Messy son

If you had taken in a lodger, not related to you, would you be checking his/her room for tidiness?

Introduce two rules.

1. No penicillin growing...therefore all plates, bottles, cups and food remains to be removed daily
2. Keep the door closed.

These were the rules I agreed on with my daughters when they were teenagers. Seemed to work most of the time.

I agree Vamp, my take too!
If he wishes to live in a semi-toxic bedroom then at least follow the 2 rules

I would go as far as not to have him live in the house, if he cant do better than that. And he would know I meant it too!

Nothing wrong with untidy.

Dirty is another matter altogether.

I tend to side with Farnorth and if untidy offends you, don't look. Kick him out? My god, what happened to maternal instinct?

Maternal instinct comes with mutual respect and understanding. I dont believe any mother should be trod on.
At 26, he is perfectly able to fend for himself.

Was he always untidy or did he learn it as uni?

It's his mess so, unless it's unhygienic, don't look. If he really does clean it himself once a week it can't be so bad and not really unhygienic. And, insist on no mess in the rest of the house!

If it was a lodger you could chuck him out! We mum's can be too soft (I probably would be!)

Plates, bottles and any old rubbish [are we talking sweet wrappers or car parts] for a whole week?
From a 26 year old?
Who has nothing else to do in the house at all?
No cooking, vacuuming, emptying the household bins etc etc .
Not in my house.
When kids come back for however long, they are expected to take a fully functioning adult role in the house.

Is he paying you a reasonable amount to live in your house? If so (and even if not, really) he's entitled to his privacy and you just shouldn't look in his room!

At least he cleans it once a week, which is more than a lot of young men do.

You lot have very low standards of what you expect!

Are you the same with your daughters?

I dont normally rant, but I can feel my emotions rising!

This isnt a teenager. He is 26.
Does he work?

And how is he going to be if he moves in with a poor girl?
She has got to do all the chores?
Or do they live in a glorious mess?
Or does he suddenly become domesticated?

Yes, I would be exactly the same with my daughter, if it was just her room that was untidy!

And you wouldnt or dont expect her to do any other chores around the house either?

I think he should keep it tidier. Certainly no unwashed crockery or
discarded drinks bottles. He is twenty six. You are providing him with a roof over his head as a kindness. It sounds like it is a very nice room too. It is part of your well looked after house.

He should get his act together, or move out. And you need to point that out to him.

I am in exactly the same position with my 25 year old son. When he first came back home he kept everything tidy but has soon slipped back to living like a teenager again. That said he does hoover eventually if i leave the hoover in his bedroom and does wash up for me sometimes. He will go back to the otherside of the world soon enough so in the scheme of things untidy ness is not the end of the world and I dont intend to fall out with him about something so relatively trivial. He is a lovely son really so its not worth falling out over in my opinion.

My super tidy son was always embarrassed to bring friends home cause I didn't keep things as tidy as he did . I had to phone his hall up at uni once and the man who was supervised it said [having been to see him earlier that day] 'isn't he tidy'.....

Ha ha. I dream of a son like that Tegan. 2 out of my 3 sons are untidy, the other one is not too bad. I brought them up the same way though. My brother has a super tidy son and a messy daughter. As i said previously though a bit of messyness is not worth falling out over. I just shut his bedroom door and try not to look.

Yes, soontobe my daughters were the same - and my son! The rules were that their bedrooms could look like a jumble sale but they were not allowed to mess up the rest of the house. They had other jobs to do in the house which they did fairly willingly.
The rules were also that they had to tidy and clean their rooms once a week; sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. As long as it remained confined to bedrooms I gave up on the nagging.

DD are both very fussy, clean and tidy in their own homes now, not so sure about DS so I have apologised to DIL and told her I did my best. He has a wife and two DD of his own to nag him now

ps we did decide not to change the bedroom carpets until they had all finally left home!

soontobe ^And how is he going to be if he moves in with a poor girl?
She has got to do all the chores?
Or do they live in a glorious mess?
Or does he suddenly become domesticated^

He does his fair share and DIL does hers, they seem to share it amicably. He is just not very tidy.

My son is happy to live in a cess pit and that's up to him. He keeps the door closed because he knows I don't like it.
I only had a tiny box room when I lived at home so I did have to be fairly tidy. However, I did paint the walls purple. Mum hated it but as she said "it's your room"
We all need a space to call our own.

They all revert to being teenagers when they come home anyway.

Just close the door - if that is his space, he can do what he will, a long as he is tidy in the rest of the house. I used to do this with my girls and lifted not a finger to tidy their rooms once they were teenagers. Their space - their problem. They are very tidy now!