My kids rule the downstairs. Both of their bedrooms are down there, along with a bathroom and a play/rec/toy room. It's a large space with two closets, the supposed home to many toys—dolls, stuffies, Legos, you name it. I say "supposed" home because when they were younger, the practical home for all those toys was the floor. You often couldn’t enter the room without stepping on something precious.
I tried to teach good habits. First, take out a toy to play with. Then, play with it. Finally, put it away before getting the next one. You can likely predict how well that went. Their approach was to take out all the toys at once and let the room get to complete chaos. So chaotic that the prospect of cleaning it was too daunting. We had some epic battles over cleaning up. Threats, deadlines, deals, bribery - all the tactics of desperate parenting.
In these moments, I would clean the room myself. In a rush after they had gone to bed. I'd shove everything into the closets to get the room in order as quickly as possible. During this process, I'd grumble about how many toys they had - there's no way they needed this many. Would they notice if any disappeared? I sometimes tested this suspicion by stowing a random selection of toys outside the room. If a year passed without them asking for any of them, I'd pass those toys on to another home.
The girls hated this approach. My haphazard method flew in the face of their intricate organizational structure. "No, Dad, these are American Girl dolls. They go here. And these are Polly Pockets; they go there." At least I could recognize Legos. They were the most painful things to step on. The girls had full command of an elegant system, but it took such a battle to turn that command into action.
The optimal approach would be for us to do it together. They could teach me their system, and I could help put things where they belonged. I could press them on whether they really needed a particular toy. Could they part ways with it, allow someone else to enjoy it, and free up some space in our home?
But, as a time-stretched parent, I had little patience for the optimal. After a series of warnings and threats, I would stuff it all in the closet. My righteous expectation of gratitude was often met with contempt.
So... it seems important to keep your house in order. If you don't, someone else will, and you likely won't take kindly to their approach.