Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was me when I was your daughter's age. I remember once when we were out of town, our alarm system was triggered and the police came and they called my parents and told them one room had been "ransacked." It hadn't -- that was just my room. I had unrecognized/untreated ADD. I literally could not clean it. My mother would stand over me yelling, and I could not do it -- I didn't have the executive function to do it and felt overwhelmed.

I did hate my room; the cluttered space cluttered my brain even more. My apartment was like this much of the time in my early 20s. Somehow in my 30s, I got better at keeping my space livable, and I'm not even sure how it happened. Having a lot more space helps. Having a DH that helps me put things away helps.

At your daughter's age I could have used a lot of help. Given what you have posted, it looks like you are madly cleaning it all for her when it is out of control. I'm trying to think of what might have helped me, and I think getting support every day is it. If you have a good relationship with her (but it sounds like maybe it's challenging?) you could spend time together each night ordering things a bit. Set a timer for 15 mins and work together. If she won't respond well to you working with her, set a goal (all of the clean clothes folded, or all of the dishes taken to the kitchen, or whatever) and give her the 15 min timer for herself, and then when it is over she gets a reward. She can make a list of little rewards to choose from and then you can give them when she is done. But it should be clear that she can't skip it just because she doesn't care about the reward that night. You need to make it clear -- without anger and without shaming her -- that the state of her room has literally put the family in jeopardy, and that it has to be addressed as a family.

Good luck. I feel for her. It was so hard. I look back at my teenage self in that room piled with crap, and I want to go hug her and tell her it will be alright.

I'm this PP, and I just want to add that a lot of the posts here are about hoarding. My room as a teenager was a disaster, like a tornado went through it, not because of hoarding at all, it was just ADD and the resulting inability to organize things. Even now I can scrub the bathroom, dust everywhere, vacuum, stuff like that -- but it is almost impossible for me to fold and put my clothes away. Even putting dishes away from the dishwasher is challenging enough that I'd rather spend an hour cleaning the rest of the kitchen than the 5 minutes it takes to put dishes away. It's hard to explain to people who don't have this problem. But for me, I had piles of clothes all over the floor because I had a lot of clothes and couldn't pick them up and organize them -- not because I was hoarding.

Not saying your DD doesn't have hoarding tendencies, I'm just saying that the PPs here jumping to that conclusion are not necessarily right.

To the PP whose son is vacuuming his room at college, my eyes welled up with tears when I read that. I don't even know him and I'm so proud of him and happy for him. Good for you for supporting him and teaching him to take care of his space. I wish I'd had that support.

Anonymous wrote: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 wrote:This was me when I was your daughter's age. I remember once when we were out of town, our alarm system was triggered and the police came and they called my parents and told them one room had been "ransacked." It hadn't -- that was just my room. I had unrecognized/untreated ADD. I literally could not clean it. My mother would stand over me yelling, and I could not do it -- I didn't have the executive function to do it and felt overwhelmed.

I did hate my room; the cluttered space cluttered my brain even more. My apartment was like this much of the time in my early 20s. Somehow in my 30s, I got better at keeping my space livable, and I'm not even sure how it happened. Having a lot more space helps. Having a DH that helps me put things away helps.

At your daughter's age I could have used a lot of help. Given what you have posted, it looks like you are madly cleaning it all for her when it is out of control. I'm trying to think of what might have helped me, and I think getting support every day is it. If you have a good relationship with her (but it sounds like maybe it's challenging?) you could spend time together each night ordering things a bit. Set a timer for 15 mins and work together. If she won't respond well to you working with her, set a goal (all of the clean clothes folded, or all of the dishes taken to the kitchen, or whatever) and give her the 15 min timer for herself, and then when it is over she gets a reward. She can make a list of little rewards to choose from and then you can give them when she is done. But it should be clear that she can't skip it just because she doesn't care about the reward that night. You need to make it clear -- without anger and without shaming her -- that the state of her room has literally put the family in jeopardy, and that it has to be addressed as a family.

Good luck. I feel for her. It was so hard. I look back at my teenage self in that room piled with crap, and I want to go hug her and tell her it will be alright.

Anonymous wrote:

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.