With 6 people living in a house, an awful lot of laundry gets done. Plus the fact, these people, are adult humans, not baby or toddler size. Although toddlers/babies do go through loads of clothes, I do vaguely remember.
This is not helped by the fact that these adults are, in the main, Teenagers.
Just getting them to bring their stuff down is a herculean effort. Constantly, daily, 3 times a day even, our mantra is 'Have you brought down your dirty......?' Often the response is 'No, I forgot, I'll do it when I come back down'. Some of the time they remember. Unfortunately, more often than not, we have to tell them to go back up and get it.
Drip..drip..drip...
The general rule in the house is 'You keep your own space clean & tidy. Bring all your dirty stuff like clothes, plates, glasses, downstairs yourself. If you don't bring it down it won't get cleaned'.
Just recently I've had to put this this theory to the test. If you look closely at the photo, you'll see there are 3 very large piles of 'clean' laundry ready to be taken upstairs, about 7 days worth, they do like to wear lots of clothes these Teens. Yet we have 4 children. I'm not including mine and OH's laundry in this, we do the damn stuff & it goes straight upstairs, we don't need to be told!
Yes, there's a pile missing. 19 yr old son has a pile of dirty laundry 5 weeks high on his bedroom floor. No, I'm not kidding, 5 weeks. About 3 weeks ago I refused to do it for him, as even at that point there was so much. That's at least 6 or 7 machine loads. I'm not doing a backlog of his washing, on top of all these clothes you can see, plus bedding & towels. No way. We've told him he can do the backlog, he knows how to use the washing machine, then, and only then will we continue doing anything he brings down.
As of yet, there's been no sign of him doing any actual laundry, and his wardrobe is now starting to look suspiciously similar to his lovely girlfriends. I am starting to wonder about his pants though?...surely not?
Tell me your thoughts.
