I made the mistake of cleaning both of my daughter’s rooms last week. I gave them both fair warning that I would be doing this in the hopes that they would clean their rooms themselves. Boy was I stupid! Well this act of stupidity on my part made me realise that I gave birth to the Odd Couple!

I first ventured into the room occupied by Oscar Madison. I figured with the warning my teen could hide anything, clean up a little bit before I braved the deep, dark unknown that she calls a room. I was very optimistic when I ventured into her room with only 1 trash bag. I started with her dresser, which I thought would be easy. Wrong! The last time I put anything in her dresser was about 3 years ago when I stopped doing her laundry! What used to be 6 drawers with neatly folded clothes has turned into 2 drawers with clothes crammed into them, 2 drawers with notes from school friends, and 2 more drawers that held unknown food items and some other things that I could not describe. Obviously, I needed more trash bags! After reading all her notes, compressing 4 junk draws into 1and refolding her clothes I moved on to her closet. A-ha, this is where all her clothes ended up! I could not even walk into her closet with all the clothes that were piled on the floor! I figured out what was clean, hung up or folded them and then put them in their correct location. At this point I learned that my daughter has a thing for shoes. I own maybe 4 pairs of shoes, at 15, my daughter owns 20 pairs of shoes! I have my mother-in-law to blame for this! I neatly arranged all her shoes on the floor. I placed all her books on her book shelves and put all her stuffed animals and CD’s neatly on the shelf of her desk The last thing I did was vacuum her room. I emptied the vacuum 3 times before I was done! 5 hours and 8 trash bags later, not kidding, I was done cleaning the room occupied by my 15 year old daughter.

Next I ventured into the room occupied by Felix Unger. I opened her dresser drawers and found all 4 drawers with neatly folded clothes. Of course I still do her laundry! I opened her closet and all her clothes were hanging very nicely all of her toys were in the toy chest and all of her stuffed animals were in their baskets. Her bed was made and there was nothing on her floor. I did clear off her desk which filled up 1/2 of a trash bag! I figure either she has not reached her slob state yet or she has seen how her older sister lives and wants no part of it!

I have told both girls that from now on in order to get their weekly allowances their rooms must be cleaned to my standards! I am sure Felix will not have a problem with this. I have been checking Oscar’s room daily to make sure nothing starts growing back!