A MUM-of-five ingeniously locked her family’s Wi-Fi away and hid the key in her daughter’s room to encourage her to tidy it.
Samantha Likeman wrote a witty poem to her daughter Kacey explaining her scheme to finally make her clean her bedroom.
Fed up with her teenager’s excuses for not tidying the room, she devised a plan to take away the internet until the room was in a more acceptable state.
The 41-year-old unplugged the family’s Wi-Fi extender, locked it away in a box and the key hidden somewhere in Kacey’s room.
Samantha, from Derbyshire Dales, Derbyshire, then penned the light-hearted poem to give her 17-year-old daughter instructions on how to get the internet back.
With Kacey having cleaned her room, the crafty plan paid off, however she was still unable to find the key with the pesky mum having to reveal its hiding spot under the Xbox.
The poem read: “I’ve gone and stole the internet,
“And I will tell you why.
“Because your bloody bedroom,
“Looks like a pig sty!”
It continues: “My cutlery drawer is empty!
“And I’m running out of plates!
“So unless you clean that bloody room,
“Your status you cannot update.
“For the internet will remain my hostage,
“On that I guarantee.
“But if you clean your room ‘properly’,
“Then you will find the key.
“Because somewhere in that chaos,
“In that place you say ‘is clean’,
“Is the key to unlock this box,
“To set your internet free.”
One image shows the Wi-Fi extender in a safe, waiting to be locked up.
A video shows Kacey’s room looking tidy, with Samantha much happier and ready to give her daughter the internet back.
She explains that the key is hidden underneath the Xbox, and a shocked but delighted Kacey retrieves it.
Samantha shared the tale to Facebook yesterday, with the caption: “My teenage daughter will not tidy her bedroom.
“All I hear is ‘yes I’ll tidy it’ but nothing gets done.
“So I decided I’d give her a little incentive to clean it, by writing her a nice poem!
“I’m so looking forward to her response when she gets home.
“And before all the do gooders get on about its her room blah blah blah blah, my response is ‘whilst they’re living under my roof, they follow my rules.’”
The post now has over 8000 likes, with over 1700 people commenting on Samantha’s masterplan.
One user said: “Love this, a fantastic poem and a great result.”
Another commented: “Flipping love it. Sad to say that all teenagers are the same.
“I accept there are some exceptions, but not in my experience.
“Wish I’d done this.”
Another user replied: “I did this years ago, fantastic.
“Loved the poem, the only way to learn!”
Another added: “This is fantastic, well done you.
“A fun way to get her to tidy her room, genius.”
Speaking today (FRI), Samantha said: “She has a room downstairs which is built on to my house, she can not get the internet without the adapter as it doesn’t reach that far, so she needs that to be able to do all the things she does.
“People keep saying about mobile data she could use, but it wouldn’t work as she’s a proper gamer and has three TVs in her room.
“It wouldn’t have been fast enough to run them and her movie channels.
“Kacey literally can not survive without the internet, she plays all the online games with other gamers as soon as she’s home from her apprenticeship.
“A couple of years ago I removed the adapter for punishment (can’t remember what she had done) but because she was downstairs she would either find it and set it back up, or sit in the living room on her phone connected to the house WiFi.
“So I decided I needed to lock it up this time, but because of her age I wanted to do something we could laugh about.
“We have a great relationship and the same sense of humour and often play pranks on each other.
“So I emptied my lock box and put the adapter inside it and then I wanted to hide the key.
“Because Kacey is a gamer I thought it would make me laugh more, which it did, if I hid the key near the one thing she loves the most, her Xbox.
“I have written poems before when I was younger, and I make my younger children books, so I thought it would be funny to write Kacey one.
“I knew she would see the funny side to it all and keep the poem.
“At one point she shouted ‘mum I’ve done’ so I went to check (she hadn’t, nowhere near) so I just said ‘oh your washing baskets high’ and then laughed.
“She thought the key was at the bottom of the wash basket and rushed to put her washing in the washer, it was hilarious when she saw it wasn’t in there!”
