Many of you that have been reading me know I live with my mother ... I've lived here for almost two years ... one of the many problems with that is that my mom is a hoarder ... she isn't at the level that the people you see on the shows are ... there aren't dead animals ... or at least there aren't any missing animals so I assume there aren't ... and she isn't accumulating more stuff by going to garage sales or digging through people's trash cans or other things you see in the extreme cases they showcase for entertainment ... but she doesn't get rid of anything ... so here we go ...
This is a picture of my mom's/our dining room ... the backpacks up front do belong to my children ... but obviously there is much more than that ...
This is my mom's/our living room ... and this is cleaner than it usually is .. usually we can't even sit on the sofas ... my kids contribute to the mess ... I don't deny that ... but I think they just don't know where to put things ... the next three pictures are all of the kitchen ...
So ... those of you that read my Hot Tuna post ... this is another reason I have issues ... I don't cook in my mom's house unless I have to ... I cook at the Lemon Man's house ... I buy frozen meals for my kids at my mom's house ... because it is impossible for me to cook in that kitchen ...
The inevitable question is why don't I clean it myself ... the answer is I have ... many times in the last two years ... the last time my kids and I cleaned up as much of the living room as my mom would let us ... this was the result ...
We left for the night ... we came back the next day ... and it looked as if we hadn't done anything to it ...
I have tried ... she blames us ... she says the mess is my kids ... me ... the fact that we live here ... but her house was a big mess before we moved in ... she used to throw a lot down into the basement (where I live now) ... in fact a few months before I moved in the stairwell to the basement was so full that you couldn't get down the stairs ... and her garage which was another place to put her stuff is full of my storage for when I move out ... so in that way I guess we contributed ... but we always had a messy house when I was a kid ... too much stuff ... not a place for everything ... and neither of my parents throws anything away ... when my mom was a kid her room used to have to pass white glove inspections on Sunday afternoons ... my grandparents' house was immaculate ... I had to make my bed before I was allowed to eat breakfast ... and clean up all my toys, dirty clothes, etc., before I was allowed to have dinner ... my grandparents were the opposite of my mother and maybe that's why she is the way she is ... my dad cited it as one of the reasons he cheated on her (not that I think in any way shape or form that was a valid reason for cheating, but he did) ... which led to their divorce ... I don't know what to do ... honestly ... I don't ... I have tried cleaning it for her ... but she messes it up faster than anyone can stay on top of it ... it's a very hard thing to live with ... and the easy route is to give up ...
