Monday, July 20, 2009

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad House

Oooh, Josie is sooooooo mad at me!

While she was at camp today, I vaccumed the house, including her room. For the second time in as many attempts, the vacuum clogged to the point where I had to bring the hose downstairs and suck it out with the little shop vac we have in the basement due to the incredible amount of $hit on her floor. I was PISSED, and decided that it was high time to do what I've been threatening to do for a few weeks now, but haven't had the time for.

I threw out everything on her floor.

I threw out paper, plastic boxes with junk and/or scarves inside, random socks, and a wooden puzzle figurine. I dumped all the bowls and cups that she's been hoarding in her room on her bed. All the dirty, doggy-haired clothes I found were thrown on there, too.

I was on a roll.

I swept her desktop workspace clean, too. Away went piles of junk, beads, embroidery floss, and doo-dads. Anything even remotely tidy stayed. Everything else is gone.

Then I moved on to her trash. Lest you think I'm exaggerating about the grossness of her room, let me tell you that her trash was FULL, and on the bottom was a pullup from when my niece spent the night here in. JUNE.

Finally went the overflowing recycle bin. This may not sound like much, but Miss Thing is notorious for hiding things in there. Her (non-recycleable) binder for school was in there under a stack papers, along with a bunch of drawings that I'm pretty sure she was intending to keep.

By the end, I had three kitchen bags full of trash, plus an entire paper bin of recycling.

I told her that anything that's missing that she needs, for instance a binder for school, will have to be replaced with her own money, because I am not responsible for things that she deemed to be trash.

This is not the first time I've done this, but it's been a long time. I think she was four or five the last time; she used to hide huge piles of stuff in gift bags in her closet and then deem her room 'clean'. She lost some clothes, my little ponies, and barbies that way when she didn't think I would really throw the bags away if they continued to be catch-alls.

So, she's currently crawling under her bed, getting the nasty crap I wasn't going to go after., and I'm unpopular. But, my vacuum will not clog up the next time I go in there, by god! If this doesn't send the proper message, the next time, I'm going to dump the trash in the middle of the room so it can mix with the rest of the floor garbage, and she'll have to deal with it *all* herself immediately.

Bwah ha ha ha ha!

10 comments:

Hotch Potchery said...

Good for you! My kids are both slobs because I never, ever followed through on my threats to throw everything away...and I think they are going to head into adulthood as slobs.

I can tell my son is packing/cleaning his room...my dish cabinet is full again.

Kristi said...

i've been threatening to do this to Kaeli for weeks, but haven't followed through...i think you've just inspired me to pick up some extra trash bags on the way home from work today

AndreAnna said...

I was never messy but my sister and I shared a room and it's hard to see whose mess is whose. So when our room would get our of control, my mother would literally use her arm and sweep everything from the dressers onto the floor. She'd overturn drawers and use a broom to pull the stuff from under the bed. Then she'd make it into one big pile and neither one of us could come out until it was clean.

Only when I moved into my own place and she saw how clean it was and how messy her house still was with my sister living there did she feel bad. :)

Nowheymama said...

Wow. I love the idea, but I don't think I have the guts!

My bracelet arrived yesterday, and I wore it last night. I'll post about it soon. Thank you!!!

Anonymous said...

Woo hoo for you! I was a slob of a kid and I know I drove my mother crazy. If she had done what you just did, I would have learned my lesson.

Stimey said...

Ooooooh! You're brave! Good for you.

Kristin.... said...

You rock. I threaten, and have taken some things away from M, but never the whole room. I want to do the whole room though.....

creative kerfuffle said...

wow--you are brave! i threaten stuff like that all the time but also do not follow through. i thought, after our big de-cluttering cleaning and then painting their rooms, that they'd be inspired to keep them clean. it hasn't worked. they are PIGS!

Kelsey said...

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I have done and will continue to do w/ Harper. Once in a while it is good to remind them that you mean business. Good for you!

{sue} said...

Good for you! I keep cleaning my kids' rooms but I know I'm not doing them any favors because they are not learning responsibility themselves. I bet she will keep it clean now!