<p>I’ve found that since becoming a teenage boy, Little Lee’s room smells disgusting. Any suggestions for that? lol</p>
<p>My daughter’s room always looked like a bomb went off in it. </p>
<p>But she’s now moved out, and the room is now eerily empty. It’s kinda sad. I sort of miss the mess. But I do like all the extra closet space!</p>
<p>my room is the worst of the worst.</p>
<p>as a freshman, i was even mean enough to write that I was neat on the roommate question form because i knew if i had another messy person all hell would break loose.</p>
<p>literally had papers all over my dorm room, suitcase not unpacked for months after winter break, laundry piled a mile high in the basket, multiple garbage cans full of garbage</p>
<p>only did a couple real full cleanings the whole year. only cleaned my sheets once the whole year =/ yeah i know its bad, but im obsessive about hygiene so they weren’t THAT bad</p>
<p>and i managed a 3.694 first semester and 3.8 second semester!</p>
<p>GreenTeaLee, try febreeze - after you have removed what caused the odor (dirty clothes, shoes, athletic equipment, decaying food, son).</p>
<p>What is the state of my teenager’s room? Why Colorado, of course 
</p>
<p>I too was appalled at sendoff last fall. Not only was DS’s room as messy as I knew, but thick layers of dust and such too. I had to keep leaving the room to avoid choking. I did first pass of straightening declutter. But I delayed sorting of books and the more meaningful toys til this summer. Ha, never caught son in the mood to do it. Didn’t push it.</p>
<p>I have a super organized planner kind of child…except for her physical spaces. As a little kid, you couldn’t close the top down on her school desk because stuff was oozing out. Later on, I could tell which was her locker in a sea of lockers because of the stuff pouring out of it. The bedroom? Well you can probably imagine, but I think MY kid would win the prize for most messy. Beyond comprehension. What’s bizarre is she is so mentally organized and LOVES LOVES LOVES to categorize things. But I gave up a very long time ago, just have a rule about no food in such a room and the door is always closed. I do not dream she will ever be physically tidy, I just hope those that live with her can tolerate it. I think she will cope best with few possessions (which she’s oriented towards anyways).</p>
<p>I hold out hope that some of the most amazing, brilliant researchers I have worked with or near have SUPER SCARY office spaces. One in particular had not only taken over all surfaces, but also the floor so he had to carve a walking path through the piles. Anyone know Esther Dyson and seen pictures of her office? Oh so many such brilliant successful people like that. Oh here I found a shot:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/edyson/717785/[/url]”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/edyson/717785/</a></p>
<p>I could never, ever live or work like that but people are so different. In the big scheme of things, this is probably a quirk that doesn’t affect anyone beyond parents and roommates :).</p>
<p>D1 was pretty neat when she lived at home. When she went off to college the first year, I refused to touch anything in her room. When I missed her, I used to lie in her bed, kind of sappy. Her room was kind like a shrine. I would clean her room and change her sheets, personally, before she came home.</p>
<p>D2 is still in high school. Growing up, she was an absent minded professor. Her room was 3 feet deep with stuff on the floor. The only time she would tidy up her room was before the cleaning lady showed up. But the strange thing was, whenever she went away to a sleep away program, her roommate always told us how she kept her room really clean.</p>
<p>I used to cut of “Zits” comics because Jeremy’s room was reminicent of my kids. Sometimes cleaning their rooms after they leave is like a treasure hunt, never know what long last item we might find. : )</p>
<p>At college they varied, one was still messy, one pretty neat (but she had less things) and one varied depending on the time of the year…stress made her messier.</p>
<p>My kids run the gamut from very messy to spotless but none are filthy and they all know how to clean up quickly as the house rule has always been “no friends unless your room is picked up”. My youngest is the worst, but I attribute that to the fact that he has 3x the space to expand his clutter into! One room is his “smelly room”, full of athletic gear that doesn’t seem to lose the odor despite being cleaned, and I’d love to know how others get rid of that smell.</p>
<p>I have had to impose the “no eating outside of the dining room/kitchen” with the boys on occasion after running suspiciously low on silverware and dishes and/or being knocked out by the smell emanating from their rooms. Having seen what my sisters go through by allowing their teenaged/twenties kids keep their rooms in whatever state suits them (bugs, mold, ruined furniture and carpeting, etc.), I decided early on to refuse to clean up after people over the age of 10 and have been known to impose a $50 cleaning fee if it doesn’t get cleaned up after 2 warnings!</p>
<p>Welcome to CC, MV!</p>
<p>Both my kids are slobs. I apologize in advance to my future DILs. I tried. Really, I did.</p>
<p>I appropriated much of S1’s rooms for my sewing area and will probably complete that task over the next year, since I expect he want some of his furniture once he graduates.</p>
<p>S2’s room – I can’t fully open the door. It’s just as well. He never got around to cleaning it before he left for college last year. Hasn’t done so yet this summer, either. </p>
<p>I don’t know how his neat roommate tolerated him this past year, but they are still buddies – but both will have singles this fall. S realized he brought WAY too much stuff last year – but snagged a 201 lb. 34" widescreen from the curb and now plans to haul it to school. I took out six bags of soda bottles from his room in May (not a beer can in the bunch, and the floors didn’t smell like beer, either), but found only one rotten food item – an orange that had only recently gone bad.</p>
<p>I was a slob until I got to college. Drove my mom crazy. My messes made me more tolerant of the guys’ cr*p, though.</p>
<p>Very messy most of the time. Right this minute she can not sleep in her bed because it is full of the stuff she is taking to college. </p>
<p>Worst room in the house.</p>
<p>Interesting how all but one (vlines) post was about D’s and not S’s. My S, who’s heading up to Cal on Saturday (cannot wait, FINALLY I’ll be able to clean his room!), purchased about 3 dozen hangers recently. I said “why do you need hangers, you never hang up anything”? Not sure why his existing tubular hangers weren’t good enough?? Also, anyone need a used dirty clothers hamper in perfect, unused condition???</p>
<p>^Haha, I can sure relate to that! My 18 y.o. has a couch and a full-sized pool table in his room that he uses to “store” his clothes on…despite having a walk-in closet and 3 nearly empty dressers! The only things that are hung up are his dress clothes and ties and that’s only becuase I threatened to make him pay for them if I find them in a heap somewhere. He has 2 huge laundry baskets strategically placed and yet his dirty clothes always seem to be heaped next to, not in, them until he decides to do his laundry…I’ve been wondering what he’s saving the baskets for!</p>
<p>I still remember some parent friend telling a story, and a tiny passing point she made that was relevant to the story was something about ‘how she’d notice if something was moved’ in her room. I laughed out loud at the thought, and still am in awe and admiration, that someone out there has a kid who is <em>that</em> tidy.</p>
<p>D is heading back to school in a week, and I told her that we may put the house on the market some time in the coming year and that her room had to be clean, neat and free of the countless tchochkes, souvenirs and stuffed critters that clutter every surface and half the floor (the other half being covered by an eclectic mix of clean and dirty laundry, chargers for various electronic devices, half read books, a guitar and and sheet music). I don’t know how this will play out. I’ve offered to box up all the crap, oops, I mean, precious objects, and put them safely in the basement, but she is pretty much horrified at the notion. Should be an interesting week.</p>
<p>I tend towards the messier side of the spectrum though my messes mostly consist of computers/parts in various stages of disassembly, books, CDs/cassette tapes, and printed papers in different piles on the floor, desk, and bookshelves. </p>
<p>Degree of messiness tends to vary depending on busyness/stress levels followed by “clean-up mania” when the messes become too much. </p>
<p>Despite this, I was shocked at how so many college students left plates with leftover food sitting in their rooms for days on end, uncleaned drink spills, and having so much stuff in their rooms that no one knows how they get into a room…much less get around in it. </p>
<p>Also, I recently helped a college friend clean out his parents’ house after they recently passed during one holiday weekend. Considering the most recently deceased parent was a serious hoarder…I found my previous experiences with messy dormrooms/bachelor pads complete with pest/rodent infestations weren’t remotely adequate to prepare me for what I saw.</p>
<p>This is just such a relief to me.</p>
<p>Just close the door!</p>
<p>“…and i managed a 3.694 first semester and 3.8 second semester!”</p>
<p>Thanks, imasophomore, I needed that…Because my biggest worry about the messiness is: how can she think clearly amidst all that chaos? Thank you thank you…</p>
<p>You can’t copy them, but here are some funny Zit’s comics on messy rooms.
<a href=“You are being redirected...”>You are being redirected...;