Five irritating things about staying with my inlaws

I used to live a few hours away from home & come back to my own parents to stay:

1. I have the opposite shower problem. Their shower is in a separate cubicle all of its own, has a radio, a touch screen control panel, its own blue ceiling lights, has a ceiling nozzle, a normal showerhead & a long panel that has jets shooting all over your tummy & boobs. It is also a steamroom & I'm terrified of the thing. I pray for an electric stuck to the wall shower as at least I have an idea of how to use it & won't accidentally scald myself with steam or have needles of water surprising me in the privates.

2. My dad has Apple technology for everything, phone, music, ipad, PC & its different from Windows. So he says go & use the computer & I'm scared of that too, as Windows error messages I can deal with but I've never had an Apple computer so won't know what to do if I bugger it up.

3. When my mum was alive they used to go on very exotic/unusual holidays. When I was a teenager it was rainy Norfolk all the way but since me & sis moved out they have gone on tours of China, Nepal & Tibet, India, Egypt many times, Macchu Picchu & lots more. Its fab at the beginning as you learn about the places & its genuinely interesting, but they take LOADS of photos & after 3 hours of pics of the same holiday it gets a bit wearing. I dreaded the phrase, 'have we shown you the pics from so & so yet'. Cue the evening gone.

4. They drink weird smelly tea, never have normal teabags (called Grandma teabags) or instant coffee. You either have to fart around with grinding beans or drink horrible tea. I take my own instant coffee & its hidden in a cupboard as its an embarrassment I think.

5. They are avid naturalists & birdwatchers & at some point you always have to go & tramp around a cold & dripping bird reserve in unflattering borrowed waterproof trousers, shivering in the hides & feigning an interest in the lesser spotted fuckwit while they look it up in the book & make notes about the fecking thing in a notebook specially for this purpose.

Mil does not wash bed linen. Doesn't matter how many different visitors sleep in it. She gets round this by occasionally buying new.

That's the only thing really.

bahhh you have to go again just so you can say that

My inlaws have a reasonable shower. Much less shit than ours.

They do need a plumber though, the kitchen tap only dribbles so it takes about 10 minutes to fill the kettle, and if you flush the downstairs loo it makes a high-pitched whine for ages afterwards.

In fact l have just thought of a wonderful retort to BIL (though too late as usual) when he started on one of his 'territorial' rants. l should've said 'At least I'm not decorating the place'

Oh and btw - when l say l muck in with household stuff l don't mean pulling out furniture or scrubbing the oven or whatever which obviously would be overstepping the mark (not that l'd want to do that stuff anyway) l only mean general clearing away pots when DH and I have eaten/loading them into dishwasher with any other pots nearby and very basic stuff.

So interesting to see how annoying different IL's can be!
Mine actually seem quite minor gripes, and actually they have become less bothersome over the many years I have known them.

1. The TV is on ALL the time. FIL hogs the flicker and changes channels to whatever he wants (and frequently then goes out of the room) which is usually awful and sometimes unsuitable.
2. MIL used to be very defensive. She is still fairly defensive.
3. MIL tells you the same story, which goes on and on, again and again.
4. MIL likes bargains and cheapness. This frequently applies to food.
5. They are a bit non-PC, FIL in particular, who is a bit of a geezer.

No shower
No TV
No internet
Nowhere to put stuff as DM is a hoarder and has filled every cupboard and wardrobe with crap
DM's obsession need to use up left over food leads to some distinctly odd combinations at mealtimes
DM digging out thirty year old hoarded toys and clothes to foist on us

I get stabby or tearful more like when my BIL and SIL who live in NZ tell me to make myself at home - they cant emphasise this enough. Then when l start to muck in with loading the dishwasher / cleaning/clearing up in the kitchen whatever my BIL has a go at me - and not in a jokey way - he gets a really impatient and bolshie tone with me and ''ffs sit down - what you effing doing ,you're on holiday' etc. Or if l peg out their washing so l can put some of ours in (which they always say is fine, help yourself) he gets shouty when they come in from work or whatever.
Thing is this is making myself at home to me - helping with the pots/mess l have helped to make and as for pegging out their washing when they are out all day some days - that is just logical to me and l would feel rude just taking theirs out the machine and leaving it damp in a basket and just peg ours out.
Last time we went l didn't touch their washing at all and only put ours in when machine was empty to avoid a repeat rant of previous visit and to respect his wishes obv. But one night they had cooked us a lovely meal and l just started clearing the plates and he shouted at me again. I shouted back at him this time though and said l am just making myself at home as you said and it's not in my nature to have people waiting hand and foot.
I just think people get in a routine and find people 'helping' quite intrusive or something - l don't know. But have told DH am not staying there again even though SIL is lovely (she had a go at him last time he did this). DBIL is lovely too usually but does rant at me occasionally in an adult to child kind of way which l hate.
What makes me laugh is they came to the UK last year and stayed at friends in Spain en route in their empty house and re-decorated their lounge for them (apparently wallpaper torn etc by home owners DCs) to 'thank' them for letting them stay. Then they came to UK and stayed at DMILs and wallpapered her kitchen for her because as they said 'you lot do a lot of odd jobs for her etc - we don't get chance living so far away'. Neither MIL or their Spanish friends had any say in choice of décor.

Last weekend at my parents, my dad shouted at me upon his discovery of my having eaten a slice of ham from a packet....without "announcing it"

" who has opened the packet of ham?"
"Oh, yes, that was me, I had a sandwich yesterday evening"
" OH MY GOD! You had ham without ANNOUNCING it to everyone?Why? Now we don't know WHEN it was opened, or when it has to be eaten BY. We will have to throw it out, it may have been open for weeks, OH MY GOD!" He walked out and slammed the kitchen door.i

To my shame, I got quite cross, and during the next conversation when they discussed why they did no longer like to meet friends for dinner, I said they really should see these friends as they needed to get out more.

Am such a bitch.

When people get older they get more set in their ways, they lose flexibility, I need to remember that.

My in-laws have three fully-functioning showers, and do provide clean towels. I am now thinking myself very lucky. (Still wish my MiL wouldn't and watch me eat my muesli, though - it makes me self-conscious about every crunch and swallow.)

My inlaws don't even have a shower!

Ahh you see, my inlaws have a state of the art power shower. It has never been used. They paid an obscene amount pf money for it and will not allow it to be turned on. Ever. In case it gets scaled up and breaks. A bath is permitted as is a shower using the rubber hose on the taps jobby. Woe betide anyone who uses the new shower though...

But this is why I think I must be an inlaw (despite the fact I have no married children or stephchildren). First shower when we moved in was a pathetic dribbler whose temperature couldn't be controlled. Second was a bit better but never really got hotter than warm. The third one is the best yet... but obviously not up to the torrential standards required by a proper visiting married daughter-in-law. Spouse and I like baths and aren't terribly bothered as a shower is just used now and then for quick hairwashes or when there isn't time for a proper bath. Our children are too defeated to complain.

The other amazing thing to me about this thread, apart from the fact that 90% of the irritations are about tea-making and the other 10% are about showers, is that there appears to be no one like these sets of PILs in the next generation.

I mean, none of us are posting and saying:

• They always give me waaaay too many potatoes
• They don't understand that I like meat and two veg and none of this forrin muck like curry
• They always undercook the veg so it's tender but crunchy
• Their water pressure is so strong and their shower so powerful that my hair falls out / skin sloughs off

I wonder if in 20 years there will be no threads like this on MN at all because we will all be the PILs

You lot are making me LOL at work.

I'm single and unmarried so no PIL.

I stay with my brother's PIL's sometimes though... they're great. Only, they relish trips into Bath and wander FOR HOURS round the shops. I don't mind but the MIL is obsessive and SLOW about shopping. In M&S last minute Xmas food shopping last year. The joy. They never fixed their guest bathroom shower cubicle so everyone takes baths (why?!) but I force their shower in the bath to work.

All the blinds are either light coloured or white (I prefer dark) - they're not far from very busy main road either - so I have eye mask and ear plugs in.

but apart from that they're angels and my BIL loves them.

OMG when I got to Uni and my grotty, tiny shower in my claustrophobic bathroom got hot in 20 seconds and (I think due to being on the ground floor) had amazing pressure. I guess my parents are the ILs with a grotty shower... but it was heaven. My brother concurred when he visited (I actually made him try it!)

Since I've not stayed with ILs I don't know the condition of their shower but if all the Talc is anything to go by, it's pretty clogged and probably shit...

The UglyFuckling, yes! That's exactly it. We are soft and spoilt because we have a decent shower. It's nothing special, but it does actually work - water comes out at reasonable pressure and constant temperature. Imagine! As a result, mil calls it a 'power shower' (accompanied by little sneer as she says it). She has no idea what a power shower actually is, it's just her way of saying we live in dangerous and illegitimate luxury.

"FIL also collects rainwater and measures the amount daily. He has records going back several years and at any mention of weather the book is produced and discussed in great detail."

My FIL has a temperature gauge in the garden, it's broken (because it's about 35 years old) but he won't accept that. This summer he was on the phone to all the relatives saying "it's 39 in the shade here!" It wasn't. Not even close.

FIL also collects rainwater and measures the amount daily. He has records going back several years and at any mention of weather the book is produced and discussed in great detail.