{"id":7277,"date":"2018-05-19T05:47:24","date_gmt":"2018-05-19T05:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2018\/05\/19\/how-do-i-keep-the-place-clean-when-no-one-will\/"},"modified":"2018-05-19T05:47:24","modified_gmt":"2018-05-19T05:47:24","slug":"how-do-i-keep-the-place-clean-when-no-one-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2018\/05\/19\/how-do-i-keep-the-place-clean-when-no-one-will\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;How do I keep the place clean when no one will help me?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com\/post\/20534295854\/how-do-i-keep-the-place-clean-when-no-one-will\" class=\"tumblr_blog\">unfuckyourhabitat<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This is, by far (besides cat pee), the most frequent theme of my asks. The asker is the one who\u2019s invested in the unfucking process, and the people who they share space with are not on board. It could be roommates\/flatmates, spouses, children, parents, significant others, whoever. The point is that you\u2019re cleaning up and they aren\u2019t. I love bullet points, so I\u2019m going to bullet point the important stuff in this situation.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<strong>You cannot change anyone\u2019s behavior but your own.<\/strong> You can ask for help, you can beg for buy-in, you can threaten, cajole, plead, or yell, but in the end, you can really only control what you do.<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>This is your priority, not theirs. <\/strong>This one might sting a bit, but it\u2019s true. You\u2019re on board, you\u2019re energized, you\u2019re motivated. Something spoke to you to get you going with this. They are not there. They have different priorities, other things occupying their time.<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>With very few exceptions, they are not actively sabotaging your efforts<\/strong>. I\u2019m just going to come out with it, because this can be a hard one to hear, but: chances are, <strong>they either don\u2019t notice, or they don\u2019t care<\/strong>. Before you make any progress with how you look at this situation, it\u2019s really important to fully understand this. You\u2019re seeing ill intent where there\u2019s likely just apathy and\/or laziness.<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Sometimes it\u2019s better to be happy than be right<\/strong>.This one\u2019s going to ruffle some feathers. I\u2019m not saying be a maid for the people who live with you. I\u2019m not saying to clean up after them. I do advocate putting all their shit somewhere (after telling them you\u2019re going to do it) so that it\u2019s not in your way, but if all you\u2019re getting is upset and annoyed, you have to weigh whether it\u2019s more important for you to have buy-in or to have a clean space. Again, you don\u2019t have to be their maid, but cleaning your half of the stuff is still a 50% improvement from total disaster.<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Passive-aggressive behavior never works.\u00a0<\/strong>It doesn\u2019t. It backfires. Constantly. Post-it notes, snide comments, throwing stuff (well, that\u2019s more aggressive-aggressive) does not accomplish anything besides allowing your resentment to breed and making the other person think you\u2019re unreasonable and immature.<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Use your words.\u00a0<\/strong>Explain to the people you live with\u00a0<em>why <\/em>you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing. ASK them to help you out. Ask for help with very specific things, with specific timeframes. Let them know you\u2019re going to keep doing it, and you may need to move their stuff (hell, toss it in a big box, I don\u2019t care) in order to do so. Have the conversation as often as you feel is necessary, but <strong>have it without resentment, anger, or sarcasm<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Give them time.<\/strong> Like I said, right now, you\u2019re gung-ho about this. They aren\u2019t. But the more your behavior is consistently being modeled for them, the more likely they are to adopt it.<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Keep on keeping on. <\/strong>Don\u2019t let someone else deter you from doing something you want or need to do. It sucks if you\u2019re doing it alone, but this is about you, not them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cBut, but, this is how my specific situation doesn\u2019t fit what you\u2019ve said.\u201d I will get approximately ten billion asks and reblogs with some variation on that statement. And I will likely call 99.9% of them excuses. Life isn\u2019t fair, kiddos. It\u2019s how you deal with that fact that makes you who you are.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>unfuckyourhabitat: This is, by far (besides cat pee), the most frequent theme of my asks. The asker is the one who\u2019s invested in the unfucking process, and the people who they share space with are not on board. It could be roommates\/flatmates, spouses, children, parents, significant others, whoever. The point is that you\u2019re cleaning up &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2018\/05\/19\/how-do-i-keep-the-place-clean-when-no-one-will\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;How do I keep the place clean when no one will help me?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3013,3019,3018],"class_list":["post-7277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advice","tag-cleaning","tag-ufyh","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}