To not be grateful to my inlaws!!!!

[Ishouldprobablywax]

I have just spent 3hours clearing out rubbish that my in laws have dumped here. It's like the home bargains skip!
So far- a million plastic carrier bags

1 iron with cord broken

1 dish strainer (we have one)

9 battery operates led kitchen lights

5 tins of paint that are rusted stale and only 1/8 full. In different colours

1 bag of compost (no garden)

1 dustpan and brush

32 vinyl faded floor tiles
gaaah
then THEN when they visit on our understairs cupboard being a bloody tip!

I should add that we've only lived in this house 4 WEEKs
argh!

Put it all carefully back into bags and give it back to em.
This'll only be the start if you choose to accept it all...

New house, new rules!

1 bag of compost (no garden)

Roffle

Second thoughts on the compost - could you keep that and start a window box?

Perhaps to bury further crap in that the ILs send your way?

Haha- oooh there's more!

1 broom

selection of spatulas

LCD tv bracket (no flatties here!)

2 bar stools

Can you car boot it all?
Maybe make a fiver and get a bottle of wine

why have you ended up with it all?

Well.
Mil enquires what we're up to- dh (the fool) says 'ohhh decorating/cleaning kitchen or whatever then she says 'ohh then I have a treat for you' next visit rolls around and they're there with a car boot full of shit and I'm there trying to work out what to do with my face!

Last time she even turned up with a crap load of crockery because mine is 'old and chipped' it is not-we got it from marks and spencer last year- the shit she brought me is brown with yellow flowers and about 30 yrs old!

a treat she said

Wax - can you brazen it out and say something like:

"Oh are you having a life laundry, just that you are passing on a lot of OLD things to me and DH?"

Emphasis on the old (and crappy/chipped/yellowed/nasty...)

You have the supreme advantage of having a new house here, maybe counter any offers or offerings with a bright and breezy tone thus:

"Oh we love our new house, everything we want for it will be new and clean and lovely!

No, hang on, scratch that...

I have the ultimate response:

Wax, you've just moved, you undoubtedly have all manner of crap lying about the place. So, you therefore bundle it up and give it to ILs, saying:
"Thank you for the (almost empty) paint, spatulas, compost, barstools, etc... we thought the best way to repay your kindness ws with these 200 books, carpet oddments, old plant containers, ancient lamp and this lovely garage door."

Voila.

YANBU. My MIL brings her crap from the other side of the world.

My mother was having a clear-out a while back and asked me if I wanted her old, old, old (circa 1970s) chipped kitchen crockery set. I asked, a little curtly perhaps, why I would want it, (when I had a virtually brand new all-matching set gleaming in the cupboard, with the previous, not-quite-so-gleaming-but-in-good-nick-nonetheless set in another cupboard as back-up).
She bristled, and huffed that some people would be grateful.
I swear she thinks I'm 18 still, and just setting up home in a student squat. As opposed to in my 40s, more than comfortably financially-off and IN NO F*ING NEED OF HER CAST-OFFS!!!!!!

YANBU

YANBU

BUT I do think this is an old people thing and they can't bear to throw stuff away so they pass it on. Must be down to living through the war or something!

My DH's grandparents bequeath tut upon us on a regular basis.

We have 2 wheelbarrows, four lawnmowers (we pay someone to cut our grass using his own!!) some stone hot water bottles, a singer sewing machine, garden chair covers (without the chairs!)....I could go on.

My Nanna was the same, rest her soul.

Take it all back to them and say you couldn't find a use for it so are returning it. Why should you have to throw away their old rubbish?

some of it will go on freecylce - them as cannot afford stuff are always grateful for anything even cast off chipped crockery,honest

I got rid of a job lot of odds and ends on there to someone moving into a bedsit

Your inlaws must know my parents! In the end DH inquried innocently if there was a problem with the rubbish collection in their town! They still can't resist giving us the odd castoff, but it' not as bad as it used to be.

Can you introduce her to the joys of ebay? People buy all sorts of old junk vintage and collectable items on there.

Of course it could backfire, and she'll end up buying a whole lot of new old junk to "treat" you with.

e bay and wine like someone said
I seriously saw someone on there with a whole load of used/broken rubbish on there the other day I wish I'd saved it to see whether it sold or not

DPs wonderful (now passed away) granny used to give everyone all sorts of crap. Which was fine, all accepted with good humour. Only difficult bit was that quite often years after the "gift" had been donated she would ask for it back . She once gave my SIL a poker. SIL threw it out after a few years. After a few more years SIL moved house, no longer had a real fire. Gran asked for the poker back.....

She was a sucker for catalogues (bettaware etc that sort of stuff), so birthdays/christmases were interesting affairs! She once gave me 2 dozen dark brown 40 denier tights... God knows where she'd gotten them.

My great granny used to do that oo lal including some old furniture etc. And when she started to get very old, she'd see something she'd previously bequeathed to a relative and start saying they'd stolen it from her :(

Thank fuck my ILs on the whole don't give us stuff - although v. recently we bought a new camping stove, I was telling my FIL and so the next time he came down, he brought me his old camping stove - a mother fucker of a thing that needs its own generator and tow truck too

at Ishouldprobablywax.

My in laws used to do this (big house, huge attic, nothing ever thrown away). And, like lal123, every now and then they would ask to borrow things back so I could never risk freecycling it.

In the end, when we moved, we put it all into boxes, thanked them very kindly for letting us borrow so much stuff, and dropped it round at their house.

Ishould - drop the stuff round next time you visit. Tell them it was very kind of them to loan you these things, that they have been lots of use but unfortunately you have no room in the new house to store them so you are returning them for safekeeping. Keep doing it and hopefully they will get the message.

Mother-in-law to be loves her catalogues. Betterwear especially as someone else has mentioned. End up with all sorts of cheap tat for Christmas/Birthdays (wonderful moneybox shaped like a stack of cookies, padded and scented clothes hangers, handy 'save time' plastic items for the kitchen - the list is endless). It is ungrateful I know but I wish she wouldn't waste her money. Most of the stuff gets put away in a draw and I either end up giving it to charity or binning it during a fenzied cleaning session.

My mum is always giving us crap. I have no idea where she picks it up. Every time she comes she gives me or DH something ridiculous (car ice scraper in the form of santa's mitten for Christmas anyone?) and she always, always says "just a bit of fun". So now if DH sees some new piece of tat in the house he says "just a bit of fun?"

We live in a very small house and we really don't need more shit and clutter.

Ugh, my mum does this all the time. It's very kind but we just don't have the room - 3 kids, three bedrooms, loads of toys and clothes = not enough room for STUFF we don't need that she thinks is 'pretty' or 'nice' (but not useful at all). Or things she thinks we NEED, but end up creating more work for us, like an outside light shaped like a lantern. We DO need an outside light, but a) we can't afford to get someone to install one yet, and b) if/when we do get one, we'd like to choose our own!

Bin it all!!! I keep things for a few months and then bin them. She forgets what she buys - a few times she's said "where did you get that?"
"YOU brought it up for us!"
"DID I?!"

She never asks for things back, at least that's a blessing. That would drive me mad!

Ahh, I feel your pain.

Our most recent acquisition is a T-shirt MIL bougyt for FIL. Apprently he didn't like it so she's passed it on to DH.

Now this would be ok, except DH is a 36 chest and FIL is a 40.

More importantly, I am almost certain it's a ladies T-shirt. Apart from looking like one she bought it in Monsoon. Do they do Mens clothes .

I said thanks but he won't were it. DH said Thanks but doesn't fit and is for opposite sex. We went home.

Would you believe I found it in our ironing the other day. She'd brought it, and slipped it in when she helped with the ironing .

Went straight in the Charity bin.