Well Missing...You have two choices:

(1) You can live with the clutter

(2) You can clean it up.

You'll never be able to force your stepkids to help if you are "disengaged". That's part of being disengaged. And if your DH doesn't care, he's not going to clean it.

Personally, I wouldn't live in a messy house.

My mother always said that the person who is most bothered by the mess will be the one who cleans it. How sad and how true.

It's like we're hostage that way. They don't care and you become silent maid. Perfect for them, unless there are some consequences. You have to disengage from everything except that which affects your house and your sleep. Then you may have to get medieval on their buttocks.

I'm trying this at my house when they are there. If things are not cleaned up and put away, I let BF know that he needs to do it. If that doesn't happen, anything of theirs left lying around goes into the trash.

I don't feel this is unfair at all. It's the same with my BSs. If they cannot clean up after themselves, I toss their stuff. I hate nagging! It takes more energy to run around after them and make them pick up than it does for me to just do it, but that's not parenting and as far as BF's go, it's not my damn job. Especially if they just want to be all entitled about it!

I clean up. I don't go in their rooms. I shut the doors. I won't even let the cleaning lady in their room. I tell them if they want clean sheets they need to take them out of the closet and put them on their bed and she will change them. She cleans their bathroom. I won't go in there. Hiring the cleaning lady helped a lot. I am just not paying her to clean their room. They can do that.

My OCD is pretty strong, so shutting their doors was very hard for me. But, I do not go in there at all anymore. DH does and he deals with the mess when it drives him nuts. My BS, I am on him all the time about his room. He can't leave the house if he has a mess in his room. But, he is mine, so I have no problem nagging him.

As for clutter, they don't leave it out. If they leave things out, it used to disappear. Now, they put it away. As for clean clothes. I do that for the house and leave their folded clothes on the floor outside their door. DH puts them in their room and they put them away when they come back.

I do cook for everyone. But, I walk out of the kitchen after dinner and leave DH to clean it. He doesn't do it all the way I would like, but it is close.

This is working for us. They have chores that they have to do on Sunday morning and they do. Their was one huge fight on that and it never has happened since.

When I was a kid my mother would remind my brother and I constantly to pick up after ourselves which included putting plates/glasses in the dishwasher when we were through. After awhile she got so sick of this she would put these things on our beds! Preferably our pillows. Well not cleaning up those things got real old after awhile since we would have no place to sleep if there were dirty dishes in our beds! I agree with onthefence...step kids or not they need to learn responsibility and they won't if DH allows them to do as they please with no consequences for rule breaking/bending. If it has been made clear to these kids what needs to be done and then it isn't done...well looks like they're going to learn the hard way! If they don't want their stuff thrown out they will learn to be responsible.

I think there are ways to do it, you just gotta figure out what's going to work with you. I've never truly disengaged, because 1 day of disengagement or just a threat of it is enough to usually whip my family back into shape. But of course, this wouldn't work for every family. Here is what I have done in a few instances:

Began refusing to wipe SSs pee off the toilet seat (how hard is it to lift the seat?) I told them that if I ever sat in their pee that I would take it as their acceptance that I was allowed to put my pee on them and I would do so by coming into their rooms while they were sleeping and shooting them with a squirt gun filled with me pee. (I've never had to do this. Juvenile? - yes. Effective? - yes.)

Began refusing to be the only one to clean up the kitchen. Told my DH (who was a SAHD at the time) that I would be hiring a maid and in order to afford this I would be shutting off the cable. (Never had to do it.)

Told them all - SSs & BD that any of their items left in living room or kitchen etc would be thrown away. (Never had to do this either and they almost never leave their stuff lying around anymore.)

Told SS10 when he was being a jerk that if he wasn't going to be a team player than neither was I and he could start making his own breakfasts, lunches, dinners, doing his own laundry, finding someone else to help with homework or pay for his little extras that we sometimes get him, etc etc etc. He said "Fine!" An hour later he came back apologizing profusely.

None of these may work for you or even apply to your situation, but I'm good at getting people to do what I want. I can be scary when I wanna be.

How about picking up any mess they make in the common areas of the house and putting it in their beds? They'll get the hint pretty quickly, I'd think

I am the maid around here. No one helps me. No one offers to help. The brat once said "you pick up after YOUR dog, you can pick up after me too." The problem is I like my dog.

After Grandma left in October, I stopped cleaning...EVERYTHING....including the toilet SS pisses all over. This house was beyond gross, I finally cleaned it the first week of December. No one noticed either way.

On the fence's mom is a wise woman.

Man I guess maybe its not so bad having his daughter being raised by his parents. We live in his parents shack (literally) and when we moved in her room was a disaster. Toys, clothes crap all over even into the hallway. And yes we, my children and I had to clean it up.
So they moved into a million dollar home (no wonder why she wanted to live with them) and one time I used her room to nurse my dd and there was a freakin used pad on the floor still attatched to her underwear, I know gross!!! YUCK Uh Uh there'd be some real issues or maybe since I've never had the chance to be a "step-mom" I just dont understand how completeley frustrating things would get if I had to put up with that crap. I feel for all you guys, I really do. :O

This is how we handle this in my house. BUT, I have to tell you…DH and I discussed this before we got married. And he knows how I must have a clean house. SS and him used to and still could, live in filth. DH knew this was one of the things I would not compromise on.

EACH PARENT IS TO MAKE SURE THEIR BIOS FOLLOW THE RULES.

No food or drink allowed ANYWHERE except in kitchen and dining room.
No one leaves anything in common areas.
They can keep their room how they want, unless things start crawling out.
No food or drink allowed in their rooms though.
Everyone rinses and loads their own dishes.
Everyone washes and folds their own clothes and towels.
Everyone picks up their own crap.

A few other things but you get the picture. At first SS was VERY bad about any of this. He is better now because every time he would leave something out, I would tell DH that SS left it out so DH needed to go pick it up. DH got tired of having to follow SS around all day and having to pick up all of his crap. DH finally started making SS do it. It was kind of funny. But now SS rarely leaves anything out. (his room is still a sty)

Is there anyway you can just make your DH start doing this?

i rarley clean my skids stuff, i wash my dh's and my bedding EVERY sunday and my daughter's i wont do skids laundry, vacume their room, and lately if they leave ANYTHING even things they bring from home for the weekend laying around.....it's either MINE if it's nice, cause i picked it up, or it's trash (even bm's shoes since skid-15 can't ever find her own stuff to wear to dad's because she's always rushing around like it's new scheduel to her)

bm has tried yelling at me about this too because i wont let them wear the shoes we have here home so they've gone home bare footed....i tell her, well, teach your kids to pick up after themselves and it'll stop.

she tried to fight it, but in dead heat of summer, they go bare footed all the time so it wasn't REALLY that big a deal

it did too....and bm wont let them wear good shoes to our house (fine by me)

When my steps leave a mess in what I now refer to as the "guest room" - after they "clean it up"...I go and change the sheets and I throw out any clothing, socks, movies or whatever they leave laying around in the trash basket in the room. I leave it there until they come back. If they dont retrieve it from the trash - as it is highly visible - I empty the can.
I swear their BM must spend a fortune on socks every year.

I stopped doing SD's laundry long ago...she knows not to leave a mess for me to clean up or her stuff ends up in the trash. She only does laundry once a month lol...I guess having clean clothes is no big deal?

In our home, everyone must contribute to being a part of the family. For instance, my ss10 decided he could wear 15 pairs of clothes in 2 days, just dump it in the laundry and leave! so, first, I just made sure laundry was done so the next time they came back they didn't get to do anything (and, we live out of town, motorcycles, pond, atv, we are always doing something, gaming systems) so this is kind of painful. Also, I stopped folding it. I did teach them how to do laundry, but am kind of a freak about anyone doing laundry in my machines, the folding and putting away is extremely painful, but not my responsibility and not my choice. They got the picture. and, I HATE nagging and refuse to do it. we try to find logical consequences for behavior that makes them take responsibility for their choices and doesn't hurt us or anyone else except that one who made the choice.

Also, we have them help around the house. we have "work-o-meters" that they are responsible for putting time on (we break down 8 hours into 15 minutes. They forget to put their time on...too bad, not our responsibility or choice. They cannot log time for any "part of being a family" chores (taking garbage out, cleaning room, etc) as that is just what it takes to be a part. They don't get points for being asked to do something. they only get for volunteer help, but they do get to log time if one helps the other, as that is going above and beyond. If they fill out the 8 hours, they are so excited and we get them something - not extravagant - but we have gotten them aprons (both enjoy cooking with us and we encourage that), next they get their names embroidered on, one got a cooking knife, I just find things they can use, and enjoy. We have noticed they actually offer help now, they help eachother more, and, amazingly, are more efficient in their chores and help!

creative thinking and letting go of the responsibility and putting it where it belongs (on the choice maker himself) has really helped DH and me to have a happier time with the kids. If you are like us, you only get them so often, so just love them as much as you can while you have the time, but don't take any bull for it!

Well, if its left in my living room or my kitchen, it eventually goes in the trash. They each have an area where they can keep their crap. They get told to keep it cleaned up or it gets tossed on the porch. If they don't retrieve it from the porch, the next step is the garbage. I'm okay with it, because it's BMs shoes, clothes, etc., what do I care?

We have 7 altogether. If 7 people leave their shoes in the living room that's 14 shoes...add toys and jackets....my mom calls me SARGE. It's not that I'm bossy, its just that we have to be able to walk in our house.

They mess up the kitchen, they better clean it up right then. You have too many people in your house for the disrespect. its your rules. if they can't follow them, they don't get to go in the kitchen. PERIOD!

This can be done. I have done it. DH was no help at all. I finally had to limit ss17 to nothing but disposable dishes because he didn't want to wash them. Thank God he moved back to the BratMaker! My rules are NO FOOD OR DISHES UPSTAIRS PERIOD!!! ONLY WATERBOTTLES.

You have to be militant when you have an army. I wish we could all be nice and make fairy wishes for love and happiness, but really, that gets us nowhere.

I would inform dh that if his kids don't start picking up then you will be hiring a maid/cleaning service to come to the house once a week or whenever. Then take it out of HIS budget, if needed. For example, cut his sports channel on tv, cable, his eating out expenses, or whatever to instead pay for the cleaning service. I bet if he has to give up something to pay for someone to clean he'll be pretty peeved. Explain it is not your responsibility to clean other people's messes but that it is still your house too and you will not live in filth, so this is the only logical solution...unless, of course, his kids actually pick up after themselves! (gasp!)

I think the problem is entitlement! take the entitlement away...poor babies have to accept responsibility. I would take a stockload of towels into my bedroom and leave just enough for them and let them leave them on the floor. let them run out of towels (don't pick them up or do the laundry). try saying this (sincerely as possible, not sarcastically), "oh, thats too bad, you are out of a towel. would you like me to show you how to do the laundry so you can have one for tomorrow?"

Also, with cleaning lady...try this (as sincerely as possible, no sarcasm): "that's ok you don't want to pick up your room. I understand. I am going to have to hire someone to do this as I have my own to do. How do you plan to pay for this?" don't back down, don't fight, don't anything. just be plain, no yell no nag and honest how do they plan to pay for this. also, they want to go places and do things...maybe you just are unable to cart them around...like an energy drain! when they tell you they hate you, say "nice try" and smile and keep saying it. Don't throttle them...doesn't help. also, 4 year olds can, amazingly, clean up after themselves (not the best, but job is done)! show her how and don't take it on yourself and she will probably be more careful! there are ways to have a slight bit of fun with this...sick, I know, but I needed to survive. I can only hope this helps someone else