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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to tell mum not to come round to clean my house?

30 replies

oopslateagain · 13/07/2010 00:00

My mum likes her house with minimal ornaments, just one or two, and it's always clean and tidy and spotless. I have what I think is a typical house, there's dust but not inches of it, it's tidy-ish but there are piles of paperwork and stuff lying around. I am HAPPY in my house. Now and again it gets a bit wrecked and it takes a few days of cleaning and sorting to get it looking ok again. Mum always offers to help when it's like that and now and again I take her up on it.

Today I was round mums, they've been on holiday for a couple of weeks. She asked me to go round there tomorrow to help with the garden and said "Oh and when we're done I'll come back with you and help you do your house." I said that it was ok, I just needed to dust and put a few bits away and she said "But I can come and have a real go at it, I don't mind." I said a quite firm No, and she was a bit offended.

Thing is, my house is OK right now. It's not her idea of perfect, but it's clean and relatively tidy. And she wants to 'have a go at it', in other words make it all spick and span like hers. We just don't live like that! And I find it horribly stressful when she does come to clean like that, because I feel that she's judging my housekeeping and finding it not up to scratch.

God, sorry, that got awfully long. The point is, AIBU to tell her to leave my house alone? Or should I grit my teeth and let her come and do what she wants and get a lovely perfect shiny house that won't last 10 minutes but will make her all happy?

OP posts:
beammeupscotty · 13/07/2010 00:04

Tell her nicely to leave your house alone - and come round to mine instead

mjinhiding · 13/07/2010 00:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Monty100 · 13/07/2010 00:09

What a lovely mum! Let her do it.

clam · 13/07/2010 00:11
PortiaNovmerriment · 13/07/2010 00:12

I have the same with my mum. You just have to strike a balance between humouring them and keeping your sense of space. It's a tricky one.

solo · 13/07/2010 00:24

Send her to mine please

ben5 · 13/07/2010 00:28

does she clean ovens, microwaves and do the ironing? if so can i have her around my house.?!
yanbu your house. also you have kids and houses are always more busy when you have dc at home

Original poster
oopslateagain · 13/07/2010 00:31

I'll tell her she's got a job if she wants it, passing her round MN

I'll take a loooooong time doing her garden tomorrow so there's no time to come round here. I know she'll want to come Wednesday.

I also know I'm going to clean up before she comes in, and then get all when she goes and does it all again 'properly'.

Maybe I should just hand her the keys and go off for coffee with my mates

OP posts:
TheMoonOnAStick · 13/07/2010 00:43

My mum is the same. Immaculate house. Always always cleaning.

Ours is like yours Oops. But having grown up in my mums when regular long and very depressing sessions of cleaning were the order of the day, part of me feels we should be the same, but mainly I want to rebel. I end up feeling guilty, but not enough to clean like my mum does.

She has helped in the past and probably would again but I'd rather she didn't.

I feel uncomfortable with it. It feels a bit like a horse being mucked out. I like the end result but I feel humiliated by it. I think for her though it's a way in which she can really show she's 'helping' and because she actually likes cleaning (not that she'd admit it).

I do have very bad memories of housework and growing up. My mum's addiction to perfection caused an awful lot of friction and rows and I always vowed not to be so obsessive about it.

booyhoo · 13/07/2010 00:57

i hate my mum coing to my house. as soon as i nip to the loo or go upstairs for something she grabs the floorbrush and starst brushing or will start doing dishes f there are any. it makes me feel like shit. thankfully she doesn't some that often.

Original poster
oopslateagain · 13/07/2010 01:11

Exactly TMOAS! My earliest memories are of playing on the living room floor while mum moved the furniture round. Other children had mums that smelled of perfume, mine smelled of bleach. Only difference is that mine openly admits she loves cleaning.

OP posts:
IMoveTheStars · 13/07/2010 01:13

haha, oh dear.. in my world:

'you want to clean my house? Hurrah! Yes Mum, bring the vax! Shampoo the carpets, really? awesome, thanks.. I'll make the biscuits'

if only.

diamondsandtiaras · 13/07/2010 07:14

oops do we have the same mother? Mine is hugely critical about the state of our house.......and it's not bad at all (a bit untidy most of the time and a few piles of junk lying around but certainly not dirty). She will walk into a room and lift the rug to check for dirt underneath before even saying hello to me. She once told me "jokingly" when DD1 was a baby that social services would come and take her away if they saw the amount of dust on my mantelpiece.

I have started to retaliate now as I am sick of the comments.........the last couple of criticisms have led to me telling her that I will go out and leave her with the DDs for the day and when I come back I will see how much housework she has managed to do

anyabanya · 13/07/2010 07:24

YANBU. I HATE my mother interfering. We have a rather chaotic house, but it is clean. (We have a cleaner ffs). My parents were staying with us just before our wedding and DH and I went out for th day to go and pick up relatives at the airport. When we came back, the house was sparkling. Mother and friend had taken it upon themselves to 'clean properly'. i felt insulted and offended. It is NOT their house. Plus, their version of 'cleaning' was to shove stuff away... including in the garage. As a result, we lost several vital legal document relating to a court case, lost our dogs EU pet passports (not cheap to replace) and lost a valuable (money wise and sentiment wise) family heirloom of my DH's that had been dropped, broken and the pieces put in the bin.

I think there is am implicit 'you are a slob and I feel your hygiene is didhy' if someone says 'oh, I will clean for you properly'.

Grrrr.

anyabanya · 13/07/2010 07:27

that word was 'dodgy' by the way.

Nettiespagetti · 13/07/2010 07:29

Difficult it really does depend how she goes about it! if like dat your mum is using it purely to criticise then that is no good.

But if she geniuinely (sp) wants to help then let her. Your helping with her garden, she is helping with your house.

If she is genuinely coming round to help buy not
knowingly criticising then have a chat. Tell her it can be a great help but often you feel ..... See if there is someway for you to still feel in control of your
own house.

HTH

Chandon · 13/07/2010 07:45

your problem is that, in your own words: "Now and then you take her up on her offer to clean your house".

So be a bit more clear from now on.

Librashavinganotherbiscuit · 13/07/2010 07:54

When my mum comes I actually find every bit of unfolded (clean) clothing in the house and put it in a washing basket next to the tumble dryer as I know she won't be able to stop herself folding it ("I can fold and talk at the same time dear" as I sit at the kitchen counter drinking tea). I think she LIKES to help.

In your situation I would let her, more time for you to MN, drink wine, have a long bath...

ShinyAndNew · 13/07/2010 08:00

Libra my mum is the same. I invite her round for tea and biscuits and she starts sweeping/mopping/folding/washing up, while I am following her around the house holding her tea.

Mind she is v quick and effective. She can get my whole house looking perfect in the amount of time it takes me to do 1 room. It makes me a bit dizzy watching her.

She also steals bags of laundry and takes all my clean washing home to iron. Then she breaks in with her spare key and puts all the washing away for me.

I did mention how much I love my mum didn't I?

DemonChild · 13/07/2010 08:08

Ooh, I'm wavering between wishing my mum would come and clean my house so I wouldn't have to do it and not wanting to put up with the combined tut and sigh she would subject me to for weeks after.

There's always a price to pay, no?

Librashavinganotherbiscuit · 13/07/2010 08:12

Sorry to sound smug but no. No tutting or sighing from my mum.

theskiinggardener · 13/07/2010 08:12

It's the implied criticism that hurts, so it depends how the offer is made.

I still get mad when I remember when DH was in hospital after a horrific car crash, including air ambulance trip. The first thing the mothers did when they got to my house was criticise the state of the tea towels and start cleaning the kitchen. That was 10 years ago.

Librashavinganotherbiscuit · 13/07/2010 08:14

I think we can sometimes become a little over sensitive, is there any chance theskiinggardener they did that because they didn't know how else to deal with the situation?

ShinyAndNew · 13/07/2010 08:21

Nope, none from mine either. She seems to actually enjoy cleaning my house

I did pay once though. I had spent the night watching horror movies as baby dd1 had been up half the night teething. By the time she had settled I had scared myself shitless. I went to bed with the lights on, the chain on the front door and the dog on my bed.

I woke up the chain was off the door, the dog was in the kitchen (she had a flap to get out on the backdoor) and all the lights were off.

I crapped myself. I rang my mum, before I even checked the baby to tell her I was haunted and was moving in with her and could she come round in five mins to collect me, dd1 and our things. Her reply "Oh yes, I did all that. I brought some washing back and you were still asleep. I didn't want to wake you, so I put the dog out for a wee for you and I have dd1 here. I woke her up when I was putting washing away, so I thought I would bring her here for the morning and let you have a sleep in"

I did say my mum is ace yes?

seeker · 13/07/2010 08:22

My mum was still coming to help me clean when she was 80! She's 90- now and housebound and I still miss how lovely things looked when she had finished - she just had the knack of making houses look beautiful. Not magazine perfect, just.....beautiful. I wish I had inherited it.

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