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disengagement help needed :(

Stepbystep1969's picture

I have been slowly disengaging from my previous role as live in housekeeper.with benefits / room mate. Its early in the morning and im sitting here enjoying the peace and quit because everyone is asleep.

Hum,,, I been looking around this place it now looks like a garbage dump,,, I just walked out in the kitchen and pushed all the dishes and mess to one side. shooed away the flies , Cleaned a coffee cup , made myself a coffee, and took a second glance at the garbage over flowing onto the floor. 

Walked into the bathroom to see sd hair all over the sink, her make up smeared all over the sink counter, and the garbage over flowing on the floor. ( other nasty things in the garbage we wont go into )

My house looks like a scene from the Exorcist movie. Why? She has a ginny pig in her room and its living in a cage fill of shit because she wont clean it , the dishes are all over the floor with decaying molded food on them , and the entire room is filled with flies. Of course my house is filled with flies now, ( all over the bathroom, kitchen, living room it is totally disquisting ) I am sitting here with my hand over my coffee cup that is how bad it is ,,:(

He lets the dishes go for a few days and then he cleans them. ( not helping with the fly situation and im not cleaning up after them so lord of the flies he can be ,,,ugh Sad ..) 

Had a talk to him and he knows what the problem is but i guess we are gonna go by raid and that will fix it,, Im like ,, be easier for you just to grow a set of balls and that would fix it faster. or better yet,, go into sd room and pick your balls up because im sure they are hanging on her shelf in there.

This is driving me crazy I have never seen such a disguisting little pig as his 16 year old daughter. she hasnt washed her cloths in a month and wears dirty ones. her room smells like an outhouse. Her sheets on her bed are stained with blood. should i just drop her off at the zoo for she can live in her habitat? 

I know im suppost to disengage but do i really have to live in a filty house because neither of them will get off there asses.

Is there someone out there with any tips for me because I really need some suggestions on how to not cave and clean up this pig pen ? thanks for taken the time to read this post . 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Stepbystep1969's picture

I would gladly do all you have suggested ...I'm sure there be a major fight if I did ...                                                                                                                   I hear you ...I'm sorry you had to deal with the crap I'm going threw now ):                                                                                                                                 shit wound really hit the fan here if I started tossing princesses stuff in the trash, making her eat from paper plates , or getting rid of her Ginny pig ...Ugh ...He doesn't have the money to pay for a maid ..hum...I'd love to do all the things suggested ...it be world war three here if I did 

                                                                                                    

Stepbystep1969's picture

Should go to the pet store and but dead mice...what they feed snakes...toss a few on her bed and on the dirty dishes lol 

dysfunctionally_blended's picture

Don't live in filth! There is a way to be disengaged but be smart Smile

1. Paper plates and cups. But don't just demand their use, hide everything else. Pack it up and store it. 

2. The main living area. Don't allow the slob to muck it up. Take back your space. If she begins to congregate, chase her back into their room.. Turn up the TV. Play loud music she hates. Sing to yourself. That way there is no chance for her to leave her shit around. And if she does toss it back into her sty of a room.

3. Bathroom. Take everything out but the essentials. One towel. Not extras. Toothbrush. Everything else toss into the sty of her room. 

4. Her room and clothes. Who cares. Her problem. Spray in front of the door for bugs. One day she will leave and you can gut the room!

5. Master bedroom, off limits period. It is your sanctuary.

Don't allow this child to push your limits. And if daddy gets pissed oh well. He can go live in the sty with her! 

tog redux's picture

I had the cleanliness stress early on in my marriage. DH is a messy person, and I knew that going in, but I didn't really know how hard it would be to adjust to.

SS wasn't really the problem, yes, his room looked like a bomb went off in it, but I just shut his door, who cares. As a young boy, he didn't tend to muck up the bathroom, he had good aim and never left his clothes or towel in there.

But things like dishes - DH is also a binge dish washer, he'd say, "leave them, I'll get to them," but I can't stand a counter piled with dishes. Nothing worse for me than trying to make a cup of coffee with a sink full of dirty dishes, it just ruins my whole day.

I realized at some point that if I wanted sanity, a happy marriage, and a house I could live in, I'd have to do it myself.

The cleaner person tends to believe their way is the "proper" way to keep a house and everyone else should fall in line, but that's not really fair to the others, who may not give two shits about a clean house.

So now, I keep up on the dishes so my kitchen is reasonably clean, I keep the living room, bathroom and our bedroom clean. DH's office is a hot mess, as is his workshop and the garage, but I don't care about those.  SS no longer comes over, so he's a non-factor.

In your situation, I'd clean the kitchen, get the plates and other crap out of SD's room, clean the guinea pig cage because I won't be a party to animal abuse, then I'd close her door and let the rest stay there.  I'd also clean the bathroom as other people's filth there is gross.

Then I'd keep any other rooms clean that I want clean - throw her crap in her room if she leaves it out.

Really - it's much easier than living in filth and hoping they will catch on - they won't. And for me, it was better than fighting over it, losing my marriage, or paying for a maid.

But you decide what you can live with.

 

notasm3's picture

I've been with DH for almost a decade - but just recently learned what a slob he is.  I always cleaned up as I cooked (he also cooks) and ran the dishwasher, unloaded it and started each day with a clean kitchen.  I have what I hope is a temporary medical issue that has me in a wheelchair (hard to do much when confined to a chair).  DH is one of those people who leaves everything in the sink until there is no room, then he unloads the dishwasher, runs it, leaves it full and starts filling up the sink again.  How did I not know this?

Everytime I start to do anything in the kitchen he says "stop I'll take care of it" - but his "taking care of it" is so different from mine. He's the same way with laundry.  I always did a load when there was a load to wash.  He waits until there are 10 loads and then washes all night. 

To his credit - DH now is doing all of the cooking, all of the cleaning, all of the laundry, drives me to every appointment and social function, etc.  He waits on me hand and foot.  Without one word of complaint.  All of my friends think he is a saint.  And he is.  But we still have very different standards of household cleanliness.  

DH has been gone for a week.  I've been cleaning dust bunnies from behind things while rolling in my chair (not easy) - but at least my house is cleaner.  DH would insist that  I stop if he were here - but then he would do a pitiful job of sweeping down the middle of the floor.

But at least there are no skid marks in my home.

Stepbystep1969's picture

Thank you all for the awesome advice . So much stress over something so easy to fix...):..just pure laziness.  

tog redux's picture

Again, I don't know if it's laziness, so much as them not valuing cleanliness as much as you do.

We have a neighbor whose house and yard is spotless. I once asked if he didn't just want to relax sometimes instead of doing chores and he said, "chores ARE relaxing to me."  I had a lightbulb moment at that point - people who are super clean often LIKE to clean.  The rest of us don't and don't value it.

Now, that's not to say that I don't think a certain amount of household work HAS to be done - I do. But it might not be to my standards (or the guy across the street's).  My DH doesn't care about mess. He doesn't want bugs or neglected animals, but he doesn't care about mess or 4 days worth of dirty dishes, and I do.

Kes's picture

No matter how much I loved a man, I wouldn't be able to live in such disgusting conditions as you describe - I just couldn't.  I'd move out and leave them to it.   Just reading your OP made me heave.   

TrueNorth77's picture

I wouldn’t clean these things myself. Hell no. As you said, you’re not a maid, and there are 2 other people perfectly capable of cleaning up after themselves. But I would insist that SD and DH be responsible for cleaning these areas daily/bi-weekly/weekly, whatever is most logical, and then throw a fit to DH if they didn’t. When i moved in we set chores for skids (at my insistence) and if they don’t do them I ask my SO, Did skids do their chores today? Can you tell them to, please? And he does. He knows it’s easier to make skids do chores than it is dealing with a p*ssed-off Step-girlfriend when the house is disgusting.

tog redux's picture

Yeah - I think everyone has to figure out what works for them.

I don't want that constant conflict, I'd rather just do it myself - you are OK with the conflict, but not with doing it yourself, Kes would move out entirely!

Either way, the OP has to figure out her method, because living with it now isn't an option.

STaround's picture

I never accepted responsiblity for my Dh's kids.   I still feel I have the right to a clean house, I can tell them, no shoes in living room.  I don't reveiw their homework.  I distinguish between house rules (applicable to all in the house) and kid rules (determined by parent, relating primarily to school, health).   I have the right to tell anyone in my house, clean the bathroom after you use it (assumng the bathroom is shared, to any extent).   If stepkid has his own room, all I say is any food or food related products must be taken back to the kitchen.  If the room is only the stepkids for X days, he must strip the bed, or whatever, but I leave it to DH to explain the rules. 

elkclan's picture

My son is the one who will leave dishes in his room. Food is banned from the upstairs for him and for any other child. I don't bring food upstairs either. Food is eaten only in dining room. Period. (We dont have an eat-in kitchen)

SSs didnt know this and got freaked out - they're pretty good kids but had already broken the rule. I'm like, you didn't know, but now you do - no one is in trouble for a rule they didn't know about. . Frankly BS shoudl have told them, but it's not his job to do that and I reckon he thought maybe I'd loosen up with othr kids around. Wrong BS. Wrong. 

Cover1W's picture

You have to decide what you can live with. 

I have been there. DH is messy (but getting better!) and SD15 a gross person. Filthy sheets, never did laundry (sometimes her personal stench made me gag), rotting food in her room, never took out trash. I would never allow her to have an animal, ever.

So what I did was decide what I could live with.* I need a clean kitchen and living area. 

So if kitchen was filthy I wouldn't cook. Nothing. No dinner if it was my turn. If it wasn't over the top I would clean up, and everything I would put into a box in the pantry. If they don't care then they must not need it. I also would set the dinner table on top of anything left on it. And if I cook I don't clean. 

Things left over 24 hrs in living room: trash, donation bag or put away in a place I know about. I wouldn't get rid of a laptop or anything like that but socks, sweatshirt, books, pens, paper, sunglasses, plates, etc., gone. They must not care about or need them.

Her room I didn't touch unless it was so awful I could smell it in the hallway. Then I would trash bag it. I don't want bugs or vermin in my home. DH hates that but I don't care. Messy is different from filth and messy I can tolerate, but not mold and bodily fluids dried up. 

I also hired someone to clean the SDs bathroom once a month (only one room, affordable) and charge it ti DH. We had plenty of talks before this about SDs being responsible for their space when we moved in. He never followed through so of course it fell on me. It's also our guest bath so needed to be clean. 

I hired a house cleaner a year ago to clean main living areas every other month (again more affordable than monthly). This has been a huge relief. I ended up paying for this myself unless things are out of control, then DH chips in. 

This has saved my sanity! 

I think people have various degees of what they can live with, but everyone should moderate. The clean person shouldn't be the only one to have to accept a dirty house, or a level of mess...messy people should learn to pick up and help the cleaner person in exchange. 

I personally think it's just rude and inconsiderate to leave messes in the way of other people. It says to me that you don't care if someone else is inconvenienced. 

BTW: I never discussed my tactic with DH but for the bagging of OSDs room. I gave warning that if things were not better I would do it my way and that was it. 

ndc's picture

This sounds like a kid who is not going to launch, so unless you're prepared to either be the maid or live in squalor for quite some time, you may want to work on your exit plan.  Is there any way BM will take her back or your husband will parent her?

Stepbystep1969's picture

Thank you guys for all the tips                                                                                                                           soon as he got up the fun began. I looked at him and said ...I don't care what Sd does in her room ...that is her business...when it comes into my living space then I'm going to make it my business...                                                                                                                                                             Told him to go into her room clean the cage and pick up all the dishes.  If he is not going to make her do it ...then he does it ...if he doesn't do it ...I will ...and everything will be tossed in the garbage ...she will come home to her Ginny pig. Being gone and give to another little girl that will look after it .....                                                                                                                                                       As usual, poor Sd lived with her pig mother and doesn't know any better...denial ...all the way ...Told him I am not working 50 hours a week then have to come home to do my second job as the maid .....he doesn't work he retired at 55...he's home all day ...                                                                                                                                                       The bm? ( bowel movement ) soon as the kid moved in here she quickly went out and got a one bedroom apartment ...Oh no room for Sd now ...hum...her boyfriend couldn't stand the kid, either                                                                                                                                                                       did I know what I was getting into ? Not really ...when I meet him I lived on my own ...I knew he had a teenage kid ...He also made it clear she would never live with him...just got her every second weekend...true to his word for a long time that is how it went ...he's house was not tidy but it wasn't a pig pen either  ...I moved in and it soon became a cozy clean home ...when Sd came it was just on the weekends ...she was a pig but I only had to pick up after her every other weekend ...I could handle that ....can't now that she lives here ):