Boy has messy room. Hoarder. Parents unhappy. Somehow is left on his own in house, uses all dishes, resorts to eating from soap dish, puts all dishes in truck bed to get rained on. Also finds key to locked shed, puts all hoarded stuff in shed, keeps room neat, parents happy, 60s/70s. Line drawings.
I think you might be combining details of two different books. The part about the dirty dishes piling up until the man is reduced to eating from the soap dish, then piling them all in the back of the truck to let the rain clean them is from “The Man Who Didn’t Wash His Dishes” by Phyllis Krasilovsky, illustrated by Barbara Cooney (1950). It’s not a little boy in this book, though – it’s a man with a mustache. The other part about the boy with the messy room does sound vaguely familiar too – I’ll try to remember what book that might have been.
I’m with Chanda on this one, I do recall the Man Who Didn’t Wash The Dishes as well, inc. one picture of him drinking out of a fancy vase after he’d used up all his cups and glasses. In the end he set everything out in the yard during a rainstorm to get clean, then had to put all the dishes away, which took so long he decided not to do that again.
The boy with the messy room might be from the first “Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle” book; he never likes to pick up his toys, so his parents are advised to leave him alone for a time. He soon became trapped in his room due to the enormous piles of toys everywhere and has to put them all away in order to get out so he can join his friends at the circus. The boy with the key may be also another Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle story, he is very selfish, so he’s given a set of keyed padlocks in order keep all his possessions locked up and safe; naturally he loses all the keys.
Don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, hope it helps.
I think you are right about the mix-up! And the first book would have to be the man who didn’t wash his dishes, I’ve looked it up, and it fits what I remember completely. But the second one still eludes me. I do know that he ends up putting all his mess in the shed, and enjoying it there, kind of nesting in it and daydreaming and playing with his hoarded stuff, and that he had found a lock and key for the shed somehow, possibly among his clutter. Thank you!
Ok, really long shot here – but might the second book you’re looking for be Andrew Henry’s Meadow by Doris Burn? Andrew isn’t a hoarder, but he does like to build very large and elaborate contraptions – such as a helicopter in the kitchen – to the dismay of his family. So he runs away and finds a meadow to live in instead, and he builds himself a house there where he can invent and build all he wants. He is later joined by other children and builds elaborate houses for them as well, each tailored to the interests of that child. The book is illustrated with line drawings.