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s/o Proof Of Life- Housekeeping Standards ?


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My father's girlfriend. I always felt like I was in a museum and was afraid I would sully the furniture.

My Mother-in-law is pretty close in museum stature.

 

I think my house might be the worst. Dust bunnies are my favorite pet. I don't have to feed them, water them, or play with them and they grow and grow.

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Where I grew up, there was another kid in the neighborhood who lived in this giant lakehome, and it was always beyond immaculate. The kids weren't even allowed to mess up their bedrooms. It was creepy.

 

The worst would have to be our current downstairs neighbor. (We live in an up/down duplex.) I watched her kids for her the other day, and wow. Cat litter mixed with urine cemented onto whole the kitchen floor, filthy clothes everywhere, permanent black marker scribbled over the white walls from floor to ceiling... What's funny is that the landlord just let us know earlier today that the city inspector has to come do an inspection of both units, and he'll be with them. I would not want to be my neighbor tonight.

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Cleanest? We used to clean houses and we did the condo of an older wealthy widow. Her house was a collection of old money antiques and not a dust particle ever. She was a hoot to clean for, great old lady. I was never sure why we were there, it wasn't dirty when we came.

 

Worst? Well technically no one lived there anymore. It had been damaged in a hurricane and the owners never returned to get all their stuff. We looked at the house about 6 - 7 months afterward. The house was nasty, mold that wasn't really apparent, but was there. It was eerie as everything including some food was still in the house. I was sick for days afterward even though the other people that were with us weren't. We were looking at it with a couple that were thinking about flipping it. I'm glad they didn't.

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The messiest (that I can think of) would probably be a family relative and his wife before they moved. I wonder if she might have hoarding tendencies. And he's just kind of lazy. They were moving across the country, she left first with their son. Left a huge mess for him to try to deal with. My mom insisted I help.

 

So I went over there, threw away expired canned food. She yelled at him for it. Found three used pregnancy tests. She forced him to keep them. Boxes everywhere (not moving boxes, boxes full of stuff that had always been there), papers and clothes stacked a mile high, filthy, filthy floor. Trash all over (that was probably him just leaving fast food garbage and not throwing it away). My husband vacuumed and there was so much hair on the floor that it burned out the motor.

 

Cleanest? I feel like it's been so long since I've been to anyone's house so I'm trying to remember everyone I know. I will go with my Grandma and Grandpa for now. She's so cute. Little Japanese lady who keeps everything spotless. You have no idea how I scrubbed absolutely everything in my house when she came to visit. She can be super judgmental of messy people, so I had to hide my true nature.

Edited by meggie
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The cleanest is when we move in some place (we move quite a lot sadly). The worse is when i get in one of those moods when i need a whole makeover and then everything is spread all over and i feel like theres no place for it so i end up throwing it away.

 

ETA: Misunderstood question-

Cleanest: My Moms. You can eat off the floors and any surface

Messiest: An old neighbor at the last place we lived when i watched her kids. BAD just BAD.

Edited by Jpoy85
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The cleanest and dirtiest houses were my childhood friends' houses. A girl I knew had a beautiful split level house. Her bedroom was huge, big enough for a queen sized bedroom set and plenty of room to play. I remember that her mom always had the carpet vacuumed in perfect rows, almost like the way ball fields are mowed :lol:. One time we walked through one of the forbidden rooms to get to the kitchen faster, and not five minutes later her mom was vacuuming the room to erase our footprints.

Now my other friend's house was the complete opposite. I don't think they ever vacuumed the house. Plates and glasses could be found in every room. They had like five cats, and you could smell the litter as soon as you walked in the door. They would wash dishes only when they needed something to cook in or eat on. One time I offered to help her clean her room so we could go roller skating. Ugh, it was disgusting. I remember seeing cat poop all under her bed. We gave up shortly after that and decided to ride our bikes around the block instead.

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The cleanest is my mother in law's. The woman washes silverware she takes from the drawer before she uses it. She washes a can of soup after she takes it from the cabinet to use. She washes her kitchen, bathroom, and utility room floors every single day, on her hands and knees. They pull their stove away from the wall every month to clean behind it, do the same to the fridge but more often. They have white carpet that was 10 years old when dh and I married...look at the ages of my kids....and know that the carpet is still white and looks new.

 

She's 78.

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Cleanest: my mom........heaven help the person who put footprints on the rug -- she would pull out the vacuum and get rid of the footprints immediately. I'm not psycho about it, but my house is clean.

 

The worst: one of my mom's aunts. Good grief. May she rest in peace, but there is not a hoarders show that has anything on her.

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Filthiest house:

 

A friend of mine was separated from her husband, whom she later divorced. I went to her house once, when she wanted to pick up some of her belongings. We had to park a block away and I could smell the house from our parking space!

 

The husband never cleaned anything, and threw the garbage on the floor. In addition, he had several indoor cats who had kittens, and no litter box.

 

I didn't go inside because I was afraid of catching a disease. I looked through the open door and it looked like a landfill in there.

 

The city condemned the house and he had to move out. Someone bought it and renovated it -- it was a charming, cute house when they got done.

 

Cleanest house:

 

Same friend -- her place was immaculate and uncluttered.

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So tell me, what is the cleanest house you've ever been in? How about the absolute worst? Your stories? :lurk5:

 

A friend of mine has a house where any and every surface is probably fit for surgery. She is truly a paragon of housecleaning. She cleans every thing every day. She even pulls it out and cleans under and behind the fridge every day.

 

Every.

 

Day.

 

 

Worst was an old college roommate of mine, but she suffered from some late diagnosed pathological issues. I can't even begin to describe her habits. It still haunts me to this day. Watching Hoarders gives me flashbacks. She was a wonderful friend, but we couldn't live together for very long.

Edited by Audrey
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MIL's was pristine. It felt like a museum. My children habitually take off shoes when they come home (Asian trained) but she couldn't cope with neat rows of shoes by the door. I once came back from a walk with a plastic bottle of water, sat on the sofa, then got up to go to the loo. When I came back my bottle was gone: she just couldn't cope with the tacky bottle being in the sitting room. She had a 'maid' come in one day a week but she didn't just let her do it: they both worked hard for eight hours on the cleaning. It was a two bedroom apartment.

 

My mother never did much house work, but it got worse as time went on. She's very old now, so I don't in any way blame/criticise her, but it's reached the stage where the fridge and a couple of small squares of kitchen counter are the only clean places in the house.

 

Laura

Edited by Laura Corin
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Filthiest house:

 

A friend of mine was separated from her husband, whom she later divorced. I went to her house once, when she wanted to pick up some of her belongings. We had to park a block away and I could smell the house from our parking space!

 

The husband never cleaned anything, and threw the garbage on the floor. In addition, he had several indoor cats who had kittens, and no litter box.

 

I didn't go inside because I was afraid of catching a disease. I looked through the open door and it looked like a landfill in there.

 

The city condemned the house and he had to move out. Someone bought it and renovated it -- it was a charming, cute house when they got done.

 

Cleanest house:

 

Same friend -- her place was immaculate and uncluttered.

 

 

 

And the reason for the divorce was ....:lol:

 

My mother's house is lovely and clean all the time - I hated it as a kid though because all she ever seemed to do was clean. I love it as an adult -because she helps me clean my house and going to her house is such a lovely feeling after living in my child induced mess.

 

 

Dirtiest - I don't think I've seen anything too bad but there have been a few places I won't sit back on the couch or accept their dinner invitations :lol:

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The worst is a five-way tie. Interestingly enough they are/were all home schooling families, but they were not acquainted with one another. First there was the clutter,stacks and stacks of stuff everywhere, books, papers, mail, furniture cushions, clothes and toys all over the floor. Add kitchens that warranted citation by the Health Department, grimy bathrooms, and hair everywhere - human hair, pet hair, very likely wild animal hair off whatever the kids and cats dragged in. I knew full well whose dish to avoid at a pot-luck supper. Turns my stomach to think of it. Funny thing, these were all very kind people, and seemingly very engaged with their kids' education. I would never have predicted the mess I walked into the first time I visited each of those homes. I think I felt worse about it knowing they were home schoolers, because they lived in the sort of condition that would probably have CPS at least temporarily relocate their children and end up on the 10 o'clock news.

 

The cleanest house is one owned by a lovely friend who is also a music teacher. Her kids are all grown, so I'm sure that makes it much easier, but she is also somewhat of a minimalist. No clutter anywhere, only a few keepsake/decor items and framed photos. She's not a stark minimalist, though; everything is very calm and creamy but also feels warm and cozy. I have told her many times that I can feel my blood pressure dropping just after a few minutes of being in her home. Heavenly.

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With 5 kids mother managed to keep the house clean, very clean.

 

My sil kept her house looking like Better homes and Garden photo shoot, always. I tried but could never keep up her standards. She could never sit down and have a conversation she was always doing something.

 

 

Dirtiest: My older sister had the mentality that if her dh would not do his part then neither would she. Every Christmas there was talk of getting her maid service, but no one wanted to offend her.

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The cleanest is a friend's house, she is just so clean and has a completely white and immaculate house even with 4 kids. It only suffers slightly when she is in the last stage of pregnancy.

 

The worst was someone my brother knew. It was disgusting, huge piles of dog poop all over the place and just generally disgusting. I don't know how they weren't all ill.

Edited by lailasmum
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Cleanest: My Mom's whole side of the family. Grandma, Mom, and all of Mom's sisters. If you empty your cup or glass then leave the room to go to the bathroom, you will have to get a clean cup to have anything else to drink when you get back because yours has disappeared. :001_smile:

 

Dirtiest: I honestly can't think of any house that I've been to that's been memorably nasty. Many "proof of life" homes, but nothing disgusting. Oh wait, there is one that again, wasn't nasty dirty, but was hugely cluttered. As in, don't bump the stack of papers because it may just crush you, cluttered. It was some friends of my parents and I babysat for them a couple times. If I remember correctly, the dishes were clean and main parts of the floor were vacuumed, etc. There was just stacks of stuff around the perimeter of the rooms.

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I had a friend a few years ago.... our husbands were both deployed and one day she called me all freaked out because family advocacy (sort of like family services, includes military CPS, counseling, but also benign "helpful" visits) was going to come over to check in on her and she wanted help "picking up".

 

This girl must have been keeping the roaches as pets. There were hundreds of thousands of them.... the top three feet of her walls and ceiling were constantly moving, because they were covered in roaches. They were everywhere, in the couches, in the cupboards.... crawling across your hands. They didn't run when you came near, they crawled towards you looking for a snack.

 

She had a dog that lived in a crate, and the entire house was covered in dog poop and fur. She had a toddler, who was smearing his poop, or maybe the dogs- all over the walls.

 

I bug bombed that place 4 times, and never could kill all the bugs (she was pregnant and couldn't). The kicker is, I called the command, the first Sargent, the animal shelter, family advocacy AND cps on this girl to try and get her help for her kid. They never did anything. Someone took the dog.... but no one helped that poor kid.

 

They finally condemned her home, and she moved off base, but again, no help for her or the kid, and in the end, the home off base turned out much the same.

 

 

The cleanest house- My mom's. And she has a million pets.... yet, its still clean and fresh and airy and wonderful.

 

Mine.... is not clean, but nowhere near unhealthy.

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Oh- and I had the first Sargent out, who used to be a pest control guy at this girl's house, and apparently she had some of the rarest roaches there.... something like albino Japanese roaches or something... and many other kinds. He couldn't figure out how the heck she got so many, short of breeding them in that home for a long time. He didn't even want to go in the house, because he was insistent that the inside of the walls had at least 10 times more roaches then we could see.

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My bible study leader is a true homemaker, in the grandest and best sense of the word. Her house is clean, decorated nicely, and welcoming. She is not rich--she redoes and makes over. She bakes, cooks good food--she is Susie Homemaker! Love her to death. There isn't a room in her home that she is afraid to show someone.

 

I have seen a home that is the opposite--true hoarding. I think it's a mental disorder. Dear folks, but the house is just gross. I don't want to say more.

 

Mine is somewhere in the middle. It's basically undecorated, although I did decorate my mantel and it feels so nice to sit and look at it! :001_smile:

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My aunt has the cleanest house I've ever been in. Even when her kids were small her house was always immaculate. Clean and airy and not a speck of dust/dirt to be seen. And yet she was (and still is) always relaxed. You feel completely comfortable in her house and never see her clean. She must do it late at night. Plus she's always had multiple inside pets. Currently she has two dogs and a cat.

 

The worst was a friend of my father's. He and his son lived alone, and the father was truly illiterate. He couldn't read or write at all, signed his name with an "X." I've always wondered if his lack of education contributed to his lack of housekeeping skills. It would be an insult to pigs to call their house a pig sty. It was filthy and packed with junk.

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