New rules to follow

Things are not as bad as I'd like to think, but I am not up to running around cleaning everything always anymore. This morning, I was irritated. Everyone had stuff in every room, near total chaos. It has and could have been worse, nevertheless, still irritated me. So, as I was cleaning it all up, I wrote down new rules. They will have to follow these rules, or face consequences. Some of my new rules are such as:
--If your laundry is not in the hamper, it will not be washed. I am not going to be responsible for you not having your favorite socks, pants, shirt, etc. still dirty on the day you want to wear it. It is up to you to get it to the right location.
--No more straws in this house unless they find their way to the trash as soon as you are done using them.
--All coats, hats, gloves, shoes, boots must be in the closet or on a hook.
--If the kid cabinet in the kitchen is messy, all the pretty, colorful dishes will disappear. Kids will use plain, white dishes only.
--We've created a place for everything; put it away.
My other problem is asking them to do things, it takes too many times of asking before the task is done. I decided to post their name and give them tally marks. The boys know what tally marks are, we will explain them to the girl. Every task I request, they get one tally mark. More than one tally mark per request and they miss out on whatever the treat is for that day. Treats will include chocolate milk, poptarts, cookies, granola bars, ice cream, candy, etc. Anything else that is extra special for that day.
We will see how this works out for me. I know it can be done. Seven does it every day. He is only a year older than Six. The other two can do it as well, they've just gotten lazy about listening.
My other task this weekend is the basement. We must part with things. They have out grown some of the toys down there. We don't need to keep all of them. I will save some things for this new baby, but not everything. It will be many years before she is playing down there. Why keep it in chaos? I was not happy with how they left things down there this week. On Saturday, that basement was all clean. By Wednesday, it was trashed. They didn't even play down there on Monday, we were at church. I had given them the costumes to play with. They left costumes all over the floor. If they can't keep it together, the costumes will disappear soon along with other choice items in the house. I just don't have the energy and refuse to live with a mess. They've seen what a real mess is and know it is not acceptable in my world. More participation won't hurt any of us. Hopefully teach them to be responsible for their actions. I stay on top of all their papers by giving each child a bin. If they want to keep their art, current project, etc. it goes in their bin. This part has worked out very well. I don't have stuff all over the kitchen and living room anymore. They also have a shelf in the laundry room with art/coloring books and supplies. Between these two areas, we manage to keep those items under control.
It's all a work in progress. I just hope to make further improvements. We're going to have to add baby items to our living space sooner than later. The chaos must be cleared by then.