How do you "teach" a grown man how to pick up after himself?

Question

My 19 year old nephew moved in with me recently and I don't think I've ever met a messier individual. He will actually leave bowls of food in his room or in the livingroom until someone (usually me) asks him to pick it up (usually twice!)
How do I get him to keep our home cleaner than that?

I want to treat him like an adult not a child.

And sorry Sam, but at 19 they SHOULD pick up after themselves. My 18 and 15 year old sons do a fine job of it and have for years.

He has moved in on a temporary basis, but I'm pretty sure he is comfortable and may be here a while. That is fine with me. He isn't ready to live on his own and I brought him here to help him, to get him ready for that and for all of life. But this messy gunk has to stop!

Answer 1

Hi Dee Dee,

Well, on what basis did your nephew move in with you? Is it permanent? Temporary? That would help a lot in answering your question. Your nephew is family. If you loved him enough to let him come live with you then his feelings must be very important to you. So, having a conversation with him that starts with "if you don't start picking up after yourself . . . " probably will cause feelings between the two of you, that you don't want. . . do you? If you didn't care, then of course you could say, "nephew, since I pick up after you anyway, I think we ought to have a maid come in and help me, because I just don't have the time to pickup after you all the time. So, what do you think about contributing $150/mo. for a maid? If he says he doesn't have the money, then you might say, "well, then how about we have a price per item I pickup, or wipe off, or put away? Say, $1.00 per wipe off, $2.00 per put away, and $3.00 per pick-up?" "At the end of the day you pay me for doing your work for you?"

If he balks at your suggestion(s), then give him the option of coming up with his own. Explain to him how it makes you feel when you've been kind enough to invite him in and he doesn't seem to have the reciprocity to pick up after himself. You may be surprised at the suggestions he gives you. He might be harder on himself than you ever thought of being. The idea is 3 fold:

1. You shouldn't have to pickup after a grown man;
2. Nephew should have "logical consequences" for not picking up after himself; and,
3. You want to help him learn these things so that he will be a good husband and companion to a wife.

Logical consequences:

1. "Nephew, since it takes me an extra 1/2 hour in the morning and 1/2 hour at night to pick up after you, I figure you owe me an hour of "time." I get to choose how you will spend your hour. I will add up all the time you "owe" me. At the end of every day I will tell you how much time you owe me for the day. At the end of the week, you will agree to give me the time you owe me. I might have you: wash, vaccuum and change the oil on all 3 cars/pickups we own (at your own expense). I might have you babysit so my husband and I can go out. If this happens to come during the game, you'll just have to Tivo it or miss it.

After he hears his "options," you might be pleasantly surprised, but only for awhile. Habits take a long time to form, and just as long to break. You must be vigilent and follow through!

Good Luck to you!

Answer 2

Ok I got this from a book...
Bury the remote in whatever he has piled on the couch. He'll ask you where it is, guaranteed. Tell him it's in the pile on the couch. Only give him this answer. He will eventually realize the pile is there and clean it up to find the remote. Do this with other small items he needs in other messes he's left around the house until he gets the hint. Make laundry a game. Don't say anything, just put a chalkboard labeled "points" up next to the hamper. Every time his clothes make it to the hamper, add a point, but don't say anything! If he starts to slack off, casually mention your friend's roommate has xnumber of points (bigger number than he has) in y amount of time (shorter time than his points board has been up) but you're sure he will catch up eventually. He'll start putting laundry away again. I don't know if any of that will really work, but at least you're laughing now, right?

Answer 3

This may depend on your level of comfort (or discomfort!) with making his lack of cleanliness HIS problem instead of yours.

With regards to food in his room, don't clean it up. Hide it in his room. After a fairly short while the room will smell pretty bad and he'll be forced to search for the offending item. If he asks, just tell him you put his food in a safe place because you figured he must have been saving it for later. Hide each thing in a different place so he doesn't know where to look each time. Unless he is a total pig, he may start putting the dishes in the kitchen where they belong to avoid the other consequence. Do the same thing with any food item he leaves around....hide it in his room for him.

If it's other things (not your property) just start throwing things out when he leaves them around. You can use nearly the same story....you figured the item was garbage since it wasn't put away in the proper place and it sure LOOKED like garbage where it was left.

Since you probably won't be able to get him to stop treating you like something other than a foster mom and/or personal maid by being polite and expecting him to act like a mature caring person, make it costly to HIM. That usually works for most guys.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Hi,

Unfortunately these days 19 is by no means grown up. It's the parents' fault... not raising them properly. It worked to instill cleanliness in your children when they were younger, but to do this is going to be more difficult for the 19 yr old.

If you leave the plates to pile up he'll just be happy to keep them there. You need to start to take away priviliges... no TV, internet, etc. Maybe don't nag him... everyone hates a nag... try to explain to him how any why it would be a better environment (clean = better, clean = no yelling, etc) if he cleaned up, and hopefully he'll just decide it's worth it to just carry the damn dishes downstairs instead of making an issue of it. Good luck

Answer 5

Usually the fastest learned lessons usually cost something. Lay down the law. He's no longer a child and and needs to be treated as an adult . That means being responsible. When he doesnt adhere to your rules, then start charging him a fee. + he should be contributing in some way just for living with you. He should already know responsibility. But apparantly he does NOT.

Answer 6

This is only hard because you let it be hard. You need to sit down with him now and explain the house rules. Not saying you need to kick his dirty **** out, mind you, but you need to explain the expectation of cleanliness, and you need to set limits and expectations. Along with that you need to set repercussions if he does not meet the expectations. Grounding? Probably not at 19, but where does he get his money? Can you tie that up if he flaunts the rules? Maybe the only card you hold is the housing. Then you need to suck it up and say "here are the rules, and here's what happens if you break the rules" AND THEN STICK TO IT!!!!!

You need to get a set of brass huevos, or ovaries, and just lay down the law. You can lay it down in a nice way, but you need to lay it down. And immediately, before it goes on longer...it sounds like it has already gone on too long if you have to ask him twice to clean up.

Answer 7

You can't teach old dogs new tricks. The only time you can change a male is when he is in diapers. That being said, you need to sit down with him and go over your house rules. If he continues to disrespect your house then you need to throw him out. If that is too dramatic look up what house cleaning services charge and make sure he pays you clean up after him.

Answer 8

Most of the time you cant change a grown man but since this one is only 19 you might have a chance. Tell him clean up or get out he is in YOUR house not his have some respect or live somewhere else. I'm sure you don't want to be rude but me are pig headed you have to be.

Answer 9

That is an almost impossible task. That should have been taught to him years ago and at 19 I don't think he wants to learn how to do it himself especially when he has someone that will eventually do it for him. Get the picture!? One suggestion is try to put the things you pick up in his room and see how long it takes him to get the message.

Answer 10

Hi

I am not sure if this will help, but this is how my mother made me clean up after myself. (I am an only child)

After nagging me for a week, to clean my room and put out my washing, my mother would pick up my clothes and put them into clean garbage bags, and tell me that she had thrown them out or given them away.

When my room was clean she would tell me where she had put them usually in the clean bin, and make me wash them by hand, because she said that if I could not put them out when asked, then the consequences was do it by hand (mean but it worked).

As for dishes left around the house, mum would ban me from going anywhere until I had taken them to the sink and washed and dried them all, including any in the sink.

She would also take things from my room, such as stereo, C.D's etc and would not return them until my room was tidy.

Mum and Dad also had a list of things I had to do, each day and heaven help me if they were not done.
They were;
Put rubbish out,
Do the dishes, (including dishes I had in my room etc),
Pick up my stuff before going to school or bed.
Weekly
Vacuum out once a week including my room
And clean the loo once a week (which I hate)
And help hang washing out, especially if I got my stuff in.

Mum is a neat freak, and every thing has to be in its place, and in a certain way. Thanks to her I now keep my unit fairly clean.

Is he paying board/rent? Maybe you could increase his rent a little, you could also ban him and every one else from eating any where but the kitchen.

Good luck and hope he gets the message!