There are some people who won’t even understand the title of this post. They don’t know what it’s like to wonder where to start when cleaning a messy house.
They’ve never been paralyzed by a mess. Overwhelmed doesn’t even really cover it.
They’ll think – “what does that even mean?!” (These people always have clean houses, and they can organize their junk drawer with their eyes closed. Or at least they could if they had a junk drawer. But they don’t. They don’t know what it’s like to be ashamed of your messy house.) They’ve never experienced a truly messy house.
And there’s some people who will roll their eyes at the drama of it, and they’ll think “Just clean it up. Take the action, do the things.” These people are also likely to leave nasty comments about how this post is sort of stupid. (I won’t publish them.)
But then there’s other people – maybe you’re one of these people – who know what it’s like to stand in the middle of a messy room and feel absolutely paralyzed by the mess. (Me!! I AM ONE OF THESE PEOPLE!) These people will get what this post is about.
We are the people who wonder desperately “where to start cleaning my house?!”
You might even have a secret fear that your house looks like hoarders (you know, that TV show where food is molding under the couch and the neighbors are complaining?)
And I want to share some good solid advice with these people (you), on how to move forward with cleaning when you feel paralyzed by a mess.
Because I’ve been there, but – thank goodness – I’m not there anymore.
(THIS POST PROBABLY CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. OUR FULL DISCLOSURE POLICY IS REALLY BORING, BUT YOU CAN FIND IT HERE.)
Related: A Simple Solution to Clutter & Disorganization
When you want to clean up “the mess” in your house but don’t know where to start:
You know what I’m talking about when I say “the mess”.
It’s not like you had a clean house 6 hours ago, but a kid’s birthday party has turned your home into a danger zone. Little piles of melty ice-cream everywhere and paper cups behind the couch.
No, that kind of mess isn’t THAT hard to clean up. (If you have THAT kind of mess, you really just need this stuff.) Although this advice will apply to how to clean a trashed house as well – any mess, little-people-parties included.
I’m talking about THE MESS. The big bad mess. When you have let the clutter and junk take over. There’s piles of laundry in the living room, you can’t see the kitchen counters, can’t remember the last time you cleaned out the fridge. You may or may not find a bag of potatoes – or what used to be potatoes – sitting at the back of the pantry.
If you take a moment to look around your home you might even feel shame and despair. But you also look around and feel that sinking feeling that says you won’t EVER be able to clean it up, because you just do NOT know where to start.
It’s hopeless.
THAT kind of mess.
This is the sort of paralyzing mess that for some reason, wants me to live in it. (I don’t. I work very hard to not allow my home to be messy. I am not a naturally tidy person, which is baffling because I LOVE it when my home is tidy, and I grew up in a tidy home. I don’t know where I developed the messy habits.)
I have learned that it is far easier to KEEP my home clean than to have to try cleaning a messy house once it gets to the paralyzing mess stage.
But, if you are still there, paralyzed in your mess… well, I get it and I have the path to the light at the end of the tunnel for you.
My momma taught me this when I was an obviously overwhelmed-by-the-mess kid, and it’s worked ever since.
Related: How to Conquer Clutter When it’s Emotionally Difficult
Related: Tackling Clothing Clutter: Confessions of a Clothes Hoarder
First, two things to consider (to start cleaning a messy house):
If you are so overwhelmed that you don’t believe it’s possible to clean your house, you might need to ask for help and that’s ok, but then be willing to let the helper help. It’s really frustrating to have someone ask you to help them and then not be allowed to do anything. If you feel like you need to be in control, that’s something you’ll have to address.
The odd time when my home DOES return to this state of overwhelming mess (like- um – if I have a baby and forget how to do “life”) I ask for help when I need it.
Also, consider addressing the clutter and disorganization in your home – FOR GOOD. Sometimes just cleaning up isn’t enough.
Addressing the clutter in my home took me a LONG way towards never feeling paralyzed by the mess anymore. But I didn’t know where to start, and I actually needed someone to TEACH me how to do it.
If your house is constantly buried in clutter and mess, check out The Organized Home Course by Hilary from Pulling Curls. It is created just for people like us, who need to be given bite-sized tips & lessons on organization so we know where stuff is, save time & feel more peace at home. (Because we do ACTUALLY deserve to feel at peace in our homes!)
This is the perfect course for organizing a messy home if:
- You always need hours of notice before having guests because you’re embarrassed about the state of your home.
- You’re always worried you misplaced an important document or won’t be able to find things when you need them.
- You’ve ever wondered why can’t YOU enjoy peaceful time on the couch or enjoying your family instead of always stressing out about the state of your home?
If you need someone to TEACH you how to address clutter and get organized, Hilary is your girl, and you can get 10% off the course here with the code MOP10.
But even if you choose not to ask for help or deal with the clutter, you can clean up the mess.
And here’s how.
You pick up one thing.
(Tune out the rest of the mess for now. You’re just dealing with one thing.)
Pick up one thing – the nearest thing to you – and ask yourself, “Where does this thing go?”
Does it have a home in your home? Does it need to LEAVE your home (donation/garbage)?
Then put that thing where it goes. (If it needs to be donated, make a box for donating and call that it’s home for now.)
And pick up another thing. Find it’s home or give it a home or get it out of your home.
And repeat.
And repeat.
And repeat.
I swear this works. It’s tedious yes. But it’s not overwhelming. It’s one thing at a time… and one thing at a time, you can clean up the mess.
Related: Secrets for Keeping the House Clean With Small Kids
Related: 7 Tangible & Life-Changing Benefits of Decluttering
If you try to do this but get distracted or stuck or struggle with how to motivate yourself to clean a messy house:
Here’s where asking for help can be awesome – because there is an automatic built in job for the helper. (Plus having someone else involved can be really good cleaning motivation!)
Have someone (a patient someone) hand you one thing at a time and ask “where does this go?”
And repeat.
Having someone else there to keep you on track might be the only way to keep yourself going the first time you do this.
But you CAN do this 🙂
Once things are put properly in their homes (or out of your home) tackle the “dirt” – which you will inevitably find under “the mess” – with the most natural, safe, and cost effective household cleaners you can find. (For me that’s been Norwex – this one tub of cleaner has lasted me for THREE YEARS and I have no qualms about getting it on my skin. They even have a system for washing windows and mirrors with ONLY water!)
More From Mommy on Purpose:
Where do you start when you’re drowning in CLUTTER?
Clean kitchen habits you can adopt today
This was literally me today. Crying and everything because it was TOO overwhelming!
My house actually gets like this quite often. And I’m the kind of wife that will go to my husband ask him to pick me a spot to start when he gets home from work. We start discussing together what rooms will take priority and what rooms can wait until the next day while doing a walk through of the house. I have five boys 6 and under and only two goes to school right now so “paralyzed by the mess” definitely rings true to me.
I’m so glad I’m not alone with this problem. But biggest broblem for me is my husbands stuff, he leaves everything on floors, tables et. And doesn’t have home for things. What Can I do? I have talked about it with him many times, and even taken his stuff In his own closet when I can’t bear it any More.
Very informative and well-structured article. Learned a lot of new things from this. Thanks for your contribution.
I am so grateful for this article. It’s helped me feel that I’m not completely alone… My story is a little different in that I’m 43 and don’t have children. I live with and am the only caregiver to my 80 year mom with dementia (Alzheimer’s). We have 5 + cats, 1 dog, and I work full time. I’ve suffered from extreme anxiety, depression, sleep apnea, and acute hypersomnia (the opposite of insomnia) my entire life. I dropped out of 11th grade because of it. I got my GED a week later. Growing up, my parents and I lived in perpetual, extreme, and horrible clutter. I’ve never known a neat and tidy house. After my father passed away in 2013, we purchased a house literally across the street. Due to the amount of things my parents had accumulated over 40 years of marriage, it took us working almost everyday for 11 months, an enormous roll off dumpster, and a storage unit for another year, to finally get my mom completely moved in. We have lived in this beautiful 1903 Victorian house since 2015/2016, and it’s the same thing, just another place. I feel so overwhelmed and ashamed. I don’t know who to reach out to… One of my cats throws up hairballs and food on a regular basis. There is so much dog and cat hair, dust, and clutter, it’s ridiculous. I recently paid a clutter expert $300 to help me clean me just bathroom. We have 13 rooms in total… I’ve become a hermit, due to the shame, and don’t know what else to do..
I feel like one of you commenting would be most welcome to come and help me… you get it! My hubby works away week on/off and my kids prefer not to help (clearly mummy losing her poop isn’t sign enough for help!) and I’m also a nurse doing shift work… notice all my excuses haha. So I think the ‘one thing at a time’ method might just be the trick- even for the kids! Glad I decided to just google what to do and found your link! Maybe one day soon I won’t be embarrassed to have people over. Thanks xx
Hey there! I’m Brandi and stay at home mom of 12,3&2 year olds whom I love so much and I’m so happy that with my last two babies I’ve been able to be a stay at home mommy because I was a single mom and worked full time and was taking college classes so I know how blessed I am but ever since their dad went to Afghanistan I literally have been feeling the exact same way that you described along with some other things. I have been literally feeling so depressed and I’m ashamed and feeling like why am I a failure and I have lost myself in these feelings that I am losing the precious time I have and getting to be at home with my kids. I literally felt like “am I the only one that feels like this?” And went to google and found your article. I just wanted to let you know that I am very grateful to you for writing this and being real and raw… I truly appreciate your honesty and positive uplifting message because I so badly have felt so alone and that I am just a failure and that there’s something wrong wrong with me because I have always been clean and organized and my houses prior to have Zoë and Michael, even when working full time etc. but with my oldest in her preteens stage and the two little ones are beautiful little spirits but they are also like walking tornadoes and the second I get one mess clean they have made three more and the only time I can get the dishes done is when they are asleep and they’ve started to not do naps and by the time I’ve finally gotten them to lay down or to sleep I’m so exhausted and depressed I just don’t even want to move ya know?!! Smh 🤦🏼♀️🤷♀️💆🏼Lol but within seconds of reading I had instant weight off my shoulders finding out that I’m not the only one who has been where I am. And actually been where I am at the paralyzed and embarrassed and depressed and ashamed type of mess… I am sooo thankful for you and your kindness and compassion and just wanted you to know that you have helped me so much! 🥰☺️🙏🏼Thank you and best of luck to you and your family!!! Xoxo
I needed this right now!! I have improved so much in overall organization and keeping our home decent. But occasionally it somehow all falls back into overwhelming chaos like right now. This encouraged me to work on it beyond just today, but to keep working at the bigger picture to stop falling back into this.
For working mothers house cleaning becomes a hectic job but you can’t just see all that mess and smile. You have to make sure that everything is at its place and the floor and carpets are dust-free. Commercial cleaning is very important as they are professional in their work and save much time by doing all the cleaning tasks efficiently.
I loved this article. I grew up in a very clean home and slowly living by myself i would get messier and messier. I’m good at throwing food away not leaving it on the table all night, but one thing i have pets and the pet hair gets very bad. My mom doesnt even like coming into my house lol which it might seem funny but it is really sad. You will get depressed and not feel motivated at all to clean. Then some of my excuses not to clean are I have to wait til payday to buy more cleaning products cause I will be out of it or something, or on my day off I didn’t sleep well and to tired. I will try this it’s some very good advice!!
I love you, Girl, you are for real! Not being able to see the counters, all of it, its my house. I can’t clean because there is so much on top of the dirt. My daughter won’t bring her new boyfriend; my son has only one friend he will allow to visit us here. I can’t get a good picture of my Christmas Tree because there is so much stuff everywhere.
I was searching for how to deal with a dirty house, and I am so glad your blog popped up. The other results were basically “how to be a neat freak” or how horrible it is when other people have dirty houses.
Diane, <3 I hope you have a very very Merry Christmas, and don't let the stuff everywhere ruin it!
So this one piece of advice has helped me more than you know. Thank you!
I grew up constantly being shamed for the messy state of my bedroom, so I always assumed I was inherently messy, like it was a personality flaw. My mom would sometimes hire someone to clean the house, including my room, so I never figured out how to deal with my belongings, and never knew where things were.
Over the past three years, I’ve been working with my husband to “KonMari” our lives. What I’ve learned through the process is that I’m not inherently messy, but that I was never taught how to clean, then shamed for it, which didn’t help. Also, I was never encouraged to discard anything- even now, my mom tries to absorb much of what we’ve attempted to toss through the KonMari method, herself. I was taught not to waste, and to remember and honor gift givers by keeping the things they gave me. So I was carrying the emotional burdens of my family in my stuff for my entire childhood and early adulthood, so perpetually surrounded by clutter, and then shamed such that I thought was an inevitable part of who I am.
Well into adulthood, my mom has reminded me of there being actual “vermin” in my room growing up. She accuses my dad of being the same way. The irony is, she has a harder time letting go of belongings than he does!
Anyway. My point is that clearly I had a problem, but it wasn’t that I had a personality incapable of being tidy. I hardly recognize my closet now. I find it so beautiful to see everything treated with respect.
I still get overwhelmed sometimes. Today I googled, “how to clean your house when overwhelmed”, and it’s brought me here again. So helpful!
Thank you!
Thank you, this is super helpful, not just the tips but also the way you describe it. Feels much less shameful knowing we’re not alone and having sorted the house almost completely at one point, I’m sad I’m back here wanting to escape my lovely house so I don’t have to deal with it. Starting afresh today, thank you xx
Thank you for understanding, Carly. It helps to be reminded that I’m not alone and that messes can be tackled one thing a time, even when mess paralysis has set in. And thank you for understanding the emotional toll that can accompany your home being a mess.
Depression is often the cause when I let my place get to be at post-cyclone levels. Then the mess and uncleanliness begin to feed into the depression, as in, my place is awful, so I must be, too, and I will never be capable of fixing it. This, of course, makes me more depressed. The cycle is exhausting, and I’m not even doing anything!
Hiring an organizer can help, I agree. I’ve had some good professionals come in for an hour or so. Their help was a relief, because It helped break through the paralysis. The organizer’s presence and calm guidance made it possible for me to tackle the mess one thing at a time. The organizing session can provide momentum that can carry the process forward even after the organizer has left, because of the sense of accomplishment that come from starting the process. If The organizer will be coming back, it’s helpful when they give an “assignment.” Then you know exactly what to do and how much of it.
Between your blog and the comments, I already feel better. Maybe I’ll put one thing away when I get home.
Thank you so much! I could just cry! It feels so good to just know someone else has gone through this. I appreciate your courage to share and I’m going to get started today. Baby steps 😊
I never had an issue with this until the past few years. I get overwhelmed because I can organize my own stuff, but I can’t declutter my BF’s belongings and we both have more stuff than room. I try to do a good big purge twice a year, but I can’t get him to go through ANYTHING. I’ve offered to help but stuff just piles up and I have literally spent whole weekends in bed watching TV “hiding” from the mess. When I do get the house clean & “somewhat” organized, it lasts about 5 minutes. I literally can’t keep up with him. It’s like having a daycare full of toddlers, but it’s just the two of us & our furry kids. I’m overwhelmed all the time.
I am an artist. I make reborn dolls for therapeutic reasons. I have so much paraphernalia from this art after going on disability for my Illness (Lupus) 4 years ago that the supplies bled everywhere. My husband is an old toy collector/seller and his collection is bleeding everywhere. My son and daughter in law say it’s not our mess so they aren’t cleaning it (they live with us, and yes, they cook and leave the stove a mess after. My husband works hard, daughter and son in law sleep all day and I’m up at 9 Am ready to go til I come downstairs and feel like the weight of the world is on just ME. I know I can do this Myself, I’m just so discouraged. -feeling helpless in PA
Would love if you started your own course, this really resonates with me how you describe it all, this mess is in my home, although not dirty I simply can’t keep it out, musical,creative arty-people find it extremely difficult to keep housework in order as we see it as ordinary and mundane, please help 😩
Good article. My family is going to give this a go! I have always been a stay at home mom and homeschooled our three daughters. My husband’s work moved him around state to state and we decided to keep our family together and go with him. We kept our home in KY and for six years lived all over the north eastern states accumulating more and more stuff. We moved back home to Ky four summers ago and I am still unpacking boxes. It will take some time to do it, but it’s worth it. Thank you.