House is a disaster - where do you start?

Oooohhh I like that bucket idea for each room Jackrose.

Yep, washing on (because that will take awhile and it washes itself).

Work on kitchen and lounge cos they are next to each other and the main two rooms visitors see. Things from other rooms in the kitchen or lounge just get piled in the appropriate room, and hopefully put away properly if we get up to that room.

Unfortunately, i like making piles of stuff and after awhile there are just piles everywhere.

I do a room at a time as well. And I leave the kitchen til last because if I do that... the house feels too tidy and I sit down and don't do any more! LOL. I know the kitchen will get done regardless tho... coz I'll do it before cooking in it if it comes to that. So I'm better off starting with the worst first... the bathroom! (which includes gathering up all the washing and putting on a load) I love a clean bathroom... so once I've done that I'm motivated to get the rest of the house done. I then start on our bedroom, the kids bedroom (I won't describe the state of our office.. let's just say it's the dumping ground which allows the rest of the house to be tidy LOL... and the door is always closed!!) then the loungeroom (which usually includes folding washing & putting it away). That's 1/2 the house done. Then it's the dining room/family room/kitchen left to do. I just pick one end and work my way to the other. Then I get the kitchen done. Then I do floors last.

This is usually when DP is at work. It's impossible to clean up when he's at home. I get the washing machine going first too. Seems like it never stops.

Then I take out all the rubbish, including everything DP has left all over the kitchen and his newspapers. I tell DD to tidy her room and make her bed. I'll usually tell her I'll race her (I bet I can do my room faster than yours, have my shower and get dressed before you're finished, whatever). She's very good, especially in the morning when she's in a good mood. If there are toys all over the playroom, same thing. She's three, but everything is set up so it's easy for her to both get toys out and put them away. Plenty of boxes and buckets with 'types' of toys in them. (I carry out the "If I have to put them away they'll be going where you can't play with them for a few days. You played with them = you put them away.") I do one room at a time, but I get distracted putting things back where they go and tend to start in the room I'm in.

I put things off that don't need to be done immediately. If I have two loads of washing to go on the line, I don't bother bringing in the first until the second is dry later in the day. If there's stuff to be done outside, but it can wait for another couple of days, I leave it. No sense trying to do everything at once.

I reward myself for getting stuff done too. Cup of tea and a sit down with a book while DD has her nap is my treat.

Lastly, I really believe it's not the end of the world if the house stays messy for another day. If I really can't bear it, I take DD out to do something where I don't have to look at it. I'd rather play with her a bit than spend all day cleaning my house.

Don't worry Pretty Butterfly: I can't do the "one room at a time" thing either. I don't know how you can do that with small children in the house??? I find that I have to keep an eye on my kids which means that it works best to kind of work mainly near where they are and every so often branch out and venture into another part of the house... say the laundry/bathroom/main bedroom but I can only stay there for a few minutes before risking finding that while I was away my 3yo has snuck into the pantry and made yet another mess for me to clear up :wall: It's the 1st Law of Physics as it applies to caring for children:

1. Every action has an equal and opposite re-action. Eg: You clean the floor in the bathroom and during that time your child will be making an equally large mess in the kitchen.

UNLESS you keep a fairly constant eye on them... so I just can't imagine being able to stay in a room until it was totally clean and tidy. That's just way too long.

So, what I tend to do is this:

I start and end my day in the kitchen. From the kitchen i can see my kids play in the open living area. I usually start with cleaning my sink. That is also the last job on the day. After the school run (I usually return to a clean kitchen) I don't hesitate to pop my 3yo infront of the TV to watch PlaySchool. I can see the lounge room from my main bedroom so I make my bed and put away some clothes in there... and make short dashes into the ensuite all while PlaySchool is on.

Then we go outside together while I hang the clothes (forgot to say that yes, after DD and DH have their morning showers I put on the first load of the day). I don't leave my 3yo inside... that's asking for trouble.

Back inside I set up my 3yo with his trains or a puzzle etc and I pop on BB for my morning tea break.

I have very low standards when it comes to the bedrooms. They rarely are totally tidy. It's just too hard, for example, to go into my teenage DD's room because 3yoDS follows me in and wreaks havoc. Oh and my 3yo stopped having a day nap when he was about 1 and a half :(

If I stay in any area for too long 3yoDS will come in too and get under my feet. I don't have the patience to scrub tiles etc while my child is going through all the bathroom cupboards. It's a personality weakness of mine. Can't do mundane work and stop and start every 30 seconds to stop a child from breaking/messing up something. It drives me nuts.

My house is fairly homey in that it's not a show-case magazine perfect house. I can't maintain that and it's unrealistic for me to try. Just personally my reserves of energy are very limited with my over-active thyroid so I basically only do the essentials. I know that when all 3 of my children are in school i might be able to be more organised... my time will come.

Maybe just make a list of the "essentials" and forget about everything else if you are really struggling.... it's not a competition. There is probably an underlying reason... always happy to talk, you know that :hug:

Spot on Bath!!! :p

If I went into one the kids rooms, down the hallway at the back of the house, and done the whole room, I'd be gone around 20min... WAAAAYYYY too long to not see or probably hear the little terrors!!! :rolleyes: I can make all the kids beds in around 10 mins and the rooms look pretty good.

Plus if someone shows up 1/2 hr into cleaning, I already have all the beds made, and everything picked up, so looking pretty good. If I start on one room, only that room would be any good, eveything else will still look crap... :redface::redface:

Moving around the house means I can watch the kids, they can follow me a bit, and it all gets done at the same time. 1 hr in, all rooms are tidy, and bathrooms are all clean, not just 2 or 3 rooms. If I had to take the vacumn room to room, turning it on and off, I'd go completly mad!! :p

I have a pet hate of cleaning the same thing twice. So If I cleaned my ensuite, then moved to another room, cleaned it, then got to the bathroom and had to go get the same cleaning gear again and clean another bathroom, I go mental... I have to clean all bathrooms and toilets together, then put the cleaning gear away for the day... yep, a little anal i guess!!! :p:redface:

Thanks for the thread Astrid. I'm sitting here surrounded by an absolute bombsite of a house and have absolutely no idea where to start it is THAT BAD!!! So instead of biting the bullet and doing something, anything, I'm sitting here browsing BB while the kids are napping, LOL!!!

Every single room is a complete mess. I even ran out of bibs for DS yesterday so he ended up wearing DD's. DH wasn't overly impressed.

So where do you start when your house is in such a mess??

Start at the sink girls ;) Radiate out from there.

Gosh it's hard sometimes isn't it? Even when you do clean it lasts such a short while.

I start with the bits that people can see first..jic heaven forbid that someone pops over! So that's usually the kitchen (plus I hate having a dirty kitchen..makes me feel like a bad mum for some reason!) then the lounge, hallway, rooms etc.

I find it impossible to keep on top the housework, but I am starting to accept this. If the kids are fed, played with, showered and cuddled- then that's the main thing. But is has taken me a long time to accept this.

i need to have at least one place of zen in the house at any given time, so i usually start with our room. i make the bed, put the dirty clothes in the basket (we have one in our room, laundry and DDs room), make the bed and ensure that there is no clutter (thanks Oprah Winfrey 'sleep well' episode! ;) ).


After that i tend to go to DDs room (she rarely likes to play in her room when we are home....rather drags whatever she is playing out into the lounge). so i make her bed, throw her toys in their respective tubs (she has one for her dollies and dressups, one for her duplo, and one for her music toys). i put her books back and organise in her play corner some toys (ie i set up a tea party, or music station or dolly in her cot etc etc). That way when she does go in she tends to head for that and plays with that because it seems new and exciting, rather than ripping through the tubs and cupboards...

then i will do a quick tidy of the lounge (ie pick up cushions that have been strewn and blankets to hang back over the couch). also do a bit of dusting of coffee table etc etc, putting away of DVDs/CDs and most importantly, i put on some music!! i always love to have music playing when i am cleaning.

The kitchen i rarely have to do (thanks DH!). but i do do the mopping and sweeping. so i usually would then tackle that (by this stage DD is usually in her room checking out the display LOL!). to quicken the wet floor process (if DD is particularly bored), i grab out a large towel and towel dry the excess moisture so that i dont have paw and kid prints all over the white tiles...white tiles i tell ya...:rolleyes:

then i clean the bathroom...pop in the toilet cleaner first, then tackle all the benches and glass while i wait for the cleaner in the shower to dig up the soap. do the shower thang, and last but not least the toilet.

usually i can get this all done by lunchtime...but i reckon only because DH has done the dishes before he leaves for work.

we only do laundry on Wednesdays and Saturdays (had to insitute a rule as DH was a daily washer and it drove me bonkers hanging out and bringing in dribs and drabs LOL!).
vacuuming is also only a twice a week thing too.

Thinking back to Astrids OP, I tend to find myself in this situation about once a fortnight. I work full time so if I miss a weekend or housework I can very quickly find myself in a mess. Or its like that when we come home from holidays - you know the feeling - house full of dirty washing, stuff to be put in the shed, things to be returned to the pantry...

I try to scour the surface of the mess in waves. I might do a sweep for dirty washing. Then do a sweep for "return to the bedroom" stuff, another for "return to pantry" and so on. I may or may not actually put the stuff "away" once its returned to its room/home (ie: "the return to bedroom" stuff may be dumped on our bed, waiting for me) but I find this method a good one when you have small kids and might not be able to devote large slabs of time to a problem. So while the boys are eating a sandwitch I might do a sweep and take things up to our room, and by the time I have done that and dumped stuff on our bed they are finished and I can clean up their mess before putting on another load of washing while they play outside. Then while they are in the early stages of a game and not yet killing eachother, I can start something more time intensive, like cleaning the fridge. And so on.

Yep, I do those "sweeps" too Rory... I might pass through the living area and gather up everything for a particular room eg the Boys room.. and with an armful just dump it in there. Then while I am in there i might gather up everything for the laundry... and take that stuff there... and then when I'm in the laundry i might take all the stuff that needs to go into the kitchen... all kinda like a chain reaction... the domino fall approach to tidying up!

Roryrory - yep do the sweep thing here as well. Normally the sweep for dirty clothes, then dirty dishes, then obvious rubbish/recycling, books on bookshelves etc. The problem is sometimes I get distracted part way through.

I struggle with the lounge room the most, as it just gets messier throughout the day with the kids. So often I wont start on it till late in the arvo so that when DH gets home he can take the kids outside with him so I can finish off.

Call a friend and go over for coffee. :rofl:

No really? The superficial stuff -
pick up all the toys and dump them in a toy basket.
Put all the dishers in one pile so the rest of the bench/house is free of them.
Put all the washing in another pile in the laundry (shut the laundry door)
Anything that looks messy but doesn't have a place, in spare room (and shut the door).
Then I start to tackle the piles, put a load of dishes on, put a load of washing on, start to sort things.
Some things I even put in a 'you deal with this' basket for dh. :p Don't always know what all those cables mean or where they go.

I just feel so much more positive about cleaning and putting away if I tidy the house first. :)

ETA: Oh and I keep motivation up by rewarding myself (learned that off my mum) - Do the dishes, earn a cuppa. Do the washing, earn a short break on BB. Sweep the floor, another cuppa. :p

So I take it your washing is done today, Nelle? :p

That's exactly how I work, do something and get a reward (ie a break before doing the next thing).

Oh and Astrid: take solace: Personally i find some merit in letting a house get TOTALLY out of control.... when you do finally get around to cleaning it it feels SOOOO good! If it was clean all the time it wouldn't be half as pleasurable. ;)

Heck no Jen. :rofl: It's possible that today I am subscribing to Bath's 'the greater the mess the greater the eventual satisfaction' theory....emphasis on eventual. :p

ROFL, yep, put it this way: I do "delayed gratification" really really well too! :D