Suzanne Harrington: 'The house has never been cleaner...I have never been more on edge'

For many years, I was the sole project manager of two kids, a succession of massive muddy dogs, and a long line of lodgers from Albania to Zambia...now, I am terrorised by a weekly cleaning rota

Suzanne had a dishwasher installed when her kids were younger 'rather than waste finite energy fighting over who left a plate in the sink'.

Be careful what you wish for. That’s the warning that flashes through my head as the latest weekly cleaning rota flashes on my WhatsApp.

My central nervous system launches into fight-or-flight, the less fun version of sit-and-write, which is what I am meant to be doing. I ignore the message. Then, underneath, another one pops up in all caps — YOU’RE ALREADY A DAY BEHIND.

I’ll contextualise. For many years, I was the sole project manager of two kids, a succession of massive muddy dogs, and a long line of lodgers from Albania to Zambia. I am not a clean freak, nor do we have carpets, but it was a lot. Even with a cleaner, it was a lot.

As the kids became more sentient, I once stuck a weekly washing-up rota on the fridge door — M T W T F S S — with one of our names under each day. A brave act of foolish optimism.

The younger one, giddy from his first flush of testosterone, carefully wrote seven more letters under each day of the week. These letters were F U C K O F F.

Sighing, I had a dishwasher installed, rather than waste finite energy fighting over who left a plate in the sink. Verily, the only single parent path worth taking is the one of least resistance.

Over time I employed all kinds of psychological devices to avoid distress at the Sisyphean role of daily cleaning up mess, and mess daily reappearing.

The trick was to never enter the older one’s bedroom, which looked like a collaboration between My Little Pony and Tracey Emin’s Bed, generally with a huge furry dog on top, panting and shedding. My room, my mess, she’d growl. The kid, not the dog. Keen to stay sane, I prioritised mental health (mine) over environmental health (hers). The cleaner quit.

Magically, the kids grew up and, following their own fridge rota advice, fucked off. One to the beaches of Australia, one to the fight camps of Thailand.

But then they came back, and now we ostensibly have an adult house-share, albeit one where I am still responsible for all the dull stuff like bills and bins and replacing broken ovens, but where their previously laissez-faire approach to cleaning has been replaced with something bordering on fanaticism.

The older one seems to have been radicalised after spending a few years in a shiny Sydney apartment with a clean-freak flatmate whose weekly deep-cleans bordered on end-of-tenancy; the younger one, always tidier, has fully embraced militant-grade organisational skills, precision, order.

Which means that technically, the parental dream has come true — your messy kids leave home and come back having learned how to house-share, how to adult, how to clean up after themselves.

Great. No more dead pizza spawning ecosystems under the bed. Except now my own baseline standards — which always required considerable flexibility to stave off nervous breakdowns — are no longer up to theirs.

I am now terrorised by a weekly cleaning rota. And a monthly one. And a daily one. Leave a plate in the sink at your peril.

The house has never been cleaner, and I have never been more on edge. In downward dog at yoga, my mind turns not to the infinite nothingness, but to whether I have remembered to order hoover bags.

This can’t be right. In my own post-menopausal version of Pathological Demand Avoidance, I realise the only way out is to sell the house.

I mean, what would you do?