History Main / MenCantKeepHouse

** A number of times over the course of the series the swampmen make a total mess of the Swamp and take an extended period of time to clean up their portions of the tent. This beomes a sourse of tension between the neat freak Wichester, Hawkeye, and BJ after Winchester arrives at the camp.
** Played with in the episode "[[Recap/MashS11E1HeyLookMeOver Hey Look Me Over]]." The nurses had be evacuated for five days at the beginnging of the eupsiode and when they return they find the surgeons and other men assigned to the 4077th had completely trashed the OR.

** A number of times over the course of the series the surgeons make a total mess of the Swamp and take an extended period of time to lean up their home. This beomes a sourse of tension between Wichester, Hakeye, and BJ after Winchester arrives at the camp.

A supertrope to ADayInHerApron, but while that trope contrasts the skills of a couple, this one focuses solely on the inability of men (married or single) to keep house. Might be subverted with a case of JustFineWithoutYou. The reason why MessOfWoe is chiefly a Male trope. Can overlap with TooGoodForLowlyWork if a man's inability to keep house is a result of the belief that housework is a woman's job.

A supertrope to ADayInHerApron, but while that trope contrasts the skills of a couple, this one focuses solely on the inability of men (married or single) to keep house. Might be subverted with a case of JustFineWithoutYou. The reason why MessOfWoe is chiefly a Male trope.

->''Never thought that you would be\\
Standing here so close to me\\
There's so much I feel that I should say\\
But words can wait until some other day\\
Kiss me once, then kiss me twice\\
Then kiss me once again\\
It's been a long, long time''
-->-- '''Kitty Kallen''', "It's Been a Long, Long Time"

->'''Mrs. Doyle:''' Ladies! It's after seven o'clock. I think your husbands might be wondering where their breakfasts are!
->'''Father Ted:''' Mrs. Doyle's right! Remember last year, Mrs. Dunn, when your husband tried to wash a cup, and burned the house down. And Mrs. Collins, when Mr. Collins tried to make the bed on his own... [dramatic pause] ...and lost a leg.
-->-- ''Series/FatherTed''

* Sam Witwicky's room in ''Film/{{Transformers}}'', complete with PornStash references.

* Seen quite frequently on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', where if Marge (and to some extent Lisa) aren't around to clean the house, Bart and Homer are very much not up to the task, and it goes to hell very quickly:
** In "Little Big Mom", Marge is recovering in the hospital, and Bart and Homer turn the place into a filthy sack in minutes. A dismayed Lisa tries to introduce some order and cleanliness, but with no success. She eventually tricks Bart and Homer into thinking the dirty conditions have given them leprosy, in an effort to convince them to clean up -- again with no success.
** In "Bart After Dark", Marge and Lisa are away cleaning up an oil spill, and the house is so dirty that Bart and Homer are making "garbage angels" on the floor. Homer also happens to be wearing a grocery bag which he didn't even clear of groceries first.
--->'''Belle:''' ...Are you wearing a grocery bag?\\
'''Homer:''' ''(indignantly)'' I have misplaced my pants.
** In "$pringfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling", Marge picks up a gambling addiction and neglects the housework, so Homer attempts to make breakfast -- with a mixture of "cloves, Tom Collins mix, frozen pie crust..." He also has to help the kids with their homework, which included making a costume of Florida for Lisa (for a contest where the kids dressed up as different states) which was so lackluster that Principal Skinner declared that Lisa was one of only two kids who "obviously" made their costumes ''without'' their parents' help.[[note]]And the other was resident [[TheDitz ditz]] Ralph Wiggum, whose costume amounted to his normal clothes with a piece of paper taped to it reading "Idaho".[[/note]]
** In "Marge in Chains", Marge is sent to prison for shoplifting, and the house becomes a pigsty within ten minutes. Everyone runs out of clean clothes because nobody knows how to do laundry (not even Lisa, apparently), and the family is forced to start wearing stuff from the attic like wedding dresses and Halloween costumes. Bart is sent to school with a sugar packet and peanut butter smeared on a playing card for lunch.
** In "D'oh Canada," Marge and Lisa find themselves legally trapped in Canada and unable to get home, where the rest of the family remains. They Skype Homer and Bart, and Marge commends them on how well they appear to be holding down the fort. A shot from inside the Simpsons' living room shows that they've in fact carefully roped off the area visible to the webcam, and every other inch of the room is covered in trash.

* ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'': "Boys Just Want Wanna Have Fun" is about what happens when Jean and Molly go away, leaving Hugh and the boys in charge of the house. The results are predictable.
* The ''Captain and the Kids'' cartoon "Blue Monday".
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' shows this even applies to supervillains - after the Joker kicks Harley out in "Harley and Ivy", he forgets to feed the hyenas ("They snapped at me!") and can't find his socks. Or trousers, apparently.

* The episode "About Face" of ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' has Bernice leaving Duckman in charge of the house while she has a night out with her friends, telling him to cook the kids a healthy dinner instead of just ordering pizza. Cut to Duckman having done exactly that, then passed out in front of the TV with the house now a filthy mess. Keep in mind that the period of time in which this happened couldn't have been more than a few hours.
** It's even worse in the episode "Married Alive" where Bernice is gone for a week, and the entire house turns into a city dump with Charles, Mambo, Ajax, and Grandmama being trapped in the garbage. An actual homeless man also moves in for the duration.
--> '''Homeless Man''': I threw up in your vegetable crisper. An otherwise uneventful few days.
** Taken to its logical extreme in "Exile In Guyville", which combines this trope with MenAreUncultured. The BattleOfTheSexes escalates until the U.S segregates itself into two states, one for men and one for women. The men's civilization is essentially an even filthier ''Film/MadMax''.
* In the episode ''Hobgoblin part 2'' of ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'' Aunt May is ''rendered comatose'' by the sight of Peter and Harry's bachelor pad.

* One 1970s ''ComicStrip/FredBasset'' short features Fred's female owner away on vacation. Her husband is useless on his own. He's forced to eat mediocre canned TV dinners without his wife around.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyDadTheRockStar'' episode "Metamorphic Rock" Rock Zilla is left in charge of the house when Crystal goes on a road trip for a few days. The house becomes a pigsty, his attempt at washing clothes involves putting them in the dishwasher, and the school lunch he makes for Willy explodes everywhere. He gets better later in the episode (starting by shutting down a party Serenity was going to throw)

'''Father Ted:''' Mrs. Doyle's right! Remember last year, Mrs. Dunn, when your husband tried to wash a cup, and burned the house down. And Mrs. Collins, when Mr. Collins tried to make the bed on his own... [dramatic pause] ...and lost a leg.

->''"Does he wash up, never wash up\\
Does he clean up, no he never cleans up\\
Does he brush up, he never brushed up\\
He does nothing, the boy does nothing."''
-->-- '''Alesha Dixon''', "The Boy Does Nothing"[[note]]More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/a/alesha_dixon/#share[[/note]]

** Also used to remove the zombie-horde of old women looking for Eoin [=McLove=].
--->'''Mrs. Doyle:''' Stop! Stop! Ladies! It's after seven o'clock. I think your husbands might be wondering where their breakfasts are!\\
'''Father Ted:''' Mrs. Doyle's right! Remember last year, Mrs. Dunn, when your husband tried to wash a cup, and [[EpicFail burned the house down]]. And Mrs. Collins, when Mr. Collins tried to make the bed on his own... ''[dramatic pause]'' ...and lost a leg.