I live in a household with 5 members. All family members are busy and rarely have time to clean beyond general maintenance (dishes, wiping down the table, etc.). There’s clutter everywhere, and people often just take things out and leave them on the floor, where they’ll sit for months.

2 household members are especially messy (leaving dirty laundry and shoes for on the floor, pots and pans and flour all over the counters, etc.), and have no interest in keeping the house neat so we can live in a cleaner environment. For the other 3 members (including me), this causes a lot of stress. The 3 of us try to pick up after those 2 when we can, but the majority of the mess remains untouched.

How can I convince these 2 people to pitch in and help keep the house clean?

Why is it that people seem to blame their children for their house being messy? Because if your house was messy before you had kids… Then it’s not your kids fucking fault. My mom always had a clean house and she always looked Put together. So I was just wonder, is it just easier to blame your children?

I'm Melisa (she/her) and I'm 50 years old. I moved shorty before covid and was forced to move from a 5,000 sq ft home to a 1750 sq ft home because of a divorce (the divorce happen about 2 years prior, but I knew I couldn't afford that house forever). I thought working from home would help me to have an organized home, but my mother had a stroke and caring for her took a lot of my non-work time away. The remaining time I mostly spend in bed, depressed. My children are grown now. When they were younger, caring for them kept me too busy to be depressed. I had to keep the house clean for them and because they had regular playdates come over. I also had an obligation to my husband since I was a stay at home mom and felt I should work for that privilege. Anyhow, those things that forced me to have a clean house are gone. In fact covid ensured there wouldn't be anyone dropping by. But I know I was capable of keeping a nice house when I was younger and didn't have as much trauma and depression.

My life is now taking care of mom and working a demanding job (I'm a software engineer and I love my job, so thankfully that has not suffered and we have a decent income). So I sit here wondering why I can't get out of bed on weekends to do dishes, laundry, cleaning or shopping. I feel paralysed and resentful that my mom and kids don't help out. My 20 year old still lives with me but won't lift a finger to help. He is in full time school and working 24 hours a week, so he says if I want him to get good grades I need to take care of the house and let him study. I know I'm a wimp for not pressing the issue and I know he is manipulating me but I have no energy to convince him to help. I spend the whole weekend in bed, trying to avoid my mother's relentless requests and my children's disappointment in me.

I'm very disappointed in myself because I "wasted" the last year and a half and my house is worse than ever. I feel like everyone else completed home projects and have their house looking beautiful because of the covid lockdown. Is anyone else baffled that your house is worse off now when you expected the lockdown to give you more time to clean? Is anyone else panicking because the covid lockdowns are lifting and when life gets back to normal, your house is the opposite of what you thought it would be? I read a great book years ago called "How to not be a Messy" by Sandra Felton and she called this condition CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). I like thinking about that because it's light-hearted, when in reality I feel this messy house is causing a heavy darkness in my life, which is probably a reflection of my trauma and depression. But the depression = messy house = more depression cycle is hard to break. Thank you for reading this and letting me share with this community.

I’m 14 years old and my home is disgusting. My mom and dads home. They’re both destroyed with dog and cat pee on every carpet, piece of furniture you name it. There’s just dog pee on everything everywhere. The dogs aren’t trained. And whenever they do pee or poop in the house and sits for sometimes days without getting cleaned up. My house smells like pee. The dogs sometimes jump on the kitchen table and pee. I can’t stand it. I don’t go into any bedrooms in my house except mine because I keep it clean and the kitchen. They aren’t hoarded houses with rats and bugs, they are both pretty nice houses, it’s just everything is peed on and messes stay for days before getting cleaned up. It really just sucks and it makes me miserable. We don’t have the money to get new furniture or get new carpets. If there was no dog piss then my houses would both be super nice. It’s just hard. I have 7 siblings, 5 of them and me still live at home. It’s basically always a mess and there’s dog piss and shit EVERYWHERE.

My place looks SO bad right now. Probably the worst it gas ever been. I feel so ashamed and overwhelmed. I do not want to live like this.

(long story) We are not kids anymore but ever since I could remember my house was always a mess. I mean clothes,toys, trash,food everywhere. My brother (a year younger than me) was a constant disaster. Everyday it was something like he spilled bleach on clothes, he made a big bowl of cocao puffs and orange juice and then hid it under his bed, he threw all his clothes out of his closet, he smashed one of his toys. It was so bad that we had to keep hiding things in different places so he couldn't find it and now we don't have any specific areas to put a lot of stuff cause we spent so many years just hiding things instead of putting it away. My mom was always sleeping in the daytime since she works night shifts and my dad didn't help out at home as much. We did go to my grandma's house a lot. Sometimes even spending there a few days straight but the house was usually the same when we got home. I did try to help sometimes but I was EASILY distracted. My mom did try to teach me to do things but she was always changing it and I hated the way she explained things. Idk what it was english isn't her first language but the way she would tell me how to do something and then would stare at me to see if I could do it right was unsettling I think? I just wanted her to do something else while I did it on my own (I didn't know how to tell her that). So I usually got yelled at and sent to my room. My mom also has a bad habit of screaming at everyone whenever she was cleaning. The house was clearly a mess it was obvious that we would find something broken or out of place but instead of cleaning she would scream and then stopped cleaning for the rest of the day out of anger. My dad never really helped with the cleaning. My parents grew up thinking that the husband works hard so he shouldn't have to come home and clean so the kids must keep the house tidy. When I was probably 11 I had 2 brother and a sister (the youngest being 1). Nothing changed. I cleaned a little, my brother destroyed everything he could, my mom screamed almost everyday at something and my dad watched TV most of the day. It was probably around that time she decided she didn't want to clean anymore. It wasn't fair for her to come home and lose her mind over everything so she gave up cleaning and said that if we cared about her we would make sure the house is kept clean ourselves. I'm 26 now and my mom RARELY cleans. We clean A LOT more than we used to but she refuses to get up and help. She just says she didn't make the mess so she shouldn't have to clean it. But when it comes to her own messes we have to clean it up because she's tired and worked all night long. We keep going back and forth from the house looking better to we would get in trouble with CPS if they walked in (we actually did get in trouble last year. My little brother had to leave for a few months and my parents barely helped clean then.) He now doesn't help much because he says he's too stressed and needs to calm down so he doesnt get sick (it happens).My other brother still tends to destroy things but he helps out more now too. My sister refuses to clean if things didn't go her way or she thought something wasn't fair but she moved out last year. I don't know what to do with a lot of things, my mom won't help me but if I throw something out that she thinks is still good or turns out we do have a place for it then I'll get yelled at. The house has been a pigsty since I was 4 and it's still a filthy right now. Is it my and my siblings fault that we live like this? That's what my parents, family and even CPS said.

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https://preview.redd.it/bnoioyoo34t51.jpg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7ac1d7df6318a8b84d15da2cfc8f4a6e8e581fc

Hey! I have a dilemma and I don’t know how to fix it. My mom and I live in a pretty small condo, so it tends to get messy very easily. I’m usually the one to clean most of the mess that happens, but lately because of school work and extracurriculars, I can’t seem to get the time to properly clean up parts of the house. Clutter makes me feel incredibly overwhelmed, but my mom doesn’t seem to mind it. We have a bunch of boxes, knickknacks, and unnecessary foodstuff that she refuses to get rid of. I’ve tried talking to her about getting rid of a lot of it, but she always shoots me down. How do I deal with being in a cluttered space without feeling the need to pass out from anxiety? Thanks

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My girlfriend and her family a very messy. Before I go further I guess I should state that we have been together for about a year and a half, and I moved in with her and her parents about 5 months ago or so. So anyhow, I’m living here with them rent free so that we can be together until I get my debts paid off and on the right path financially to get my own place. They’re very generous and welcoming, and I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining but they are very messy. The more I pay attention the more I believe it’s because of her mom. Her dad just kind of goes with it and let’s her mom put things wherever she puts things, and it seems my girlfriend does the same thing since she grew up around it. I just cannot take it anymore. I used to be pretty messy too until I moved in. When we first started living in her room together there was one path from the bed to the door and the rest was piled super high with all this clutter. I have managed to get us moving in the right direction, and now the room is open and everything is put away in a place. I try to stay on top of it every day because otherwise my girlfriend does the same thing her mom does and stuff just stays where it lands. It’s not a big deal when the room is clean because in no more than 5 minutes it’s back to being the way it needs to. But I’m getting tired of this habit. I’ve talked to her a little without being rude and making sure not to hurt her feelings and I plan to continue expressing my feelings as needed, but I am hoping to find sympathy, similar stories, and advice from people in similar situations.

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We have a fireproof box, and it's about the size of a milk-crate. Since it can't be locked without the key, we just threw the key inside. It is heavy enough that we have to pay attention to the process if we move it.