You'd Think After 10 Years I Would Get Used to This

[Nanisu]

Called a hostess today to do a little host coaching for her show in a couple of weeks. THIS IS WHAT SHE SAID: "I can't do my show in two weeks, I have to clean my house and it will take way longer than that." So me, thinking she must be under construction or something, I say "oh, big construction project going on now?". HER RESPONSE: "No, but my house is pretty dirty and it will take way longer than that to get it clean". My response "oh people don't care what your house looks like--hospitality is about YOU not your home". Her response "yeah but I haven't washed the dishes for over a month and it's pretty bad...., and I haven't done laundry for almost that long either, there's stuff everywhere".

Needless to say I rescheduled for June...thinking "geez, what violation of the health department situation did I just save myself from?" I was so dumfounded I couldn't even be mad that she tanked on me. I don't know whether I was more surprised that she actually HAD a house that dirty or that she admitted it to someone she hardly knows.

Sheesh

 

[jwpamp]

I'm speechless.

 

[cookingwithdot]

That is crazy! But I would be scared to go to her house ...

 

[pcsharon1]

Okay, I've gone several weeks without doing laundry before - but no one would be able to tell that walking into my house to have a get together. Makes me wonder where all those dirty clothes are...............then again, I really don't want to know.

 

[Becca_in_MD]

She's not going to have the house clean by June, either. I'm surprised she booked if her house is such a wreck. I've had more than one person object to booking b/c their house is a wreck.

I can understand people not doing dishes for weeks if they eat out all the time and use paper plates. I don't understand how they have so many clothes that they don't need to do laundry for weeks. They really have that much clean underwear?

 

[Sheila]

Who has enough dishes to go a whole month without washing them? How many plates & forks can one person own? Or do you just wash a plate, eat from it & then leave it until you are ready to eat again?

In 1987, I went with a friend over to the house of someone I had known in high school. She freaked when she realized that someone else was with our mutual friend. We stood (I kid you not) on the front porch for 15 min's while she cleaned up for us to come inside. Once inside, I noticed numerous dirty diapers and I'm talking diapers with feces in them, laying open on the couch & on the floor along with urine soaked ones. Not only was it a health hazard to have them laying around, her baby was old enough to crawl & get into them! And it still has me baffled WHAT exactly she was cleaning for that 15 min's??? I think the diapers would have been the FIRST thing to pick up, not something that's okay to leave out after you've picked up other stuff. It's been 23 years & I still think about that incident from time to time.When I was a police dispatcher, we received a complaint about a house that was unsanitary and a concern for the children inside. The Sergeant who responded said that there was old plates laying around with food in them, along with maggots. Oh, and a dead cat on the front porch ... or should I say the remnants of a dead cat. The only thing that was left was the skeleton of the cat, it had been there for that long.

She had 5 children in the home. I'm assuming they never had their friends over to play???

 

[lesliec]

yes, people live that way, and yes they do lose their children. a few years back i had gotten in touch with a girl from highschool. we realized we lived in the same town and met up for lunch. hadn't been great friends in high school, but good acquaintances..... a few weeks later we got a call from CPS asking if we could take her children. i went to pick them up and the house was piled waist high in trash. it was absolutely disgusting. their were little paths around the house, but the entire thing was full of nastiness. i've never been a neat freak, and sometimes feel like my messes are out of control, but i can't imagine people living that way.

 

[Sheila]

That's sad.

 

[chefsteph07]

I can't believe she even said that to you.
Do you REALLY want to do a show in her house?

 

[lesliec]

what's even sadder to me is that the military came in and cleaned the house for her b/c her husband was deployed. they got the children back, then got sent to a different state (where there is no record and no one to check in on them). On top of that they now don't believe in medical treatment (it was a doctor who originally reported them), and they are also homeschooling (they got lots of grief from the school, too). The parents never admitted they had a problem and never really got help, they just learned how to close the doors that were a threat to them.

 

[NooraK]

Nancy, I don't think that is something you'll ever get used to. Well, canecellations, maybe, but not that particular excuse.

 

[Sheila]

what's even sadder to me is that the military came in and cleaned the house for her b/c her husband was deployed. they got the children back, then got sent to a different state (where there is no record and no one to check in on them). On top of that they now don't believe in medical treatment (it was a doctor who originally reported them), and they are also homeschooling (they got lots of grief from the school, too). The parents never admitted they had a problem and never really got help, they just learned how to close the doors that were a threat to them.

Hey, were they out here in Okinawa??? I just heard a very similar story. Mom went in to have a baby & while she was gone, they intervened & had a whole team come in & clean out the house. The neighbor said that the team were donned with hazmat gear, gloves, disposable jumpsuits, protective gear over their shoes, face masks so they could breathe, etc. She said the pile of trash bags from inside the house extended about 10' beyond the actual trash can. She said it looked like they literally threw away EVERYTHING inside the house. ((shutters thinking about that))

 

[chef131doreen]

Well now that the party is in June maybe you can plan to have it OUTSIDE just in case she still needed more time on cleaning
I went to a house one time thank good ness it was in the summer ,as I walked thought the house I said what great weather we are having we can have this party on your deck
Anything would have been better than in the house YUK YUK the party turned out to be 800 or so but I think I would have been sick inside that house

 

[ChefBeckyD]

My first thought was that the dirty house is just an excuse. If it's that bad, she must have know it was like that when she booked, and if she hasn't cleaned it in all that time, she's not going to clean it now. So - it's probably just a good excuse not to do the party.

Often, people whose houses are like that have no idea they are that bad. I've been in a few like that. One as a personal chef, and I was coming in to actually cook meals for the family. It was a multi-million dollar home on a lake, and was absolutely gorgeous on the outside. On the inside, there was so much crap all over...garbage bags that hadn't been taken out, mold growing in and out of the fridge from spills and rotten food - and I had to clear off the counters in order to even work in the kitchen. I brought alot of cleaning rags with me, and I shows them to my husband when I got home. His comment was "Wow - those floors were really dirty!" and then I had to tell him those rags weren't from cleaning the kitchen floor, they were from the kitchen counters!:yuck:

Then, there is one memorable host - the house was so bad, I could smell something funky as I walked to the side door. The garage was so full, you couldn't get into it. She opened the door to the garage to throw some garbage in there, and the WHOLE garage was full of garbage. The house was the same way. I'm still not sure what that smell was, but it was stomach churningly disgusting. I had just enough space on one counter to do the demo, and she did manage to clear off the table for her 4 guests....but we couldn't have had it in the living room or family room, because both of those rooms were piled high with junk too. She seriously had no clue that the house was that bad. She was even throwing a little fit with her kids and husband, because they had eaten, and not cleaned up the kitchen after themselves and she said to me "I hate that, because I'm so anal about my kitchen".:yuck: I'm thinking -"you mean, the kitchen with the dead turtle in the bowl sitting on the counter? The one where my feet are sticking to the floor, and there's dried-on gunk on all the cupboards?" The smell in the house permeated EVERYTHING. When I got home, my husband and son smelled it on me as soon as I walked in the house. I had to take a shower, wash my clothes, take my totes outside and air them out and febreze them, and wash everything that was in my kit. Then, I had to clean out my car. Nasty, Nasty, Nasty!

The weird thing is that if you met this woman, you would think she was all put together. She talks like she's intelligent, she lived many different places/countries, she homeschools one of her children, she's been active in Girl Scouts with her daughter, etc....how can someone like that choose to live, and raise her family in such a pit? I don't get it.

 

[Jinkies]

It is a disease that people have. Just like drinking, drugs, and shopping in excess, these people can't let go of anything.

 

[etteluap70PC]

I like having parties because I am not the neatest person on the planet and it gives me a good excuse to clean. Just got done with a bunch of extra cleaning for my PR show last night. Dh loves that the house is so clean and so do I.

My Gram is a pack rat. Her house has piles of stuff. Her house was never disgusting though until she has gotten older. Dishes were always washed although she was known to serve stale food at times. She grew up in the depression so food was food.

I am also guessing this is an excuse so if she booked a prime day for you you may want to double book it.

 

[mailgirl1978]

Yeah, at one of my shows last month the hostess said as I walked in, "Ive been working on this house all week!!!" ...I was thinking, "Really?".....it had that stomach churning disgusting smell Becky spoke of earlier..ha
I usually eat what I demo along with the guests....but not this time...

 

[pamperedlinda]

ick!!!! ya'll have some nasty gross stories!

 

[DEBBI]

Watch hoarders on a&e or hoarders buried alive on tlc... It really opens your eyes.

 

[PCJenni]

I would put money on the fact that she will not have her house cleaned in June and this show will not go. If she lives like this on a day to day basis and is aware enough to be embarassed by it, she is not going to have changed anything because the problem is in her head not the house. Hoarding is a mental illness not an environmental one. The persons outward environment is a reflection of their inward struggles.

 

[Sheila]

Watch hoarders on a&e or hoarders buried alive on tlc... It really opens your eyes.

Actually, I just finished watching one for the very first time. The guy's house was filled at least waist high with STUFF. Some places literally went almost all the way to the ceiling. So at the end of the show, they are scanning the room ... and right there on the top of a pile is a bag from ... wait for it ... The Container Store! I could read their logo "Contain Yourself" ... so ironic!

 

[Jolie_Paradoxe]

Wow....have a no bake recipe ready....if she tells you again that her house is a mess, maybe you can make it an outdoor party...or ask if there's a friend who wouldn't mind having the party at her house. Lots of luck!

 

[smspamperedchef]

I tell you what...this was NOT the thread to read while eating my soup. YUK! I was eating soup as my stomach was a bit upset, thanks everyone!:yuck:
I know, reader beware!

 

[lesliec]

Sheila, it was not in Okinawa, they lived on Ft. Hood. That happened about 3 years ago, but I am thinking it is probably a pretty common thing. I am glad that the military is willing to help these people, but by doing it for them, they are not learning to change. People are welcome to choose to live like this, but not when children are involved. That incident is what caused my husband and I to become foster parents. We now have three wonderful boys that we are in the process of adopting.

 

[AJPratt]

WOW. I have been in some homes that were pretty cluttered but nothing like that! UGH! I hope the show works out.

 

[lockhartkitchen]

When dropping off a host packet for a catalog show once, I "generously" offered to have her show delivered to me and I would bag it all up for her. Reason? Her home had no floors- just the subfloor, with poo from animals all over, cats and dogs running all over, smell of urine, etc. I didn't want our products sitting in that.

 

[wadesgirl]

I just had a show like this. Walked into the back porch and there was a "trough" of stuff you had to walk through, not only that but walk on! The kitchen was so bad I didn't even want to look in there (good thing we were doing a no cook demo). Luckily the dining room and living room weren't so bad... they were bad but not as bad. They even had an outboard boat motor sitting on the floor of the dining room! I felt so glad to get out of that house.

Oh her excuse was that it was winter time...

 

[AJPratt]

I just had a show like this. Walked into the back porch and there was a "trough" of stuff you had to walk through, not only that but walk on! The kitchen was so bad I didn't even want to look in there (good thing we were doing a no cook demo). Luckily the dining room and living room weren't so bad... they were bad but not as bad. They even had an outboard boat motor sitting on the floor of the dining room! I felt so glad to get out of that house.

Oh her excuse was that it was winter time...

 

[pampered1224]

I have a next door neighbor who is a school teacher with two young boys. she is maybe 28 or 29 years old. She is a military wife. while her husband was in Iraq from March 2009 to February 2010, she left all the lights in the house on. I saw into the house one day and there was garbage and all sorts of stuff all over the place! It was a mental reaction to her husband being gone. I know depression is a powerful thing. So in that case I think she had a mental issue. Actually anyone who lets their home get like that has problems. I had one party where the host was missing when I arrived and the kitchen was SO GROSS!!! It stunk of cat and dog and rotten food! I found plates in the sink, a stove top that was actually covered in old food messes and an oven full of dirty pots and pans. The micro wave had a plate in it that was brown, mushy and fuzzy and stinky! Funny part was that the rest of the house was spotless! WEIRD!!! I have to admit I almost threw up from the smell and mess! $600 party though and I usually eat the food costs for that but since I cleaned her kitchen, she showed up 5 minutes after our start time, I charged her for the food. OOOO! Now I know why I have never done another party there! She rebooked herself but never got back to me. I think she was too embarrassed!