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AIBU?

To want to be able to put something down in my own home, and it still be there when I go back for it?

28 replies

BasinHaircut · 20/05/2015 07:49

My MIL is doing my head in. I know I'll get torn a new one here for daring to say something negative about her when she is doing us a favour re free childcare but I'll take that as I want to vent!

Every Tuesday MIL looks after DS at our house. I must stress that I have no complaints about the level of care she provides.

BUT she moves everything. A couple of weeks ago she went into our bedroom and moved my birth control pill from my bedside cabinet to the top of a wardrobe because 'DS got hold of it'. Now I have 2 issues with that - 1, why was she even in my bedroom, door was shut so DS couldn't get in unless she opened the door, and 2, she didn't tell me she had moved it and the next morning I couldn't find if so I missed one.

Every week she takes my oven gloves from where I hang them and puts them in a drawer because she thinks they look ugly hanging up.

She moves the toaster to a different worktop 'so it doesn't just look like it's been left out', she moves shoes left by the front door to by the back door

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BasinHaircut · 20/05/2015 07:50

Didn't mean to post that yet but I could go on!

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lottiegarbanzo · 20/05/2015 07:53

Ask her to put it all back before she leaves!

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Mrsbigley · 20/05/2015 08:23

YANBU- my DM does the same. Drives me mad but I don't say anything as she's looking after my DD 2 days a week in my house. She also provides "lovely" nik naks from time to time. Good luck OP!

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WizardOfToss · 20/05/2015 08:27

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lacksdirection · 20/05/2015 08:29

This annoys me too. My mother and sister do it. They claim they are helping me by tidying away, except it's not helpful when I can't find things I need and waste lots of time looking for whichever item they've moved.
It makes the following day very stressful when I have to factor in so much time searching for various items.

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Artandco · 20/05/2015 08:32

Annoying, but you really should never have any pills in reach of children. By the time they were walking around a year both mine could open doors and cupboards and climb fairly well

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AlpacaMyBags · 20/05/2015 08:32

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50ShadesofNope · 20/05/2015 08:34

YANBU. Just because she's doing you a favour doesn't mean she's entitled to rearrange the house! Particularly your bedroom and your pill Confused

Ask her to stop but keep it non confrontational or go to hers to 'help' with something and move her things so she sees how annoying it is

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Mrsstarlord · 20/05/2015 08:37

I'd have some fun with her...
Tell her you're up the duff as you missed a pill because she moved them and now she'll have a new born as well as DS to look after.
Or leave a load of incriminating items in the bedroom, perhaps indicating that her DS has some sort of kinky preferences.
Mark the position of things with tape or chalk and labels (like a crime scene)
Or flummox her by moving everything to the place she moves it to before she gets there.

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AlpacaMyBags · 20/05/2015 08:47

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BasinHaircut · 20/05/2015 09:02

Art DS can't reach the door handle as its a high one. on work days if I don't leave it there I forget to take it as things are quite frantic, that's why I shut the door. On non work days the pill lives somewhere else where DS can't reach it.

I thought I was going to get slaughtered for moaning about the MIL here, but it seems like I'm not alone on this.

I have asked her not to move things but she still does. She is quite literal and if I say 'if you move x then I can't find it which means y' she will not apply that to other items or use any common sense to adapt the request. E.g. She wouldn't think to just not let DS in my bedroom, or to move it then put it back. She would just make sure that the pill stayed where it was IYSWIM. She wouldn't think twice about moving the next item he grabbed, regardless of what it was.

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MTWTFSS · 20/05/2015 09:07
  1. Lock your bedroom so no one can access it.
  2. Super-glue that toaster!
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abigamarone · 20/05/2015 09:14

I wouldn't care about the toaster or shoes. I'd just see that as a mild eccentricity. I'd be inwardly seething about going in my bedroom.

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LetThereBeCupcakes · 20/05/2015 09:23

My mum has DS one day a week too, and she always, ALWAYS swaps the knives around in my knife block. She's left handed, so she puts them in the way she would use them. I'm right handed. Her way means the knives don't line up as they're different thickness and the whole think looks wonky. Drives me mad.

YANBU.

Don't know what you can do about it though.

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silverglitterpisser · 20/05/2015 09:34

I couldn't put up with this, it is showing total disrespect to u n ur choices within ur home.

Could u just say to her what u said on the op? "U kno mil, I think u r awesome n u look after dc brilliantly, would be lost without u, but it's causing me hassle when u move my stuff so please just leave things as u find them, ta".

If u would find that hard,get DH to say it! I'd have to address it, I'd b seething if I didn't n wondering if she was rooting through all sorts of private things if she is on rooms she shouldn't be ....

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silverglitterpisser · 20/05/2015 09:34

*in

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MrsFrisbyMouse · 20/05/2015 09:40

You're going to find it hard to change her. They mostly sound like automatic stuff she must do at home and has been doing for years. So ingrained habits about what stuff goes where.

So, you either stop using her as childcare, or you just reframe it in your own mind as quirky and let her get on with it. Maybe some of her changes might actually work out? I know the ones my mother in law made did! Despite my initial huffing and puffing.

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kissmethere · 20/05/2015 10:00

Yanbu my DM does this. I've told her to please leave my things alone. I think she does it out of boredom or trying to help. She moves my handbag or shoes. Some times I've left my bag down and am going straight out again and she's moved it! It drives me crazy. Ooh you've opened up a can of worms with me now as I'm remembering all the things she does like this in my house.
How do you think you'll resolve this? I think you may have to be blunt but I bet she won't like it.

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BasinHaircut · 20/05/2015 10:16

I've tried to find it quirky frisbee and this is how I deal with comin home to find carrier bags all over the house, some just lying around, some screwed up and shoved in places, some folded up and placed in drawers or cupboards etc. ditto used tissues. I come in and purge them immediately to deal with that.

But the things she has moved might not be immediately apparent and so it winds me up not only on he day she is there's but for days after when I realise something is missing.

I've tried telling her but she doesn't get it. Maybe I'm just OTT precious about certain things and routines/systems wax but it's my house and if I want to do things a certain way I should be able to.

And I'm yet to find any of her 'improvements' useful!

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BasinHaircut · 20/05/2015 10:17

Wax? Not sure where that came from!

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Feminine · 20/05/2015 10:34

YANBU.
My mum does it.
I've now decided to go with it!
Gives a new perspective on my home, things in new places...
However, l really wouldn't want my mum or my Mil touching and moving my medication.
-that- is not okay.

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SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 20/05/2015 12:19

Go to her house, and move all her stuff around to random places. See how she likes it!

This would really annoy me - and YWNBU to say, 'MIL please STOP moving things round at my house - I have everything the way I like it, and it is very annoying when you move my things!'

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lottiegarbanzo · 20/05/2015 13:18

Well if she's very literal, surely she can follow basic rules? So 'please could you return everything to where you found it, before the end of the day' and 'our bedroom door stays shut, no-one goes in there'.

It's fine for her to adapt things for ease of use, if she puts them back.

Love the idea of drawing chalk lines round things, with labels. Wonder if she'd re-draw them? Maybe try coloured tape?

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BasinHaircut · 20/05/2015 13:23

lottie id literally have to go through each item in my house and tell her if she could move it and where the correct place is. She would question everything that wasn't in the same place as last week. I'm not kidding.

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lottiegarbanzo · 20/05/2015 13:26

Does she forget where things should go though? I can understand her moving things unconsciously, or not being sure where to put them back.

Changing things deliberately because her way is better is very irksome though. I bet if you did it at her house she'd just explain that her way is better, yours is wrong and she's helping you.

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