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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Adult = stuff like recognizing that hair in the shower drain will clog eventually and actually using the catcher/emptying it rather than simply removing it out of short term convenience. Immature 19yo has never had to clean up after themselves in a meaningful way and whines 3 months later that the shower doesn’t drain after it’s reached a crisis level. Also likes to blow dry hair and never notices stray hairs grossly stuck to the walls. Seriously though. The awareness and ability to clean up after yourself is much better in a slightly older candidate who has lived independently before...[/quote] OP here and even a mature girl might not care about hair on the walls, but the drain thing, exactly. Solving her own problems like changing a lightbulb when it blows out, at least having an understanding of what maintenance issues her car might have and mentioning them to us, emptying the lint catch in the washer if it's not drying her clothes (my current AP said when she got here she's never done her own laundry; it never occurred to me to ask because I did mine starting at 11...). I get that there might be APs who don't need help with this, and there might be older APs who suck at adulthood, but I'm just trying to improve my odds here. [/quote] PP. We tell APs they are responsible for cleaning the hall bath because only AP and kids use it. There's a detailed checklist that can be summed up as: bleach wipe every possible surface or spray it with cleaner once a week. Time expected for chore is about 15 minutes a week. We basically use this as a test case to see if an AP is too much of a princess and comes back to say they should not be responsible for cleaning bathrooms (which has happened). If you're too afraid to bleach wipe a little pee from random bathroom surfaces (little boys totally miss at times), then you're not mature enough for the job in our household. Do we hover and make sure the bathroom is sanitized every week by AP? No. But it's just enough that we've gotten 2 APs who aren't afraid of cleaning or totally don't see any mess (our AP before that). [/quote] Look, I have maid service twice a week. I don't need AP to clean any bathroom, ever. [b]But I also don't want to have to draft a checklist for my AP.[/b] I want an adult who can look around herself and see what she should do, as an adult member of a household. [/quote] APs failed badly when there was no checklist. "Clean up after yourself" was completely insufficient in an otherwise pretty good AP. So, we do have checklists of things we shouldn't to illustrate expectations clearly--stuff like you're an adult and we expect you to keep your room clean so "clean" means that you will sweep/vacuum your floor regularly (which we define as about every other week), wash your sheets, do your own personal laundry, take out your trash, etc. Yes, it's ironic to want an "adult" who knows what clean means. But we've also established that "common sense" is not common. Clearly defining these terms prevents misunderstandings and slobs for our household. [/quote] Well I suppose it's possible that you're right and I'm wrong that I could find an adult again who doesn't need checklists but making checklists is just not for me. And anyway, how do you make the rule, "be proactive and solve problems on your own"? [/quote]
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