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Post by lucie on Feb 21, 2015 4:03:31 GMT -5
I am one of the people in maintenance here. I grew up in cluttered household - it is still level one most of the times. My mum is a hoarder too, she mostly hoards paper now. She really got better during the last years - I can see my influnce there. I know her reasons: she grew up after war with very few things of her own and when she was adult, there were many things hard to find in the shops, so when they were there, people would make stocks. Also she likes to keep some food for a special occasion - meaning it would be eaten expired or close to expire date. It is an ongoing family joke now.
When I was a teenager, she suffered with a depression for several years. Both my parents never learned cleaning routines. They would rather work in the garden than put things away inside. But they both like to cook (and cook well) and clothes were always washed - that is about the only housework my mum did (and does). My dad washed dishes when there were no place to put them. I took over putting things away because I can not relax in a cluttered space.
I never learned any cleaning routines until I moved with my grandparents as an adult (nearly 18 years ago), then I learned some of them from my grandmother - she cleaned every Saturday (dusting, hoovering). I decluttered and gave or threw away a lot of my things, because I have a limited storage here - about a third of what I moved. Some years later, after I returned from abroad (been an au-pair for 18 month) and seen how otherpeople live, I came across feng shui and did a big purge. At least a half of my remaining things went. This was about ten years ago and I try to maintain it ever since.
I am great at organising things and I love to do it. Now my parents ask me to help them with that. I have a great reputation for it now.
I still hoover and dust every Saturday and it has become a habit, but I struggle with a wet cleaning. I would wipe a spill when it happens, but my floors go unwashed for weeks. I wiped the kitchen surfaces occasionally until the end of last August when I painted the kitchen and realised how dirty it is (and I thought it is clean!). Since that I made a habit to wipe everything every week so I wont have to scrubb it later.
This forum really helps me with my cleaning, mostly the work along threads.
And there is still a bit of a ghost squalor in the back of my mind - I worry that if I let things slip, I would end up like my old home.
ETA: Since both my grandparents were neat, I learned to Erase the Evidence, so they would not call me messy and would not kick me out. My mum does not like to exercise herself so she taught us to take things with us when we go from room to room (similar to BDGs method). Last time I visited my parents, it took me two days to get their flat to a presentable state so my sisters in-laws can come for a coffee. My parents still strugle with it. Next time I will go there the flat would be back to where I started the last time. It always is. But I made my mum to help. I wash lunch dished right after the meal - something I learned from my second granny - I always hated it when she wanted us to do it when I was a teenager, but now I know why she did it - no need to soak it and you do not have to think about having to wash it later aal the time..
And since I do everything regarding housework and my parents like to cook, cooking is something I do not like to do. I know how to, but I do not care.
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Blackswan
Banned
Joined: October 2008
Posts: 6,388
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Post by Blackswan on Feb 21, 2015 17:00:37 GMT -5
I'm in stagnant avoidance right now meaning I don't make more mess and don't really live in my house yet. Waiting for roommate to move so i can get on a sparkle clean schedule. House isn't in squalor except my bedroom which has about twenty minutes or less worth of trash on floor that I'm avoiding cleaning up. I'm being rebellious i guess my uncle cleaned out my trauma hoard at my moms in one hour and I had been working on it for two years! So glad that's done!
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Post by danny15 on Feb 21, 2015 17:15:18 GMT -5
My house is a jumble. Some areas are maintained and clean with no extra stuff. A few actual rooms are like that as well as the functional areas. Some areas/rooms are hoarded (piles of stuff). Some rooms are hard to get into. I'm lucky to live in a home with lots of doors and can shut off rooms. Occasionally I have to answer the door but quickly step outside and explain I have cats that must stay in. True. And the volley of barks usually makes people step back also.
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Post by Di on Feb 21, 2015 18:55:07 GMT -5
I am in maintenance with pockets of overwhelming clutter. Everything is fairly clean and common areas are mostly tidy. My bedroom suffers from TOO MUCH STUFF! The closets all need cleaning. The garage has regressed into disaster, and R's office is OMG!!!! Kiddo keeps her room looking good. The 6 year old is typical claim to clean, but really hide. Right now the kitchen and dining room need to be swept and mopped. The living room needs to be tidied and vacuumed. There are clean clothes in the laundry room that need to be folded and put away. The kitchen has a few clean dishes that need to go in the cupboards and the bottom of the glass top table has pup and cat nose prints.
I have gotten fairly nuts about keeping things acceptable. My health is iffy and I fear getting overwhelmed.
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Post by dayeanu on Feb 22, 2015 12:13:56 GMT -5
I'm a stage 2-3 in four houses. The barn is neat and clean.
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Post by imamess on Feb 22, 2015 12:39:00 GMT -5
I'm a stage 2-3 in four houses. The barn is neat and clean. Ha Ha Daye, I cleaned out my feed room in the barn week before last, picked up trash and swept it out. On the house front, the closet (I have only one) is horrid, all drawers need cleaning out & arranging, the kitchen counters are piled up and I have a few piles in each room that either need to be put away or find another home. All the floors need scrubbing but they are mostly clear. Today I uncovered the kitchen table and it looks nice. I have five gallon buckets of water in the bathtub for flushing and water jugs sitting around in the kitchen for cooking, drinking and washing. Those are only temporary till the weather gets warmer and I can get a plumber. I think everyone's situation is different and we are all in different stages but the thing that ties us all together is that we know we have a problem and we are fighting to do better.
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Post by sophie hatter on Feb 22, 2015 19:09:29 GMT -5
I was quite happy about 4 days ago, and thinking how my floors were clear and dishes done, but today i did baking, the other day i moved a table in my living room and today my house looks like a disaster my house is certainly a lot better than when i began here, cupboards have been purged, rooms have been emptied sorted and refilled neatly, but i still have a spare room floor thats full, and corners and places like under the bed to purge. (and a shed i'm conviniently ignoring till further notice). i say i want to go into a maintenence schedule at the minute, but i mean i want to maintain the parts that could (and should) be kept neat. i seem to get the house passable/quite nice, then 2-3 days later i'm looking at stuff strewed around and bins overflowing and general chaos. i would currently freak out if someone knocked on my door, but if i work for a day or two it could change so i wouldn't mind. my house is very inconsistent. like the weather! my blog always looks good as i vowed i could only write in it either when i had cleaned, or if i'm creating cleaning plans (its a good incentive for me as i like to blog here).
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Post by RoadRunner on Feb 22, 2015 19:14:37 GMT -5
I am in visible maintenance in all room of the house except parts of the upstairs hallway. I do have some areas of clutter (hidden). I have very solid routines with a fair amount of consistency. Now my poor garage is in bad shape and is in need of a massive declutter. Baby Steps.
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Post by CourageouslyLion SeeksSerenity on Feb 22, 2015 19:24:02 GMT -5
I'm wondering where everyone is at regarding cleaning, clutter, mess, etc. I tend to think that everybody except for the one thread where I've commented in the blog area that everybody has got their places cleaned up and is talking about keeping them that way. I'm sure it's not so that is why I'm asking. I imagine most of you as having clean houses now so that is why I asked. Oh my goodness! Heavens no. I would never have joined this group if everyone had already cleaned up! I would have felt too alone. We are at all stages of the process, from homes with things piled to the ceiling .... to all cleaned up, and everywhere in between.
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Post by woolybooger on Feb 22, 2015 19:34:22 GMT -5
Forever stage 1,with unfortunate trips to stage 3 and back.
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Post by TML on Feb 22, 2015 19:56:23 GMT -5
I am in a better place than where I was .... Once Mom moved to assisted living the hoard in the upstairs is now gone (Mom was a massive hoarder and I am a depressed squalorer so her moving in with me was a disaster). There is still the raiders of the lost ark vault down in the basement that I have not touched. Now I am just fighting the fact that I had pneumonia for 3 months and managed to pull my back out with all the coughing. So my house is not hoarded upstairs, but not organized at all. I also tend to let things pile up a bit when I am under stress.
So I am no where near maintenance but I am not in the hoard either. I call mine messy it probably looks like 80% of the rest of the houses that are lived in and a bit messy. Once I get some back log done at work and I get to feeling better I will start pushing to get the house in order again.
When I was growing up we never let anyone in unless we knew they were coming and we tossed everything into the back room so the front room was fine. When Mom moved in with me she did not want anyone coming over so the house was so bad I did not dare open the door or invite anyone in.
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Post by sauberkite on Feb 23, 2015 8:12:26 GMT -5
I think it's best to clean slowly. The hardest part, in my experience is not the clear out, but the maintenance. It's a great feeling to have a room suddenly clear. The feeling of day to day chores to keep it that way is not so positive as that... but having a clean home is the best feeling of all. So I would say go slow and focus on maintaining what you have already cleaned. I grew up in squalor. My parents weren't hoarders, really, but they never cleaned or put stuff away. Because they could never find anything, they often had to buy replacements, but it wasn't compulsive. They bought a house that was a fixer-upper... and never fixed it up. So we lived in a filthy sort of construction zone. My mother refused to clean because my father had his tools and stuff everywhere from abandoned renovation projects. My father worked most of the time and refused to work in the house because what's the point in this pigsty. We kids would have definitely been taken away if any official had seen the inside of our house. No one was allowed in. A few of my friends in my life did barge in, innocently thinking my parents were just strict. They only did that once each. When I moved out I lived in mild squalor as I learned how to take care of my rented bedroom, and then an apartment. Dirt doesn't bother me as much as normal people because I grew up in filth, but I had known from an early age that this is not really acceptable, and after I turned 18 it became my responsibility regardless of its origin. So I made it a point to read books about housekeeping and I read extensively about cleaning and organizing on the internet. For a long time I was just spinning my wheels. It took a few years for me to whittle away stuff I didn't need, find a place for everything I do need, and develop a system to keep it all in order. My husband and I moved into our first house a year ago and I've been keeping it together. But I feel like how an addict must feel - constant vigilance, when I start to feel too comfortable is when I'm in danger of slipping. I am a merciless throwawayer - if I have to think for a minute about what a thing does and why I have it, it's usually already in the trash. I live close to a clothes donation box. Other than that, I just toss. I have no sentimental feelings toward things. Most things for me are just a threat to my housekeeping I still have "personal squalor". Where I keep my clothes and personal things is a cluttered mess. I hardly ever wash my clothes, and I don't shower nearly enough. Some of our closets and drawers that visitors don't see is still messier than I like. But this may be normal. The problem is, I'm not sure. Now that I have a child of my own, I am dealing with very negative feelings towards my parents. That they could just go about their business and let us grow up lonely, in dirt, has a significance it didn't have before. I'm pissed that I had to google how often a person should change their bedsheets, just as a tiny example. I was last in their house three years ago, and I felt sick there. I swore I'd never set foot in there again and my mother cursed me out when I told her I'd wait for her outside.
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Post by needmorecoffee on Feb 23, 2015 8:45:35 GMT -5
Ha ha ha haaaaaaa ahhhh no. Not even close. Some days I try and make sure my darling has no reason to go around the corner to the rear living area and kitchen so he can't see how far it has slipped again. I need a week to a fortnight notice before ANYONE comes over unless I am certain I can keep them in e front living area which is usually ten minutes company ready. So my front lounge room, the powder room next to it, the main bathroom and almost my bedroom are in maintenance. Though my bedroom is the first place to slip if I'm overtired, Ill or overworked. I promised myself I'd have the house close to maintenance by January just gone, but a major accident that had me off my snapped ankles put those plans awry and I haven't found the drive and consistency I had last winter again yet. I am baby stepping into hope and out of squalor. Baby steps are still momentum!
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Post by Script on Feb 23, 2015 9:05:44 GMT -5
In our new house, we are in total maintenance everywhere (800 square feet main floor, plus basement fully finished/renovated) except for The Shed which has boxes, junque, car parts, DH's books, extra things: all in semi-disarray. We have plans that this area will also be in maintenance by the summer we are in total maintenance (ie. financial security) with our $$$$$$$$$$$ -- Govt pensions, private retirement investments, GIC's our new home is totally affordable/managealbe in every way everything is working out very well I can afford a cleaning service (Miss Ornella) every week my moods are MUCH MORE STABLE. I have access to regular counselling (Dr Brenda) EXCEPT: I am afraid of somehow getting SICK and not being able to "keep up with things" and turning into a "squalorous little old lady living in/with insanity ...." I am afraid of somehow "losing all my money" and being destitute I am afraid of going crazy (again) I DEFINITELY SUFFER from "ghost squalor" on multiple fronts. Mental physical financial.
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Post by wind on Feb 23, 2015 21:41:55 GMT -5
I'm in a messy sort of maintenance right now. I need to dust, sweep, mop, and wash baseboards, doors, trim, light switches and cabinets (etc and so on) more often than I do. I go through spells where everything is super sparkly for months at a time, too. I've come up with systems for keeping stuff like laundry and dishes and general straightening a non-issue, more or less. "Clutter" and disorganization will probably never be a problem for me ever again unless I become profoundly disabled or something.
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