The thread on horror tenants has reminded me that I am confused and perplexed as to why people would let their pets go to the toilet inside their homes and not clean it up.
On the SPCA type programmes, Life of Grime, World’s worst neighbours etc, you always come across people who live in houses where they allow this.
Why? Some may have mental health issues, but most don’t.
The stench must be unbearable - do these people just get used to it? I hate walking in shit on the footpath or in parks, let alone in my own house. I’m not the world’s most house proud person or obsessive about cleaning - yes, there is a bit of grease build up on top of the fridge and I only vacuum about once ever two weeks but I couldn’t stand to live like that. I have a dog and a cat, sometimes the dog can be a bit smelly - just dog smelly. When the cat was little he had a litter box - and that sometimes was a bit smelly when it was ready to be cleaned out. So I am by no means obsessive compulsive about cleanliness - but I just don’t get it.
My friend from Oklahoma bought a house cheap - some kind thing where the original owners couldn’t or didn’t pay their taxes etc. She and a friend had to hose down the inside of the house because it was full of dog urine and poo!? People had been living there too.
Yes, they get used to it. We have a relative whose home was ruined because of this. The floor and subflooring will have to be ripped out. I believe the lower foot of drywall should also be replaced. This was a condo. The issue was alcoholism.
That’s a mental health issue.
There are those would argue that you can be a drunk without being mentally ill.
I had a roommate whose dog peed in the house a lot. According to her, her dog was not to blame because they were “just accidents.” It was my fault that the dog peed in my room because I left the door open. Yeah. Whatever. I made her send the dog to live with her parents.
There’s a really fascinating website called Squalor Survivors about folks who live this way. Yes, it does always seem to be concomitant with untreated mental illness. Often you’ll have people who are professionals and seem to be perfectly fine in their outside lives, but who live this way at home. My husband saw many cases like this when he worked in voc rehab.
I find this subject interesting because I grew up in first and second degree squalor due to my mother’s untreated depression. Thank god we never had pets. It took me a long time to get over the shame of it, mostly due to my own therapy and recovery. I was able to have friends over occasionally until I was about 9-10 years old, but then it got too bad and I was too embarassed to have them in. My mom still lives like this and is extremely sensitive to any mention of it. It had gotten so bad that I couldn’t go into her house for more than five or ten minutes before the mold and dust overwhelmed me. Then Hurricane Katrina managed to take off a good portion of her roof, so we’ll see where she goes from there.
My grandmother had some elderly friends who refused to believe it when they were told by both my grandmother and their housekeeper that their two dogs were soiling the carpet under their bed. Neither had much of a sense of smell, and both had poor eyesight, but I think it was more along the lines of “If I don’t look at it, it’s not there.”
My grandma tried be as gentle with it as possible. She thought they must not know that their house smelled like a cesspit. Every time she would say something, though, they would act like they didn’t know what she was talking about.
Addiction probably classifies as a mental health issue.
My former neighbors never bothered to clean up after their dogs in the yard-they’d just run the mower over it. The stench on a hot day was unbelievable-we couldn’t even sit outside and enjoy our own backyard.
Sigh, okay, sometimes people were a little tiny bit slack about housetraining their puppy, years ago, and now the dog is 12 and sometimes pees on the floor. He has his own room, it’s the laundry room, no carpet, you just wipe it up in the morning. It’s not his fault we were bad housetrainers, and I’m not mentally ill or an animal hoarder or stepping over Poop Everest in the morning.
I cannot believe I felt the need to get a little defensive because my doggie pees on the floor sometimes. I think it’s time for a day off.
Actually I think anyone who would allow their pet to eliminate at will in the house and never clean it up DO have mental health issues. They are poorly understood ones, though, and hopefully with more study more can be done about it.