Housework!

[alecstilleyedye]

This is my reality...

We have 2 teenagers and an 8 yr old, they can cause more mess, dirty clothes and chaos than we can possibly deal with, there's not a horizontal area clear enough to put a mug down, you can never sit down without moving something first and walk around in bare feet at your peril. We have a cleaner to do the worst of the cleaning once a week, but a lot of the weekends are taken-up taxi driving, cleaning, washing & Ironing etc. The idea that the teenagers help is just weird in our house it seems...Mrs FF doesn't want to support my attempts to get them to contibute any assistance around the house and then gets annoyed at all the housework to be done. What to do? I've all but given up, but get roped into helping it all the same...then she wonders why no DIY or anything else ever gets done...
We live in Stepford. Every house in the street is clean, perfect, sterile, not an applience on the kitchen worksurface, not a decorative vase or weird keepsake, like perenniel showhomes, every car is gleaming, every garden tended...except ours. BUT! No kids ever visit any of the other kids houses, none of them ever go out with mates...at least in our house there are the kids coming and going, playing, chilling, drinking juice and eating buiscuits...suddenly staying for dinner or impromptu sleep-overs, there's a pile of bikes, scooters skateboards and roller-blades outside the door, muddy sneakers abound, My Chemical Romance blares out of bedrooms...

Striking the balance is soooo difficult...but one day they'll be gone, the house will fall silent, muddy footprints in the hall no longer appear by magic. It'll be a sad day.

sounds like my reality, only with younger kids. but it's in the post.

btw, why is it that taking daughter to football (she wants to play) counts as me being out enjoying myself (because i like the game) just as much as me going (alone) on the saturday club run? like mrsalecetc really wants to be lumbered with a 45min drive to have to stand in the freezing cold watching a sport in which she has no interest. taking daughter to ballet is still counted as brownie-point worthy though

 

[postman]

Since retiring have called myself Mrs Doubtfire i get the chores.Hate th-fr-sa school shirts work shirts to iron.also do the cooking.Cleaning day Tuesday this week.Hate it.But not complaining last week had all day Weds to myself did a nice 37 miles Knares-Hunsingore-Cattlal back to Wetherby.Bliss.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

Try this one:

Open your mouth, put one finger from your right hand and another from your left into your mouth...hook your cheeks and pull them apart as far as you can ...then (while your fingers are still pulling your cheeks apart) say..." I live in a pirate ship"

 

[fossyant]

Ohh your houses sound like mine...... the only places I won't let get messed up are my car (not that I use it much) and the garage, although the Mrs has sneaked a pile of old kids clothes in, taking up valuable floor space for bikey stuff.

Generally clean and tidy the lounge each day ....two young kids. We are working on the kids to put stuff away, then get more out - cos they complain they can't find things.....

 

[stevenb]

I also live alone......tidy as I go...nice n easy.
Just finished cleaninf all the bathroom and kitchen.
can't be arsed to get the hoover out tonight....only got my Dad coming round tomorrow so he won't mind.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

our house is chaos..mayhem and above all...lived in. It desperatley needs redecorating but there seems little point with teenage lads and a dog who wouldnt notice anyway...not to mention the cost which is ridiculous...and dont go telling me to get down to DIY hell because I know for a fact that i can't do it if I B&Q it.

 

[NickM]

...I was brought up in a spotless house, as my mum turned herself inside out keeping it clean, and everything in order...

Yeah, well your mum needed to take up mountain biking

Most of our house is a tip, even without (shudder) children, but there is one room which is tidyish and even gets dusted from time to time. At the moment, though, it's half full of streamliner bodywork, while the chassis sits in the kitchen and the spare chassis in the hall. And MsM doesn't care

 

[wafflycat]

What is this 'housework' of which we speak? It has no meaning to me in the same way when this 'football' is spoken of?

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

My Mothe rin law had a sign up in her kitchen which said:

"Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you dont do it"

I have always wanted to change that to:

'Housework is something you don't do until somebody notices'

 

[Jacomus-rides-Gen]

I live in a student house with two girls, so it is quite clean and tidy.

Its just the way I like it actually, not clinical, lived in but its still smart looking.

 

[yoyo]

Two white dogs and a cat, red carpets. A cat who has learnt how to open doors and scratch carpets. Three student 'children' who seem to become more slothful as the years pass when home on vacation. The Dyson does the housework most days!! Not looking forward to the stillness when the 'children' move out later in the year and one of the dogs most likely will be no longer shedding hair or giving doggy love....