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A mum of two refused to clean the house. Days later, she documented the aftermath.

An overload of the mental load can feel like you're a centipede, with each leg trying to tick off a ceaseless checklist.

Typically, women carry the heaviest mental load. According to the ABS, Australian women spend five to 14 hours a week doing unpaid domestic work. Meantime, men spend less than five hours a week.

Watch: The 'sexiest' thing a man can do is share the mental load. Post continues after video.


Video via Mamamia

Women deciding to 'give up' the mental load is nothing new. Here at Mamamia, we've reported on numerous women, often mothers, who have done an 'experiment' and attempted to transfer the mental load on to their partners.

No matter how many times it comes up, it always serves as an eye-opening reminder of how women tend to be the backbone of families, holding them together with their one hundred metaphorical arms.

Read more: "I asked my husband to take on the mental load of feeding his dog. Here’s how it’s going."

Last week, a UK-based woman on Twitter, who goes by the name Miss Potkin, documented her journey of going on strike in her own household. 

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Fast forward two days and their kitchen bench was drowned in dirty dishes and their bathroom was devoid of toilet paper.

"Two days ago, I decided to stop doing the dishes," she informed the Twittersphere. "I make all the dinners and I am tired of having to do all the cleaning too. SINCE THEN this pile has appeared and at some point they are going to run out of spoons and cups and plates."

But her strike wouldn't stop there. 

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"Let me know when you want to talk about the fact that I stopped doing the laundry too. It’s getting a bit post apocalyptic. The piles are everywhere."

Miss Potkin said that as the third day arrived, still no one had loaded the dishwasher, despite a shrinking supply of clean cutlery and crockery. 

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Another memorable moment from her journey is finding a sausage that had been left to rot on a pan, with apparently no one else in the family thinking to put the sausage in the bin.

"It’s been there for two days," Miss Potkin reported. "I can’t look at it because it’s turned the colour of the man that washes up in Cast Away."

Eventually, her partner stacked the dishwasher, but neglected to turn it on. 

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After three days of providing a running commentary on her 'experiment,' and after her initial tweet gained nearly 200,000 likes, Miss Potkin reported the house had been cleaned by her family. 

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So what was were her concluding remarks? 

"You’re gonna have good days, bad days, and a lot of f**k it days, but people don’t like being taken for granted, especially by the ones they love the most. Period."

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Iconic. 

Feature image: Twitter/Miss Potkin.

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