How big is your building? Are there other female tennants you might like to practice the strategy with?

He sounds awful, Hil. And even suggesting you could be attracting rodents is really out of line, unless you are literally in Hoarders territory with food waste.

There are just two apartments in the building, and the other one is empty now -- the guys who had been living there moved out, and no one new moved in yet.

When he was here, there was one plate on the floor in front of the couch, because I'd just finished eating lunch and I hadn't brought the plate into the kitchen yet.

I just can't conceive how people live like that, without things and mail and a dish in the sink or a book left out. My brain won't comprehend it.

I KNOW. My house was like that for maybe an hour today - with the exception of CJ's room. I've given up on his room ever being clean before he moves out, but when the cleaners come, I make him pick up everything on the floor so they can vacuum at the very least. It usually ends up on his bed and then back on the floor as soon as they are done.

Before I had the cleaners coming once a month, the clutter would just pile up and I'd have piles here and there. Hiring them, FOR ME, was the push I needed to keep the clutter down to a minimum.

But when I go to a friend's house that is more cluttered/messy than my house, I don't judge. A good friend just let me play in her costume closet and it took her honey moving a bunch of boxes and us squeezing into a room full of boxes, storage containers, and piles of things to get to it. But now I have a couple of fun outfits to wear for the small con next weekend.

Point being, how someone keeps house is not reflective of the worth of that person. There are TONS of reasons one person keeps house different from another. Using Teppy as an example, since she already noted it, they live in a small house, have tons of stuff, ADD makes focusing on cleaning a challenge (man do I know this one), and Tim is a collector of things that will be useful one day (drill press). If I were ever allowed in their house I'd be so happy for their company that the rest would be be a fuzzy background.

A lot of it is that I tend to usually sit in the same place on the couch, so if I'm paying bills or something, then the stack of bills piles up there, and then I'm bad at following through at putting them in the recycling when I get up. I tried putting a small garbage can right there, but I kept accidentally kicking it over, and then all the stuff would spill. Plus, if I'm reading a book or using my iPad or something, my instinct when I'm done with it is to put it on the floor, so stuff just piles up there. Looking at it now (which was the area he was looking and gesturing at), I've got a few books, a bunch of random papers, several medicine bottles, a couple socks, a pair of sandals, two small Amazon boxes (the size that hold a couple paperbacks) and their bubble-wrap, assorted pens and pencils, and a couple of plastic bags that some clothes that I ordered online came it. Nearly all of that is actual garbage -- I can probably clean it up in 20 minutes if I sit down to do it.

Oh, and two wrist braces, one thumb brace, and two ankle braces. And an umbrella, a couple of TENS pads, a coloring book, and a package of colored pencils.

I don't let anyone see it, although Hil, you probably glimpsed it when you came over for the GISHWHES photos last year, so if you saw it, you know what I mean

I think I saw it a little bit, but it didn't seem that bad.

Ah, you didn't get a full glimpse of the Hoarders horror, then. Really, it's bad. Like, can only walk 3 or 4 feet into the room before the piles (and the desk on its side [no, I have NO idea]) prevent any further incursion.

Cleaning up a bit, I just found a piece of hard candy under some of the papers. It doesn't seem to have attracted anything, though the wrapper was a bit unwrapped. So, there are definitely not ants here, at the very least.

In a complete shift, it looks like Kelly's bf is going to officially propose next week. Kelly's best friend is coming to visit for a week with her fiance. They will be staying at my house, she is my second daughter. Anyway, he wants Kelly to be able to celebrate with Vicki and S.

They were originally going to wait until they could afford a "classic" engagement ring. I'll admit, I'm the one who gave them the idea of going non-traditional. Look at other stones. Simpler options. If, down the line, they want to upgrade, then maybe different rings for her wedding set or have it be an anniversary thing.

Sooooooo...he ordered a ring with an aquamarine stone and "white sapphires" aka not-diamonds but with the look of them. Her birthstone is aquamarine and his is diamond - so I think it is a pretty choice for them.

Our house is like islands of clean and messy. I'm always running out of time to get everything done so it's a craps shoot what happens to be clean at any one time. I try to keep the most public areas clean enough that the kids feel they can have people over. I did all the work for dinner tonight last night so I'll have time to clean the kitchen while it's cooking.