life is too short for that!!

At 15, I shut the door to DS's room and pretended it didn't exist. Every two weeks he'd appear with a bin bag of rubbish, cups and bowls and a load of laundry, including his bed sheets (which he'd change). He'd wash up the bowls and stuff, take his rubbish out and put the washing machine on and empty.

I never asked him to clear up more than a few times and decided the battle wasn't worth it. So he lived in a pigsty until he got fed up.

It’s how they are brought up. Mine keeps her bedroom looking like a boutique hotel room.

I am a very tidy person but I remember stuffing period pants into a drawer through embarrassment and when my dd stayed at her dads she did the same apparently. Please dont over think it, she is working well at school and maybe keeping her room tidy is just another thing that she has to do and is too much. I have 2 dd, both different, both lovely. Appreciate her good points and don’t dwell on the bad in the stressful teen years.

If she is wearing fairly cheap knickers ( £8 for a pack of five sort of thing) then just tell her to bin any that are blood stained rather than hiding them. She’s probably embarrassed by them.
Have a decent dustbin in her room near where she takes off her makeup and tell her not to worry about recycling unless it’s very obvious ( you can always sort it out later)

I just spent a precious hour before WFH this morning sorting my teen DD’s wardrobe as it was gross! I usually shut the door and let her get on with it but that’s actually backfiring because she’s so untidy and disorganised that we keep getting huge panic and drama over lost skirts / PE tops / swim costume etc and it impacts everyone. I’m also doing loads of extra washing because she mixes up the dirty with the clean and then it all stinks. I think I was the same as a teen and really it was owning my own home and maturing a bit that sorted me out. Whilst frustrating, I think it’s normal for most teens to be grabbers. I’m going to take a little and often approach, I can’t be doing deep cleans every week

I’m the same Park. I put away her clean clothes because otherwise I will end up doing more washing. I usually wait until she’s left the house and spend a few minutes making the bed and doing a bit of tidying and make sure the room is ventilated. Saves a lot of drama and time in the long run.

I simply told my two to keep their bedroom doors shut. Clean clothes were put on the landing and I told them where clean sheets were. Tbh DS only really started changing his sheets on a regular basis when we allowed GF to stay over but I never went in his room.

My DS is exactly the same, disorganised, messy and seems completely unwilling to try methods and prompts. Teachers have also tried..... So frustrating, as he's bright and lovely.

I fear it's in his nature, so I'm doing tough love. If he misses appointments, is late for work or loses things, then he needs to deal with the consequences. I encourage notes and alarms on phone, but even that fails occasionally, as he runs out of charge!!

He may be ND, don't know, don't think it really matters, as it's not an excuse and is something that he can absolutely work on.

He is choosing to be a slob and after much reflection, I feel I'm doing him no favours in managing his life. I offer advice / guidance and praise good behaviour, like a child, he's 18 ffs.

He needs to do it. Sorry - I'm ranting, my level of frustration is probably very apparent! Good luck op - I'm fucked if I know.

You could try those little laundry bags for dirty underwear in case it's driven by others handling her underwear, as well as the laundry basket in her room

I had exactly this. Mine had her own linen basket but that didn't help at all. Nearly drove me insane. I wasn't like it, nor was anyone else in the house. No idea what the reason was. She's now married and completely opposite.

My Dd was exactly the same, I just ignored it, kept the door shut, hard as it was, now she takes great delight in telling me she's spent all day cleaning her flat! 😃, almost certainly she will grow up and grow out of this phase

DSD is 12. I don’t put her clothes away. I leave them on a basket in her room. Her room is a mess. I shut the door. Stop making this your problem. I don’t even change her bed, I suggest it’s time and if she strips the sheets I will wash it but I don’t do it. It’s her space. They are growing up and need to be independent.

It’s not in the laundry basket don’t wash it (DSD dirty clothes lay in the middle of her room for 2 weeks when she went on holiday with her mum and I just shut the door).

Is DSD room the least clean / dusted / vacuumed in the house. Yes. But it a her room.

By all means stop the pocket money until her room is tidy / clean but I would not be doing this extra work for a 15 year old.