50 People Trying To Unscrew Their Habitat, One Mess At A Time

Cleared my depression pit! Genuinely can't believe how [bad] I am because it took less than a day to do. it feels amazing waking up to a new room every day now though

I still got lots to do. My floors are filthy, zero clean dishes, but it was a huge step. I'm scared of slipping into old habits. I am Bipolar 2, and my atypical depression is a heavy symptom that lasts most the year. It's never gotten this bad in the past. 2021 to 2024 were the worst years of my life for mental health. I am hoping I am slowly making way out of that rut.
Wish me luck that I can keep going.

I have struggled immensely these past couple of years with health issues and haven’t had any cleaning problems in my adult life until that point. I felt extremely ashamed and alone because I never thought life events could alter my day to day life and routine so much. I did not think that would happen to me. I took myself, my health and my habits for granted. In the beginning of this year I posted some snippets of my progress and the amount of comfort, empathy and useful tips you guys gave me restored my hope in people. I still remember every kind word you left and it gave me a push that has stayed. I never know what the future holds and what will happen in the future but whatever does happen I will carry the weight so much lighter and that is solely because of you guys. Thank you so much, you literally better peoples lives and you don’t even know it. I root for you the way you selflessly rooted for me when I was at a low point.

Crippling addiction. relationship ending horribly. isolation. weight gain. dark depression all lead to the first photo seen here… and now….
I’ve actually done it.
thank you to this sub for showing me it was possible.
time to live again

Moved to Big City™️ this year to start my surgery training program. 90 hour work weeks + long distance relationship + no laundry in my building -> this situation. Thank you to this community for the inspiration 🖤

After getting through my bedroom I decided I'd like to try being able to use my living room. The couch was a dumping ground for my SO having to go through so much of his stuff was harder than I could have thought. I still need to clean the couch but for now it's at least usable.
Also huge thanks for all the support I received on my last post it was definitely great motivation and encouragement to keep going. Thank yall so much

Still depressed but my bedroom is clean now! Bought three plastic tubs and new bedsheets, folded and put away about six baskets of laundry, steamed ~20 shirts, and gave myself permission to throw away a bunch of little things (junk) that I was holding onto. One of the tubs is now full of all the other little things I couldn’t trash, but I’ll work on that another day :)
Never would have made the move to start cleaning if this forum hadn’t popped up on my fyp, so thanks to everyone here for the motivation <3 Now to keep it clean! Any tips on that would be much appreciated

I’ve been sick with Lyme disease, and most days I barely have the energy to get out of bed. With two kids and without much support at home, things fell apart quickly. This little room took me 2 days, but I’m trying and I’m making progress! (Though I suspect I’ll be paying for it in fatigue in the coming days. 😬)

i posted on here a couple weeks ago after reaching a breaking point in my home. my garage was completely inaccessible and all rooms (3 bedrooms + office) were trashed. i worked for about a year to at least claim the main spaces of my home back (entry, living, kitchen, dining). but while the interior of my home improved, my garage got worse and worse. i reached out to a company for help and we cleared out my entire home- garage and all. here are the results of the garage. i probably won't post the inside of my home but the change is unbelievable.
i felt frozen for 5 years and now my life can begin again. i can't quite pinpoint my emotions right now. i feel relief, pride, embarrassment, gratitude... but i also have been feeling a whole lot of nothing. no emotions at all. the last 10 days have been a lot to process and it's strange being here at the end now.

About 4 months worth. Isn’t the first time, definitely won’t be the last, but the depressive episodes are at least getting less frequent (this happens about twice a year, vs how it used to be every two months)

I’ve been sick with Lyme disease, and most days I barely have the energy to get out of bed. With two kids and without much support at home, things fell apart quickly. I previously posted my foyer. This is one of my kids’ rooms! It was mostly a laundry disaster… (He did help me with it and is helping to keep it clean now ☺️).

I appreciate this sub so much. Somehow it really works for me to share my mess to hold myself accountable. Sorry if it's too much to post twice in such a short time but I wanted to show everyone how much you all helped me stay motivated, I appreciate you all bunches and bunches!!! I included my before pic too in the hopes that it helps someone else. I could totally do more work to really deep clean and declutter but this is good for now. I need to do dishes and scrub a toilet still while I'm on a roll!

I had a breakdown (I’m currently 5 days clean from smoking weed) and had a major vent with my besties. They helped and I was able to channel all those emotions into cleaning my room for the first time in over a year. 7 bags of trash later, 2 loads of laundry going, and at least 3-4 folded and put away. I’m still restless and want to smoke but it’s easier now that my room is clean. It’s not perfect because my vacuum is dead but I’ll get that taken care of as soon as I can. Thanks to this community I was able to break it down and it got done in about 2 hours.

Finally doing right by the walk-in closet we’re so fortunate to have. Donating and saying goodbye to the four-year-old, plastic drawers was the best part.

My feet hurt! It took me a couple of days to keep going on the kitchen. All I could see was an impossible mess. I gave myself a break and got out of the house. I maintained what I had done already. Does anyone feel like The little Red Hen/Rooster? After working so hard I can feel like that. "Stay out of my clean room! No bread for you!" 🙄😵‍💫😉 We haven't used our kitchen table for going on two years. I was overwhelmed, depressed and it was too much for me. I was also getting over some PTSD caused by my former job. Therapy has helped. My son's family moved into town and I'm more active with my kids. 💖

I posted on here when I started the clean. Today I put up the last shelves, marking my room officially finished. It took maybe two days of solid work. Also, I bought an emotional support tree. It helped!

I’ve been living in a depression apartment for a while and I finally was able to do a total deep clean. Every single thing in my apartment is clean and I’m so proud of myself!

I hate that it gets like this. I'm going to do better.

I’m sick at home and thought this might make me feel better. Feels like a weight’s been lifted 🥲

Still working on my Dad's. He had a bottle of hosin explode. This is the first thing that's made me feel like it's getting really clean in here. Time to make a meal! Bonus pic of the completely empty fridge.

I'm a 31 year old schizophrenic loner. For a while I struggled with my medication compliance and let this junk accumulate for God knows how long, to the point where I just didn't use my table or look at this part of the room. At some point the table leg brackets broke so it wobbled pretty badly. However I've been taking my antipsychotics every day for the better part of eight months now (after my life started falling apart again) and I finally decided to tackle the mess. I just got sick of having this junk heap take up so much of my limited living space.
Here's what I did:

1. Put everything into cardboard boxes
2. Vacuum the floor
3. Replace my old broken wobbly table legs with new solid metal hairpin legs that screw directly into the table (original ones were attached with brittle plastic brackets that broke over time)
4. Swept off the table and wiped it down with cleaning solution. Had a lot of old coffee stains and dust from old projects.
5. Sorted through one box at a time. I had a trash can next to me and threw away any garbage that got mixed in. I made piles of stuff based on category (soldering stuff, electronics components, art stuff, mail, cables, pens and pencils, etc) and went from there.

I don’t have pics of the clean living room but I’ve gotten the living room cleaned up and half the kitchen and the master bathroom. I’m on medication now for my depression. So it’s time to get the house in order.

I've never ever been good at keeping things clean, and my kitchen more than the rest of my house has always been a huge source of shame. My whole house is cluttered, but my kitchen was dirty. This was about 3 or 4 20-minute segments.
My mom does not have nearly the same visceral reaction to doing dishes and so whenever she comes over she usually unfucks my kitchen for me. However some planned visits fell through and I decided to give it a really good try. I've picked up a lot of techniques to counter my weaknesses over the years and I'm really pleased with how well they worked!
I also cleared out my cabinets of all the expired food and organized then a little nicer.
I'm still afraid of what's waiting inside the fridge, but I have to wait for the next trash pickup to have space to tackle that. Still one dishwasher load to put away too.

The horizontal surfaces in my house are out of control (floors and tables) and I’ve been dragging my feet worried that 15 minutes is never going to dig me out. I finally got the gumption to set a 15 minute timer and just start. It’s not done, but it’s an improvement.

I live with my elderly mom in my childhood home. When I moved in to help take care of her 12 years ago, we decided the spare bedroom (which was my bedroom was a child) would be my craftroom. So when moved back everything from my small house was put in this room. Throughout the years it kind of became a catch all for all our stuff we didn't have anywhere else to put.
So now it's 2025 and my mental health is finally to a place where I have the energy and inclination to do something about it! It took me either 4 or 5 days and anywhere between 10 to 15 hours of work to get everything cleared out and put away.
I finally have my craft room and we actually have access to our spare room again!
I threw away probably 4 big black bags of trash and gave away a total of 11 big black bags of yarn!

The time and walls still need deep cleaning, but here’s what I did:

1. Put on hype music
2. Throw all dirty stuff into washer
3. Grab everything on the floor that isn’t trash and put it where it belongs (if it doesn’t yet have a designated “home” in my house, it goes into a tub for now.)
4. Sweep and throw away trash
5. Take dishes to sink
6. Wipe trash can and washer/dryer with disinfectant
7. Ooh and aaah at being able to walk through the hallway without jumping over things

I'm not 100% done with it yet, but I have a functional room again. I struggle pretty bad with my mental health, so it's easy for me to just not care.
And yes, my aesthetic is little old lady.

One of my best friends wanted to visit for new year because she knew I was struggling. The girl that I'm seeing wanted to come over to cook for me. I always had to make excuses just because I didn't want them to see the reality of what I am going through, but it was actually all the motivation I needed to start unfucking my habitat once and for all.
Well, dishes are all clean and mostly gone, there was a lot of things of ex-roomates. I live alone and I just need a couple of things.
Yeah, that nasty stain was mold. I live in a place with 90%+ humidity all year and badly constructed cottages, so behind the fridge the warm air did its thing. No worries, it's all clean now and painted over with mold killing painting. I did the same a year ago with another corner and it's absolutely great.
I cannot handle washing dishes, I hate feeling the cold water (there is no hot water) and the sponges. But also my brain in its depressive state doesn't even care, like it wants me dead for real. But I finally did it, and the sink has been this beautiful since new year! I'm honestly surprised and so so grateful of my past-self who did all the work.
I hope this serves you as motivation to all of us who are struggling. This sub has been so helpful, thank you.

Complex family issues have been crammed into my one-bedroom apartment for years. Mom died two years ago, and I have only just started to feel like I am able to work on the horrible mess in the bedroom. On the floor was lots of dust, shopping bags and shipping boxes, cat toys, and trash. I marathoned a lot of the mess in the bigger part of the bedroom on a Sunday, and then the property manager emailed two days later: INSPECTION. I cleared the rest of the floor with another marathon after work that week. It's the first time in years that the closet door was closed on the left or open on the right!
I've made changes to my routines so I am cleaning the toilet and cat boxes every morning, I have vacuumed my room almost every day for the last week, and I evaluated my clothes and closet yesterday. I didn't make this mess in just one day, week, or month. It took years to get that bad, but I hope I can get my space to a happy, comfortable level of clean by the end of the summer. I really appreciate the guidance UFYH has given me so I can create my own routines and follow through with them.

I've been depressed and overwhelmed. I'm finding things that make me happy and give me energy. This kitchen was too much. But I'm doing it. I built new shelves for the pantry. I've cleaned a lot, but it's still so much!

I'm working on my Dad's house while visiting. I hope to get his house healthy and easier to clean with his limited mobility.
I have a lot more rooms to go, but at least we can cook and he can keep up with his cats.

Pro tip: I live in an apartment complex and posted on our online bulletin board that I’d pay $15 to anyone who could come take my trash (2 bags and then some old pumpkins/mums that had been on the porch). Someone came and took them for free! Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Since that kind person took my trash, I was able to use that energy to do this today.

I am so proud of myself! It wouldn't have been possible without you guys or my studyblr friends on discord! I already had celebratory tea, cookies and pancakes, but feel free to pour one with me tonight .^
I'll take out the trash and bring my stuff to the attic now and will rest so so well tonight

All of our stuff from our kitchen remodel/moving of the laundry ended up in this room. This poor room gets filled and emptied every time we clean. I bought a few totes and organizers so we could put all this stuff in a neat pile until we get the remodel done. Anything that was not kitchen had a home from my previous work and I worked really hard to make sure I PUT STUFF AWAY NOT DOWN. Omg that was hard.The machines arrive tomorrow! Pics of the kitchen later. (Buddy the Bagel enjoying his barrel chair. And of course, Mabel Tax!)

“Deslobification” for the most part. Picked up trash, threw laundry all in that fitted sheet because all the baskets are currently being used lol

I’ve never been more proud of myself than looking at these before and after photos. 🥹 I posted here 55 days ago when I was at a complete loss of where to even begin and how to tackle the chaos of my room that was like 3 years in the making. I’m moving to another city today, so everything had to be completely gone and cleared out and both the bedroom and bathroom deep cleaned, and I was immensely stressed about whether I’d be able to do it, but after a lot of steady work, I managed to get it all done!! I got rid of a TON of stuff, both donating and trashing. Included a pic of my bathroom even though I didn’t show how it was before, but it was quite cluttered too.
Thank you so much to everyone who gave me kind words and advice, it truly helped me feel not as alone and like I had a clearer path to follow! 💗 Kind of tearing up a little as I’m posting this. 🥹 Feels like a true fresh start!