Whether or not your dishwasher works, it’s still your friend. Even when mine has been cleaned out, it’s a great place to hide things. Table’s cluttered? Grab a plastic bag, and take everything off your table and stick it in your dishwasher. Shut the door-and viola- out of sight, out of mind! Counter cluttered from snacks your kids left out, with no more space in the pantry? Stick them in the dishwasher.

I recommend doing this when no one is around. You don’t want your 3 year-old getting into this habit (other wise you might find that your dishwasher is now the automatic car wash), and if you have company over they might think you’ve finally gone off the deep end.

You can also use your washer and dryer as “hide the clutter” stations. Dryers are great for hiding left out toys, especially stuffed animals. Just don’t run the dryer! Washers are great for just stashing dirty clothes on the floor. Don’t worry about sorting or over stuffing. Before you use it, pull the clothes out again and re-sort.

But in all seriousness-

**THESE ARE JUST SUGGESTIONS. DO NOT PUT THE APPLIANCE IN USE WHILE HIDING YOUR CLUTTER!!!**

Once your company leaves, or your husband turns his back, you really do need to take out your clutter and put it away for good. You don’t want to run your monthly bills or magazines through the dishwasher. It might be bad.

If you run your dryer full of those plastic little dolls, they will melt. You will ruin your dryer, and your child will be sending you a therapy bill in the future.

I’m just sayin’.

So I’m going to share with you all one of my MAJAH secrets of being a Domestic Debacle. We’re talking SUPER DL here. Do not tell your hubbies. I mean it. I don’t want my own DH knowing I do this…

Ever have someone just show up at your door? Could be a friend swinging by, the electrician, the dryer repair guy? They give you a window, but you never *really* know when they are going to be there. You are feeling lazy, and don’t want to clean, or you just simply don’t have time to.

So, here’s your ultimate game plan.

The door bell rings. You RUN (yes, you must run for this to seem believable) to your kitchen and grab your can of any cleaning solution and your roll of paper towels on the counter. Then you RUN to your front door and answer: “I am so glad to see you, but you’ve caught me in the middle of cleaning”. You should be remotely breathing hard to make it seem like you’ve been cleaning away, using a little elbow grease. If you are even more impressive, you take the time to run your hands underneath some running water, so you’re really a “cleaning” mess.

NOW A VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL:

When the OP leaves, you MUST put away the paper towels and cleaning solution, so that when your DH gets home from work, you can tell him you were about to clean until the OP showed up at your door, and you simply had no time to get any cleaning done today.

This same *game plan* works for laundry.

Grab a t-shirt or two- run to the door and explain that “they showed up on the one day a week you get all your laundry done”. As your friend steps over the pile of clothes they won’t even think about the fact that the pile has really been there for the last week. If you want to get really fancy on this one, actually throw some clothes in the washer. If not, just run it without any clothes in it. If it’s still running when your DH comes home from work- bonus for you! He’ll think you’re slaving away on the laundry!