Messy rooms of teenagers

[Kteacher]

what's the worst you've seen? My 17 year old can trash his room in less than a half hour after it's been cleaned. I went in his room this afternoon, and noticed that it didn't have it's usual stale Doritos/dirty sock odor but smelled a little more ripe than usual. I told him to go in and clean his room..........you'll never guess what he found- a package of hamburger meat! He left it in his room "sometime" because he and his friends were planning on having a cookout. I am afraid to think what else is in there!!!

 

[powellrj]

I feel your pain...LOL before my DS left home, the things we use to find in his room..... He use to install car stereos for his friends and I would find car backseats in his room, not to mention the computers he use to buy from goodwill (before they stopped selling them) and would use the parts off of to build new ones.

 

[holycow]

eeeewwwww!! boy, I'll have to hug my son tonight!
I thought the dirty clothes on the floor was bad enough! haha!

Holycow

 

[Pongo69]

I feel your pain
My daughter is 15 and I swear as soon as her room is cleaned not an hour later her clothes are thrown across the bed, vanity, and dresser. Dh and I ask her is it that painful to walk from the BED to you Closet to hang up your clothes

She says it's a teen thing-well guess what I told her, It's a mom thing to snatch that phone out of your room and not give it back

 

[lsyorke]

I've solved the problem by closing the door!! If he chooses to live surrounded by empty soda bottles that's his choice(as long as no noxious fumes flow out into the main house) .

 

[sue1013]

I too close the door. Part of me can't wait for him to go away to school next year, just to be able to clean out that room!

 

[remyandhollandsmommy]

My cousin is 17 and when i went to sit on her floor to "visit", I found...A SUPER HOT CURLING IRON! I have a scar on my leg now, thanks to that little airhead. Although it is a good thing I "found" it or she could have burned their house to the ground!!

 

[Lynn CC]

Most teenagers love a clean room, they just don't love cleaning it!

I have to say my DS17 keeps things pretty tidy this past year!
He likes the whole house spotless and well maintained in every aspect of the word. He's always suggesting we do this and that to the house and yard.
He likes it looking nice when he has people over for dinner (he likes to show off his cooking skills too).

 

[grinningghost]

My DD's room should be quarantined. I swear, I can spend an entire day cleaning it and I haven't even scratched the surface. She throws away NOTHING. Not even tags from new clothes, I find the little plastic things all over the place.

She is a great kid overall, but that room is awful!

 

[Pooh's Pal]

Originally posted by sue1013
I too close the door. Part of me can't wait for him to go away to school next year, just to be able to clean out that room!

Can you imagne what their dorms will look like?! Gotta love those college housing forms they fill out: Are you neat? messy? A light sleeper? a morning person? a night owl?......How do they match them up? Do they put two messy people in ONE small room? OMG!
I just can't wait to see what a match my DD gets next fall!
And people tell me it's all different at college....yeah..we'll see!

 

[crz4mm2]

Keep the door closed and don't go in for any reason

Works for me. I shudder to think what could be hidden in there.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

My 2 teenagers' room are pretty bad. I just want them to keep a path to the window so I can open and close it.

 

[thinkerbell]

We moved into an apartment for 7 months between houses(less than a month to go--yahoo!!!). I only let my son bring the bare necessities with him, storing the rest--hoping that it would make it much easier to keep his room clean. Within a week his room looked just like his old one--I don't know how. Now we are going to have to go in and clean out AGAIN before moving to the new house. He is like someone else said---he keeps EVERYTHING. He will also go to college next year. On his application, it asked what kind of roommate he was looking for. He said ---NOT a neat freak. I don't think he will have a problem with that one, according to this thread.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

When DDs (15 and 13...they share a room ) finally cleaned their room recently (which is once again a disaster), they discovered the root of an odor...a bag of previously frozen peas, now rotted, that one of them had used to ice her aching knee after a soccer game. Ewww...

 

[MHopkins2]

Originally posted by grinningghost
My DD's room should be quarantined. I swear, I can spend an entire day cleaning it and I haven't even scratched the surface. She throws away NOTHING. Not even tags from new clothes, I find the little plastic things all over the place.

Stop cleaning it. Make her keep food and drinks cleaned up (so they don't bring bugs), and other than that, let her be as slobby as she wants to be. Keep the door closed so you can maintain your sanity. When she can't find her favorite shoes and can't wear her favorite shirt because it's wrinkled beyond all help, give zero sympathy or assistance. She'll figure it out.

My room was a DISASTER zone for a couple of years. Now I'm the biggest neat freak alive.

 

[msdznyduck]

Yeah, what's with the little plastic thingies, price tags, gum wrappers, that can't manage to find their way to the trash?
About a year ago, DD decided she wanted to re-arrange her furniture, as well as fit a desk in her room. Okay, first the cleaning. I swear she had no more room under her bed, and there was about a foot wide space or so, between her bed and the wall, that was filled with junk, clothes, stuffed animals, old papers from school. We cleaned everything! She wanted to get rid of her teddy bear borders on the wall, since she was 13 and felt it too babyish. Found a nice floral that matched the wallpaper. Well, that room had never been so clean. New comforter, sheets. She promised to keep it that way, ------------------The door to her room is closed again, since now it is back to the same way it was. I refuse to clean it. She can live in it that way if she wants. Just need to open the window to get air in, and close it when it rains. I figure if it doesn't bother her, and she is living in there, then it doesn't bother me, who only goes in occasionally, and looks from the door. I would probably break an ankle should I venture further in, or off the path to the window

 

[Cruise04]

Now I don't feel so bad about my dd's room. Hamburger meat - WOW!!!! And could he smell it too or he just ignored it??? Main thing with my dd's room is you can never find the floor.

 

[Jet88]

My DD is 13 and her room is exactly like all of the post before mine. My question is, do you let your teenager have friends over in their beyond messy room? I think it's embarrassing to have anyone see her room including her friends.

 

[rbuzzotta]

I close the door!! It has a musty smell from her cheerleading sneakers and if she can live with it..........so be it!! I tell her daily to clean her room only to have to hear her whine and come up wwwwith every excuse in the book as to why it is dirty. I give up..........the rest of my house is clean and that is all that matters. Sooner or later she will figure it out!!! (I hope!)

 

[Lynda Silk]

For those of you with older kids, does the "messy room" syndrome ever improve? Is it something that you overcome as you mature, and you're able to keep a neat house?

My kids have messy rooms (although we've never had hamburger meat.....that one wins 1st prize! LOL!) and I despair about what they're going to do when they have homes of their own. My DH and I are fairly neat people, not neat freaks but we like to keep things tidy. But the kids are oblivious to the mess! And I don't understand why they have garbage like candy wrappers, chip bags, etc on the floor! When I was a kid, we would never throw anything on the floor; everything went into a garbage can! I keep wondering how we have failed if we can't teach them to at least throw garbage in the garbage can!

I have great kids but this is one area that I'm soooo frustrated with!