messy bedrooms

Maisie

I am totally at my wits end with the state my 3 girls [2 college, 1 school] leave their bedrooms and no amount of discussion, threats, reasoning, seems to make any difference. My husbands opinion is just to close the doors and forget about it. And I have tried that. But he heads off to work every morning and I am left knowing whats behind the closed doors. All I want is for them to pick up dirty clothes, empty their bins etc. I am happy to wash the clothes, make beds and hoover, if they just tidy up and put their clean clothes away when they are washed.
They don't seem to realise that this is really starting to depress me. I wish I could just let it go but I feel they are really disrespecting me if nothing else.They are not tiny kids so there really aren't any privilages like TV / treats that I can take away.
Today I acually thought of loading up black bin bags with their stuff and putting them in the garage but its hardly an adult way for me to behave!
Does anybody have any ideas on how to get through to them.

fatmammycat

Today I acually thought of loading up black bin bags with their stuff and putting them in the garage but its hardly an adult way for me to behave!

Actually I think that is an EXCELLENT thing to do, they don't want to act like adults don't treat them like adults. My friend did exactly this when her daughter (18) after YEARS of threats left her room in a tip- so bad every inch of space was covered in make up and clothes and cups and glasses. Her daughter was shocked when she came home from the weekend away to a bare room. My friend also said if she had to do it again it wouldn't be the garage it would be the local recycling centre she visited. I think her daughter is now making more of an effort. But it took a real drastic step to get through to her.

Yawns

fantastic idea. If they want to have their stuff in their rooms, they can agree to keep it reasonably clean. Let us know what you decide OP and how it works out.

deisemum

Great idea.

Fortunately I don't have that problem YET but I'll remember this thread if the time comes for drastic action. I've got 2 boys aged 14 and 12 and they keep their room tidy. Maybe my actions when they were young and wouldn't pick up their toys have paid off. I would get a toy usually an old one and on one occasion a new football and smash it with a sledge hammer or knife with the threat that anything that wasn't tidied up was going to get the same treatment. I only had to do it 3 or 4 times.

ash23

I did this with my niece once. She stayed with me for the summer cos her mom was ill and her room was a disgrace.
I asked her to clean it and she didn't. So one day I emptied her room.
EVERYTHING went. All she had left was a bed and a wardrobe with the bare minimum.
I told her she had to earn her stuff back and as she helped around the house I gave her back her bits and pieces.

Her room was always pretty tidy after that

bryaner

Jaysus I thought it was just us, we have a 20 year old boy/man and the carpet in his room is covered with mounds of clothes pure filthy

ebmma

I gonna go against the flow and say that I agree with your husband.
They are old enough to wash their own clothes and clean their rooms. You're not a maid.

Lotsafish

I'm half and half - For the two ones in College tell them to grow up and clean up, if they wont, then ignore the rubbish but charge them full rent, tell them if they want to do whatever they want with their rooms then they have to pay for the rooms.

For the one in school I agree with the above posts - drastic action needs to be taken. Personally I would clean the room spotless myself, then say that every item left on the floor during the day will be taken away and kept. and for every day that there is nothing on the floor, an item will be given back.

seamus

I'm not a parent myself, but I'd agree with your husband too. To a certain extent you need to treat their bedrooms as their "homes". When they move out, are you going to go to their houses and clean them, or give out to them about the state of their houses? No, of course not, so why are you getting worked up about cleaning their rooms?

My Mum got to a point when I was a teenager (youngest of four boys), that she refused to pick up our stuff for us. She stuck two washbaskets on the landing, and anything that was in them, got washed. If it wasn't, it didn't get washed.

She also eventually realised that ironing the clothes was folly so we just got our clothes back in a heap - if we wanted them ironed, we could do it ourselves.

Evolute

Maisie wrote: »

I am happy to wash the clothes, make beds and hoover, if they just tidy up and put their clean clothes away when they are washed.

The two in college are lucky to even get that. 2nd year in secondary school was when I was shown how to wash clothes and told oh by the way thats your job aswell as keeping my room clean. If I didnt I got no pocket money simple as no money they cant do much although with the older ones they may have part time jobs so it all depends on that. But if they do have jobs charge them rent or get them to clean their rooms.

kmick

There is ALWAYS something you can take away. I would implement a tidy room policy where the room is inspected once a week and if its not tidy (to your standard not theirs) then until the next inspection there is...

Phase 1
The cutoff
No money given
No lifts anywhere
No treats bought in the shopping
Clothes not washed

Phase 2
Divide and conquer - encourage the youngest to be the first to tidy up (Bribe if needed). Then play them off against each other - "well If Emma can do her room than you can as well."

Phase 3
Allies - Get you husband involved. Make it his problem. He is getting off too lightly and will never get involved unless he feels pain. Give him the task of pocket money stopper. Let him deal with the kids when they shout and scream how unfair the whole thing is. Use Phase 1 tactics to get him involved if he is reticent.

Phase 4
The payoff
Once the minor tasks are achived get them to do their own hoovering, washing etc. YOU ARE NOT THEIR SLAVE once they hit their teens they can do it all themselves. If you continue to do it for them you will encourage them to be useless for ever. Break the cycle now.

Ickle Magoo

Maisie wrote: »

They don't seem to realise that this is really starting to depress me. I wish I could just let it go but I feel they are really disrespecting me if nothing else.They are not tiny kids so there really aren't any privilages like TV / treats that I can take away.

I don't understand why the state your kids leave their rooms in is affecting you so much? Why is it driving you to the extreme of getting depressed or feeling disrespected? I could understand if they were dumping things all over the house but it's their rooms, close the doors and forget about it.

Clothes that are in the washing basket get washed, clothes that don't, don't. Simples. Don't offer help and stop doing so much for them so they don't get the opportunity to take you for granted. I left home at 16 & moved hundreds of miles away, never mind had my mother doing my washing and hoovering! :eek: I think you have to leave them to sort out their own mess, when they have no clean clothes, the bed sheets stink & they can't have friend round because their rooms are a tip, point them in the way of the washing machine, hoover, etc and all relevant instructions - good life lessons!

metrovelvet

Its their room. Let them suffer it. But I would definitely have a rule that no drinks, food, etc be brought outside of the kitchen or living room. And I would ban the piglets to one bathroom they can use.

KittyeeTrix

My kids rooms are left to them. They usually look like tips but as I say to them, it's your room-your business.
Every so often I shout up the stairs "that's it, I've had enough of the bleeding state, time to sort them out and we all pitch in to help for about half an hour.
No constant arguing, depression or anything like that. Usually it's just my hormones kicking in once a month that gets them to clear up:D

As long as I can close the door and the rest of the house is relatively tidy I don't mind. As far as I'm concerned there are bigger issues to come in the future( 2 of my kids are 13 and 16) and for me, a tidy room is really not that big a deal.

Yawns

w/e about teenagers when they're in school. But in college they should be expected to have clean rooms. I still think it's a brill idea to have them come home from college and find bare bone rooms.

Pretty_Pistol

If it is really getting to you and making you feel bad then you really need to ask your husband to agree with you on this, even if it's just infront of your daughters. Is your husband the main discipliner? If so then ask him to tell them to tidy up.

You can and should take priviledges away from them if they aren't doing what your asking nicely. I'm sure there is something you could limit/take away. What about internet/computer/TV/pocket money/food?

You should make Sunday (or whatever day they lounge around the most at home) the day to clean their rooms. Life can get in the way of cleaning your room but at least you would have a certain day you know it's going to get done.

If asking doesn't change anything then use the black bags and threaten to give it away to charity.

On a side note the 2 girls in college definitely need to learn how to wash their own clothes/make their own beds. Stop doing it for them.

ebmma

Yawns wrote: »

w/e about teenagers when they're in school. But in college they should be expected to have clean rooms. I still think it's a brill idea to have them come home from college and find bare bone rooms.

I don't really get why they necessarily should. It's their room. They're big girls. What's not ok is if they expect their mother to pick through mountains of sh!t to find their dirty clothes and wash them (and tidy their room).

I also don't get the attraction of spending all this time getting stuff out of their room to make a point. I thought the point should be that mother is doing too much and they are doing too little. I'd rather have a cup of tea instead of clearing out some 19-20yo's room.

Lotsafish

ebmma wrote: »

I don't really get why they necessarily should. It's their room. They're big girls.

IMO only if they are paying full rent - if they are not then they have no right to abuse it. If it was a landlord/tenant arrangement then there would be bi-annual inspections and the tenant would be kicked out if the place was kept filthy.

As the mother it is her job to prepare her children for life outside the home and the truth is that it is not acceptable behavior outside the home so why would it be inside it?

Stark

Lotsafish wrote: »

IMO only if they are paying full rent - if they are not then they have no right to abuse it. If it was a landlord/tenant arrangement then there would be bi-annual inspections and the tenant would be kicked out if the place was kept filthy.

I'm a messy person by nature and I just make the bi-annual effort to tidy my room just before inspection and the rest of the year, it's crap thrown everywhere. Though I'd be a lot tidier if apartments actually came with storage space for things... I don't think you can ever fully change a person if clutter is in their nature. Maybe just draw a line under what's unacceptable: dirty cups and clothes that can become stinky and grow mold, expecting a parent to come in and pick up dirty clothes (we used to have a laundry hamper in the bathroom for communal washing when I was a teenager), that kind of thing.

ebmma

Lotsafish wrote: »

IMO only if they are paying full rent - if they are not then they have no right to abuse it. If it was a landlord/tenant arrangement then there would be bi-annual inspections and the tenant would be kicked out if the place was kept filthy.

As the mother it is her job to prepare her children for life outside the home and the truth is that it is not acceptable behavior outside the home so why would it be inside it?

You're right, but I think the mother should just sit down with all the kids and calmly say that they can do whatever they like with their rooms if they pay full rent (for example). And that she's refusing to treat them like toddlers because they are not and perfectly capable to clean up and wash after themselves, etc. etc.

College girls will either behave better or cop on and move out.

Oink

ebmma wrote: »

You're right, but I think the mother should just sit down with all the kids and calmly say that they can do whatever they like with their rooms if they pay full rent (for example). And that she's refusing to treat them like toddlers because they are not and perfectly capable to clean up and wash after themselves, etc. etc.

College girls will either behave better or cop on and move out.

I was going to write a whole shpill, but this says it all. Keep your inner pig pent up until you get your own place and pay your own rent, thank you.

I'm not a father, so I'm only speaking as an ex-messy teenager who had to be reminded that he lived in HIS PARENTS' PLACE.

littlebug

Would any of you like to come to my house and load up all my stuff and put it in the garage so that I might tidy my bedroom. I'm dreadful.... I'm a really bad example for my children

Goesague

You should get new locks for the doors. When they are out lock the rooms. When they come back tell them that you are no longer allocating space to them as you do not like living in a pigsty. Tell them they can sleep in sleeping bags in the garage if they like. Only let them into the rooms on condition that they are cleaned up immediately. Do not give them keys. Tell them if you find the same situation again you will lock them out again.

ebmma

littlebug wrote: »

Would any of you like to come to my house and load up all my stuff and put it in the garage so that I might tidy my bedroom. I'm dreadful.... I'm a really bad example for my children

my room is untidy too. We keep sitting room nice enough because this is what people see when they are over. What happens behind the bedroom door is my business

I was talking about this with OH recently. I was wondering when this shift occurs. Most people are quite messy as teenagers and that continues on to some extent into adulthood. Then a baby happens. And everything is a mess coz there's no time Then baby grows and suddenly pretty much every mother I know gets obsessed with tidiness in kids' rooms like there's no tomorrow.
Somebody should study this.

sorry for OT.

Nasty_Girl

Right speaking as a former messy pig who had many a fight with my mother my opinion is to leave it.

My parents threatened, sweet talked, compromised, shouted everything.
My mother even went in and cleaned the whole thing once while I was out!!
Instead of being grateful I was disgusted she'd "invaded my privacy" or some other teenage bullsh1t.
I couldn't understand why my filthy room bothered HER so much when I kept my crap away from the rest of the house.
It only made me dig in worse.

Then they stopped.

So I let it get so bad the carpet could not be seen for papers, junk, coke cans, clothes etc. I was just sitting on my bed reading when next thing I hear "BZZZ"

"What was I that?" I wondered.

"BZZZZ BZZZ BZZZZZ"

And I'm not kidding the biggest fooking queen wasp or fly came up from the carpet and flew into my lamp shade.

I still don't know what it was but It was the biggest scariest yoke ever with a huge abdomen and a massve stinger. It was over an inch long and black.

Well I went screaming down the stairs and Mammy had to come and kill it for me.

Anytime my room was mentioned after that all she had to say was "I wonder did that fly leave behind a big egg sack"

Oh also having visitors shamed me into tidying

jenny jinks

I think parents should be strict about tidiness. My mother let me away with murder and I didn't change until I left home and my flatmates beat my bum with a hairbrush for being a slob. It is just a matter of putting in a bit of effort until neatness becomes a habit.

cbyrd

Invite some of they're friends over.. it works with my one and she's only 11 i've never seen a room tidied so quickly.. i was messy til the age of about 19 then i bought my telly stereo computer rocking chair exercise gadget and a big desk thingy to house it all, i had to keep my room tidy or i couldnt' get into it!!!
i'm still battling my inner piglet, i thought when i became a house wife at christmas i'd have the cleanest house in the world... my 7 week old and the husband have put paid to that... he is the messiest feck in ireland.. what is it about men not being able to put things back when they're done.. and the dishwasher doesn't load itself!!:eek::D

Persiancowboy

We have two daughters (14 and 12) and their bedrooms are a total disgrace particularly the elder of the two. Amazingly the same one spends hours looking at herself in the mirror and won't go outside the door unless she looks just right.

My wife is currently doing a teenage parenting course and the course facilitator has strongly urged the participants to choose carefully the issues they "go to war" on but that untidy/dirty bedrooms should not be one of them. Best to simply keep the doors closed and ignore the mess they are living in.

My daughter insists all her friends' rooms are in a similar state and she sees no problem with it. We do our best to ignore the issue but I will admit we occasionally lose it with both of them on the subject.....

metrovelvet

You could always buy two giant prawns and tape them to the back of the curtain rail so they create such a god awful stench the girls will be forced to tidy their rooms to find the stench.

aujopimur

A friend of mine fecked everthing out the window into the front garden one day,
Result, a tidy from there on.

greensleep

Been there done all that. I eventually realised I was the only one getting stressed over it all. Father didn't care, kids didn't care only I did. So I realised it was my problem alone. The more I thought about it I realised it was because I wasn't in control anymore and that's what I needed (to be in control) . When they were small I could control nearly everything they did. It was scary not being in control of my kids. Eventually realised I had to let go and let them grow. Stopped doing everything for them (washing, ironing, tidying, looking after their every need) and do you know what happened, they grew up and started looking after them selves and I got a life once again.