fifty shades of dust and clutter

My husband is much like those described above. He does no housework and makes a mess constantly. However, he is still working part-time for a few more months then things will change! I have noticed that if he cleans the car or shed(s) I am told off if I dare to mess them up- so when he cleans the house it will be the same. This could be a paragraph from a novel!

I fight a constant losing battle against my own hoarder instinct (still harvesting Tees hurts just in case I start rag rug making again) and my DH's inability to throw away books, receipts, even envelopes. As I see it, the house is my space and I want to feel.in control of my space, not hemmed in by it.

Love the thread title petunia. Like others, I find it difficult to function when everywhere is cluttered. My mantra when our sons were growing up was "Don't put it DOWN, put it AWAY". They still smile about it but prefer tidy lives themselves now.
Years ago when we all had small children, a friend whose ma-in-law lived not far away used to say that if she saw MIL making her unexpected way down the path, the thing to do was to shove all toys behind the sofa and spray down the hall with furniture polish!

Well, I've dusted, vacuumed and moved things from one place to another ….
At least one room is tidy now

petunia you are obviously living in my house. To be honest you might be and I just haven't seen you there.
The only time the clutter disturbs me is when I'm not feeling well. Then it gets me down. I suppose it's when I'm too weak to deal with it. Therefore a sickroom should be pristine but nothing else matters.
I once employed a cleaner for a few hours a week. At last I had a clean house. I would then try to keep one room clutter free and beautiful with flowers in vases for as long as possible. It was like setting a stage for a play. Nice but not essential.

Ha ha trisher, you made me smile. I won’t say I’m a clean freak, well maybe an aspiring clean freak. I don’t stand a chance with Mr. Petunia; he causes chaos in his wake. Where he sits is like a small man cave with mugs newspapers /Sudoku /pens /laptop /books /crumbs/ several of the many hundreds it seems, remote controls/glasses-the drinking kind and reading kind/etc/etc/etc. And some of that man cave stuff seems to attach itself to him and follow him around the house, breaking free and placing itself somewhere obscure. That’s when the cry goes up-have you tidied away my -pen/glasses/Sudoku-or whatever.
I mucked out the sofa today and found 3 dirty socks, a belt, a crisp packet, a book, several coins, a pen, an international plug converter, 2 remotes and a jumper, crushed under the seat.
Then there’s the recycling. We had a spanking new kitchen a few years ago with built in recycling bins. Very nice. However, they are still pristine. Mr Petunia, who chose to take on the recycling role, chooses to leave the beautifully washed out and prepared recycling on the work surface until it threatens to topple onto the floor or I give in and take it myself. Apparently, he forgets that it is there if it’s put into the relevant inside bins. Taking this logic to the extreme, I’m not sure why we need wardrobes and drawers. Clothing left on all surfaces reminds us of what we have and saves time looking through in the morning...

I tidy up for both of us. Partner has memory probs so easier if everything has a definite 'home', he's more likely to find it. I hate hunting for things so prefer them to have a 'home' so that I can find them easily too. Do find after a hectic week things aren't in their place tho! Have just spent an hour and a half putting away laundry (and the airer), returning shredder to its proper place having oiled it 2 days ago and left it dripping onto newspaper in the kitchen (also involves returning oil to its home and messy newspaper to recycling bin in garage), plastic containers that never dry in the dishwasher have been on worktop for a couple days 'airdrying', and so it goes on...............
I once cross stitched a saying 'dust is a protective covering for furniture' and often quote it to my friends :-) There's also 'those that matter don't mind and those that mind don't matter' which I try and live by.

instead it's about a bunch of clean freaks.
I got as far as tidying up a bit and dusting, now I'm back on here!

Must go and have a quick whiz round with the vacuum cleaner.
At least it means I won't be looking at the junk surrounding me in the study …...

I've always liked to be clean and tidy. I've had two husbands, and thankfully they were / are both tidy people too. Once a week I give the place a good going-over and it stays more or less like that for the rest of the week.

Who do I do it for ? Well, myself of course. I see it just the same as looking after my own grooming and appearance - something that I prefer and which I'm happy to put some effort into.

I used to be incredibly clean and tidy, so I don't know if I've got more relaxed or much dirtier.
I can't seem to keep on top of things these days, although its generally cleanish.

Our house is tidy on the days we dont have grandchildren visiting or staying.

Like M0nica I find it difficult to function in mess or clutter.

However the garage is cluttered and is where over spill of non essentials,
grandchildrens outdoor toys and things DH keeps just in case.
Going in causes me anxiety and I long for a skip!

As we have no study I have had to get used to the dining room table becoming DH desk.
Even after 2 years I have to bite my tongue.

BlueSapphire your friend sounds quite artistic and probably uses her house as her canvas. ?

Oh trisher what a relief! I was getting quite disturbed by the amount of cleaning going on by other posters. I'm supposedly retired but I do quite a lot of activities outside of the house and as long as the loos are clean that is all that matters. We have family tramping in and out and yes, our home is cluttered but people seem to like to be here so it can't be that bad. As one friend replied when I felt I had to apologise for the mess: 'I've come to see you, not the house'. There are times though I wish I had a show home house but with DH around that will never happen. His mantra is: see a space put something in it!!!

Yes Jalima they are and they move about also, seemingly under their own steam.

I'm sadly disappointed in this thread. I thought from the title it was going to be about sluts like me, instead it's about a bunch of clean freaks. I know I'm inadequate, I know I should clean more. I just can't be a***d. I surrendered long ago. Dust and Clutter Rule! OK!

Grammaretto I used to feel like that about the houses of members of 2 of the baby-sitting groups I belonged to when DC were small. Not so much impeccably clean, but without books or pictures on the walls.

We then moved to the university area of a large town and like us the members of the baby sitting group had books, pictures and interesting 'stuff' in their living rooms.

We call them dust bunnies here .
I like to have the place clean , but tidy is not what I can do ! I try , goodness knows I try !!1 no idea why the stuff seems to drift out of the drawers and multiply on the surfaces
I got a new cupboard in the hall , folded all , well most of my scarfs ,gloves and hats , they looked so pretty that DD3 asked if DD1 had done it ... grrrrrrrrrr . Now I am afraid to get out a scarf in case I make a mess
The thing is , I love to see the place tidy just for me

We did a house swap for a holiday when our DC were small and the hardest part was cleaning my house for the other family who were strangers. The exchange was arranged by an agent.
It was nice to see the children happily playing with new toys but their house was so boring and bland.
There wasn't a book to read or any evidence of an interesting life.

Coming home to my tidy house was a treat.

I am resigned to living amid clutter.
I sometimes wish I had a magic wand to tidy it more often but as others have suggested, the alternative could be worse!

I am very tidy and organised but not houseproud. Over the years the kitchen has played host to tack, haybales, hen feed (and hens) motor bike engines (not mine) plus the assorted males that appear with them, and so on.Cobwebs provide a home for the resident midge controllers. A while back I had some fractures (topical on todays threads) and decided at that time to get a cleaner, who is still with us. Sounds dreadfully posh but she does an excellent job and we sparkle in lots more places. CH (current husbands) desk is another matter ....................

What are dust rats BbBevan
Are they those balls of fluff which seem to appear from nowhere, daily, on wooden floors?

The thread title made me laugh and then the first part of your OP, petunia made me feel full of awe!

That's how I like my house, too but I have to confess that I'm probably just as untidy as DH.
The bit about the loo resonates too - we have a downstairs loo and I am forever telling asking him to use the bathroom upstairs just in case we have visitors and they go to use a less than pristine downstairs loo! It falls on deaf ears.

Right - we have visitors coming tomorrow so I need to whiz round with a duster and vacuum and shove things into cupboards

If the weather's fine (it often isn't where I live) and I have any energy, the house can go hang while I do stuff outside. We have a large, difficult garden (which I love) and MrB is not a gardener. He helps with specific tasks requiring more strength than I have when I ask him to.

Always what needs to be hygienic in the house is hygienic. Dust and cobwebs in places where it hardly matters... shrug.

much nicer to sit looking at a tidy room rather than a lot of clutter.

My mum used to say that, funnygran, when she visited and, having got the young kids to bed, read their story, etc., I would come into the sitting room with a cup of tea (or wine), use my slippered foot as a toy sweeper-upper so that at least they weren't underfoot in the well trodden areas, and collapse into an easy chair.

Actually, thinking about it now, my mum doesn't actually do relaxed. She has an endless twitchy energy. She used to get... not annoyed exactly... but flummoxed at how still I could sit even when I was a small child.

We have oak floors so always get dust rats ! And as we live near the sea our windows are murky with salt crystals. Still I prefer that to our last home which was dusty from road traffic etc.
I like a tidy and clean house but I am getting used to doing the minimum some days

Oh sorry - to answer the question I do it for me/us as we have few visitors and anyway I like housework!

I am a neat freak so the housework. Washing etc gets done everyday- clean clothes everyday. DH does a lot of it but no cooking which I do from scratch everyday. I like to think the house does look homely, we do have books and pictures but no photos or ornaments. We have colours as accents and have kept the décor neutral. I just cant think in a mess. DH's desk is a different matter but that's in his study(third bedroom) my desk is tidy. My parents had a services background so were both very tidy and I was a nurse so tidy and excessively clean after a 3 year spell as an Infection Control Nurse left me a fear of unidentified grot.