How can I keep our house clean?

Question

I am 14 and have 4 brothers and a dad. One brother is moved out, however, so we won't count him. Anyway, all of my brothers are older than me, the oldest is 22 and the youngest is 15, but we can't seem to keep a clean house. I always try to do my part, i clean up my messes and rinse my dish out after i eat etc., however, i'm the only one that seems to do this. I got into the habit of cleaning the kitchen everyday, but i gave that habit up because it would be just as bad by the next day so i didn't see much point. Our house isn't flat out dirty, its just mainly cluttered with some dirty dishes and wrappers scattered randomly about the house.

I am embarrassed to bring friends over, and i don't want to tell them why they never come over, so i always have a new excuse, but its been like that for too long, and they are beginning to catch on.

We also basically need to renovate the whole house because the cabinets were burned and the bathroom walls have holes etc.

Any advise? Thanks.

Answer 1

I agree with MJ. You could also have a talk with everyone get your brothers together and you all get assigned a day where you clean the kitchen. Thats what we had to do in my family because I was the main one cleaning everything so I wrote down the days of the weeks and everyones name on it. But It would be so much easier if people would just clean up behind themselves.

Answer 2

It seems that your dishes are the main problem here so since no one wants to chip in and do the dishes, I reccomend that you hide all but one set of dishes for each person. That is one plate, one bowl, one cup, one saucer, one set of eating utensils. Hide the rest in a box and take it to the neighbors or a grandparents house or something. This way, you can wash your own dishes and if the others want to eat then they have to wash theirs. Just make sure that you keep your set of lean dishes hidden away in your room somewhere so no one steals them and uses them. This is what I had to do with my four boys as they had no clue what it was like to have to scrub cemented oatmeal from a bowl or anything else. Now they know and my kitchen stays a lot cleaner.

Answer 3

If we havn't used it in the last three months we donate it or throw it out.I mean all of it tables we don't use,junk in the drawer,shoes in the closet.It came to a point were we just had to decide what we really needed in our lives.Since we started it has freed up so much convienient storage space to unclutter the stuff that is really important to us.Then just make sure there are trash cans in every room and they get emptied often.