Oh God yes!! Absolute filth and clutter. Not hoarding, just a pig-sty. No family, relatives or friends.

I will never forget this home. I was a school nurse for much of my adult life. Sometimes, I would go on home visits for various reasons, this one student did not seem to be bathing according to the teacher, and so with the parents permission I went to see her.

The outside of the apartments were horrible, trashed out, filthy, scary; it looked like it was a condemned complex. Graffiti, garbage on the paths. I am not sure there was water for that student to bathe with. It was all so bad on so many levels that on my return to the school I opted to see if the family could be moved out of there.

There was almost no furniture inside. Not filthy, but just broken down, the peeling paint bare nothing face of extreme poverty.

And in the corner of the living room lit only by a bare bulb hanging down from the ceiling, there was a small tidy place on the floor with books neatly stacked, paper and pencils straight and neatly placed side by side, this parent had done what she could to make a little study place for her child so she could have a better future.

Calls were made and assistance found for the family.
But that home visit, one of hundreds I made during my career as a nurse, was my biggest lesson ever in not judging a book by its cover.

I walked across the street to give my neighbors a baby gift a couple of years ago and was invited in to see the baby. I was shocked, not at the clutter but how raunchy dirty it was. And her husband was home on paternity leave and her father was visiting.....and not lifting a finger to help. She had had a very difficult pregnancy and clearly did not have any reasonable and decent support from her husband.

I swear, I wanted to ask her, the baby, and their other little girl to come and stay with us for a few days. I regret that I didn't!

I have a very good friend who is a lackluster housekeeper and her house is dirty even though she has a weekly cleaner. She just doesn't notice the grime and neither does her husband or I guess, her cleaner (LOL). I don't let it bother me, but I definitely notice it.

I would rate my home probably a 6. It's mostly stuff that needs to be organized and put up.

I have a story that I cannot tell you. It was so horrible that you would all be violently ill. I have never seen/smelled such filth in all my life. The house had not been cleaned in DECADES! Pet feces, human filth, smoke, garbage.....disgusting.

I travelled several hours to this person's home and was to spend the night. I was so ill from the home that I left and drove home four hours in the middle of winter with the windows down. I had to throw away the clothes I was wearing.

I have another story about mold growing on the dishes sitting on the countertop of a person my ex-husband thought was the best cook. I never ate her food after seeing that. Different person than the above.

Oh, Dees post reminded me of someone we know from years ago who owns many pets. Walking into the house, your eyes instantly burn because of the urine stench. Rabbits, dogs and cats, rats and birds. Dishes not done, and dinner cooked in an unwashed skillet. Asked us to stay for dinner but we declined.

I would say I'm a 5. I don't clean under furniture very often, don't dust very often, don't wash windows very often. The garage is one item away from a visit from Hoarders! Here in Florida, we don't have basements, so anything I need to store goes into the garage - it's in dire need, AGAIN, of being cleaned.

When we live in CT there were a few home that were a 3 or 4.

Fast forward 16 years we now live in a very rural area of TN. Most of the trailers here are 0. I can't even give them a 1 or 2.

Garbage all over the yards. Garbage in the houses. They are very nice people who would do anything for you but they are people who do not believe in being neat.

Lots of farms here, cows all over so there are mice & rats because of the hay. I have barn cats for that reason. These lovely people think nothing of seeing a rodent run around their house.

I am glad we only have 3 homes on a 7 mile road & they are all new.

I don't think I am better then anyone but I could not live this way.

Mary, I am also in rural TN (West TN) and agree about some of the properties here. The one I referenced in my earlier post was Long Island NY. The second one was Orange County, CA. Not rural by any stretch.

I couldn't live like that. We are also in a newer subdivision and everyone keeps their property up. I'm sure people drive by my house and shake their head at our landscaping. It is SO in need of some upkeep!

Oh dees, after reading your post, I upgraded myself to a 10. Really, I'm more like a 6 or 7, but everything is relative!

I have a sister who has a very untidy home. She says she wants to spend her time doing things she enjoys and not worrying about her house. Sorry, but there is no excuse for this. She is educated and finically secure.
We were not raised in a messy home. I am not sure why she turned out like this and the rest of us did not.

ellendi -- Wouldn't your sister just HIRE someone to help her get on top of it? Or keep on top of it? I don't like having 'strangers' in my house, but I like a dirty house much less.

When I see dirt and clutter where there is no financial problem, I think depression or drugs, including alcohol.

I knew a working couple with good jobs and two middle school kids. She SAID they started drinking before dinner; put the kids to bed; continued to drink until they could barely get to bed themselves -- every night.

My house is a 5, but looks like an 8 ;)

The worst house I have ever been in,I am sad to say was my mom's. I would call it a -10;( She would not let me clean or do anything, her and my drunk ass brother, just were a mess!! In a few years it got so bad I could not clean it, even if she allowed me too. I would drive over there and go to a Star Bucks and use their bathroom before I went to her house. I never spent time there just picked her up and did errands and dropped her off, then went to Star Bucks again and cried all the way home;(

She was forced into assisted living last April by a social worker finally, she would never listen to me. To this day she will not admit there was a problem.

I have been in therapy dealing with this for almost 3 years now~~~Honest her house was a mini nightmare;(
Not all stacked up with junk like a hoarders, just filthy!

I keep a clean house but it's always dusty. I don't know what it is but ever since I have lived in Ohio, everything is dusty. Is it the type of heat and a/c they have up here...I do not know but I can dust and a couple days later there is already a layer of dust and I refuse to dust constant so I just have said "Oh %#$& it!"

I don't remember ever going into a really terrible dirty house though. Maybe I've blocked it out...HAHA!

My house is probably a seven. My reclusive aunt and uncle would never let people in their house including relatives. When they both got ill in their 90's it fell to me and my cousin to clean the place to put it up for sale after they moved to a nursing home. She was a hoarder. She slept on the sofa because her bed was stacked high with stuff. Even one end of her sofa was. The refrigerator was gross. Ironically her closets and drawers were tidy. She had clippings everywhere going back to the 50's. She had a locked blanket chest which we had to break into before it went to auction. There were two 30's bathing suits and caps in there. By contrast a gorgeous quilt made by her great grandmother was laying on the attic floor in a flimsy box. It was a real trip for cousin and me.

I haven't been invited into enough homes to have any point of reference!

oh wait.... I think this would be rated low: I was invited to a co-worker's party last year... their home had recently been remodeled and would have been beautiful if it had been clean and odor-free. Instead, you got full view and smell of the FILTHY litter box as soon as you entered the front door -- and they had a table with drinks and snacks set up next to it! :p The kitchen was completely piled with clutter, dirty dishes, and garbage *everywhere*. I was afraid to use their bathroom.

FWIW, the heating system makes a HUGE difference in the amount of dust in a house!!!

I'd rank my house a 5. Nothing unsanitary, no smells. I keep the kitchen and bath clean, but I only vacuum about once a week. There is some clutter in a couple of the bedrooms.

I've seen both ends of the spectrum. The dirt and dust collection was mainly the result of hoarding or never getting rid of anything because it had value or sentimental value.

I'm not real impressed by 'clean' houses. I'm finding the cleanliness can hide a lot too. At this point in my life, most everyone I associate with on a regular basis has mess makers aka kids or pets. The people I know with the clean houses often have a cleaning lady, a controlling spouse, or some OCD type behavior that causes them a lot of stress. If someone has a super clean house, something else is off.

I keep my house clean at what I consider a dull roar. I try to keep the public areas clean enough so if someone comes inside to visit, I'm not embarrassed. That doesn't mean you won't see a dirty dish or a pile of laundry. There is occasional clutter, but I go through and pick up the counters and floors so you can see we make an effort. The kids are responsible for their rooms and the playroom. I go in and help organize, declutter and do deeper cleaning every few months.

I never thought of the super-clean houses hiding something more important. That's an interesting point.

One thing I'll say about us, is that with 3 cats in an apartment, it never smells. We've had people visit and they say if they didn't see them, they'd never know we had 3. Another friend commented that he's so surprised that there's never a smell, and not a lot of fur :) It's there, but with 2 long-haired cats, the clumps are easy to pick up. Anyway, his friend is a landlord and when one tenant left he had to gut the place. She lived alone, was young, with one cat. They said the stench was awful and it was filthy.

Oh, I do vermicomposting, too and have 1 bin. The landlords were in last week and she noticed the bins; they're prominently marked. One I have with worms, the other has finished compost. She commented that she tried doing it and they all died......nary a negative comment about me having them, etc. It's not illegal to have them, like cats in an apt, but you never know, with people that don't understand them.

Actually, they love grapefruit, and when I lift the lid, it's so fresh and citrusy :)

This post was edited by jasdip on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 10:08

"I'm not real impressed by 'clean' houses. I'm finding the cleanliness can hide a lot too. At this point in my life, most everyone I associate with on a regular basis has mess makers aka kids or pets. The people I know with the clean houses often have a cleaning lady, a controlling spouse, or some OCD type behavior that causes them a lot of stress. If someone has a super clean house, something else is off."

I agree. Immaculate showpieces houses are just not my favourite. I like a house to be lived in. Not cluttered to the extent of hoarding but to the extent that a visitor can sit down, put their feet up and relax. I'm not a perfect housecleaner, nor do I have a housekeeper and I like to spend time doing craftwork and not all day cleaning. Right now my house is in an upheaval due to renovations and it likely will be that way until summer. Then it will be clean and organized but not perfect. I want my friends to feel comfortable.

I do like a clean house, I like things to look lived in but clean so I'd rate myself an 8. I do feel uncomfortable in "dirty" house but a "messy" one wouldn't bother me. Just because I'm a neat freak doesn't mean anyone else has to be the same. From my point of view, I have a very busy life, it pays to put everything in it's place and be orderly. It saves so much time finding things. My husband has one room for his "stuff" and it looks like a hoarder moved in with us lol. I just close the door, he doesn't mind it. I've cleaned it countless times but stopped about two years ago. It's his hobby room. Now he has to do it once in a while but not often enough.

On of the worst is my DBIL. He is legally blind so I excuse some of it, but the last time we were there we ate out because that kitchen was filthy. They had white cabinets which were just black all around the handles down to the bottoms from grease and dirty hands. The sink was always full of cold soapless dish water that he "washed the dishes" in. I emptied that sink faster than you can say, "pull the plug". Oops!

He won't use trash bags to line his waste cans but then has to transfer from the can to the bag when it's full. I tried to explain, but he didn't understand the concept. Or didn't want to. And he never cleans out the waste cans. They should be thrown out. Last years dried garbage is not a pretty sight.

I wiped down the countertops and little brown ants scattered everywhere (I thought it was brown sugar or toast crumbs). Ick! There was a mop bucket in the middle of the kitchen with dirty water in it, but the floor was dirty and sticky. Guess that about covers the kitchen, but he did keep the toilets and bathroom sinks clean. The rest of the house, not so much.

No, this man was never married and now he's almost 80 so I doubt if he'll change. He gets a 1.

My mom wasn't on the low end, but then she was. And now she's not on that end anymore. When she moved into her parent's tiny house after her father died and her mom was in intermediate/nursing home care, stuff was piled to the ceiling. She was a level II hoarder. What made her that? She also had appliances that didn't work and you couldn't get to them to repair them. TWO refrigerators and the dryer. At least, I thought she was a hoarder. But, after her mom died, she could finally give the parent's belongings to her brother, sister in law, the children, etc. and then she moved into a new home and it's a 1/3 of what it was--with all new appliances.

So it was temporary. Whew!

Arkansas-girl....my house is always dusty too! I do like to use dusting powder after I shower, but I just can't believe that the dusting powder I use IN the shower is causing a layer of dust downstairs on the hardwood floors and the espresso furniture. I feel like I could dust the furniture and mop the floors every other day.

That said, I would say my house is a 5-7 depending on the day. I used to be fanatical...then when the kids came along, standards dropped...and they seemed to drop again with working full time and getting older.

I think every neighborhood has a 1-2. Growing up it was our next door neighbors....5 kids and just gross...and she was a lab technician. Now, it is my across the street neighbor. Her kids are grown, but I remember going to see one of the new babies and there she sat nursing the baby, cigarette in hand...and an ashtray on the table next to her filled with butts. In the kitchen, drawer fronts were missing and doors were hanging off the hinges. And she pulled two kids out of school because of breathing problems blaming the school for mold problems. She was a SAHM, but stayed up til 3-4 in the morning and her husband got up and got the kids ready for school. They asked me to get the mail while they were away once, and I noticed they left a light on upstairs so I went up to turn it off...OMG...clothes spilling out of closets onto the floor, unmade beds and sheets that looked like they hadnt been washed in ages.

On the other hand, my aunt was a 10+++...we used to joke that she could have a party with 50 people and you could still eat off the floor afterwards.

arkansas_girl -- A forced air heating system is cleaner and more comfortable with a humidifier and an electrostatic air cleaner.

My sinus/asthma troubles improved when we installed an air cleaner and a flow-through humidifier on the furnace. Water runs over the humidifier screen and moistens the circulating air. Excess water drains away, and the screen dries completely before the next cycle; no mold build-up. The air cleaner grabs all but the teeniest particles before they go up into the house. Every few years I remove and wash the heat supply and return registers. Our supplies are in the floor. We have a set of returns high on the wall for A/C and low on the wall for heating season.

I've tried to limit the dust-catchers in my house. We have nice window casings that 'frame' our windows and French doors. The doors have between-the-glass shades. I have no fabric curtains or 'swags'. It's easy to keep roman shades and shutters clean. No carpeting, just orientals that can be sent out to be *washed*. All wood and tile flooring. Few 'display' pieces on shelves. (It's all much easier, of course, with just two Seniors around to create mess!)

I was a home health nurse for a while......very eye opening!
One day I went to see a man who was renting a room from a women well known in the community for providing horseback therapy for children and adults.
On the way into the kitchen I slipped on something.....it was duck feces. The counters were worse.
No wonder that man could not get rid of his infection.
Then I went to work for a clinic and the home owner was a patient.......she brought home baked cookies for our staff.
We tossed them!
My sister in law and brother had the worst house........so bad my daughter would not use the bathroom or sit down.
And my sister is not much better but she is 86 and has her adult children and grandchildren and their pets living with her. No one does housework.
I used to go over to help clean but when everyone sat around watching me and criticized what I was doing I decided I had had enough.
I am messy (clutter) but keep the kitchen and bathrooms clean and have an excellent housekeeper come in every two weeks.

I'm a 7.There are just the 2 of us here now,dh and I.We no longer have any pets,nor do we want any,been there,done that.I can't stand clutter especially in the main parts of the house.My sewing/craft/computer room does get some clutter,as I'm always in there doing something,but I can come out of there and close the door so no one else has to see it.

The kitchen and bathroom are cleaned daily,and we don' t keep a lot of clutter in either of those rooms.Everything has a place,and everything is in it's place 98% of the time.

When the kids were home and dh was still in the Marines,it was even cleaner than it is now.

The kids and I would make a joke of it,especially if we were going to have company.dh would go around making sure everything was clean and orderly.
We'd ask him if he wanted us to get him some white gloves,he didn't think that was funny,but we did.

Fast forward to now,it's payback time,now I get on him for leaving things out,cabinet doors open,and making sure he wipes down the counters etc when he is done.

We will be married 56 years in April

Kathi

Most of the house right now is about a 5. Living room carpet a 2. My flooring was supposed to come in today, apparently it didn't, no phone call. I was going to start tearing up the carpet if it came in. The house is a 5 mostly because my vacuums don't work so I've been wiping up dog hair that somehow gets in the bathroom (even though I keep the door closed all the time) with Clorox wipes...and the carpet in the bedrooms and living room just keeps getting more dog hair.

I only had 9 days off and didn't realize when I ordered the flooring it would take at least 5 days to arrive. Then it has to sit in the room for 2 more days. I don't think it's going to get put in before I go back to work and the carpet is driving me crazy. I think tomorrow I'm going to take my Dyson apart again and see if it will pick up anything.

I remember being asked to babysit for the new and only child of an older couple in our neighborhood, and being surprised to find they lived in the basement of their house.

The upstairs was spic and span and the living room furniture was covered in those awful squeaky plastic covers and the lampshades still had the cellophane wrappings on them. It obviously wasn't used.

I assume that she and her husband lived like this before the baby was born, and would continue to do so, and I wondered what kind of a childhood that poor little guy would have.

maxmom -- The couple you describe had that 'front parlor' mentality. The American 'living' room had that status in some homes, creating a niche for the 'family' room. The *reality* of the baby must have come as a surprise. (He's not the first child viewed as 'an accessory' to be acquired after the house and dog.)

My mother was a realtor. She saw many houses -- mainly those of first- or second-generation Americans -- where all cooking and daily living was done in the basement. The upstairs living areas were plastic-wrapped no-go zones. The kitchen appliances had never been used. Everything was clean and tidy in the basements, but the upstairs was magazine spread.

A vestige of this continues new homes, built with a furniture showroom for your dining set right off the entry, exactly as it would be in a store -- sometimes completely removed from kitchen access, but where your guests can admire it --- as they walk by.

I have two sisters, one has a "ten" home, beautiful and clean, the other a MINUS ten. Minus ten is the sister who refuses to talk to me. I have written her off and I think she's seriously mentally ill, mostly with depression. When they were first married, she and her husband lived in a house my mother had inheirited. Sis never cleaned and they had dogs who never went out, but used the basement as their bathroom. After they moved out, the smell was so bad Mom had the house torn down and sold the land. Sis and her hubby bought a house fpr cheap in another town. They've raised their family there. and it's a true "hoarders home". Mess everywhere, clutter, broken porch, broken stairs. They have a barn and it's also full of Junk.

My house gets messy but it is clean. I have a neighbor that is a horrid housekeeper. You can't see the kitchen counters or half of the table. Things hanging on the walls have inches and inches of dust caked on them. I went to her brothers with her one time and is house stunk so bad I couldn't wait to get home, bathe and change clothes. I saw here the next day and she had the same clothes on and she stunk!!

I like to keep my house clean because I'm lazy....it is a LOT easier to KEEP a house clean than to CLEAN a cluttered or dirty one. Most of it is just "having a place for everything" and putting things back after they are used. Thirty minutes a day is all I need to put into cleaning my house (other than clean-up after meals).

I would say my house is a 6. We do live in our house. the kitchen is clean and dishes are done, the living room is never used and it does stay neat. Our bedrooms are neat and beds usually are made, but when grand daughter is here we just close that door. My neighbors house is a 1, I don't think she actually cleans and it does smell. As she does too. At first we thought she just didn't bathe, she is a never married woman, but one day she asked my husband to do something for her and he came home smelling just like her. She is a hoarder, and she has one small place that is cleared of junk on her table where she eats.
Mary

I have a funny story about my ex mom in law who I loved. The house was cluttered (it never seemed to matter, because she was an incredible cook, conversationalist, and a good person). What I thought was funny is that instead of writing a grocery list, the family would put the article to be purchased on the dining table- if cereal was needed, an empty box of cereal sat on the table.

The worst in housekeeping would be my Mom's house.

Mom had a stroke about 10 years before she passed. She spent those years in a wheel chair, paralyzed on the left side. The man that lived with her insisted that he would care for her all the days of her life. No problem with me and my siblings. Jim was 20 years younger than Mom and we knew that he had cared well for his sister and Mother during their long standing health issues.

All was well for about 8 years. Jim had a tendency to clutter and not do as much real cleaning as we would have liked, but Mom was happy, always laughing and Jim did keep her clean comfortable and well fed. My2 siblings and I, each from 100 to 400 miles away, made it a point to go in and clean, etc as often as possible and give Jim a little relief.

About 2 years before Mom's passing, Jim got weird and a little hostile towards us. The clutter became worse. If we threw anything out (spoiled food, egg cartons, general trash, the next time we were at the house, the trash would all been taken back in. Jim would not accept any help and refused to let anyone into the house when we contacted VNA and the Area on Aging Services for an investigation. Mom was still happy and told us to leave Jim alone...she was ok with him. If we went to see Mom, Jim was nowhere in sight. Mom, who really was of sound mind insisted that we not interfere. So we did our best to honor her wishes.

She was hospitalized for about 3 weeks before she died. When we went to the house to claim some of her personal belongings after the funeral we couldn't believe the conditions there. I have never seen worse, and I felt ashamed of the conditions that our Mom was living in...but that is what she wanted.

We had signed the house over to Jim several years earlier, because we felt he had certainly earned it. He passed 3 years ago, all alone. We had tried to be part of his life after Mom died, but he would have nothing to do with us. The house and contents in deplorable condition inside and out were auctioned off. Of course a distant relative of Jim's came out of the woodwork on his passing to make a claim on the estate..and some $40,000 in cash. Fine with us...that relative would have to do the cleaning up, not us.

Gazania, that's such a sad story. Something similar happened with my Mom. She was over 80, blind and had emphysema, but my brother moved in and cared for her. The place was badly hoarded up. Mom got so she never threw anything away. After she died, brother inheirited everything. He became reclusive and "squirrelly", wouldn't let us three sisters in the house to retrieve keepsakes or furniture. There were ten year old frozen chickens in her freezer, expired canned goods, way too much old furniture, 700 broken metal folding chairs (don't ask). The house ended up sold to satisfy one of those "reverse" mortgages. On top of everything., my brother committed suicide.

I've been to one house where the lady was a hoarder. I didn't see it when I was there, but my MIL was a friend of hers and said there were mice everywhere! Eww!! This lady literally had magazines, boxes, etc, stacked up everywhere with little tunnels to get around in the house.

My sister's house is just awful. Her house reeks of dogs. Not a surprise because the dogs themselves stink. I've been in many homes that had dogs inside and they certainly don't smell like hers. There's clutter everywhere. Her garage is full of junk. I mean junk like broken furniture, etc. Her car is filthy. She came to the city where I live not long ago and I got into her car to talk to her. (She can't fit in mine). It was full of trash and smelled awful. I didn't even want to sit down in the seat. She's also extremely overweight and doesn't bother to try to fix her hair or try to look presentable in any way. It's very sad. I feel certain that she's depressed. I've tried to talk to her about it so many times, but she insists that she's fine.