I don't, but I hope it's possible. I'm trying to make the move.

I went from having a pile of dirty dishes on my desk, in my bedroom, 5 dishes high and 10 cups deep (to the point where my computer was obscured) to now doing my roommate's dishes sometimes.

It is quite possible to change from being a slob to being relatively clean. The trick, I found, is to manage your expectations, start small, and do it every day even when you're too sick, too tired, or too annoyed to do it. After awhile, it'll become a habit. But it's very very hard to start from mess and head straight to clean. Why? Because it's so easy to get overwhelmed by how much is there and how much you want to change.

Yes. My mother and my best friend from childhood. I really should say "my parents" instead of "my mother" but I will use her since housekeeping was her responsibility the majority of the time, fair or not.

My mom was never terribly bad but there were many of days where there were dirty dishes on the counter, dirty laundry on the floor, etc. We were often running late and life was kind of chaotic at times. When I was young, from probably birth to age 10 or so, she cleaned every day, and did what had to be done to run a household. When I was age 9-11 she worked outside the home, but things remained pretty manageable. My sister and I helped a lot. Dad too. He mostly pointed out things that needed to be picked up. Things weren't perfect but you could have guests without batting an eye. Age 11-13 things were chaotic as ever. I could remember not having sheets on my bed at times. Not that we didn't have them, but we were left to make our own beds (completely normal for this age) and sometimes we didn't know where they were or were too preoccupied. (For a couple years as a young teen I got into decorating and keeping my bedroom nice, so I always had a clean, made bed.) In our early late teens things were chronically messy, but my sister and always would clean every couple days to keep things under control. We didn't have an overwhelming sense of responsibility to keep things clean, we just wanted our friends to be able to visit without feeling humiliated. Or maybe it was a way of helping my mother or keeping the peace with my father.

There were many, many times where we would never think of inviting guests in. There are several times in my memory when we would walk out onto the porch and shut the door, so nobody could catch a glimpse of the disarray, and greet our guests outside.

Nowadays, my parent's house is always clean and has been for fifteen years, or longer. When I go over there I marvel at the cleanliness. It's peaceful and serene. You can eat off the floor. My father has a love of vacuuming. My father has always been super organized. My mother has always kept excellent care of her things. Now they are able to do what they have always been good at and keep everything else clean as well. There is less stuff. less stress, and less people messing up things.

Now that there aren't any kids in the house they are able to concentrate keeping their house to their specifications. Which they could have done when we were growing up, but didn't manage to. It's very difficult and takes a lot of patience and consistency and something I try to work on with my children. I think having kids in the house was hard for my mother when it came to keeping things clean and organized. I don't blame her, but she always wanted to do things herself. She was one to delegate or have too many expectations when it came to order. We helped a lot, but I could remember her being fed up with our rooms and cleaning them when we were teenagers. She worked a lot and she was tired. Things slid. A lot of things never had a designated place. If they did my sister and I would find a way to break or lose the items.

My best friend used to have a slew of German cockroaches living in her sleeper sofa. Things were gross to say the least. This is when she had her second apartment with her boyfriend. She may have been depressed. Around this time she got a job working as a maid at the Hilton and became a clean freak. I think working as a maid may have shown her that chores can be done efficiently and they aren't difficult if done on a consistent basis and you're able to manage your time well.

I hired house cleaners again. They came today. It is lovely. Hire a cleaning person if you can. I used to have a person come every two weeks and it keeps things under control. I'm going to do the every two weeks thing again.

I think a lot of cleaning habits are formed in childhood. Sometimes I see myself repeating just as my mother did.

I'm sorry this was so long. I don't know how to edit myself.

I think you can when you hit rock bottom. I'm terrible, and I still have a long way to go, but I'm getting there now that I just can't take being a slob anymore. The parts of the house that are clean and organized (mostly the basement) have stayed that way for a looong time now and I take great pride in them.

Both mudddude and I would rather be doing something else, rather than cleaning.

Now, we throw dinner parties, bbq's, movie nights, etc. at our place once a month or so, to movivate us to do regular thorough cleanings.

I think a lot of cleaning habits are formed in childhood. Sometimes I see myself repeating just as my mother did.

I think that is one of my personal hurdles, my mother was a terrible housekeeper when I was a kid and both my sister and I seem to be "challenged" in that area as well.

It's good to know some people have triumphed over slobbery, I just feel like at the age of 37 I should be better at this by now.

And I don't think your comment was all that long, I found it very helpful :D

I also have had times in my life where I get pissed when I clean. I get pissy and god forbid my husband compliment me on housework when I'm in a mood. I have actually told him, "Don't compliment me on housework" Yikes.

It's ironic because I love Martha and all things domestic. When I was in England I saw this show, Perfect Housewives. I was mesmerized. Secretly, I want everything to be perfect. I want to be a domestic goddess and entertain and have all things lovely. I want to be a happy housewife but I don't know how. Sometimes I'm resentful. I don't want to be the person that is always responsible for the cleaning, but I don't want to behave like a martyr either.

I'm pretty good at cleaning and can make things look beautiful and orderly but sometimes I slide on the daily upkeep. I am not a stickler for "everything in its place" (although I dream to be). I will throw something in any old drawer just to get it off the counter. I'm bad at cleaning up after myself. I'll half-ass it. I'll clean the paintbrushes but leave all of the paints on the table instead of back in the closet. Sometimes my laundry is overflowing. Sometimes I'm buying more socks instead of washing the ones I have.

Without blabbering on too much longer, I think keeping things clean is what you have to do as an adult. Yeah, it sucks but it has to be done. I try very hard to remind myself that I'm cleaning for myself, and my family, because I respect myself and my surroundings. I'm worthy. My children deserve to live in a clean, healthy environment. I never want them to feel ashamed to invite friends over. I never want to be in a position where I have to slither out instead of inviting people in. And I hate to admit it, but there is a certain amount of pride that comes from doing a cleaning job well done.

Life is too short to spend it waxing the bannister.

I used to leave things everywhere, and I've been relatively successful at making the acceptable dumping zones smaller and smaller.
I still have a genetic block against hanging things on hangers, but now instead of using my whole floor, bed, desk, and chair as a clothes pile, I only allow myself the chair. And one junk drawer.
Oh ok and the loveseat.
But other than that... What was I saying? Yeah, you can get a little better or maybe learn to hide it better, but I don't think you can be cured unless you somehow come down with a crazy immuno-deficiency virus that forces you to either live in a bubble or mop the damn floor.

Life is too short to spend it waxing the bannister.

Unless "waxing the bannister" is a euphemism, in which case life is just long enough to spend waxing the bannister, baby.

Yes, you can get better. I think it just takes three things: the mess has to bother you enough; you need to learn to do things incrementally, you need to develop a handful of tiny good habits.

I've always been much more of a pig than I wanted to be, and I've always hated it because it didn't fit with my perception of myself and how my surroundings should be. But I'm a procrastinator, a person who loses all track of time when she is involved in anything interesting, and someone who thinks housework is just about the most boring thing ever.

What works for me, mostly, is doing little bits over very short periods all the time instead of spending two or three hours cleaning once things get way out of hand. The idea of hours of cleaning inspires dread, but five minutes cleaning the bathroom sink and toilet is fine (and of course, it only takes five minutes if you do it often enough). Five minutes of washing dishes is fine. Five minutes of dusting is fine. Five minutes of anything is pretty much fine, so anytime you notice clutter in the living room, dustbunnies in the corners of the room you are in, fingerprints on the door, whatever, take five minutes and deal with it.

Sometimes you get into it, and it may turn into 10, or 15, or 30 minutes, which is cool too, because you're doing it because you want to, but five minutes scattered throughout the day, every day, makes a huge difference for me. Plus another super important thing: I have to wash the dishes as they get dirty, or I will be swamped. If I put the cup in the sink and think, "okay I'll wash that when I get a few more things to wash," I'm lost. The only way I can keep up with the dishes is to do them right away - but again, this takes mere seconds for most things, and usually not more than five to 10 minutes after a major meal with dishes, glasses, silverware, pans.

Also really helpful if you can always remember it is what occhiblu calls "Picky Uppy Putty Downy". (I think. Something like that, anyway.) When you move from one room to another, don't go empty-handed. If you are going from the living room to the bedroom bring something from the living room that belongs in the bedroom. Etc. Right this minute, if I go from the kitchen, where I am now, to the living room, I should pick up a notepad, a business card and a flash drive from the kitchen table and deposit them in the appropriate places along the way. It's amazing how few times there is absolutely nothing that needs to go to the room you are going to. Bathroom? Yep I have a household cleaner here on the counter that gets kept in the bathroom. Bedroom? There are a pair of sandals under the kitchen table.

This can help a lot, and it's more like a game and less like cleaning.

I also dust, wipe cabinets or switchplates, clean the top of the fridge or oven hood, or water plants when I'm on the phone because being on the phone makes me very restless and I pace, so instead of just pacing, I clean.

Washing clothes doesn't seem like a big deal to me because I have a washing machine, and didn't for years, so doing laundry in my own home seems like the lap of luxury and I pretty much stay on top of that. I stick whites in the laundry bin and colored stuff in the washing machine 'til it's full enough to run, or vice-versa. If you don't have a washing machine and your dirty clothes pile up badly, I'd consider sending out if there's any way at all you can afford it.

Everyone says it, but that's because it's true:

1. If you can make your bed as soon as you get up in the morning, it's a great thing and definitely helps to push you along with other small things. With the right kind of bedding, it can take about 15 seconds. Maybe less.

2. Throw things away. Just do it.

3. Find a place to keep everything. Maybe you aren't super organized with file folders and cute labeled boxes and closets that are marvels of efficiency, but if you have set up a drawer for bills, a drawer for pens and paper/pads, a place for magazines (until you THROW THEM OUT), and so on, it's a million times easier. Otherwise you are picking things up from the floor to put in weird stacks that you have to deal with later.


I am so not a household queen, but these things help me be much, much better than I once was. Most of the time, I don't have to feel embarrassed if someone drops by, and I don't have to feel oppressed in my own home.

Oh... also? My carrots: I buy flowers; flowers in the house make me clean. I buy essential oils and oil burners and make the house smell nice. I buy Swiffer floor thingies and duster thingies even though I think they cost too much and are not great environmentally because they make make dusting easy, and I'm never, ever going to rinse out and wash cloth rags covered with hair and fur and dust and dirt. I want to, but I won't. I sprinkle essential oil on these too, and it makes things smell amazing - so much that I am actually motivated to do it. I bought a microfibre mop head that is three times as expensive as a regular mop head because it makes it almost a pleasure to mop.

We live in a renovation hellhole where 80% of the closets and 50% of the bathrooms and 100% of the stairs are not yet completed and there's still boxes and tools everywhere and it gets messy and dusty and crap. And I die a little whenever someone tries to enter the house. I want everything in it's place but if the place (ie; closet) does not exist, things are bound to float around the house. My man is a mess and he "cleans" by shoving everything into boxes so important items go missing for two years, like my calender that I re-found when we moving here, lying in one of those boxes. This drives me insane. If I wasn't the main breadwinner, I might stop working all the frickin' time and switch to cleaning all the time instead. It takes me a full day to clean a room as every item in it needs to go to the exact place it should be which means I'm running from room to room a lot putting items where they should be. I go all out with vacuum, mops and dusters, pledge and window cleaners. Then I feel like attacking the next room - but there's five and when I wake up the next morning my pristine room is already messy.

So I say that, and go to work.

I sometimes wonder If I'd manage to clean it all if I were alone here for a week. God knows I'd throw 80% of the stuff away. I'm sick of tiny screws and platsic bits lying about without seemingly a purpose. or A PLACE To be! Meanshwile my SO is cranky that I don't unpack the laundry he does immediatly WHICH WOULD BE EASY IF WE HAD CLOSETS!

Did a script just remove my "sod" from "sod that"?

Sorry. That was whiny. I'll clean. Later.

sodding sod, no! No sods removed here, sod'ya! I feel you, dabs. My goals are far lower, and my situation far more leisurely, but I do have a guy who has equipment and bits and pieces and parts and cables and cords and cases and carts that manage to stray and roam all over the house. Unchecked, they would consume us all. I mean the whole world, and everyone in it. Be very glad I don't allow that to happen. Yet.

I used to be much much messier, and then when I was about 40 I lived alone for the first time, and something about the charm of having everything exactly as I wanted it made me become tidy. My house isn't quite shining-magazine-clean perfect, but I'm definitely a neatnik now.

Also really helpful if you can always remember it is what occhiblu calls "Picky Uppy Putty Downy". (I think. Something like that, anyway.)

Hee, yes.

Wow, it is so nice to know that I am not the only one who feels this way. It makes you wonder if the idea of "cleanliness" is out of proportion to what people are really capable of in this day and age. I mean it seems like we are held to standards dating back to when you had stay at home housewives, and now we are in a world of 2 income households and 40+ hour work weeks.

i constantly fight the tide, and no one ever gets to see it when everything's in a right place with a patina of shiny calm. The southern aspect is all a daily uphill battle and the living roon floor is like bloody Kamchatka, Risk wise.
Someday soon, i will win the battle of the front closet.