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19:25 / 07.10.04

Whenever Ganesh and I would visit Hanabius and cub we would have fun, when he nipped to the toilet, by moving one of his carefully placed CDs just a fraction of an inch out of place and wait to see how long it would be before he'd have to push it back into place. Never took more than a minute.

But he's scarily tidy. I am not. At the moment I can see Ganesh's socks from yesterday sitting beside the computer. Suitcase from the weekend trip to the Highlands is still sitting in front of the fireplace, untouched and full, 5 days after dumping it there when we got in.

There are, count 'em, 7 different piles of unsorted magazines and unopened mail etc. dotted around just this one room.

Every surface has the detritus of everyday life cluttering it up and one cat pretending to sun herself beside me, perilously close to half a packet of almonds, opened several day ago, and an open can of Diet Coke.

I brought a pile of single socks through, some weeks ago now, to sort them into happily married sock couples, and they're still there, on the chair I left them on. Before I go to work, I just find myself a pair from the pile. It's the new black... With several leather garments now thrown on top, from getting home too drunk to put them away.

I've just counted two pairs of boots and seven pairs of shoes, scattered all around this, admittedly fairly large, room.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Please tell me I'm not alone in being unable to invite Hello round for a photo shoot.

19:32 / 07.10.04

I'm in between, neither a slob nor a neat freak. I'm easy to live with, like don't worry about clearing the dishes, let's sit back and digest for an hour first. But I clean regularly too. I guess I'm a perfect balance of laidback and neat. But then, I'm Practically Perfect in Every Way, so....

19:35 / 07.10.04

That's probably the most upsetting thing I've ever read on Barbelith - everything needs a place!

I'm not that bad actually depends on my mood, sometimes I can't sleep if I know something isn't in the right place. I try to ignore but eventually I have to get up and move it to the right place but since the right place always changes I'm never happy.

The effect is doubled if I have a hangover.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

20:15 / 07.10.04

Yeah, but I know exactly what each pile is for... it's the new unclean tidiness!

Whenever I tidy my room, and put everything away, I just end up getting it all out again a couple of days later. It's a studied chaos, and it makes sense to me.

In a muddling sort of way. I do feel like I'm making full use of my living space though, but not in a "house programme-y" sort of a way, oh no. Unless it's that one where the ladies clean your house, as I have noticed some unnervingly large layers of dust in various corners.

20:16 / 07.10.04

Not the reassurance I was seeking, guys! But I already knew Bear was freakily tidy. He got upset once when I said I didn't line up the pencils on my desk at work like little soldiers.

I do clean sometimes. Before we have visitors, sometimes.

I even washed one of the big windows in the sitting room once. We've only been here two years too.

And I once cleaned the oven with special stuff I bought in a shop too. Oh no, that was two flats ago. Hey ho. Clart R Us.

20:19 / 07.10.04

And thank you, Suedey. You're a good boy.

20:28 / 07.10.04

I used to be a total slob, but less so now. What I am is a compulsive hoarder, so even though things have their place, they tend to stack. As a result, my room grows upwards.

21:07 / 07.10.04

I'm not the worst in the world but I don't really give enough of a shit about my surroundings to clear them up regularly - particularly given that I'm moving out in a few weeks.

My leasing agent calls me up every now and then to ask if she can show people round the place. The first time this happened I made an effort to tidy up and clean the kitchen floor a bit, but last time I said "well, okay, if you want to, but it's a bit of a mess and it smells of seafood". I think I cleared the shrimp tails out of the ashtray but I'm not sure.

Anyone who wants to can look at a video of my flat (3 meg Quicktime) which I took some time ago.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:19 / 07.10.04

Pah! I can outslob any of you, any day. Bring it on, clean freaks!

22:37 / 07.10.04

The study of chaos math reveals that there is order to seemingly the random and chaotic. Therefore there is order to my living space. So there.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:51 / 07.10.04

The second law of thermodynamics states that any systemtends increasingly to entropy given time. Therefore tidying up is pointless, and quite possibly against God.

23:07 / 07.10.04

Fridge; it's always going to be tricky if you're pursuing a lifestyle that, er, * ordinary people * wouldn't necessarily understand, ( and if they do have to die well they do have to die - it's God's work you're doing, after all, ) but still... Jesus Christ, man. The last time I saw something like that I was in an abattoir.

23:17 / 07.10.04

I quite enjoy cleaning, and I like the feeling of satisfaction when you’ve got everything shiny and tucked away. But I dig those feelings so much, I’ll half-deliberately allow things to get really bad, just so the contrast will be all the more pronounced when I do tidy up, and the cleanliness high all the more spacey. It feels like moving into a brand new flat every time I clean up. Exciting and weird.

Anyway, as Suede pointed out, a clean flat is impractical, you can’t use it for anything. Although every once in a while I’m forced to pile things up without waiting for one of my big cleaning days, just so I’ve actually got some room to spread other things out. But I don’t know whether that counts as cleaning or making a mess. One cancels out the other. It’s pretty deep.

23:27 / 07.10.04

I'll have you know that there's not a single pig carcass in my flat. I'm not that untidy.

Still, if that offends, there's always a video of a penguin stealing a blue thing out of another penguin's nest.

Tip: moving things to put them at right angles to other things always makes both look neater. Fact.

00:42 / 08.10.04

I dare say what happened to that pig is still just about ( borderline ) legal, Fridge, but that guy's head... Y'know, as a coffee table ornament, as an ashtray for heaven's sake... That man might have had children, or a thriving business, but look at him now. A takeaway curry where his ears used to be, and you flaunt this, Fridge, you flaunt this over the web.

01:09 / 08.10.04

I'm a total slob. My fiance takes the oppertunity to clean up everytime I'm away because he feels he can't clean while I'm here.

01:32 / 08.10.04

Bedhead, any time you need that special feeling but can't be bothered to wait for your place to get musty enough, you're welcome to come over to my apartment. Any time.

01:51 / 08.10.04

Compared to my partner and flatmate I'm the tidiest. But my flatmate once let a dead goldfish rot in a corner for three months (thankfully this was another flat), so I'm not entirely sure it's a fair comparison.

Generally the cleanliness of my surroundings reflects my mental health. When I'm down I can ignore the dishes indefinately, although the mank does make me more depressed. When I'm anxious I fidget with everything; plumping up pillows, putting all the CD's back in their cases, straightening out the bookcase and so on.

I don't think Kim and Aggie would wholly approve of our house, but the mess never gets beyond a certain level.

08:09 / 08.10.04

I tend to let things clutter up the flat and then mount a day-long Let's Get Things Tidy! campaign. Hoover, duster, mop, Mr. Sheen and black bin bags get let out of their prison on day-release and then, once everything's nice and clean, the slow process of clutter accretion can start again.

The one thing I don't do is leave food or drink lying around. If there's one thing growing up in tropical climates teaches you, it's to avoid leaving food and drink out, unless of course you want ants the size of Volswagen busses tromping across your floor, snatching crumbs, sofas and interesting, topical novels.

08:53 / 08.10.04

I'm reasonably tidy, mostly because I just don't make much mess in the first place. I have a very small range of clothes, so there's never more than a couple of items in the corner (not dirty enough to wash but too clean to put back in) at any one time. And other than that, there might be a couple of books lying about, or a pile of CDs on the stereo, but that's about it. But I like stuff like that, as it's a form of decoration having your favourite things lying about. Even in home mags they always have a couple of items scattered randomly about to add flavour. And we rarely leave dirty dishes for the next day, mostly because we don't have enough spare. I am also a fan of the big fortnightly clean which makes it like a new flat, which is always nice.

I've noted that it improves your mood to be in a tidy space. If there's too much clutter then it gets you down and you feel overwhelmed by things, which leads to depression and an inability to deal with problems, and eventually you lose your job and your relationships break down, and before you know it you live in a cardboard box which is easy to keep neat because you have no possessions to tidy up.

But there are some things that never take place in my house, and I take offence at Fridge's placement of food in the ashtray. An ashtray is for smoking-related products only. Few things give me the shivers like a greasy ashtray ...

09:05 / 08.10.04

Oh my god. You just admitted to reading home magazines. The shame.

09:12 / 08.10.04

I just buy them for the articles, honest!

Tryphena Absent

14:08 / 08.10.04

I'm one of those people who has a place for everything. I don't get bothered by big things likes clothes being out of place because they're easy to find again but as soon as something small wanders I enter the compulsively tidy place in my mind. From the age of about eight my mother gave me things like window keys and nail scissors to look after because everyone else would lose them but they were invariably easy to find if in my bedroom. I get very agitated by dishes being in the wrong room- they're okay dirty as long as they're in the kitchen- but a cat on a kitchen surface doesn't worry me at all. This is because I grew up living next door to a pig called Daniel whose house smelt disgusting and who left dirty dishes in every room in his house.

14:20 / 08.10.04

I'm a very messy person, but I make sure that other than catfur tumbleweeds, things are *clean*. additionally, I have a nervous habit of tidying when I sit still for too long...at a friend's table, for example, I will rearrange magazines and bills and have even gone as far as to put away dirty/clean dishes and the like. some friends don't mind, some find it awfully irritating, but I can barely help myself. when I eat out I keep my personal space impeccably clean and when everyone is done with their course I stack the plates and clean up the rubbish. no need adding extra work for the waiter or busperson.

14:28 / 08.10.04

Freakily tidy, I want Bear to be my roommate.

14:55 / 08.10.04

That man left his head to me in his will. I have the papers to prove it and everything, and there's nothing in them saying "no curry".

And there's nothing actually *in* the cage behind the sofa. It just rattles like that because of the air conditioning.

Tryphena Absent

14:57 / 08.10.04

But people stacking plates can be very annoying if they're heavy. We used to have huge dishes at this place I worked and if there were more than four I had to carry them with two hands or rearrange them... very annoying to have someone else controlling your table clearing method.

15:00 / 08.10.04

My fiance takes the oppertunity to clean up everytime I'm away

I want Mr Dammerung for my roommate. You want me to ship opver a pre-used poof in exchange?

You have shamed me into washing the dishes and gathering up clothes to wash. Well, I'm having a green curry for tea and there were no clean plates is the true story. But now I am too exhausted to tackle the rest of the mess. I shall just break out the vodka instead, it being a Friday night. Soon I shall turn into fridgemagnet and will have to leave the country before I fill this one up with junk.

15:36 / 08.10.04

I'm not dirty, but I am messy, especially when it comes to papers (I mean, not newspapers, just general papers). They sort of pile up without my meaning it to happen.

I do hate it when things get put back (by whoever - my mother was particularly bad at this) somewhere that is tidy, but that is not the right place (i.e. the place in which I have decided that Thing X belongs). I'd rather have things out on the table looking messy than that.

16:05 / 08.10.04

I thought I'd add that my mother is a woman who brings freakishly neat to a new and thoroughly insane level - although, growing up, I was under the impression that grown adults who kept messy houses were the ones with severe mental illnesses. My mom would have a screaming conniption if she had to sweep the floor twice (rather than the usual once) in one day. And bear in mind that dropping three individual toast crumbs on the floor necessitated her having to sweep the entire room over again.

See that's why I turned out so normal.

By the way -
a couple of items in the corner (not dirty enough to wash but too clean to put back in)
Typo aside, you've really got something here. If someone could invent a perfect place to put those not-dirty not-clean clothes, they'd be rich....

17:04 / 08.10.04

fridgemagnet, you have a very relaxing voice...

I'm medium untidy - I generally keep dishes washed and clear spaces to sit, but always have a pile of laundry at the foot of the bed, and I hardly ever dust. Fortunately, it's about the same standard my husband has, so at least we don't fight about it.

Living with people who have different standards is hard... I had one roommate in college who was a real neat freak and used to yell at me for leaving any little thing out of place. After her, I lived with an insane girl who literally covered the entire apartment in multiple layers of newspapers, trash and half-eaten food. The only clean space in the house, aside from my bedroom, was a small area on her bed where she would curl up in the fetal position to sleep. (The same girl used to carve her arms and legs up with razor blades and randomly destroy objects belonging to me. Serious issues.)

Takes all kinds, I guess...

19:01 / 08.10.04

Like Kit-Kat -- cluttered, slovenly, but with a highly ordered sense of place underneath it all.

If Xoc wanted to drive me nuts, he wouldn't have to move CDs an inch... he'd just have to file one alphabetically in the wrong category.

19:10 / 08.10.04

I don't have categories but I do put them all back in alphabetical order about twice a year. That involves putting them all back in their cases first though, so it's a big job that's saved for only the most autistic and hungover days. But I feel for you, big guy.

Alphabetical isn't as simple as it sounds though. I mean, Ella Fitzgerald obviously goes under E for Ella but He Who Must Be Obeyed (or he'll pout and sulk ineffectively) thinks she should be under F. What arrant nonsense.

19:32 / 08.10.04

I'm terribly messy despite my best efforts, which seems to be a side effect of trying to do too many projects out of too small a space. In theory, if I had twice the room, it'd be easy to keep things sorted - but instead, I've been reduced to trying to get rid of a lot of my stuff in order to combat the weekly (if not daily) panic of "where the hell did I leave X?", which is always followed by 5 to 30 minutes of sifting through piles of stuff.

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:56 / 08.10.04

I just have too many possessions to be tidy - at present I'm living in a 2 bedroom flat with a study, a kitchen, an attic, a study and a lounge... every single one of which is packed with my stuff. Computers, books, CDs, videos and general crap. I need a purge, but I'm not organised enough with my possessions to do it.

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