h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Gruesome Twosome went back to sharing a room around 6 or 7 months ago because #2 doesn't like sleeping alone.

They have high beds which have desks underneath, 2 little wardrobes and 2 chests of drawers in their room. Which is a disgusting pigsty that can't be vacuumed or dusted because every surface is covered with stuff.

Their "playroom" is the same.

I'm going slowly into complete meltdown about this. So I need to ask:

Should I take 30 minutes a day and do the Playroom (yet again) but this time remove everything that I think doesn't belong there. And chuck it out. Finally??

Or should I just put up with the pig-sty.
(clue: I can't put up with the pig-sty, it's really depressing me so much that I don't even go in there)

They are girls. One is 11 and one is nearly 10. They don't put their clothes away. Frankly, they don't know where half their things are. They can't play with their toys properly because nothing is put away or even stored together. They're "bored".

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

what I mean is: I am not a neat freak. I'd rather have stuff in piles on the floor than away in the wrong place. But the dust and sweet wrappers on every surface would bug me to death.

I just don't understand them.

The problem is, if I go to give them a goodnight kiss, 9 times out of 10 I trip over something. Which usually sends me into a screaming fit. They hate it. I hate it.

Why can't they just frakkin' well tidy up the crap out of their rooms?

My mother would go through our rooms every summer while we were visting our father, and resented it.

I've been helping my sisters switch their trashed rooms, and resent it.

Soooo - don't do it all by yourself, but don't just leave it, either, would be my advice. And don't make it cleaning their rooms, make it something else.

You like charities, right? There are probably toys and clothes they've outgrown - or they'll realise the importance when they're in danger of losing them.

So. Tell them you want to sort everything for a charity - or just donating to younger relatives - and get their help doing that. Set aside an area for things to be piled up, then work your way through the pile.

And really make sure they have more than enough room to put everything away, so there are no reasonable excuses...

Big plastic or wooden bins are your friend - for sorting toys.

And remember, children just have a different sense of, er, aesthetics, or just a different sense of the *importance* of things. They like their rooms so they can see all their things and know that all that cool stuff belongs to them!


If all else fails, tell them I'm coming and bringing a shovel

A flame-thrower?

*Glances around room, grabs a very, very large sheet and covers the entire floor area!*

See? Minimalist, and with really quaint lumps and bumps... sort of organic flooring!

And no peeking underneath!!!



MMF

This is a no-win situation, and I totally empathise. Jem's room is a mess. She knows it, we know it. It drives Dai ( a COMPLETE neat freak) up the walls. I'm happy to tolerate the mess if it's within her 4 walls and leave it as her responsibility to look after. But at 14, she needs to learn by experience that if she doesn't tidy stuff away and wash it, then it won't be ready to wear on Saturday night!


Try to agree on simple rules - eg no sweetie papers, and be lenient about when it has to be tidy by - e.g a once a week inspection, reminders and rewards given.

There are two tried and tested methods for dealing with this sort of thing. The first involves treating and rewarding them when they do something right. Tricking them into conforming.

The second? Well, a good slap is involved.

If my two girls wanted anything in particular, or to go anywhere, I used to say they had to clear their room first.

To be honest, as long as it was out of my sight, I didn't care. But they didn't know that!

If they didn't put clothes into the wash basket, they couldn't wear them.. No good running to me for their favourite stuff!

I found Saturday morning the best time for this.. As there was always something going on in the afternoon

*looks around in her room and decides better not to say anything on the amtter*

Thanks all - I've calmed down a lot since last night.

We did that with their bedroom, Mala. We had a rubbish box (when I emptied it, it turned out to be full of bits of chewing gum stuck to otherwise unused paper )

Then there was the "put it away in a different room" box - still full of stuff because it has to go in to "the pit"

I've decided to send them in there over the week (this depends, however, on the cooperation of who is rubbish at making them do it - when I get home from work, if he's off they're all in front of the TV) every day for 15 minutes. At the end of the week, I'll do the rest.

What worries me is they sneak biscuits and things in there. We live in the country and I'm petrified that mice & things will nest in there.

*breathes into paper bag*

oh yes and... KB...

Hmmmm may I just interject and say you're lucky you have girls.

What you find while cleaning/clearing out a teenage boy's bedroom doesn't bear think about

~shudder~

I shared a house with guys once, we were all late teens/early twenties. They were by far and away much cleaner and tidier than the girls I shared with afterwards.

Threats, grounding and no treats until the room is clean, it works with Alex

Doesn't work with these two. Occasionally they do a surface tidy but in 5 minutes it's back to pig-sty.

It could be that I have a much lower threshold for this type of thing than other mums do, though.

I guess I was fortunate in that my mother and dad had fairly lax housekeeping standards. My sister was a slob. I, on the other hand, have been putting things away alphabetically since I learned my A-B-Cs. I'd be as mortified as you are, Sho- and especially your point about the mice.

Threats of grounding, etc, never worked with my sister. I think the only time she ever tidied up properly was when my dad threatened to burn everything and my mother packed anything she found on the floor and told her she had 24 hours to put it away before Goodwill came to pick it up.

Poor you! And I think, just based on people I knew as a kid and also my friends with kids, that girls are sloppier than boys, in general. Same of some adult "girls" I know, too.

I've been in both situations. I've never been a tidy person, because I take it too seriously and if something has to be tidied, it takes me about two weeks. Which means I never start. And when I do get something tidy, I have great difficulty keeping it tidy.

So my mother probably tore her hair out when she saw my room. I've also been cross with my kids for being messy, of course.

Which is silly, because that definitely is "Do as I say - don't do as I do".

I once refused them a promised outing because of messy rooms - an action I regret still today. The only benefit of that exercise was a lesson for them in how not to bring up kids; and they'll probably put it to use, as they're nearer to having kids than not having kids as they're now 24/25, and they haven't forgotten the incident.

You and I share some of our ways in that area (although I'm sure you're not as messy as me).

So - bearing this in mind, I would suggest using a long weekend (Corpus Christi and Whitsun coming up) and painting the walls or cleaning the carpet or something. Some reason to remove absolutely everything from the room(s). Then it all has to go back in. Except for the rubbish. When putting it back in, think of the least cluttery way of doing it.

All steps to be discussed in detail with the Gruesomes, of course. And only to be taken if they are absolutely in agreement, and with their help all the way.

After that, some practicable system of a weekly clean-and-tidy-up will have to be established.

Good luck with it!

My "helper" came this afternoon and left the floor (as she always does) spotless and polished. It is now midnight. On that floor are two pairs of shoes, a knife and some orange peel, an empty wine glass, an upended handbag with strewn contents and a shpping bag ditto.
This is, I think, in reaction to my fanatically tidy mother.
I think your gruesomes are old enough to do most of their own cleaning. They put the vacuum cleaner round on Saturday morning. Anything on the floor on Saturday evening is thrown away (given to charity) You have to have a free path for goodnight kisses. All laundry goes in the right laundry basket (I have always had two -one for lights and one for darks) or it doesn't get done.
When you come in join the family of the sofa for a snug. Send a gruesome to make you a cup of tea. (Mine made tea from 6 years old)Just put you feet up and snuggle. Honestly, they leave home3 soon enough. Love

Also, it doesn't sound like enough tidying away space. Put all the winter clothes etc in the room that the other child vacated, so that there's space to put away all the current stuff.

Fresh from another row about it...

They do have enough space. They just won't tell me which toys I can give away.

All I want is to be able to put the vacuum around the room once a week (or less, I'm not a big fan of that) and for them to dust once in a while (I suspect that #1 has a dust-mite allergy - it would stop her flippin' well sniffing and sneezing - but boy oh boy, will she listen to me?)

TC - we've done all that. Empty the room, paint it, put it back how they want it. I painted one room orange and one pink. I stencilled hearts in the pink room and stars in the orange room. I made window colour stars and hearts. I sewed cushion covers...

They are old enough to tidy. I don't want a show house - gawd knows, I'm enough like you TC to leave things rather than start a proper tidy (because that takes ages)

It's all part of a bigger thing though. That is: "oh, I'll do it later mum" leaving me the stress of the Monday morning "waaah, where's my sports kit/homework/projectwork/etc etc"

WS - the sofa thing is great. We do that every day (because that's the only way we get together since they are glued to the frakkin' TV...) and they do make me tea which is lovely.

I've been at a friend's house this afternoon. She is single no kids, and her mum was there. Who thought they were the most gorgeous well-brought up kids she has met in a long while (she works in a primary school). Which was lovely - until I got home and #2 threw her dinner at me because I won't let her eat it outside...

Well... bedtime soon. And I have a bottle of Bombay Sapphire with my name on it. Chin chin!

Kids are always sweeter elsewhere.

Solution: turn the TV off for a week. But you may have a mutiny on your hands. There's a long weekend coming up that can be used for tidying...

(I keep trying to get my mother and sister to tidy up the areas that need to be renovated. No luck. I end up doing most of it myself.)

Sho honey, they're being perfectly normal little girls

Doesn't make it any less trying, but that's what gin is for!