I don’t care about unmade beds. What I do care about is stuff on the bed. If you throw something down on the bed while you go do something else, fine, but PUT IT AWAY once you’re done. Don’t leave it for me to throw off when I’m tired and want nothing more than to climb in and snuggle under the covers.
Two kids and one dog. I feel your pain.
And as much as we try to get the kids to help clean it turns into a royal battle.
“Kids aren’t supposed to put the garbage out!”
“No one I know has to make their bed!”
“I’m too tired!”
The petty excuses go on and on. Unfortunately for them the tired and weary parents also go on and on.
Bite me.
I just purchased a condo with light creme carpeting. I’m thinking of wearing sunglasses inside to avoid seeing the marks.
You can take the approach my dad did when I was a kid and completely BLOW UP and yell at the top of your lungs every time somebody leaves something out of place, doesn’t do their chores, etc.
Seemed to work for me… now I’m a very clean person! don’t hurt me daddy
My kids, after 3 years of living in our “new house,” have finally, FINALLY gotten pretty good at their cleaning chores. I’m not much of a housekeeper, but I like the living room and kitchen to not be an active health hazard. It has taken an enormous amount of patience, persistance, and tenacity on my part, but now I can finally say, “Everything (electronic) off until the living room is clean!” and they can actually DO it. It’s very rewarding!
And yes, by the next morning (if not earlier) it all has to be done again!
I don’t ever make the bed since our cleaning lady changes the sheets and re-makes the bed. But I generally do take the 15-20 seconds each morning to pull the sheets and covers more or less straight.
To some extent, this is a relic from my younger days, when I usually shared a house or apartment with others, so if I wanted to be alone, the bedroom was the only place, and the bed was really the only place to sit or lie down in the bedroom. So it really made a difference if it was already neat.
But even now, our bed takes up a pretty significant portion of our bedroom, and if one of us wants to organize clothes or some similar task, it helps to have the bed readily available as a surface where you can put stuff without its disappearing into the rumples in the sheets and blankets.
I am a sick, sick person. I love the feeling of a clean home and I have cleaning OCD. But my life is a living hell because dust will gather before I’ve finished dusting. Damned dirt lot!
Al, I feel your pain. For seven friggin’ years I had off-white carpeting in my three-level house. Company coming? Spot-clean and steam clean the carpet, about 2400 sq feet. Thanksgiving morning? Spot-clean and steam clean the carpet. Christmas morning; was I doing the Cha-Cha with Santa and sipping champagne with Baby Jesus? Nope, I was up at six AM spot-cleaning and steam cleaning the friggin’ carpet.
Last February as mr. bot caught me on the verge of suicide-by-Spot-Shot, we agreed to replace the Friggin’ Carpet from Hell. We now have a multi-colored Berber in shades of brown, and I now just have to vacuum before company arrives. It’s magic!
And Al, I highly recommend Folex Spot Remover. It’s the Napalm of carpet grungies.
I like doing housework.
I do it so rarely that I also redecorate as I go along.
The link is to an article that shows it is unhealthy to MAKE the bed. 
Read Henry David Thorou’s On Walden Pond. In it he writes about needing/wanting stuff. He asks himself…how many years worth of dust accumlination that I have to clean do I want to devote to this?
The world’s first hippie.
Even better!
I like a very neat and clean home.
I make my bed every morning.
My towels are all folded and stacked in the same direction, same with washrags.
My pantry is neat.
My cabinets are neat.
I’m not a neat freak, my desk is clean but has the normal workday clutter. The kids room looks like a normal kid lives there, but it’s not a disaster.
I was always pretty neat (once I reached adulthood) but I think after living in insane chaos with my ex it soothes me to have things clean, neat and uncluttered.
I live alone in a one bedroom condo. I’m thinking of doing without my eyeglasses just so I don’t have to see the housework that needs to be done. Of course if I didn’t wear those glasses I couldn’t see well enough to find the bathroom so the situation would further deteriorate. I wish I had paid more attention to my mother; she had the house cleaning thing down cold.
What **Bearflag70 **said. My wife & I have lived like that for 25-ish years now. Works great.
If the kids are old enough to speak English they’re old enough to live neatly. You can win if you try. Or you can surrender & clean a house every day. Your call.
Now if I could just figure out a way to make meals sustain me for more than 6 hours. …
You could try what some of my older friends do. Get blazed and put on some ZZ Top.
Or you could try what some of my younger friends do. Get blazed and put on some Nirvana.
Self cleaning oven? Forget that - I want the self-cleaning bathroom!
sigh
The only self cleaning things in this household are the cats.
I think it was Roseanne Barr who said, “i’m not using a vacuum cleaner again until Sears makes one I can ride on.”
We have a Dyson, but I’ve been jonesing for a Roomba for a while now. 
I seem to be awash in gift cards and 20% off coupons from Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Exactly. I don’t mind doing chores. I do mind looking around two days later and realizing that they made abso-frikkin-lutely no difference.