Anyone else have relatives who are determind to fill your home with their crap...

[TheLightSideOfTheMoon]

...or stuff to their taste but obviously not yours.

My dad is in a pissy with me. Today phoned up to moan that I haven't thanked my mother for a hand made toy llama she left on my doorstep for me to display proudly in my home.

Huge drama. All my fault. Apparently.

I am annoyed because:
a) I am almost 40. My DS is nearly 17. We just don't do soft teddy thingies. She knows this. She's the kind of person who has teddies displayed on her sofa. Good for her, it's her home. But it's not to my taste.

b) I've had no time to call. Finished a 48 hour shift this morning. Back for a 12 hour tomorrow and a 24 hour on Tuesday. Can't even remember what other shifts have passed or await - is a blur.

Today is my day to catch up on housework, laundry and stuff.

I'd have called when I had the time. When he rang I was outside Tesco. I was busy.

c) I've told her a billion times I don't like clutter. My house reflects this. I like things tidy. There is nowhere to jauntily place a stuffed llama.

So, there it is.

She has history of this. Wants to fill my home with things of her taste. Constantly. Brings vases and stuff. They end up in the garage.

Can't leave my shit alone, either. For example, tells me my cushions are 'crying out' for sequins and embroidery. And they're really not. My cushions wish to be left alone.

She went through a phase of telling me which of my walls she'd like to knock down in my home. She'd mention it every visit. Poor walls - they cause no offence.

Changed the locks a few years back and she still badgers for a key. Er, no.

Quite hoardy, my parents, now I think about it...

Anyway, that's my little vent.

Anyone else? Anyone have similar ishoos? Please share. Feel like I need some kind of online support group.

Yes me! I live in DPs flat and his mum has a habit of buying the most godawful huge pieces of art to display on the walls as well as frequent smaller home furnishings that are just not to our taste and style.
It’s bizarre because she’s very into art and culture but she just doesn’t seem to recognise that the way we’ve decorated doesn’t fit with all these monstrosities

My in laws do this.

My MIL has always been a compulsive online shopper, he house is boarded with clothes, electrical items, body produces. Since lockdown we’ve had an endless stream of shit arrive in the post for Ds and Dd. Things they have no interest in and will never use.

FIL keeps trying to palm off various bits of furniture we have no room or need for and that is just hideous anyway.

I’m pregnant and Dh has asked her not to buy any thing for the baby this time - with Dd we ended up with so much stuff we didn’t want, need or use. Yet if there is anything we do need, she won’t buy it - she buys something totally random of her own choice.

Yep, lots of twee trinkets with soppy quotes on that I should display on my walls from MIL. Also SIL is a big fan of a photo canvas and I can't put a nice pic of me, DH and DC on Facebook without it being presented to us in canvas form for the next birthday / xmas / mothers day we have a hideous gigantic one stuffed in our spare room - lovely pic of us but I don't need or want my big blown up face staring back at me while I'm watching telly!

Yes and also good friends that gift myself or DC absolute crap on our Birthdays.

Oh and My mum has this wierd dichotomy between

“why have you kept that, it’s junk” - stuff I like and keep because i like it or use it..

And some sort of antiques roadshow inspired

“Ooh don’t throw that, it could be worth something one day..”

Funnily enough she’s never ever owned anything that has turned out to be “worth something”. Despite buying all the Doulton/poole pottery shit as “investment”.

The only things I’ve ever owned that would be worth something now she persuaded me to bin as a child as “you don’t want that old thing”.

I’d never actually thought about it like that but actually MILs house is absolutely filled with clutter and she admits to being a hoarder. I wonder if it’s an addiction to buying things and now she’s got no room she just passes them onto us.
DP did draw the line recently when she wanted to give him his old school books that she’d kept for the last 30 years

Also can't mention the fact that DC has shown a mild interest in something or ILs will buy it / some tacky knock off crap related to it (sorry that sounds so ungrateful )

DHs family are very sentimental. DH says he wants to keep the stuff they bring but makes no move to find a home for it and if I place it in the deepest part of a cupboard/garage he will make no move to look for it in decades. So some of it goes in due course. I am sensitive to things which might be truly sentimental to most people like personal items from a grandparent versus tat from a holiday to Blackpool in the 80s. I dread PIL dying.

And bless my parents who managed to downsize from a 6 bedroom house to a flat without foistering one thing on us.

Oh and we also get anything that DH ever owned, made or farted on in his 30 years of life given back to us

Oh my god YES. Spelling books from when he was in reception. Once a pair of his underpants from when he was about 12. When he moved in with me I'd (probably passive aggressively) be given a box of his old crap every time we visited.

Didn't realise how much this was bothering me until now, it's all coming out

My DM would watch as we sort stuff out for the charity shop and take it home as it was too good to throw away. Six months later, she would try and bring it back, forgetting from where it came.

She doesn't like getting rid of things herself so brings them here. Sadly we've got a lot of outbuildings so can't say we physically don't have room. Saw her today when I dropped their shopping in and told her I was continuing my mission of decluttering. She actually said to me, without irony, 'don't throw anything out.'

Mind you, she does great Christmas sacks for the family- 14 in all. Some new stuff and some from charity shops etc and she rarely gets it wrong!

@moochops 😂 maybe it's because my parents were the opposite and only kept the bare minimum from my childhood, but I can't get my head around it. Yes your children are precious, but the things they make are very rarely that precious!
We have Christening outfits that DH never even wore! They bought two when he was little, they've kept the one he actually wore, we get the one they didn't like. We're both outspoken Atheists and they keep saying it's for when we get DS Christened! 🙄

Wait, what?

*All my OWN possessions now fit in a small day pack that i keep at my feet when I sleep. I have a 60cm wide space to sleep in.

I am not allowed to decorate. I am not allowed to put up pictures. I am not allowed curtains*

Where ARE you? That sounds grim!

Yes, l have this and l am grateful for lock down as l have not received anything then if the schools go back in edit l will be able to have a sort out on my days off x

put in a plastic bag to keep the rain off, add a note saying 'home wanted, please help yourself' and leave on the pavement.

so what if she sees it? Hopefully this will get through to her.

and no, absolutely no key!!

My mil has an immaculate minimal home yet buys dc massive plastic shite that hardly fits in a toy cupboard and dc won’t let me throw away. Honestly, I hold onto the fact that at some point my house will be like a squash and a squeeze Julia Donaldson book and the toy room can be used for something else, like a den for teens!

I also really hate indoor plants. My parents have loads and I’ve always found it too cluttered. Plants outside yes, inside no except for a small aloe Vera in the kitchen for when I burn myself. My parents know this, mil bought me one and the stupid thing won’t die!

@motherofdragons..... slightly off topic here but if you want your plants to die off 'naturally' , water them with a 50/50 mix of bleach and water, so that they die over a week or two.

I had to do this when my bastard Ex said to my boy 'lets grow mummy a plant for her birthday' . On the day my boy - of 5 - proudly presented me with a bloody Cannabis plant and insisted it was shown off on the kitchen windowsill where the whole street could see it.

Hence it had to die 'naturally'....but not before a sharp eyed passing police officer saw it and requested an explanation!

Send it back. Declare it her very own Drama Llama!!

@DDIJ I saw the title and remembered your posts from years ago. Im so sorry to hear things havent changed.

Knick knacks

😱😱😱

Oh god try having a Mil who volunteers in a charity shop and goes to a million
Church fayre. Her own house is rammed with shite and she has started giving us stuff. DH takes it and we chuck it mostly but she won’t be told. She loves pictures in the walls and stuffed toys 🙄. I hate ornaments but she has friggin figurines in the bathroom she has so many.

When she has something to give us she sort of presents it to us and it’s always garbage. Mind you I got told by a poster on here several times how grateful I should be so I offered to send her the crap to be grateful about! We work full time and don’t have time to that all this nonsense to the charity shop and I want things we have chosen and likes round us. She’s also convinced DH is 12 and gets him books about racing cars. She also buys him clothes that are too small as she thinks he’s a small. He’s 5’11” and has wide shoulder he wears a large, she went shopping with him and kept saying ‘large? away you’re not a large!’ Yes he is and we have been telling you this for over 15 years!