Do some people just feel the need to FILL a room?

[TheLightSideOfTheMoon]

My parents are here.

A three seater sofa has one person on it along with a random pile of crap they’ve accumulated since coming in, a coat and a handbag.

The doorway to the living room has a box in it. A box of sewing stuff they brought with them (the constant complaints of how they’ve dropped sharp needles onto the sofa/rug is another story).

A hedge trimmer lies across the floor. In the way. A constant trip hazard. It’s being mended, yes. But not right this minute. Any suggesting I make about moving it is rebuffed because they haven’t finished.

The sugar canister is in here. Because they wanted more sugar in their coffee and taking it back was too much effort. Also, whilst it was being brought in my fat-phobic almond mum told me that “no one has sugar any more - except people like you…” But this is, once again, another story.

There’s other general mess. Not created by me. There are chips on the floor. Not put there by me.

Every surface is covered and I am just not coping.

Anyone else?

I try to be as unobtrusive as possible when I visit people. Does anyone else’s family members take over their homes?

Ooooo, the hedge trimmer is now on the sofa, too.

FML.

My parents and in laws are both like this and honestly I really struggle with it. I have ADHD so appreciate I may react more strongly, but things being totally out of order and all over the place really does impact me. In laws in particular feel I need to ‘accept it and get over it’ but it’s not that simple. I physically can’t function.

Last time MIL was here she didn’t understand why I hadn’t cooked dinner yet, she’d left the contents of her suitcase, dirty washing, and other general rubbish like crisp packets all over the counters.

Drives me mad and you have my sympathy. How long are they staying for?

My parents are exactly like this. Within minutes of their arrival the house looks like we’ve been burgled. Their own house looks like that too, but they live there and it’s all their stuff. I don’t understand how they can make quite so much mess when they arrive with only an overnight bag, but somehow they do.
It’s not just general mess, they manage to remove the loo rolls from their holders and leave the rolls on the bathroom floor, or on the top of the loo or wherever. There are cups and plates left all over the kitchen counters, never in the dishwasher. They pick up books and don’t put them back, don’t hang up coats, you get the picture. They drive me nuts. Plus they’re constantly in the way.

I'm begging you to take a sneaky pic.
settles down with popcorn

Yes
In laws can come, and within 5 mins ‘stuff’ is everywhere. Sun glasses on side, scarf on stairs, shoes wherever, coat on chair, gloves on shelf, random maps and brochures and leaflets on every surface, car keys on table..
Then it takes them about an hour every time they leave house to round up everything and they always ‘can’t find it’.

We have empty guest shoe space, basket and hooks were every other normal guest puts everything together. And it’s been the same for 5+ years

Go on. Pleeeeease 🙂

I have ADHD too.

If my house is a mess, my head is a mess.

It makes me hot and anxious.

They’ve left now. I’m having a cup of tea and waiting for a food shop to arrive.

Yes
my in laws (FIL specially) brings a ton of stuff and spreads it everywhere.
Food, drinks, jigsaws, papers, books, shoes, coats, bags.

I adore them but feel like I can breathe again when it’s all gone

I think all these parents are having a great fun getting revenge for your teenage years 😆 I swear when DS moves out I'm going to leave all the lights on at his house and move all the crockery to "my" room.

I think your only chance at this point is aiming for a nicely organised fridge and just standing staring at it for a few hours.

I think ADHD just isn’t understood by some people, particularly the need to have an ordered and organised space. I think most people still think of the stereotype of an overly energetic school boy who can’t concentrate without putting thought into how their slovenly ways can tip us over the edge 😁

My parents are exactly the same. Love them to pieces, but every time they come and stay DH and I constantly give each other looks at the little piles of stuff that appear everywhere!

I think my DH is your parents’ long lost child.

Or a hat is put inside a large pottery dish. Where else would it go? 🙄😆

It’s an older person thing.

Oh I couldn't handle it.

When I go to my parents house they clear a space for me to sit on the sofa. Just one seat mind you, not the whole sofa. So I sit there surrounded by bags of shopping they haven't unpacked, old magazines, a half eaten bag of cat treats and usually some old post someone hasn't opened.

My husband wonders why I'm a neat and tidy freak at home!

It most certainly isn't an 'old person thing.' That would drive me wild and I'm 64. I never dump stuff in my daughter's house. I couldn't bear it. My son is more inclined to dump things everywhere in my house

We live in a long thin house, our back door leads into the kitchen which then leads into the dining room. FIL empties his suitcase on the floor of the dining room next to the table. Clothes, toiletries, maps and other unnecessary crap is then put onto the table. Suitcase is left on the floor open. Everyone has to hurdle said case to get upstairs. Why not just take the thing upstairs and put it in the spare room?

Ha I read the thread title and thought 'yea my son', but not with possessions - his personality! He has to be the biggest and loudest.

My parents are the opposite, you have to drink a coffee in one gulp because if you put it down unfinished they whip it away and wash it up.
My mum helps herself to doing my dishes all the time and it drives me mad because she’s has a dishwasher 30 years so doesn’t manage to get them clean.
I’m not sure it’s better!

My parents were so like this. And MIL too - it is how they live. I reckon my children will be like them. DH and I (and my sister) reacted to the chaos by being the kind of people who put the toaster in a cupboard. Presumably my kids will react the other way.

I'm like this, I'm not comfy in uncluttered and 'clinical' rooms. I can't find anything if it's been tided away by someone else and even forget I own certain items if they have been put away. I'm the opposite of my poor husband and sister!

My lovely mil always seems to need a whole seat on the sofa for her handbag and extra stuff bag. I used to end up sitting like a child on the floor because we'd run out of sofa places - this no longer happens, I just calmly and silently pick it all up and hang it on the designated hooks

Yeah, I have relatives like this. Not my MIL or DM though, they are both tidy. It is a nightmare and it always amazed me how the people concerned can walk into a tidy house and not realise what they are doing.

I'm always surrounded by a pile of stuff but I don't take it to other people's houses,

Good lord. Don't get me started on people who come in the kitchen, wash their hands in the sink and spray water all over the countertop.