Cleanliness of home environment

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I am a suspected/self-proclamed Aspie and I am wondering if any other people with AS have difficulty with keeping their home clean. I have read about personal hygiene sometimes being an issue, but I have not seen mention of other aspects of cleanliness.

I am in my mid-twenties finally living on my own. My son and I have a two bedroom apartment and I confess that it pretty much always looks like a landfill. I can not walk in my room because it is covered in books and clothes. The bathroom sink is caked with paint from rinsing out paintbrushes, and has hair all over from when I gave myself a haircut two weeks ago. The kitchen is usually unusable because of dirty dishes and clutter except when my mother comes and cleans it occasionally. My son's room is honestly the neatest place in the house because he is very good about picking up his toys.

I do not honestly know why I have such difficulty keeping my home clean. I am worried because being self-reliant is important to me and people have used my lack of hygiene as an excuse to curtail my independence in the past. Is living neatly really very important? Is this a problem any other aspies share or is it just a failing of mine?

I personally have a huge problem with this too... often have to throw away plates and cutlery because they're hopelessly stained, sometimes for years (which, of course, always makes me resort to takeaway food...) - every time I tidy up the room's back to being hopeless in a short while. I also have difficulty concentrating generally, so I'm thinking that it might be related.

The only time I managed to maintain my room perfectly was when I was in a desperate situation, ironically (non-independent), and I suppose I just couldn't afford to be untidy. I realize how more difficult it must be to also have children... in the end I paid someone to clean my flat after a few years.

I was just thinking about this topic a few days ago. I live in an Aspie family (all four of us are on the spectrum in one form or another) and I am the only one who cleans. I hate it so I always find something else to do when we are home (like right now, I should be cleaning but visiting WP instead!) Things typically have to get pretty bad before I will tackle it. However, I have been very good about washing the dishes daily and doing the laundry. Those things are now part of my daily routine. The other cleaning chores are not and that is why they typically do not get done. I am trying to first get rid of the clutter in my house (minimal living) and then trying to get the cleaning more on a schedule/routine. But even finding the time to declutter is very hard for me. Rather be on the internet or doing my special interest. Looking forward to other people's thoughts about this topic. Thanks for posting it. Ok, now off to clean the bathroom for me!! !

Yes, cleanlyness and hygene are sometimes issues to those of us on the spectrum. Also getting organized and decluttered. Look up EFD--Executive Function Disorder. This condition is often comorbid to those with Autism/Asperger's spectrum disorders. From the descriptions of all the posters so far on this thread, it sounds like all have EFT. Unfortunately, it's one of my comorbids, too.

My place is a mess. My old PC is not in good shape, and uses dial-up. I have a new refurb sitting on the floor waiting in the wings. It is too narrow to take my old modem card, but my place is too messy to have service people over to set me up with DSL. I will eventually get the place cleaned up enough for them to come, but don't anyone hold their breath waiting for that time to come. I also have other health issues that leave me too tired and low in energy to get stuff done fast.

Once I get the new PC set up I can get WiFi. Then I can replace the dead TV with a new one and get a Roku, so I can get free I-net TV through the cable I-net I don't have yet. That way I won't have to pay a separate charge for cable TV. But none of that is going to happen until I can get the place cleaned up.

Well--SIGH --some day.

I've always had trouble keeping tidy. Even if I do have a tidy up, clutter seems to accumulate within minutes. When I was younger I used to have a path from my bedroom door to my bed - anywhere else was dangerous territory. I'm not quite that bad now but my house is still a very long way from tidy.

My advice.

01. God made dirt. Dirt won't hurt.
02. When in doubt, throw it out.

I was wondering, do people who have this problem here mostly live in noisy environments (internally or externally, with e.g. the house on a busy road)?

With regards to the latter I do, but I'm not sure if I'm just trying to find a scapegoat for my untidiness... I just notice that with greater noise I become more mentally chaotic, which would easily result in this.

I'm pretty messy but a lot of it is due to laziness, also I'm just not that great at cleaning either. I can do it if I really get my act together though, it just takes me a bit longer.

I'm very messy. :/ I clean up about once every 6 weeks, and it is typically due to being tired of hearing the complaints from my gf.

I'm generally pretty lazy, but it depends. The worst for me is an unstructured environment living with other people. I often feel like I have to wait til they aren't around to do stuff. On my own I manage better.

But I think the best for me, for this particular thing, is generally an environment where there's structure and a routine is established.

I'm generally pretty lazy, but it depends. The worst for me is an unstructured environment living with other people. I often feel like I have to wait til they aren't around to do stuff. On my own I manage better.

But I think the best for me, for this particular thing, is generally an environment where there's structure and a routine is established.

Oh wow! I didn't realize this was an aspie thing. I've always been messy, kept things cluttered. The only place I was ever really neat and orderly was my desk at work - but it would get bad if I let it. I think the reason I was more orderly there was that I had to be able to find an ongoing project if someone asked about it.

When I was a kid and shared a room with my sister, my half was a disaster area, hers neat and in order. She hated sharing with me. (I don't blame her.)

Since marriage (to someone who also has aspie tendencies - we both discovered this at the same time), we go through cycles of clean/neatness and messiness. For years, when we rented a larger house and had a place for everything, we did have a routine of cleaning, and things got really good for a while. Then we had to move into a much smaller place. We seem to have never gotten back to that clean routine.

Right now we're in a long messy cycle, and it's starting to get to me more than to him. So we've been having some house rearranging/throwing out sessions, whenever I can get him to help. It's mostly his collecting that is at issue right now. I collect too, but um, smaller stuff. I'm also (miracle) actually cleaner than he is. I notice the dirt sooner, and get to a point where I can't stand it sooner. But I'm still pretty bad. My saving grace is that it embarrasses me for others to see it so if we're expecting company, I will get into a cleaning frenzy.

I'm very interested to learn that this is an aspie thing. I didn't know where it came from!

I imagine that site could be helpful to many people but for me personally some of the things on there just bug me. This one especially bugs me from her 11 commandments. "Get dressed every morning, even if you don’t feel like it. Don’t forget your lace-up shoes."

Another quote from her site was "There is one other great benefit to wearing shoes. Two summers ago was the first time I successfully did this for more than a week or two. It was also the first summer I didn’t have cracked and bleeding heels."

Who even gets cracked and bleeding heels from not wearing shoes? I'm actually had problems with itchiness and heat rashes from wearing shoes in warm weather. I don't care what anyone says. I'm not wearing shoes in the house, especially uncomfortable ones.

I also don't like the fixing your hair and face part. Doing something with your hair is fine if it's even just brushing it but what if you don't wear make-up? Then there is nothing to fix.

Maybe some of the tips could be helpful but some I just can't or won't follow.

The trick is to adapt the ideas to what works best for you. Follow the steps that work, adapt the ones that don't quite work and ignore the ones that are just not right for you.