S/O - How dirty is this house to you?

[6packofun]

You know, minus the poop--which I assume has been there a while (because, if not, and a dog just tracked it through, then minus the story/bathroom pics I *might* say no need for CPS) my house looked similar during the worst days of my postpartum depression. And that was with a husband around. Thank God it didn't last and thank God no one judged the safety of my kids based on a lot of clutter, unclean dishes, and the deep dark fog that made me so tired I could barely get up each day. In this situation, based only on those pics, I'd need to know if kids are not being fed and/or being neglected or abused mentally or physically.

 

THAT said...the poop and bathroom pic pushes it over the edge into maybe getting a visit. I always wonder how that gets reported, though. (Not that it matters!) I never would have let anyone but my closest family or friends inside our house and THEY were concerned with me getting rest and practical HELP. I did, my kids did not suffer and it was very short-lived. But that house is far from the worst houses I've seen. Do they take kids away from the hoarding parents on the TLC show or help them get through it so the family can be together and change their life??

[Pod's mum]

The kitchen sink is shiny, but the stove is piled full and filthy?

 

 

This threw me too.

 

This house has filth everywhere, even without the 'brown matter', yet the sink is spotless.

It made me think that the occupant has started out but stalled on that antislob (ETA :Flylady) website, where the first thing is to polish your sink and keep it polished for a week.

 

Anyway, I agree, if we were playing "one of these things is not like the other", the sink would win.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Pod's mum

[freeindeed]

I really feel like my house is spotless after looking at those pictures. That house is really disgusting, but I am not sure that CPS should have removed the children.

[aggieamy]

This threw me too.

I have friends who have superficially similar looking homes. Except that under the strewn belongings the floor is not filthy and the house is usable and safe.

And there ARE generally dirty dishes in the sink. (As ours does at the moment, though our stove is clean.)

This house has filth everywhere, even without the 'brown matter', yet the sink is spotless.

It made me think that the occupant has started out but stalled on that antislob (?) website, where the first thing is to polish your sink and keep it polished for a week.

 

Anyway, I agree, if we were playing "one of these things is not like the other", the sink would win.

 

 

Flylady fail.

[myfunnybunch]

I did not read the article. However, whatever was all over the bathroom floor was likely what was on the kitchen floor too.

 

What the pictures can't really show is whether there is mold and decaying food or how the house smells.

 

Bleah. And oh my. My curiousity got the better of my judgement, and I looked at the bathroom pictures. Those poor babies, having to live like that.

 

I want to go scrub my bathroom now.

 

Cat

[gardenmom5]

This is funny.

 

SKL is in her 40s, IIRC. You're worried about about her family's carpets from probably 30 years ago! LOL

 

 

No, I'm not worried about her carpets from 30 years ago. I'm worried about the attitude of allowing a vomiting pet to roam everynight and having a child clean the carpet is fine. I would have expected those carpets to have been ripped out 30+ years ago.

 

There are people today who have that same attitude of allowing the roaming animal, dirting the carpets human children are crawling around on, and don't think it's a big deal.

 

I would hope if you were aware of such a situation today - your attitude wouldn't be so flip.

[Meriwether]

.

[unsinkable]

 

 

No, I'm not worried about her carpets from 30 years ago. I'm worried about the attitude of allowing a vomiting pet to roam everynight and having a child clean the carpet is fine. I would have expected those carpets to have been ripped out 30+ years ago.

 

There are people today who have that same attitude of allowing the roaming animal, dirting the carpets human children are crawling around on, and don't think it's a big deal.

 

I would hope if you were aware of such a situation today - your attitude wouldn't be so flip.

 

 

Oh, dear.

 

I'll consider myself scolded and call Stanley Steemer.

 

 

 

[Lily_Grace]

I have been sick for 3 days. My house is messy at the moment - crumbs under the dining room table, coats and blankets flung across the couches, the downstairs covered in legos with a half eaten banana on the side table next to empty cups. The laundry hamper upstairs is overflowing.

 

 

That house is appalling.

[Pod's mum]

OK, now I wonder about the sanity of you people I'm hanging out with.

You know the bathroom pictures contain....A toilet AND bath containing weeks of toileting,....yet many chose to click on view?!?!?!?!?!!

 

Just the warning was enough to turn my stomach. And it's fairly robust.

[swellmomma]

eww

[gardenmom5]

True confessions (I'm going to delete this so look fast):

 

http://exploringwith...s.blogspot.com/

 

This is my basement/schoolroom. It was clean last night.

 

 

that' looks like about 15 minutes of half a dozen eight year olds.

 

from your description, I was actually expecting it to be worse. there are days . . . . ("calm down mommy. just turn around and go out of the room." that's what my now 23yo will say on those days.)

 

there have been days when my kids were really little I wanted to wear a sign that said "this shirt was clean when I put it on this morning."

[beaners]

I'm kind of surprised by the votes here. I almost want to post a poll with just the bathtub picture and ask the question: "If this was the only bathroom in the house do you think CPS should remove the children?" I just didn't think a house with a bathtub full of poop would even be up for discussion on if the children should remain there or not.

 

Does it reassure you at all that the poll specifically says to ignore or disregard the bathroom pictures? I think the responses would be different if the poll said to take the house as a whole as described in the article.

 

True confessions (I'm going to delete this so look fast):

 

You are braver than I am. I spent a lot of time shoveling and sorting the toys into their appropriate receptacles in bedrooms tonight. And vacuuming. As soon as my back feels a little better I'm going to get down and scrub the kitchen floor.

[redheadmom]

I looked at the photos and voted...CPS maybe. The toys everywhere doesn't bother me. Kids can be like tornadoes. However, the one of the bedrooms were soo nasty. I felt bad for those kids.

 

I went back and read the article and looked at the photos. That bathroom was gross...I'm not sure there is even a word to describe that level of filth. No child should experience that.

[MelAR05]

Whenever I see pictures like this I want to go clean my house. BTW, I already cleaned it this morning. I grew up at times in filth similar to this and can't stand it now.

 

By no means do I keep a spotless house, but this makes me sick to my stomach.

[Jeannie in NJ]

Meriwether, my eyes went directly to your beautiful bookcases and wonderful books. The rest of the room looks like just normal "kids playing in the basement for one day" .

 

The main reason I am able to keep my house clutter free is that I don't have small dc anymore, my teen dd is as she will admit OCD and my son confines his mess to his room which I only clean for house showings .

[caroljenn]

When I first saw the photos, I thought, "what is the brown stuff on the floor? I hope it's not feces." If it hadn't been, and had been chocolate or syrup or dirt or ANYTHING else, it probably would not have fit my definition of a CPS intervention. But it is feces. So CPS needed to come in. How disgusting.

[Clear Creek]

I should probably change my vote to "my house is spotless" because I scrubbed like mad after seeing those pictures! Only took about 45 minutes, though. :D

 

There are some things a photo doesn't capture. My husband is a pastor, and twice he has gone to the home of church members who were being visited by CPS (why they think their pastor has to be there, I don't know). I went with him both times. I learned that if you don't *clean* your house ever...even if you pick up clutter and sometimes move a pile of clothes off a couch...if you don't actually *clean* it...there is a layer of filth that covers all surfaces. Carpet that has not been vacuumed in years does not feel right under your shoes. It might look like it just has cereal spilled on the floor and toys everywhere in a photo, but it is thick with grime and dirt when you touch it. The couch can feel almost slimy. The smell that sticks to your clothes and makes you gag as you drive home (to shower and burn your clothes, lol) is not something that can be photographed. The fleas hopping from the baby to the dog (and back again) wouldn't show up in a photo.

 

I didn't look at the pictures of the bathroom. I just can't. I would either gag or cry.

[readinmom]

It looks like there are mice/rat droppings/animal leftovers on the floor. That alone is enough of a health violation. It's the dirty floors that really bother me. It's obvious that a small child lives there based on the clothing/toys. After being an avid watcher of Hoarders, nothing surprises me, but this house is not even close on that scale.

[Audrey]

Disclaimer: I have OCD. I'm fairly open about it. I work very hard to keep in well within a "reality check." Bearing that I am definitely keeping it in reality-check mode...

 

 

That house is vile. I look at it and the mess seems pathological to me. There is something more at play than poor housekeeping.

 

 

ETA: OMG! Holy H3ll and crispy biscuits!!! I just read the article (kind of confirms my suspicions of pathological issues at play) and then I saw the bathroom. :ack2: <_<

 

I have no words for how disgusting that is. I even checked my thesaurus and none accurately represent the egregious depths of disgusting in that bathroom.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Meriwether, my eyes went directly to your beautiful bookcases and wonderful books. The rest of the room looks like just normal "kids playing in the basement for one day" .

 

I agree.

[Jennifer3141]

Wow, that makes me feel like the domestic goddess of the century. LOL

 

When I think my house is a disaster it isn't even close to that.

 

This cracked me up. And it's true!!

 

I've been ragging on myself all day for not getting ALL my floors mopped because we're all tracking that dirty, snowy dirt crud everywhere but wow. Poop prints. Now that's special... :(

[Mergath]

Ugh. I've babysat (last minute emergency sort of thing) for two families I know who have houses around that level of yuck (minus the bathroom, of course- that's just unreal). And I agree with the pps who mentioned the smell. Houses that dirty almost always stink. It's a combination of rotting food, feces, pet waste, and often secondhand smoke. It's nasty. Without the bathroom, I most likely wouldn't call CPS over it (assuming the parents weren't on drugs or something) but obviously the bathroom is the major issue here. Unreal. I can't even imagine being in the same room as something like that, much less living there. *shudder*

[Mergath]

I even checked my thesaurus and none accurately represent the egregious depths of disgusting in that bathroom.

 

:lol: The situation itself isn't funny, but this made me laugh. :p

[acsnmama]

That home is gross, and yes, they needed help, whether it be taking the kids until it is cleaned and suitable for living or whatever, I do believe there can be a million reasons why it's just not getting done, obviously there are issues there, however, they do deserve opportunity to change it, and sometimes, the only way change can come is through extreme measures. I did look at the bathroom photos and that's disgusting, so that alone is reason enough that this family desperately needed help.

[Kim in Appalachia]

I think I should have titled this thread "I can make you clean your house!"

 

I wonder how different some of the responses would be if I'd just posted the pictures in this thread and not as a link. I'm probably naive, but I would never have imagined that those brown smears were feces if I hadn't read it in the article. It just would never have occurred to me; I would have thought it was mud tracked through the house or something!

 

 

My problem was as soon as I saw those pictures I knew it was feces. I have seen too much.

[Meriwether]

Meriwether, my eyes went directly to your beautiful bookcases and wonderful books. The rest of the room looks like just normal "kids playing in the basement for one day" .

 

The main reason I am able to keep my house clutter free is that I don't have small dc anymore, my teen dd is as she will admit OCD and my son confines his mess to his room which I only clean for house showings .

 

 

Thanks, but the picture didn't really do it justice. There were pencils, books, notebooks, flashlights, hair clips, nerf bullets, Playmobil, play kitchen stuff, playing cards, various weapons, jump ropes, a pair of socks and other odds and ends on and under furniture and spread out between the couch and tv. Most of that happened in less than 2 hours. :huh: I don't mind clutter. (My mom is very, very Pennsylvania Dutch. She would be horrified to know I posted that picture on the internet. :p ) I actually like to have a stack of books on the table and a blanket waiting on the chair for me. I just don't know how it gets so bad so quickly.

[mom2scouts]

When I looked at the first few pictures I just thought it was toys and clothes all over the floor. That wouldn't concern me at all. The filthy floors, chemicals and especially the bathroom (YUCK!!!!!) are enough to get CPS involvement.

[Heatherwith4]

I can't look at the bathroom pics, because I'm thinking they would give me nightmares...

[Jean in Newcastle]

 

Thanks, but the picture didn't really do it justice. There were pencils, books, notebooks, flashlights, hair clips, nerf bullets, Playmobil, play kitchen stuff, playing cards, various weapons, jump ropes, a pair of socks and other odds and ends on and under furniture and spread out between the couch and tv. Most of that happened in less than 2 hours. :huh: I don't mind clutter. (My mom is very, very Pennsylvania Dutch. She would be horrified to know I posted that picture on the internet. :p ) I actually like to have a stack of books on the table and a blanket waiting on the chair for me. I just don't know how it gets so bad so quickly.

 

 

Meriwether, my house is often like that. And my schoolroom (which is a catch all store room right now) would look right at home on Hoarders. But - I still don't think it is comparable to those pictures. You obviously can walk unimpeded in your house. You're not going to be walking on garbage.

[elegantlion]

 

Thanks, but the picture didn't really do it justice. There were pencils, books, notebooks, flashlights, hair clips, nerf bullets, Playmobil, play kitchen stuff, playing cards, various weapons, jump ropes, a pair of socks and other odds and ends on and under furniture and spread out between the couch and tv. Most of that happened in less than 2 hours. :huh: I don't mind clutter. (My mom is very, very Pennsylvania Dutch. She would be horrified to know I posted that picture on the internet. :p ) I actually like to have a stack of books on the table and a blanket waiting on the chair for me. I just don't know how it gets so bad so quickly.

 

 

I thought the picture was fine, that looks like a lived in house, but it's not filthy. The bookcases become the focal point (can I say I'm jealous!) and it's obvious the room is well-maintained and clean, even the walls looked clean.

 

 

to the other photos:

Dh and I used to clean houses, most of the people were older couples. A few of the homes had, what I call, lost their corners. Boxes were stacked in corners of rooms or under tables and forgotten. Most of the time they never dealt with the piles and you could tell from the condition of the box or stack.

 

Those pictures showed some of the piles had been there for a while, imo.

[Laurie4b]

I doubt if CPS would have gotten involved with just the level of clutter in the photos. I would vote against CPS involvement based on those. However, CPS involvement in a dirty house almost always has to do with feces (animal or human) or with way above the normal level of rodent or insect infestation. (I once was helping a client get her house clean. I picked up some newspapers in the pantry and about 300 roaches ran all over the place. I almost puked. However, it was public housing where the housing authority is responsible for infestation. So it has to be REALLY bad usually for CPS to do anything based on that. ) Almost always, it's feces.

[Liz CA]

As far as toy and household clutter, it is messier than my messy house but I wouldn't think of intervention. But I think I saw food waste left out and a diaper in one picture and of course the infamous "brown stuff". That tips it over into danger territory esp. since I think that was a toddler bed I saw. I am more concerned when toddlers are in a situation because toddlers get into things. I did not read the accompanying article.

 

 

My thoughts exactly. The type of toys indicated that at least one very young child was living there. I cannot imagine watching a toddler crawl around in this stuff. I somehow missed the bathroom pics - or maybe I thought it was the kitchen floor. Food particles and at least one glass bowl that looked like it had been there for days/weeks were alarming enough without the "brown stuff."

However, I kept thinking that a few women (with strong stomachs) could clean this up in a day...Someone said we don't know what it was like to walk into the place and this is very true. There are areas we have not seen nor have we smelled what those social workers smelled...

[mommaduck]

I only saw a couple of the pictures and read the description. It was disgusting to me.

[gardenmom5]

I don't know how many caught the tail end of the artcle where it gave a neighbors comment about LOTS of people stopping by at night. drugs. those kids so need to be out of there.

 

One comment on the article from a local who grew up with the dad said he does meth and heroin. those kids need to be gone. I hope they weren't cooking meth in that house. (but it will probably be tested for it - there used to be alot of meth cooking in that part of washington). this isn't something that just some "help" for the parents will cure. they need major intervention with a sincere and deep desire to change to even have the remote possiblity of changing. some drugs are just so addictive they completely change the brain chemistry.

[CupOCoffee]

I'm kind of surprised by the votes here. I almost want to post a poll with just the bathtub picture and ask the question:

 

"If this was the only bathroom in the house do you think CPS should remove the children?"

 

I just didn't think a house with a bathtub full of poop would even be up for discussion on if the children should remain there or not.

 

 

I have not finished reading all the responses, but as I've been reading I have been thinking exactly this! I was going to post this as MY response: "if there is feces and urine in the bathtub, where are people taking baths and showers?" I am glad someone FINALLY asked this question. I did not read the article, nor did I look at the bathroom pics. But I did vote on have CPS remove children from the filth that I *could* see. My mind was going "omg, if this is what we can see, I can't imagine what we can't see".

 

Disgusting and totally unsafe for children of any age. Did the article say if the children were filthy?

 

 

~coffee~

[Joker]

That was bad and most definitely more than messy. I've had periods where my house was 'messy' and that meant stuff flung everywhere and cluttered. In that house, you could see the food, dirt, and other nastiness on all the floors though. There is no excuse for that sitting for as long as it was obvious it had been there. I am not anywhere near a neat freak and my house isn't always ready for visitors but it has never looked like those photos.

[Jean in Newcastle]

That was bad and most definitely more than messy. I've had periods where my house was 'messy' and that meant stuff flung everywhere and cluttered. In that house, you could see the food, dirt, and other nastiness on all the floors though. There is no excuse for that sitting for as long as it was obvious it had been there. I am not anywhere near a neat freak and my house isn't always ready for visitors but it has never looked like those photos.

 

 

That was my thoughts too. At my worst with my fibro, I was only able to do "emergency mode" for years at a time. Emergency mode meant that I cleaned the kitchen daily, got meals some how (even if it meant take-out) on the table and cleaned the bathrooms once a week. Emergency mode meant that my floors only got vacuumed or mopped when dh couldn't take it any more because I couldn't do it. And it meant that like EL mentioned, my corners started to disappear to boxes of stuff that needed attending to "sometime" but weren't important enough to make it into emergency mode. I've been off of emergency mode for a year. My house is cleaner and some of the piles are disappearing but with schooling and every thing else in my life it is slow going. But at my worst, there was still a basic sanitary line that I didn't cross and dh wouldn't have crossed if I had been unable to even do that much.

[Joker]

 

That was my thoughts too. At my worst with my fibro, I was only able to do "emergency mode" for years at a time. Emergency mode meant that I cleaned the kitchen daily, got meals some how (even if it meant take-out) on the table and cleaned the bathrooms once a week. Emergency mode meant that my floors only got vacuumed or mopped when dh couldn't take it any more because I couldn't do it. And it meant that like EL mentioned, my corners started to disappear to boxes of stuff that needed attending to "sometime" but weren't important enough to make it into emergency mode. I've been off of emergency mode for a year. My house is cleaner and some of the piles are disappearing but with schooling and every thing else in my life it is slow going. But at my worst, there was still a basic sanitary line that I didn't cross and dh wouldn't have crossed if I had been unable to even do that much.

 

 

Yes, I agree. When I was pregnant and sick with youngest dd, the pictures we have of us inside our home seem so bad. Yet, they are nowhere near the level of nastiness in those pictures. Someone would always clean up dirt, food, and such from the floors! Things were never allowed to pile up to the extent that they did in those pictures because we knew it would be unsanitary.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I don't know how many caught the tail end of the artcle where it gave a neighbors comment about LOTS of people stopping by at night. drugs. those kids so need to be out of there.

 

One comment on the article from a local who grew up with the dad said he does meth and heroin. those kids need to be gone. I hope they weren't cooking meth in that house. (but it will probably be tested for it - there used to be alot of meth cooking in that part of washington). this isn't something that just some "help" for the parents will cure. they need major intervention with a sincere and deep desire to change to even have the remote possiblity of changing. some drugs are just so addictive they completely change the brain chemistry.

 

 

My thought was to wonder why the house was condemned? It was hard to tell through the clutter but the house itself looked fairly sound. But if there had been meth cooking in there then the house would be condemned.

[SKL]

No, I'm not worried about her carpets from 30 years ago. I'm worried about the attitude of allowing a vomiting pet to roam everynight and having a child clean the carpet is fine. I would have expected those carpets to have been ripped out 30+ years ago.

 

There are people today who have that same attitude of allowing the roaming animal, dirting the carpets human children are crawling around on, and don't think it's a big deal.

 

I would hope if you were aware of such a situation today - your attitude wouldn't be so flip.

 

 

Seriously? The dog was temporarily ill. She was actually just a big puppy, maybe about a year old. We didn't have a crate. When she was locked up in an enclosed room, she would rip apart whatever was in that room. We found this out when she ripped apart all the book bindings in the vestibule bookcase. We didn't have any habitable rooms that didn't have anything we didn't want ripped up.

 

Outdoors it was bitter cold and she was sick. Putting her outdoors overnight would likely have killed her.

 

And back to the crate idea - even had we had one - how would you like to be locked in a small box to vomit repeatedly on yourself?

 

Every day the hope was that someone would hear the dog whining and take her out the next time, or maybe she'd stop the puking (which she eventually did). Unfortunately I slept like a log, and never heard her. Can't speak for anyone else - they didn't have to clean it so maybe they just rolled over at the thought of going out in the extreme cold in the wee hours. (I had my suspicions!)

 

As for the carpet, I always attacked each puked-on area, after surface cleaning, with rag and a pot or two of hot, soapy water, followed by Lysol spray. This is why I remember those days so well. I was not a "child" but a 17yo in college (that's why I was the only family member who didn't have to rush out the door in the morning). I also have an iron stomach, but I credit the diarrhea incident with really galvanizing it, LOL. After the dog got better, we had the carpet professionally cleaned.

 

Ah, memories.

 

But no, that carpet is still there and my parents still live in that house. If you don't like it, don't visit them.

 

I can't believe I've finally had the opportunity to chronicle my dog puke saga from 29 years ago.

 

ETA: Oh, and there were no crawling babies on our floor. The youngest kid was 4 and she did not ever lick the carpet as far as I know.

 

ETA2: So I guess you don't believe in people ever having dogs live in houses. Every indoor dog has to be housebroken and that usually involves body waste on the floor at some point. For that matter, kids pee on carpets and furniture when they are potty training. Seems to me it's a part of life, and a carpet ought to be designed to withstand an accident followed by a cleaning.

[Mommyof4ks]

That is beyond disgusting. My house is often cluttered, and sometimes it might be more than a week between moppings, but seriously I would not even walk into a house like that one let alone live there.

[Guest]

That house is absolutely disgusting and I'm glad CPS intervened. My house is spotless compared to that. I feel like a really clean person after seeing that!

[aggieamy]

I'm working on a deadline right now so I have my dinner plate sitting down here at my desk. (Why am I on WTM instead of working on my project? I take the fifth!) I keep having these morbid fears that CPS is going to show up and take me to the bad mom jail for having dirty dishes scattered around my house. I think this thread has traumatized me.

[unsinkable]

 

 

Seriously? The dog was temporarily ill. She was actually just a big puppy, maybe about a year old. We didn't have a crate. When she was locked up in an enclosed room, she would rip apart whatever was in that room. We found this out when she ripped apart all the book bindings in the vestibule bookcase. We didn't have any habitable rooms that didn't have anything we didn't want ripped up.

 

Outdoors it was bitter cold and she was sick. Putting her outdoors overnight would likely have killed her.

 

And back to the crate idea - even had we had one - how would you like to be locked in a small box to vomit repeatedly on yourself?

 

Every day the hope was that someone would hear the dog whining and take her out the next time, or maybe she'd stop the puking (which she eventually did). Unfortunately I slept like a log, and never heard her. Can't speak for anyone else - they didn't have to clean it so maybe they just rolled over at the thought of going out in the extreme cold in the wee hours. (I had my suspicions!)

 

As for the carpet, I always attacked each puked-on area, after surface cleaning, with rag and a pot or two of hot, soapy water, followed by Lysol spray. This is why I remember those days so well. I was not a "child" but a 17yo in college (that's why I was the only family member who didn't have to rush out the door in the morning). I also have an iron stomach, but I credit the diarrhea incident with really galvanizing it, LOL. After the dog got better, we had the carpet professionally cleaned.

 

Ah, memories.

 

But no, that carpet is still there and my parents still live in that house. If you don't like it, don't visit them.

 

I can't believe I've finally had the opportunity to chronicle my dog puke saga from 29 years ago.

 

ETA: Oh, and there were no crawling babies on our floor. The youngest kid was 4 and she did not ever lick the carpet as far as I know.

 

ETA2: So I guess you don't believe in people ever having dogs live in houses. Every indoor dog has to be housebroken and that usually involves body waste on the floor at some point. For that matter, kids pee on carpets and furniture when they are potty training. Seems to me it's a part of life, and a carpet ought to be designed to withstand an accident followed by a cleaning.

 

 

Yeah! What you said! LOL!

 

I once shared the fact that I washed my family's dishes by hand from age 5 onward.

 

Someone told me that she was sure I must have caused my family to be sicker than they should have been because there was no way I could use hot enough water or get the dishes clean enough at that age and that I must have left germs on the everything.

 

Hard to believe what people get fixated on...

[Ohdanigirl]

Yuck!! I did not read the article. Even if the stuff on the floor is not fecal matter, that is not a situation any child should be living in.

[Heather in Neverland]

I'm a neat freak and would welcome the most critical MIL in the world to check my bathroom out at a moments notice so I'm going to be biased about the house. Consider that a disclaimer.

 

Gross. I can understand clutter and as I look out my office into DD's playroom I see that there's been a terrible explosion that has scattered Playmobil schrapnal all over the room. Oh wait. No, I guess the Playmobil people and animals are just on a camping trip upon further investigation. It's cluttered. There's a kid at home.

 

The things in the pictures that jumped out at me are:

 

There is no clean place for a child to sleep.

There is rotting food.

There is no hygenic place to consume food.

There is no place for a child to sit and play.

 

Based on the state of the house I doubt there is food available and clean clothing either.

 

I didn't read about the bathrooms but based on the kitchen ... I can't imagine.

 

ETA: Okay, saw the bathroom pictures. I think they're lucky the cop didn't pistol whip them for allowing children to live in those conditions.

 

 

I agree. Absolutely horrific.

 

I would not allow my child in that home for 30 seconds so I don't think any other child should be either.

[TheReader]

And vote based on the pictures ONLY, not on what it says in the article - which means you don't know what the brown spots on the floor are!

 

I didn't read the article, didn't even see it.

 

I voted based on having seen a house very nearly identical in real life; the clutter was so deep in these photos that kids couldn't get in/out of bed without climbing on stuff. There appeared to be large amounts of food crumbs on the floor, which makes me suspect at minimum a bug problem, at worst, a rodent problem as well. The mud or whatever on the floor, unless it had just happened in the moments before the photographer arrived, should have been cleaned up. Judging from the photos, at least one child is a toddler, maybe baby, so clean floor is a necessity type thing at that age when hands are still going in the mouth all the time. This goes for the mud/brown footprints and for the food crumbs.

 

Now, I am letting my past experience color my opinion, and thus am imagining that this home is sort of perpetually in that state, kids free to pick crumbs up off the carpet, difficult to find clean dishes, and just a level of clutter that makes life difficult to live because where can the kids play? there's no uncluttered floor space. And how does mom/dad react to the kids when living in that level of clutter/stress? All of that, and how I saw the answers to those questions play out in an IRL experience I had several years ago, plays into my vote.

 

I voted CPS should probably be involved/maybe be involved; whatever was right above definitely. And my house is not spotless, but pretty clean. Just don't photograph my youngest son's bedroom, except on Fridays when he's required to clean up. ;)

[ThisIsTheDay]

I didn't see the bathroom photos, but it concerns me that anyone would think this house is OK. It's one thing to live in it, be overwhelmed, and not be able to clean (surely a mental health reason), but to look at it from the outside and not see a serious problem? It makes me terribly sad for ALL who live there. I would be sad for a pet living there, for heaven's sake.

 

I hope those poor people get the help they need.

[Mommyfaithe]

That house was disgusting! That was not a new mess....or new yuck...that was an ongoing filth fest. I think maybe instead of pulling kids out of a home, the mom needs some housekeeping lessons and so do the kids....even a 2 year old can throw their dirty drawers in a hamper....YUCK!!!!