Messy teenagers to expert clean-agers!
SOME are saving the planet. One sings the new Bond theme – but nine out ten parents say their teenagers can’t even make a bed, iron or vacuum a room.
A survey of 1,000 mums and dads with offspring aged 13 to 19 found 41 per cent struggle to iron a shirt, and 38 per cent don’t know how to clean a loo.
One third can’t make a bed, a quarter never clean the bathroom and a fifth never take the rubbish out – unlike climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, 18.
Thirty-one per cent can’t fold sheets or clothes, while 18 per cent leave dirty dishes in their room. Just under quarter are baffled by vacuum cleaners – though star Billie Eilish, 19, can now afford staff after singing the latest 007 theme tune for No Time To Die.
The study was done for Premier Inn, which has launched Life Skills Academy courses for teenagers leaving home for the first time.
The hotel chain makes more than 23million beds, plumps 47million pillows and irons 3million shower curtains every year.
Managing director Simon Ewins said: ‘Teenagers still appear to live up to their messy reputations.
‘We’re hopeful we can step in to help.’ Twins Bradley and Lewis Fox, 19, of Rochester, were sent on it by mum Kim, 55, as ‘ both are well known for being extremely messy and pretty useless when it comes to cleaning’.
She said: ‘Despite being at university for months, I discovered Bradley hadn’t even changed his bedding once when I collected him at the end of the year.
‘They haven’t listened to me in 19 years yet it took the housekeeper hours.’
But the courses may need to expand – two thirds of parents told OnePoll they still lacked domestic skills, with a third confessing they were amazed they grew up to be competent considering how little they knew as a teenager.