Playing a prank!

Maybe that's the next step merlot, buying a Jack Russell! Actually I did have one, my ex husband wouldn't let me take him when we split up and the dog subsequently bit his new wife! Go Buddy!

I have given up! He sat earlier on his bed, strumming his guitar. I asked him if that was what he was doing and said that ten minutes throwing things in a black bag would be more beneficial. (Actually I didn't use long words, they would take too long to get through his long, thick, curly, unruly hair!) He carried on playing. Then he went out with his mates, so I've had a lovely night on my own.

I've just learned these last few months not to rise to his mood swings and to let him be if he is being a pain. He was worried this morning that Donald Trump was going to get to be President so I didn't rise to his arguments and left him to go to college and discuss it there.

BTW. If anyone wants to know how to mimic rat droppings, you buy a packet of liquorice comfits and suck the sugar coating off the outsides.

We had a Jack Russell who hid behind the sofa doing this to a packet he'd nicked out of one of the kid's Christmas stockings. He didn't like the liquorice so he spat the middles out.

Believe me....they really DO look like rat droppings

I'd leave him to it, rubylady. Our DS had a room that we called, 'Armageddon'. When he emerged from his scruffy, denim clad, long-haired rock star phase, we discovered there was a pleasant and charming human being living upstairs.

There was a hidden agenda of course, in the form of a pleasant and charming girl!

I actually think it's something they all have to go through in order to appreciate the things they will end up having to work for.

Not interesting, really. If we want car audio amplifiers we can go and look for them, or are you suggesting we blare noise into our children's bedrooms to punish them for their untidyness?

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I don't think there is anything that can't be found on You Tube! What on earth did we do without it? If anyone wanted to fake rat droppings I would suggest date stones and dark brown paint. They're a tad large but everyone says that rats are getting bigger.

Nannienet. A 'friend' once kindly pointed out 'mouse droppings' on a window sill in my house. In fact a child had been given an eggcup of schocoladehagelslag (Dutch and probably misspelt!) - now commonly available as cake and trifle topping, then a rare treat.
Anyway it was mistaken for mouse droppings so you might like sprinkle a little ... ? ?

I could do with some fake mice dropping to leave at DD house,maybe that might make her and her husband get their fingers out and tidy up and then clean up! I do what l can when l am at theirs 3 days a week caring for DGD2 but when l do she doesn't notice and l don't want to exhaust myself too much as l care for DGC 4 days a week!

Most of the time we used to leave tidying their rooms to our daughters when they were teenagers. After all it was their space. Our elder daughter was quite tidy but the younger daughter was really dreadfully untidy, (sometimes when she was away, we used to go in there and have a bit of a clear up, but usually we just kept the door closed!) After all it was us who didn't like the mess, she didn't mind at all.
Our elder daughter once made a poster saying:
"Biohazard! "
and stuck it on her sister's door!

Now she is married and has her own home, she is a bit tidier. Both daughters are hey are both lovely human beings; surely that's the important thing. Life's too short to worry about an untidy bedroom. (Ours is usually tidy though)

My son's room is always spotless yet my daughter is the opposite I used to go in and clean it up and say to her well doesn't it look so much better she would agree and promise to keep that way, which lasted all about a few days. Now I just go in to take her clean clothes and then shut the door behind me. Every so often she will binge clean it but I think what I can't see wont hurt.

Hi ruby lady, what a creative idea , shame your got found out but good result in the end. If you don't want your web surfing to be seen you can always surf in private mode or alternatively go to history and clear some of the websites you visited.

Once my three sons reached 13 I said I wouldn't go into their rooms if they kept them clean tidy. It worked!!

I had one son who was very tidy, one who wasn't. We used to pay them £2 a week to keep their rooms tidy. The one who was tidy cleaned his brothers room for a £1. The one who was untidy is now married and their house is spotless. The tidy ones house not so much.

A lorry load of spiders perhaps?

Why not leave his room to him ? It is his private space .If he wants clean clothes he will put his dirty washing out . If you run out of dishes stop cooking for him

My son liked his room tidy and my younger daughter had Aspergers and all surfaces had to be clear and drawers/cupboard doors completely shut. But my older daughter was a nightmare where her room was concerned and I would give due warning and then blitz it once a month until she got to an age where I didn't feel I should invade her privacy. I used to say there were three layers of detritus in her room, one of them was mugs and plates, another clothes, clean and dirty, and the third was art materials. I shut the door firmly and let her live in it, only demanding the return of crockery when we ran short. It was like that for years until, aged 17, she informed me that she "can't live like this" as if it had been my decision that she should . She tidied it, painted the walls and has kept it perfect ever since. Yes, aged 40+ she is still here and with a toddler in tow, and often moaning that I have too many knickknacks for us to keep the place tidy!

A close friend was having problems with her teenagers keeping their rooms tidy so one day she told them she had hidden all the chargers for their electronic equipment in their rooms - the only way they could find them was to tidy the room!

Last year DS invited us to come and stay overnight so that he and DH could watch a football match on the tv. They live 2 hours drive from us. We were to have the older of his two stepson's rooms, which we were informed he had "tidied up" for us but with the exhortation that he would be grateful if we did not touch anything! It was scarily UNtidy, with space to put ones feet down at an absolute premium. The strange artworks and posters on his walls, seen again in the half light of early morning, made me want to pull the covers back over my head! I love him to bits and I suppose I should have been quite pleased that he would even countenance having anyone else staying in there - mine would only open their doors to me at that age in the face of much cajoling and then dire threats!

I told my offspring to keep their bedroom doors closed. I left clean clothes on the landing and if they wanted clean sheets they knew where to find them. My son cleaned up his bedroom once he got a girlfriend. No food was allowed in the bedrooms. You are lucky you don't have nice for real

When our daughter lived at home we were so fed up with the mess in her room. We lived in a bungalow and hubby got so mad he threw everything out the window into the back garden! She was in tears, but the fact that she had to bring everything back in, and decide what she really wanted to keep, was a good lesson. Now she's a mum, and having the same arguments with her daughter!

DS2 was unspeakably untidy [partly due to severe dyslexia], I told him that as far as I knew no-one had died of too much dust, but I would be willing to help whenever he wanted...
I only went to DCs bedrooms when invited - left bedding outside room, basket of clean clothes, etc. If nothing was done, after a week, I would tip everything onto their doorstep...
At least, they gave me their clothes to wash...

DS2 and his lovely wife are both hopelessly untidy. When I stay with them, trying to help when they're at work, I find I can't make out where everything is in the continuous laundry cycle. Is this pile waiting to be washed, or washed and waiting for ironing, or waiting to be put away? Impossible to discover. Except they tend to iron things only when required. So in theory, nothing is waiting to be put away.... The upside is they live 80 miles away so not my problem

I've got a 25 yr old like that. However, due to his ASD I don't like to interfere with"his space" It's not so much the rubbish just the untidiness and that despite the fact he has a perfectly good chest of draws and wardrobe his clean clothes live in a pile on the floor

I had one of those DS, Ruby
One day he announced he as going away with girlfriend for weekend

Whilst he was away we threw out rubbish,boxed everything up and repainted room.
Then we moved younger daughter who had always had put up with small bedroom in to DS room.
When DS came home he had a 'hissy fit'
A few weeks later he moved in with girl friend!.

That should be bare furniture