Vocal Voices

I'm going on strike. I mean it - I am going on strike.

I am so sick of no one else seeming to be capable of picking things up and putting them away that for the next week I refuse to pick anything up belonging to anyone else! It will drive me to the edge but I am going to do it.

No one ever puts their pots in the dishwasher. The girls and Mick just leave them on the side because "they don't know if the stuff in the dishwasher is clean or dirty". No one ever cleans up after themselves if they have made a sandwich. They just leave the stuff on the side and expect the cleaning up fairy to call.

No one puts their shoes away - I seem to go round picking them up constantly.

No one seems able to pick their clothes up off the floor (and this includes Mick. His "half" of our bedroom looks like a teenager lives there. All the freshly laundered and ironed clothes that I put on the bed for him to put away - I refused a long time ago to put them away myself - just get dumped on a chair until the next pile of clothes comes along and he dumps them on top of them).

No one seems capable to putting their dirty clothes straight into the washing baskets (of which there are ample - one in the bathroom and one in each bedroom), they feel the need to leave them lying around on the floor for a few days first, unless the cleaning up fairy calls.

No one seems capable of carrying things from the bottom of the stairs - I put little piles of things at the bottom of the stairs to be taken up to respective bedrooms and muggins ends up taking them up.

So other than picking up after the dog I am not going to pick anything up that does not belong to me. I will remind everyone to put their sandwich boxes out for washing just once each day - if they aren't there then I won't be making sandwiches. If the washing doesn't make it to the washing basket, then I won't wash it.

It will drive me mad to see things just lying around but I am going to try my hardest to only pick up after myself. Am not sure what will happen on Sunday when my parents are coming for lunch - I may cave in and pick stuff up on Sunday morning but my point will, hopefully be made.

Although I do hope someone actually notices that I am making this stand!!!!!!!!!!

Might take more than a week, maybe a month or more. But Promise me when they have no more clean clothes to wear to school and work you say I didn't feel like washing them, or, everything in the basket got washed.

You need to point put the mess though as it sounds like they already exist with blinkers on their eyes. (I know I do and can often walk around a messy house and honestly not see any of it)

I've been using some of the flylady ideas like her control journal. It's definitely helped hubby with helping out as he can look at the daily list and see what still needs doing. I have the list in one of those clear plastic pockets and then cross off things with a whiteboard marker.

The kids love the things like the tidy up bingo where we pick a room name out of the jar and spend 5mins sizzling around that room tidying it up.


If they don't want to stack dishes in the dishwasher, how about decommissioning it and make them (not you) do all the dishes by hand each night after dinner. No confusion then.

I'm sure I will be having exactly the same moan myself in about 5 or less years.

Hang in there. It's an important message for them to learn.

think you live in a normal household
good luck
nobody will notice

Men and most kids just don't 'see' the mess, rather than actively ignoring it I think. That is no excuse though, you just need to keep nagging. I do I never go 'looking' for washing though - if it ain't in the hamper or in the machine itself waiting then it doesn't get washed - as B found the other day when she ran out of clean jeans and had to wear her trackies

Weka those are great ideas, but require being an organised person who is prepared to stick at it - never been my forte I'm afraid Funnily enough I thought of the Flylady and your posts about her a while back, the other day when I was bleaching my sink.................

Good luck Debih hope it works!!

I dont want to moan about Tim because he really has been a trooper this week, but he is another grown up teenager. Clothes where he drops them, towels left on the bed, on the floor, tea bags in the sink, washing up in the sink which is next to the dishwasher etc. I sometimes think about doing what you are, but I am always scared someone will call round

God I must be a right ogre as I just wouldn't tolerate this.

Ally...off to trim her Hitleretta moustache.

I have had a lovely afternoon. Pottering in the kitchen making sausage rolls and cheese nibbles to take to my meeting tonight and then lying on the sofa watching tv.

Dinner? What dinner? I'm not hungry - I've been eating cheese nibbles.

Back to the sofa then.

I bet that went down well.



Hubby ran out of underwire today, guess who hung some washing out today. In his words "I had an invested interest"

We will just quietly ignore the fact that I'm behind in the washing due to A) the weather, and B) grumpy moos behaviour and having to constantly referee for the last 2 weeks to stop limbs being lost.