Sorry if this gets long, but I need to vent. I have spent hours organizing and decluttering my house in the hopes that one day it will quit looking like a tornado went through EVERY DAY. I'm not even asking for it to be spotless -- lived in is fine-- but I'm tired of having to 'speed clean' every time someone comes over. Everything has a place and whatever didn't have a place got tossed out or donated. I have decluttered, organized, labeled, and on and on and on and my house is still a disaster.

The problem -- my kids (mostly my 7 year old DS, although my 4 year old is terrible about picking up his toys) and my DH who refuse to put things away where they belong. I just don't understand. I have made things very easy to be put away -- bins, labels, etc. and still stuff is all over the floor and someone is whining because they can't find what it is they need. They will put stuff next to where it belongs, or close to where it belongs, but what is it going to take for them to go that extra step and put stuff WHERE IT BELONGS.

I am on my kids & DH all the time to put stuff away. Am I asking too much -- I mean, c'mon, how hard is it put dirty clothes in the hamper (my 7 year is the worst about this), or put a snack wrapper in the trash can (again, 7 year old is the worst), or a dirty plate in the dishwasher -- why do they think it's ok to put it next to the sink???

I have tried just about everything -- punishment, rewards, asking for their help, having them help me organize and decide where things go, not being able to take them to do fun things becuase I have to clean up, etc. Does anyone have any suggestions that work. I can not take any more of this!

Thanks for letting me vent!
Sarah......mom to messy Jason & messy Devin!!!

Don't get your hopes up! Mine are 11 & 13 and we still have this argument! Unfortunately, I don't think it will ever change no matter how much you beg, plead or nag!

Lisa

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Do your kids and DH have any suggestions on what would make things easier for them? I'm bad at putting things away by nature, but I'm worse if something's hard to reach, or an item's not stored near where I use it. I don't expect people to know that, because they're not necessarily my height, and don't do everything the way I do. I can also forget things if I'm doing too much at once.

Right now, I'm working on getting one room of the house in order at a time, and keeping it that way. Would it be possible to just make sure plates go in the dishwasher, and worry about other problems once that becomes a habit?

I feel your pain! LOL! I can get my house spotless after the 4 kids are off to school and it feels like not an hour of them being home after school my house looks like a tornado hit it.....Once DH gets home it gets even worse.....(I have 2 kids at home too, 3 & 4) Weekends are the worse, I feel like Mondays are spent repairing the house from the weekend........

I always tell them the perfect present for Mom wouldn't be a day off from everything, but a day off from everything where they did it all........

What always amazes me is how much cleaner and neater my house is why DH is deployed.....He is the biggest slob of them all

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My dh helps out some, but my boys (ages 2 and 4) bedroom is a disaster. I have no trouble throwing things out on the floor.. If they catch the stuff in the trash they will put it away if not.. away it goes..

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This is still a problem in our house for my DS-13. He just doesn't care about putting things up. I have completely given up on his room, I will let it go until you can't walk through it anymore. I make him shut the door when he comes out (I don't want to see it.).

Get this, just last night. He had left some paper crap of his spread out in the living room along with 2 pair of shoes. He goes to bed and I start picking up. I literally threw the crap in his room. He freaked on me, telling me I didn't have to make his room messy (Huh!!). Anyways I informed him he didn't have to make my livingroom a mess either. This is an every night thing around here.

I'll tell you what did work, for laundry anyways. They know if their laundry isn't downstairs in the utility room by noon on Sunday it's not going to get washed til the next Sunday. (If I wash during the week they will wear the same thing over and over again.) Anyway, he had gotten to just grabbing every piece of clothing that was visible in his room and taking it down. Well, he doesn't put clean clothes away so I was having to rewash clothes when they had never been worn. I started taking "favorite" pieces of clothing every time I found a clean piece of clothing. He could earn 2 pieces of "favorite" clothing back by not having any clean clothes mixed in with dirty ones. I very rarely get clean clothes in with dirty now.

We have tried paying them for cleaning their rooms and various chores. They still don't do it. I difintely in the same boat as you.

Laura

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I know exactly how you feel. I spent years trying to convince my family to take care of their things!!!

NOW......except for baby Faith I live alone. DH is otr truck driver, DS in college, DD married and in college......and GUESS WHAT!! The house still gets to be a mess. I guess I was more of the problem than I thought!! LOL

Moral of the story?? I know it's frustrating, but in 15-20 years, it's not going to make one bit of difference. Enjoy your kids while their home.....

start taking whatever you find that is on in the proper place and keep it. make them earn back whatever it is. worked for our dd when she was younger. now she is a neat freak. lol. ( maybe worked to good?)

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Maybe they should pay YOU for cleaning their room. Around here, the cleaning lady charges about $14 an hour. I bet it wouldn't take too many times of them paying the cleaning lady (you) before they would start keeping things a little cleaner. My parents did this to me and I only paid them a few times before I got smarter and kept my own room neat.

OP, maybe you could take 15 minutes at the end of the day before supper or bedtime and have everybody do a power clean. It works for me (although my kids are 4, 3, 1-1/2, and 2-1/2 months so it's pretty much me and the two oldest doing that). Now if someone had suggestions on how to get DH to hang his ties on the tie rack at the end of the day....

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I've had a Foreman Grill for about six years. I've done about 85% of my cooking on it, but I've never burnt myself. Probably because I don't use it as a pillow.

Oh I feel your pain.
I have a 7 year old, a 3 1/2 year old, and a 32 year old (DH) lol
I even BEGGED them. "At least don't touch the guest towels" Leave me feel like I have one thing thats orderly.
In the morning I always find them used and crumpled on the floor- lazybirds! Its toooo hard to go to the HALL CLOSET. Goodness.
My favorite is when DH says he can't find socks and tries to blame me.

Usually I blow a gasket every 6 months and start claiming I'll go buy thousands of dollars worth of organizing shlves/help etc which keeps DH in line for a little while.

The kids- they can play all day but if I ask them to clean they say they are exhausted.

Good luck! I know I need it too!

I used to pick up everything left out and lock it away! when they started picking up after them selves they started getting it back! some things they never go back because they would not change so I decided he way o end clutter was to get rid of stuff and not rebuy it!

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Great ideas -- keep them coming.

I have tried most of them and have not had much luck. I tried taking stuff away and having them earn it back and honestly they did not care about the stuff that was gone. That is when I started decluttering and getting rid of a lot of stuff they didn't really play with. They really haven't missed most of it and the things they did miss, they have asked for again for birthday or Christmas gifts.

One big problem with my 7 year old is that a lot of the time, he didn't make the toy mess in his room. My 4 year old goes in his room while he's at school and dumps toys (usually the ones with a million pieces) and them moves on. I rarely go upstairs (master bedroom is on the main floor) so a lot of times I don't find out about it until much later after DS#2 is asleep and DS#1 is getting ready for bed. I can somewhat bribe DS#1 to clean his room (can't go outside and play with friends after school until it's clean to my satisfaction), but DS#2 will fall on the floor and whine when asked to pick up. It's not really fair to DS#1 to have to clean up stuff all the time when he didn't make the mess.

Sarah.........

My kids and husband learned quickly that if I said "put it away" and they didn't, that I would throw it away. They also learned that if it wasn't in the hamper, it didn't get washed and would often end up in the trash as well.

You're right about that. He shouldn't be allowed in his brother's room. Maybe you could put a lock on the door?

In my house, I can b!t#h and moan till I am blue in the face. Still, my DH is a really bad role model for the kids, as he always seems to "forget" to pick up and put away what he should. So, my DD17 and DS 14 have rooms that look as if a cyclone has gone through them. Also, even if I nag long enough to get them to clear their plates from the table--that short little 12 inch transition from sink to dishwasher never gets done. It is frustrating, and I have not given up "reminding" them to do these things; but I have decided to pick my battles. For one thing, with DH, I really don't think he will change after 26 years; with my two teens--they are both honor roll students who have never given me any reason to question or worry about them (no drugs or drinking or inappropriate friends or behavior) and for that I will allow them some leeway. However, my reminding them is more for me to let them know that I know that they are not "getting away" with not doing these things unnoticed

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I swear we have the same son!!! I was just on mine all day yesterday about his room. He is soon to be 11 and we are having party on Saturday so I want the house clean. I literally had to go and practically hold his hand so he can get the idea of what clean is. Today he still has not finished hte list I left him. I love your laundry idea. I am going to try this because he is famous for throwing the clean pile back into hamper so he doesn't have to put it away. I can't wait until he can't find one of his favorite jerseys(LOL). Darling hubby is the SLOB Leader. He has clutter scattered from one end of the house to the other. He gets things(tools) out and uses them and then leaves them on bar or dryer. I just don't understand it. I just try and not sweat the small stuff but I really would like my house back to being clean and organized....

when did you move into my house?!? except i have 4 sons and a hubby!

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My boys would live in a pig sty if they could. They just do not care. It drives me crazy to have dirty rooms in my house. I can live with some clutter in their rooms, if it is CLEAN. This means you can do your project in the middle of your floor, and leave it there for the week it takes to get bored with it, but you cannot have trash in your room, dust everywhere, dirty clothes on the floor, etc.
To me the bigger problem is that learning to maintain your 'space' and clean up after yourself are important life skills which show respect for yourself and others. Kids grow up fast. Sloppy teenagers are hard work to change. Sloppy teenagers move into a tiny dorm room, and may not have a roommate who appreciates the dirty dishes, trash, stinky laundry, etc. It becomes a bigger problem.
We've tried a million different things, depending upon which of the boys is a problem. My 17 yr old will fight me to the death over these issues, but I will not give up. If his room is a disaster, he shouldn't even bother to ask if he can have a ride to whatever fun thing he wants to do. It is not happening. My 12 yr old uses the argument that he 'likes it messy'. Tough luck. He can live in a dumpster when he's 18 if he likes. For him, it's less about social restrictions, and more about making sure he knows exactly what he needs to do when he is told to clean it up. I even needed to take a picture of one of the boys' rooms after I cleaned it so he would know what it needed to look like before he could announce it was "done".

My d/d is as baffled as I am by the boys indifference. She likes her room clean. My d/h, well, he is neater than when I got him 22 yrs ago, and that's as good as it's going to get!

I wish you luck. I pick my battles, but this is an important one for me.

My hubby's mother threw away a lego project he had worked on for a long time because he didn't pick it up. Any time his toys were left out longer than she wanted them she threw them out. He and his mother have a terrible relationship to this day. He really has bad memories of coming home and finding his toys gone forever. I would suggest putting things up but allowing them to re-earn them somehow. We may not realize how important something is to a child and children tend to like having thier things visible.

When I was in college, a kid (Steve) on my floor never did his laundry. The room began to stink, so his roommate (Mark) told him that if he didn't do his laundry the next day, it was going out the window. Well, Steve didn't do it, so Mark pitched it out the window. Our dorm was on a busy street in Philadelphia. As it turned out, Steve was walking home, just as his clothes started to rain down.

Steve learned a lot in college - including how to do his laundry.

Sarah,

Two ideas.

1. When I was young my parents would call me from whereever I was, next door neighbors, upstairs studying, in the basement playing pingpong, etc. You get the idea. They would make me come directly to the item, usually a pair of shoes or jacket. Then they would make me put it away. This was always at an up-opportune time in my young life. Believe me, it worked. I was a neat kid and still am! I used to hate when they bothered me to put those things away.

2. How I do it with DH. He gets free drycleaning from his job. He was leaving those wire hangers all over the place, on the bed, on the floor, dresser, etc.
One day I took a wire hanger that was holding his slacks, the ones with the little white cardboard like thing on them. I wrote hima tiny, tiny note to say something like that I loved him very much but could he please not leave the hangers on the floor. Then I put the hanger back on the floor and left it for days.

I've had to do the hanger trick a few times, every 6 months or so, once I made the bed and put the hanger/note under the blankets right where he would lay down!

Works!

Paulette

LoL My DH and Son hate clutter. But neither of them would pick up after themselves. I always did it to keep the house clean.

One day I decided heck Im not picking anyones stuff up even my own from now on.
Took a day for DH to notice and he said to me "Not feeling well?" I said I feel fine why? "well I noticed the house is looking a bit out of sorts. I told him well I figured if you and Josh were too good to have to pick up your things around the house that since I am the queen of the house I shouldn't have to do it either. This lasted about 3 days. I came home from work and there was DH neatly folding his clothes and putting them in his drawers and hanging his shirts. He had already cleared his desk of the clutter. Next thing I see is my son gathering his clothes to take them down to the wash. I almost cried VICTORY right then and there.

It has lasted for awhile. When I see them starting to slip I casually mention maybe it is time I take another break from clean.

I think that they are all the same, I have fought with my hubby 3x this week about taking the garbage out! He said, "WELL I DONT THROW ANYTHING IN THERE" , uh yeah I know since I'm the one always cleaning it up! He yells at me for overfilling it and says he didnt know, you don't know that the garbage isn't closing. After dinner he actually leaves his plate on the table and throws his used napkin on it. Makes me so mad, and my kids, same story, and my hubby makes excuses for them They are too young they don't know how to clean, well it's about time they learn how to clean up after themselves but the funny thing is that they know how to clean when we go to other peoples house and make messes there!

Live from New York....it's the same here. I have Dh, and three kids, 21, 18, and 16 and they could wallow in filth if I let it get that way. DH is bad..always says "I'll get to it". Every morning computer desk has empty soda cans, and his assorted trash and folded up chip bags that he is to lazy to put away, and throw out. He leaves it til the next morning, knowing I guess that it drives me bananas and I will do it in the morning. Same with everyone..no matter how much I nag, they leave empty cans, glasses, stuff all over the place. I joke to the boys rooms that they resemble "crack dens", and DD complains that everyone is slobs, but she tends to do the same, but think she is perfect..NOT.

DS#2..his room is the worst...it was like you couldn't even walk in there. He is 18, his friends even offered to come help him clean it..he just wasn't going to do it...again, I nagged, but I just close the door, and save my fights for the "big guns", but last week when I came home...I found 4 green garbage bags on the porch in the front...and I said Oh No, who is moving out LOL...Turns out DS2 got a bug and cleaned his room, and down came 8 bags of trash and 2 bags of Goodwill clothes for the bin. LOL..he was so proud to show me his floor, he vacuumed and everything LOL. I just wish I could make them understand that it only takes a few minutes a day or even 1/2 hour a week, just to keep it clean then it wouldn't take 4 HOURS to clean it..with a friend..to get it clean again.

I always say I did it to myself....because I was too stubborn to just let things accumulate around our common living spaces before waiting for someone to do it..I just did it myself..

On a happier note, when my friends son, who did nothing home, came home from college for the weekend last week, she walked into his room in the morning to find a made bed, laundry in the washer, dishes were done by him..LOL, and he's only been in college a month! Wow, they can learn HUh? LOL

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Eileen

**Some people are like Slinky's, not really good for anything, but you can't help laugh when you see one tumble down the stairs**

Kids (young and old) really don't know how to clean their rooms.
When their rooms are a total disaster, they are overwhelmed and don't know where to start.
You have to tell them what to do, such as.........first pick up all of the toy cars. When that is done,....Now pick up all of the Legos, and so on. When I baby sat a little girl who loved to dump the Legos and hated to pick them up, I asked her to pick up all of the red ones, then the green, etc. That was a game to her and she would do it that way.

When my kids were little I would write chores on small pieces of paper and put them in a container and they would pick one out at a time and get it done. Again, that was a game and they loved it. I would add a few "Give mommy a hug"s and we all enjoyed that one!

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