My house is messy and I did not let a neighbor in

[argon091076]

Yup! can’t deny a restroom to anyone…Now, that is considered an emergency. I would have let her in, too…regardless.

My neighbor’s request was not an emergency. She wanted to check out my kitchen. Nothing urgent about that. LOL!

 

[Seatuck]

www.flylady.net

 

[magician]

Cleanliness is Godliness. Everyone chips in at our home. I don’t care what their “schedules” are, they all have their “special jobs”.
I wouldn’t not put up with an unclean home. And neither should you. Make time to clean your home and tidy up. It’s the habit that you will pass on to your children.

 

[Al_Masetti]

It’s not necessary to eat off the floor.

 

[DiannaK]

In the old school, it is considered impolite to just drop by someone’s house uninvited and without previously calling, is rude. I would have told her I would love to show off my kitchen, but this was not a good time for me. Please let’s set up a specific day and time and we can have coffee.

This is how I feel about it as well …

 

[BryanW]

I’m a man and as such I’m perfectly comfortable with my own messyness. So maybe I’m not one to be giving advice but maybe the story about Jesus visiting Martha and Mary aplies here?

Luke 10:40 or somewhere around there anyway

 

[Al_Masetti]

Somewhere around here I have a cute little saying … “A neat desk is the sign of a sick mind”. It’s in one of the piles of papers.

 

[argon091076]

Somewhere around here I have a cute little saying … “A neat desk is the sign of a sick mind”. It’s in one of the piles of papers.

It is funny that you bring that up because I have 2 Aunts who keep their homes pretty clean (I mean you can literally eat off the floors!). However, they have both had issues in their lives. One of them was sexually abused by her brother when she was a little girl and her mom never ever cared for her, so now she is going to a psychologist and psychiatrist and they have told her that her OCD for having her home clean is just something she does because she feels that she needs to cleanse herself spiritually and physically from all that abuse she went through. She was like a “mommy dearest” to her children (now grown up and really don’t care much about cleaning…they don’t make it a priority in their lives…). My other Aunt was abused by her former husband and my Mother would tell me that sometimes she would catch her scrubbing and cleaning the outside of ther house with a toothbrush! That is when my Mother realized that she had a problem. So she decided to help her out and she confessed to her that cleaning made her feel like if she was cleaning herself from all the abuse she had been going through for so many years. Anyhow, she admitted that she was indeed sick of her mind!
They finally divorced and now she is much better.

Bottomline, when it gets bad enough to let it take over you life, then I guess it could be a sign of a much deeper phsychological problem and the same goes with messiness. I guess too much of whatever is not good.

And “that’s all I got to say about that…” (i.e., like Forrest Gump once said …).

 

[argon091076]

This is how I feel about it as well …

Yes! I mean, if its not an emergency, why even bother the neighbors. If you want to say hello to them or chit chat a bit, one thing that one can do is wait to see if one sees them hanging around outside. For all we know, if they are at home, they could be having dinner, sleeping, talking over the phone with a beloved one…etc… Bottomline, they could be busy with their lives and for someone to impose like that out of the blue is not polite at all.

They end up making one feel very uncomfortable, just like I did, for not letting them in when in reality they are the ones that are doing something wrong!

 

[Princess_Abby]

The burden of ill-manners were hers not yours.

It’s terribly rude to invite oneself to any occassion. She should have requested, in advance, the privledge of visiting your home. Even that is iffy manners. Usually, the idea would be to say, “Oh I’d love to see what you’ve done and get some ideas myself!” and politely hope for an offer to be extended. Moving on gracefully to another subject if it is not.

**Other than that, I keep a clean home because I *have ***to and because I like company and would be very upset to miss a chance to be with friends/family because of a dirty whatever. Not because I get an charge out of the cleaning itself. Staying home makes it harder, imho. We are here gettign things dirty much more than the family that is gone 8 - 12 hours a day! I love that anytime I need to, I can drop everything and enjoy a cup of coffee and conversation. I love that when I need something, I can actually find it and use it.

**All that said though, I rarely notice anything about another’s home. Short of needing to be closed down by the sanitation dept. I probably couldn’t care less about someone else’s dirty dishes or unvacuumed floors and unmade beds. I rarely look further than the cup of coffee and the person I’m talking to anyhow. **

[sign]Yeah, that.[/sign]

And to whomever said that someone jumped out of their car and asked to use the bathroom, I have a recent story that still makes me want to cringe (and die laughing).

On Valentine’s Day, I ordered a cherry heart tart from a mom friend in a local moms’ group who has a dessert catering-type business. Anyway, she dropped it off and ended up staying for about an hour or two with her almost 2 year old, who is potty training. As it happened, she needed to use the potty while she was here and her mom took her to the bathroom–and then came out about two seconds later and said she’d forgotten the potty ring for the little one to sit upon. Accepting that, I didn’t say much about it and they left a little while later after putting a diaper on her daughter. After they were gone, I went to use the hallway bathroom myself and to my absolute HORROR I see a skid mark left by my lovely 3 year old neice–who had departed literally moments before they had arrived, after having proudly used the bathroom ‘all by herself.’ I am SURE this poor woman, who I barely even know, thought myself or my husband had just left it there from our own use. Nice, right? My husband couldn’t stop laughing when I told him this story. I’ll probably see this woman again soon and I would LOVE to explain the situation but I know I won’t…“um, remember that poo mark on our toilet that one day…I swear it wasn’t me!” ha!

 

[argon091076]

[SIGN]Yeah, that.[/SIGN]

And to whomever said that someone jumped out of their car and asked to use the bathroom, I have a recent story that still makes me want to cringe (and die laughing).

On Valentine’s Day, I ordered a cherry heart tart from a mom friend in a local moms’ group who has a dessert catering-type business. Anyway, she dropped it off and ended up staying for about an hour or two with her almost 2 year old, who is potty training. As it happened, she needed to use the potty while she was here and her mom took her to the bathroom–and then came out about two seconds later and said she’d forgotten the potty ring for the little one to sit upon. Accepting that, I didn’t say much about it and they left a little while later after putting a diaper on her daughter. After they were gone, I went to use the hallway bathroom myself and to my absolute HORROR I see a skid mark left by my lovely 3 year old neice–who had departed literally moments before this woman had arrived, after having proudly used the bathroom ‘all by herself.’ I am SURE this poor woman, who I barely even know, thought myself or my husband had just left it there from our own use. Nice, right? My husband couldn’t stop laughing when I told him this story. I’ll probably see this woman again soon and I would LOVE to explain the situation but I know I won’t…“um, remember that poo mark on our toilet that one day…I swear it wasn’t me!” ha!

LOL! This is truly hilarious…I almost peed my pants…I just can’t stop laughing about this one…

 

[LilyM]

LOL! This is truly hilarious…I almost peed my pants…I just can’t stop laughing about this one…

Aah the joys of children at potty-training age or thereabouts … my sister’s two gorgeous little girls love pulling the toilet paper off the holders and playing with it - with the result that visitors have to go hunting for the spare rolls when they need some

 

[Al_Masetti]

Here’s a “trick”.

You can get a copy of Investors Business Daily. There are services that will send you free copies of various company’s annual reports. So you get a bunch of these annual reports and scatter them where visitors will see them amid the various piles of “stuff”.

So, you then invite the neighbors in and just tell them how difficult to keep up with all the paperwork and to just shove the annual reports aside.

No other explanations are necessary. Just let the neighborhood rumor mill turn.

 

[CarrieH]

Yup! can’t deny a restroom to anyone…Now, that is considered an emergency. I would have let her in, too…regardless.

Just be careful who you let into your house. If you know them, fine. But last month, some people claiming to be “new neighbors” stopped by “to help” while my elderly mother was out shoveling snow. Then one of them asked to use the bathroom, and foolishly, she let them in. While the other one kept her distracted with conversation, the one who supposedly had to “go” robbed her.

 

[argon091076]

Just be careful who you let into your house. If you know them, fine. But last month, some people claiming to be “new neighbors” stopped by “to help” while my elderly mother was out shoveling snow. Then one of them asked to use the bathroom, and foolishly, she let them in. While the other one kept her distracted with conversation, the one who supposedly had to “go” robbed her.

Oh My God! I hope she did not get hurt (aside from the robbery).

You are absolutely right! One should not allow just anyone in. Like when we were selling our previous home, we specifically said that it had to be by appointment and really the reason was that I have two little boys and I just couldn’t show the house while being alone with them. I had to wait until my parents were present or my DH.

We lost a potential buyer because of that, but that was ok with us.

Also, if someone comes and knocks at my door and I see that I don’t know who it is, I simply wont open.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Here’s a “trick”.

You can get a copy of Investors Business Daily. There are services that will send you free copies of various company’s annual reports. So you get a bunch of these annual reports and scatter them where visitors will see them amid the various piles of “stuff”.

So, you then invite the neighbors in and just tell them how difficult to keep up with all the paperwork and to just shove the annual reports aside.

No other explanations are necessary. Just let the neighborhood rumor mill turn.

:rotfl:

That’s awesome.

 

[CarrieH]

Oh My God! I hope she did not get hurt (aside from the robbery).

She didn’t, thanks be to God, but it gave her a good scare – and me, too! For weeks I was afraid they would come back, but the police said that she wasn’t the only one victimized (they even put it on the news) and that these people tended to grab what they could and then get out of there fast. I was afraid that they were looking around the house to see if there was anything worth coming back for, But Mom grew up during the depression and never gets rid of anything until it is unusable, and she is intimidated by new technology. So it looked like a stereotypical “old lady’s” house with no fun toys worthy of a repeat “visit.” In this case, a messy house is a good thing!