Am I being unreasonable? Teenager's untidy room

Kaz2904

I actually moved DD into the smaller bedroom because I couldn't stand the mess. Now DS is as bad . They are on half term now and DH has taken Wednesday off as I'll be sleeping. They can tidy their chuffing rooms and stop expecting me to do it! It took DH and I an. Hour to blitz the house last weekend so for sure they can do it.

Homeownertobe

Little trick that worked for my parents with my youngest brother last year.

Find a mouse (or a rat, if you're that cruel), take a picture of it in your daughter's room, text it to her in an incredibly angry tone and tell her in no uncertain terms that her room is to be kept spotless from now on or you'll throw everything away, and then scrub it.

Throw everything that's not essential away, and clean it to your heart's content - everywhere. Get rid of everything you're sick of (you've got the perfect excuse now). Then once, you've finished, put mouse traps all over so when she comes home she'll be so horrified that she'll never allow a crumb to touch the floor again.

Voila!

paddy's_mum

My mother used to give us a clear warning that the room was getting more messy than she could bear and that we'd better do something about it or else ....


The 'or else' was that she would pick up everything that was on the floor and tip it onto the bed.

It didn't take many occasions when one's smelly mucking-out-the-stables boots or the sticky lolly you were saving for later or the dregs of last night's cocoa were making your bed far from comfortable for her children to get the hint!

DaveTheMus

Kathy535 wrote: »

So, untidiness (slovenliness) is one things but unhygienicness (sp?) is entirely another. Am I being unreasonable to insist she keeps her room tidy? And any tips to help her keep it that way?

This is the thing, if someone is taught that being lazy is no big deal then don't be surprised when they carry it on to it's natural conclusion and be dirty.

Lily-Rose_3

All teenagers are the same, but I have to admit that is is maddening. I think you need to take the advice that some have given, that you just leave it or you clean it yourself.

You do need to keep letting her know that it's not acceptable though.

Kathy535

Thanks all. I did go in today and tidy it up, it's taken 3 hours, and I've not actually sorted out paperwork or make up and stuff. I did find a number of dead spiders, she's terrified of spiders so I'll be using homeownertobe's suggestions of the mouse but with spiders - something along the lines of 'we found x spiders, they'll be attracted by the places to hide in your room and come out when you're asleep'. I'm also going to stop her from taking food into her room.

It's good to know I'm not the only one with this problem, thank you all for your comments.

splishsplash

Kathy535 wrote: »

My daughter is 18 and spends most of her time, when she's not at college, work or out with friends, in her room - which is a tip! It's really bad, you can't see the floor, it smells, her wardrobe doors can't be shut etc. I've tried not to put pressure on her as it is her room and she should feel at home there but it makes me shudder (and I don't consider myself massively house proud!)

She's away on a school trip at the moment and I had run out of glasses so ventured in to see what I could find. 16 empty coke cans, 8 teaspoons, 8 glasses, 3 plates, any number of empty and half empty food packets (Doritos, Jaffa cakes, kinder eggs etc etc etc).

So, untidiness (slovenliness) is one things but unhygienicness (sp?) is entirely another. Am I being unreasonable to insist she keeps her room tidy? And any tips to help her keep it that way?

The bit in bold never flies in my house, I'm afraid. How can something be clean if you can't get to it to clean it? Doesn't track, so I never accepted that as an excuse.

What tends to happen with my kids is they'll blitz everything and do a deep clean, then it slowly deteriorates over the next while until it triggers a massive deep clean again.
Once they clear any plates/cups/glasses every day and the rubbish emptied, I'm not bothered.

Look at it another way - if her room was spotless because she had nothing to do and no-one to go out with would you be happy?

pandora205

I tried various tactics when mine were teens including posting a photo of the offending room on my daughter's facebook page but this just got me blocked! Apart from growing up (at around 20) what did work well was when my eldest got a job working in a chalet in the Alps. Although it was glamorously called a 'chalet host' her job was mainly cleaning and waiting, and she became super fussy about cleaning (such as wiping toilets with paper towels not cloths). She's never been the same since!
So... maybe a job in a hotel cleaning would be an idea for an 18yo?

Ooh just remembered another strategy that was partly successful. When I got particularly fed up with heaps of washing everywhere (dirty and clean mixed up with make up and magazines etc.), I got a bin liner, put it all in and put it in the loft. It was only given back on condition of it being sorted. (This was at a younger age - I'd have let an 18 year old get on with it as she'd have done her own washing).

FatVonD

My DS went through a stage of hating me cleaning his room and I have on occasion gone in when he was out, cleaned, and then thrown everything back on the floor afterwards so he didn't know I'd done it

He does occasionally blitz his room (and to be fair that's my style of cleaning too), usually if there's a girl coming round!

Primrose

As a teenager my mother would give us a 48 hour warning and then everything would literally be thrown out in the front garden for the dustbin. After the first time I ignored it and came home to find all my stuff out in the rain I got the message.