Teens bedroom is a health hazard but teen won't clean it. CPS breathing down my neck. Wtd?

[Anonymous]

I'm a single mom to four. My three other kids are perfectly healthy and no concern. My teen however has a lot of issues.

She will not keep her room clean ever. Under any circumstances. There is rotting food, bugs, clothes everywhere. Her room makes me feel physically ill to walk into.

She herself is very clean so I don't really understand it.

I go in monthly and scrub it down. I struggle to do it more than that.

Unfortunately she also isn't embarrassed and invited a friend over who in turn told her parents who then reported it to CPS. I'm assuming there may have been other reports.

Last week I had a social worker ask to look around. She saw my daughters room and told me it was a hazard to her health and it needs to be cleaned. Basically they'll continue checking in to make sure it's suitable. I tried explaining my daughters behaviour but all she said was it is my "duty of care".

I cleaned it immediately after. Within a week it was full of shit again. I had to call in sick at work to clean it again.

Her room is awful again and I got a call saying they're stopping by on Monday. I plan on cleaning it again on Sunday.

I don't know what to say to them to make them understand that I'm trying but I just can't get to her. She is in therapy (where she just sits in silence), I've sent her to weekend boot camps, I've offered to do it with her, I've taken things away - she tells me she hates me but thats it.

My youngest is sobbing every night because she thinks CPS is going to take her away. She's back in my bed because she won't sleep elsewhere.

What can I say or do here? My oldest keeps telling me to send her to their dads (he is the same with mess, hence me leaving him) but I feel like that's condoning her.

[Anonymous]

Is she on medication?

[Anonymous]

What? Her friend’s parents called CPS for a dirty room?

[Anonymous]

Send her to her dad's if you can't get through to her, OP. Don't put your other kids at risk. Is he willing to take her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What? Her friend’s parents called CPS for a dirty room?

Sounds like it’s really bad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Send her to her dad's if you can't get through to her, OP. Don't put your other kids at risk. Is he willing to take her?

Do not assume there may be a dad

[Anonymous]

What consequences have you tried, OP?

For ex, turn off wifi and confiscate her phone until room is kept in order and clean.

How are things going for her at school?

My guess is CPS is trying to work with you if they are announcing visits rather than just showing up.

What diagnoses do DD and ex have? Bipolar? Autism? ADD?

Have you tried getting rid of a lot of stuff or putting it in storage to make it more manageable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send her to her dad's if you can't get through to her, OP. Don't put your other kids at risk. Is he willing to take her?

Do not assume there may be a dad

Read OP's posts. She left him bc he is similar to oldest DD. Maybe mental illness, executive function issues, drug use, or combo. Kid wants to go to dad's. Let her for the sake of the younger kids.

[Anonymous]

How old is she? What does her therapist think is the barrier to keeping her room habitable? Any mental health or developmental disability? Hard to offer advice without knowing those things.

[Anonymous]

I'd drug test her, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What? Her friend’s parents called CPS for a dirty room?

It’s a hoarders room. You have to start by removing almost everything from her room when she’s not home. She should only have a bed, a bureau with a week’s worth of clothes and that’s it. Don’t buy any food that she would want to bring into her room. No snack food. Every night you would need to look around the room. It would be easy without junk in there. This type of hoarding can be a type of mental illness which is hard to stop.

[Anonymous]

She will not keep her room clean ever. Under any circumstances. There is rotting food, bugs, clothes everywhere. Her room makes me feel physically ill to walk into.

I'd take everything out. Give her a set of clothes every day. No food in room, just a bed. Take the door off if you have to. Put it all in storage bins for now. Get an exterminator.

This is mental illness and possibly addiction.

If her dad will take her, save the other 3. They are at risk now that CPS is visiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What? Her friend’s parents called CPS for a dirty room?

It’s a hoarders room. You have to start by removing almost everything from her room when she’s not home. She should only have a bed, a bureau with a week’s worth of clothes and that’s it. Don’t buy any food that she would want to bring into her room. No snack food. Every night you would need to look around the room. It would be easy without junk in there. This type of hoarding can be a type of mental illness which is hard to stop.

This. Stop it up stream, OP. Get an exterminator. No food in room. Hoarders live like this but so do the mentally ill and addicts.

She needs a psychiatric eval and a different therapist.

[Anonymous]

https://www.medicaldaily.com/signs-teen-hoarding-may-be-more-difficult-spot-heres-what-look-281718

[Anonymous]

She probably has an ADHD/ASD profile, OP. My husband and son have that profile and also have hoarding/non-cleaning tendencies. They shower diligently, but can live in mess and filth without seeing it, and when asked to clean, don't even know where to begin and don't want to trash anything in case they could use it someday.

It's very hard to address, even with therapy and ADHD stimulants. Especially if she's contrary as a teen.

So for the moment, to get CPS off your back, you get rid of everything she doesn't truly need, and lock it away somewhere (you might need to send her away to her father's for the weekend while you do that). If you're on speaking terms with her father, who may live like this too but not want this for his daughter, he could perhaps tell her you're doing this for her own good.

She's going to go berserk! She might start a physical fight or run away. But this is the consequence for making you do the work. You show her a picture of her stuff, to prove you haven't trashed it, and tell her she can have her stuff back little by little if she can learn some cleaning routines.

Make a chart with a schedule. Every day she needs to do something about her nearly empty room (that she couldn't do with everything on the floor). She vacuums. She mops. She dusts. She arranges the clothes you kept and the school things she needs. This is easy when it's practically empty, but it teaches her what those tasks are. The hardest part is noticing clutter and sorting it. She might never be able to do that to normal standards.

I did this with my son in high school, and he was perfectly happy with no stuff at all beyond the basics. I taught him to clean, but he can't easily sort. He's now in college and he proudly vacuums his room, but it's still hard to get him to scrub his bathroom and dust his room, or pick things up off the floor. I realize that this is how many college guys are like, but in my son's case, with his autism and ADHD, he won't ever get better unless he's constantly reminded and explicitly taught how to clean and tidy. And even then, the sorting hits his ADHD/ASD weakness in a major way and he's probably never going to get it right.

My ADHD/ASD husband was never taught this as a child, and is a lost cause entirely. He hoards in our basement, and my only rule is that it doesn't encroach anywhere else, or else I throw it out. We've had MAJOR fights about this, and it's our compromise.

Best of luck.