From Mrs Hinch to Marie Kondo, there’s nothing new about cleaning influencers showing off their organised and tidy abodes.
But now, a bizarre trend has emerged online, with mothers instead shaming their own filthy houses in a bid to increase their number of TikTok followers, or advocate for ‘messy’ living.
One such parent is Nicole Austin, from Worthing, Sussex, whose controversial videos showing her cluttered home resulted in trolls reporting her to the police for ‘child neglect’ – while she even previously referred herself to social services.
However, the trolling didn’t deter the candid stay-at-home mother-of-four from continuing to post her clips that honestly showcased her sometimes messy, small two-bedroom council house.
In one video, Nicole, who is thought to receive some benefits, alongside her husband’s salary, and previously admitted that her mental health problems had come in the way of keeping her residence tidy, insisted that ‘mess is normal’ and ‘we need to stop beating ourselves up’.
It’s an ethos that seems to have gained momentum, with other content creators sharing their filthy homes to help ‘normalise’ untidiness – and also cause a stir online in the hopes of securing more followers.
One mother, whose profile name is KirstieKins93, explained on her TikTok account how she’s a ‘messy mum who lives in a council house and I’m low income’.
‘I want to be known just as much as the Austin family for having a very messy house’, proudly declared the parent of twins, as she went onto say how she hoped her platform would result in some extra money for her family.
But she quickly backtracked on her comparison to the Austin family, insisting ‘actually I don’t’ as she showcased her cluttered property – with rubbish, food and clothes lining the floors.
‘Just like that family, I do struggle with keeping on top of house work and organising things. I’d just love to make a bit of extra income so I can get this house fully decorated,’ she revealed.
‘My house isn’t a mess all the time and I do try my best. I also do care for my grandmother as well… Obviously we are struggling financially, I know I haven’t got it as bad as others.
‘I do try and help as much people on here by commenting, liking, and reposting their content, so if you could do that for me as well that would be amazing.’
‘I would love to become a decorating account more than me tidying up and organising things,’ she later admitted.
Nicole Austin similarly claims that her lifestyle is a consequence of her family’s lack of funds, which even led her to report herself to social services.
‘I referred myself to social services, yes, you heard me right,’ Nicole declared in a clip that gained over 58,000 likes.
The mother-of-four continued her explanation: ‘In the UK, we have something called Early Help, and this is a voluntary service where you get a family support worker.’
Because Nicole considered herself and her husband Sam to be ‘struggling’ and ‘forever in a mountain of debt’, they referred themselves to the service, which aims to ‘improve outcomes for children or prevent escalating need or risk,’ according to NSPCC.
Explaining in further detail, Nicole said: ‘This was last summer because we were running quite a bit on TikTok, and Sam was about to have a mental breakdown.
‘Now, ten months later, we’re only earning about £500 off TikTok a month. Sam’s mental health is managed with Mirtazapine, and we are broke. Universal credit has sanctioned and benefit-capped us, and we had to use a food bank last week.
She added: ‘We had about £800 to live off this month and two weeks in, we were borrowing money.
‘I need to apply for DLA (Disability Living Allowance for children) for my daughter, but I cannot do the form. [I] need help with a new dining table, tumble dryer, and just life in general. These are the main reasons why we sent the referral off.
‘I’ve also referred myself to something called tenancy support, this is to help with debts because we really want to sort our lives out.’
Despite Nicole’s candid statements, viewers blasted the clip, with one writing: ‘So you basically want a free tumble dryer?’ A second added: ‘Politely – if it’s not raining or zero degrees, my washing is out on the line – it really helps even if it’s just a little.’
Another wrote: ‘I don’t have a blooming tumble dryer but still wash, dry and iron my kids clothes! Sheer laziness!’
However, in more recent posts, Nicole has found the motivation to start cleaning her home after her children fell ill continuously for six weeks.
‘We’ve had three kids get chicken pox, all two weeks apart of course, Archie’s also had two different sickness bugs now, and I’ve had a chest infection, and Sam also had a flu virus at one point,’ she said.
While she doesn’t blame the streak of bad health on the state of her home, believing it to instead be bugs her children have brought back from nursery, it made her and Sam go ‘full on clean freak’, adding, ‘we’re wiping everything with bleach, Dettol, you name it.
‘The windows are open 24/7 and I’m even putting Zoflora in my wash loads. I am ready for wellness. I need health, and I need it now for me and all my family,’ Nicole concluded.
But Nicole and Kirstie aren’t the only mothers to show their ‘filthy’ homes – with #messyhouse having 37.1K posts on TikTok and #messyhousecheck having 2729 posts.
Among them is mother-of-two Char, who goes by @charlellss on TikTok, and branded her home a ‘s******’.
While ‘exposing’ her home’s interiors, which included empty food and drink packets littered in her bedroom, she said: ‘I know that as a person and as a mum, I need to get my s*** together and start getting on top of the mess in my house.
‘There isn’t really any reason for it other than that mess overwhelms me extremely, and when I get in the state of being overwhelmed, I don’t know where to start, and it builds up more and more.’
However, Char recognised it was ‘time to change’ and encouraged viewers to watch her videos as she embarked upon a new, clean-living approach.
Elsewhere, a London-based ‘poor single dad on TikTok’, whose username is @tok_savings, shares clips where he cooks for his children in a kitchen with brown stains against the walls and deep grease marks on the cooker.
While the father-of-three demonstrates an inspirational approach to feeding his children on a small budget, often as little as £3, and has built up 180,000 followers doing so, viewers can’t help but notice the dirt build up in his kitchen.
One user wrote: ‘Can you not clean as a father, it’s free’. Another wrote: ‘You will get food poisoning out that microwave and the cooker.’
A third offered to come and clean the content creator’s kitchen, adding, ‘Can I come and clean his kitchen cooker?’
He appears to have taken the advice of concerned viewers like Char and is attempting to maintain a cleaner kitchen.
Viewers have blasted the new TikTok trend embraced by Nicole and others as ‘disgusting’ and ‘scruffy behaviour’.
One person wrote in the comments: ‘Why would anyone in the right mind want to be known for a dirty house? I don’t get it.’
Another said: ‘Stop trying to glorify this, it’s rank,’ while a third added: ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, not post your laziness on here in hope of getting money from it.’
It comes after Nicole Austin accused a troll of reporting her to the police under the grounds of child neglect due to her ‘messy’ council house in July last year.
She posted a clip of her clearing her kids’ bedroom which was covered in ‘rotten apple cores, mouldy food and dirty dishes’.
But the then-25-year-old was shocked to get a knock on the door from the police on one evening in June 2024.
She said: ‘You have sent the police to our home at night time to check on our children, they came under the grounds of child neglect. I can’t believe it. I’m gobsmacked.’
Nicole said officers arrived at her house at 8pm and stayed for two hours to carry out a ‘welfare check’.
She said the police were ‘being loud,’ which caused her children to stay up late ‘on a school night’. Nicole asked her followers: ‘Do you guys understand how traumatising that is for my children?’
The mother-of-four, who is on Universal Credit, said she has had ‘multiple’ referrals to social services.
She said: ‘Luckily, they checked our children who were tucked up in bed, in a tidy bedroom, in a messy but a clean home, a normal household. The police weren’t interested.
‘It was horrific. I was so scared, so upset and so shaken. None of my children went to bed until gone 10pm on a school night.’
A viewer asked whether the police gave a reason behind their visit, to which Nicole replied that they said they had received a report because her ‘house was messy’.
Nicole said that she ‘understands’ trolls writing on her account, adding that she has got some ‘vile comments’, but she said that calling the police was too far.
She said: ‘When is it going to stop? Seriously guys, you need to think about what you’re doing. My children are safe, loved and are in a happy home.
‘You may not think that but to a standard of police and children’s services, they’re loved and cared for. Do you not interrupt my kids and my family life like that, it’s too far.’
Her followers took to the comments to express their thoughts and opinions on the video, with some agreeing with the report and others calling it a ‘waste of police resources’.
One wrote: ‘Do you think multiple reports is letting you know the way you’re presenting yourself isn’t good.’ Another penned: ‘Do you realise how traumatising it is for kids to live in that mess?’
A third said: ‘You posted a video showing so many things that could have hurt your kids what do you expect?’ A fourth commented: ‘Omg what a waste of police resources I hope you’re all OK honey.’
