Carolyn Hax: Kids’ messy rooms have real consequences

Dear Carolyn: I have two teenagers, ages 15 and 17. All their lives, I have felt they should tidy their rooms. My husband thinks they should do what they want in their own rooms.

After 10 years of this, their rooms are filled with trash and food wrappers, outgrown clothes, and various gadgets, toys, art supplies, the occasional dirty dish. I ask them occasionally to clean out closets or old school papers. They make a halfhearted attempt and then ignore me. My husband says just let it be.

The new school year is coming up, and they want more clothes, more school supplies, etc. They have difficulty locating the things they already own due to the chaos.

Should I just go along with the rest of the family and ignore their rooms? Would it be unfair of me to give them a deadline, and if they are not cleaned out by then, I will go in and do it for them? I know they are busy kids and may not have the time, so I don’t mind doing it. But my husband says they should be able to live in the trash if they want to, and if I clean out their rooms, I am invading their privacy. Do you agree? Am I being unreasonable to want a cleaning once in a while? – C.

You’ve apparently gotten nowhere with your husband’s bizarre notion of having no say in property you control legally and financially, so I won’t try.

Instead work with your husband’s overdeveloped sense of their entitlement. Their stuff, their business, fine. New stuff? Your business. You will only buy what they can prove they don’t already have – by clearing the shelves, drawers, hangers, boxes, bins, bags, piles. No old purge, no new purchases.

Ever heard the term “shop your closet”? They can shop their filth for back-to-school supplies.

Bonuses available if they donate outgrown clothes.

Memo to your husband: The adult world they’re about to enter begs you, let them feel that cost.

Memo to you: No cleaning for them except dishes for vermin control.