Silly house rules

[tabbyH]

My husband has just emptied our kitchen bin. Apparently this means that I'm not allowed to put anything in it! Not sure what the time frame is until the bin is allowed to be used again... Does anyone else have any peculiar rules?

Just read more messages. My mum irons everything including tea towels, underwear and sheets NOT NORMAL. I only iron if it is on the outside and people can see it!
Worringly my DS aged 5! changes the loo roll if it isn't hanging the right way!!! other than that he is a normal messy kid!!

To everyone with the toilet roll the right way around rule: I used to be like you, until DD arrived and the mist was lifted from my eyes - when you're sitting on the loo holding a baby in one arm while trying to tear paper from the roll, it's a lot easier when the loo roll is hanging THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

I know this is blasphemy to you, but to me it's the only truth...

I like everything ironed, including bedcovers ( can't say I actually enjoy doing the ironing though) but did you know.....................ironing towels makes them less absorbent!!

So no ironing of towels in this house. i like them to dry things :)

I like towels to dry on the line and never wash them with FC as I prefer crunchy towels. But I do like ironed bedding. Nothing better!

Carrier bags must be folded before being put away in the drawer.

The kettle lives by the wall but must be pulled out from under the top cuboards to be boiled and put back by the wall afterwards.

Dishwasher must be loaded properly my way

No shoes upstairs

We had the no poos downstairs rule when I was growing up and I still abide by it but don't enforce it with the others.

Cushions on the sofa must be plumped and arranged properly after use. I'd prefer people not to sit on them at all but I bite my tongue.

I dont know if I'm normal now or not!!

No bags are allowed to be put on any surface other than a floor. MIL keeps putting her handbag on my worktop, each time I move it to the floor. She also has a tendency to put the kids shoes on there. I mean bleugh!! I prepare my food off that!

Towells for show in the bathroom. No one is allowed to use them or I huff and puff
Only products being used on show and the shower screen and tiles are squidgeid down after use(only I seem to do this though)

My curtains in the living room have to open and hang in the correct way, DH just slings them open so I redo them each morning.
Cushions in a particular order and I also hate anyone sitting on them. I keep thinking they are breaking wind on my lovely cushions.

Everything in cupboards have to be in a particular order. It so annoys me when DH has put something on the wrong shelf.

I cringe when DH is making something after ive just cleaned the worktops.

I also hoover my decking( i think the neighbours must think i'm odd)

All of these seem perfectly normal to me. MIL has a thing where she takes my wet washing out of the machine and folds it all ready to go on the line 2 mins later. I can never get my head around what a complete time waster that is :)

kbaby in your MIL's defence, folding washing before putting it out is a way of getting untangled and removing creases before drying. I do it. It must be right then! ;)

Takethatlady from Monday - I think you have my DH!!

OMG I have discovered I am weird. I too have the toilet roll obsession (has to be on the outside hanging down, NEVER the inside. Pillowcases have to have the open end at the outside of the bed. When I've done a lovely weekly shop and the fridge is full, no-one is allowed to eat anything straightaway - what's the point of buying stuff if it just gets eaten? The patio curtain has to be pulled closed each night. The bathroom blind has to be pulled up, not just opened (although it's the other way round for the downstairs loo...) Talking of the loos, me and DS don't like to have a poo in the downstairs loo - others can but the air freshener is strategically placed. I actually have towels 'for best'. When I have cleaned my car (about once every six months) I have to go and look at it admiringly several times an hour.

Have to stop now. Thinking of too many things...

And the dishwasher has to be loaded a particular way.

My friend has a neighbour who hoovers his car and his drive EVERY DAY

(as if just the hoovering isn't bad enough...)

Coming back to my mother's no poos downstairs - I have to say it's not a rule I have brought to our house - I think for her it's a smell issue. For me, it's a question of speed - can I poo without DD wrecking the house - and going upstairs would mean taking her with me and locking myself in the bathroom with her rather than doing an express one with the door open downstairs to keep an ear out for her and try and finish before she notices I have gone! Too much information, probably - but I think it shows that rules have to be adapted. I have to say that my FIL often does a big poo downstairs and it does sort of annoy me especially as it's usually just before I send everyone to wash hands for lunch or get coats to go out...... Some things are just too ingrained I guess!

I Hoover my Patio, with George, kept especially for outside. Reason not to sweep it is everything gets blown about and then you have to try and pick it up anyway so just as well put it in hoover, no flying dirt, no scrabbling around for bits. I only do it about twice a year though once at end of Summer to get all leaves off and once in spring to get all winter mess off.

I started reading this thread and thought you were all (pleasantly) bonkers, but as I continued to read I found myself agreeing with some of you!
I too have to have the loo roll the correct way round (over the top hanging down in front) but having spent a reasonable amount of time in India and seen 'roaches crawling up loo roll because it hung near the wall, it became an obsession - so many people have I visited where their loo roll has mysteriously changed direction.
I only have one loo in my house so the where you poo rule does not apply but I know that at my PiLs house the downstairs loo is preferred for poo, although not strictly enforced. My MiL also cleans before the cleaner arrives - I have NEVER understood that!
I rarely iron anything (smart dresses, shirts when we're going out) but everything else is hung to dry (prefereably outside so it smells lovely and fresh) straight and neat so it doesn't need ironing (the DH started that one, he used to do all the washing because I couldn't get it right - kept that one up for 10 years before becoming a SAHM and not being able to get away with it ). at those of you who iron everything, I just cannot be bothered don't have the time.
I too occasionally brush my teeth in the shower, it is a great time saver, but I do prefer cold water to clean teeth - DH thought it was odd when he first realised I did that, although he has taken it on board for when he is in a hurry!
I hate the fact the DH loads the dishwasher and then leaves the door open to stink the kitchen out provide a perfect trip hazard! It also sends me screwy that he tips the tea bags out of the tea pot into the sink and leaves them there . He also has a n annoying habit of trimming his beard and emptying the trimmer down the loo - it leaves lots of little hairs floating in the loo and sticking to the bowl. It looks gross and they are a pain to clean off!!!!!!
We don't have any many rules in the house, perhaps that should change!!

Pawan - you are absolutely spot on about no sex in the clean sheets - even though I ensure that sex always happens on dh's side of the bed, so he ends up with the wet patch and ensuing marks, I still prefer to have sex before the sheets get changed, not afterwards.

And I like to be first into bed when the sheets are clean - somehow they are slightly less crisp, cool and pleasurable if dh is in there first.

This thread has been a great joy and consolation to me: - now I know I'm no more batty than everyone else!
With me, there are just two crimes that merit instant death: leaving the top off the wash-up liquid, so that a plug of goo develops, blocking up the hole;- and putting the wet spoon back in the sugar!! Aaaaaaargh!

No shaving after bathroom cleaning
No putting away food not eaten at mealtimes
No leaving dirty dishes in sink over night
No employing of cleaner - thieving bastards
No leaving caps off felt tips
No wafting strong drinks under sensitive noses

Where do you get the time?. When my children came along I seemed to loose any spare time for doing fiddly things. Only a few rules in my house

• towels have to be hung up on towel rail to dry
• dirty crocks have to be put in the dishwasher not left lying around
• teenagers have to make sure their ironing is done by the weekend or they don't get their pocket money.

at BAGPUSS - does the 'thieving bastard' cleaners that you refuse to employ include window cleaners ? Ours is an old school friend of DH otherwise I wouldnt have one. Waste of £6 imo to have a grubby chamois thrown vaguely in direction of your windows every fortnight ! I even suggested he feel free to use our outside tap to change his water thinking at least we'd get a grubby chamois dipped in clean water thrown at our windows.

So next time I watched him and his partner dutifully pour away their dirty buckets of water down my drive - wring out their chamois then fill their buckets up with lovely clean water from my tap.

Unfortunately this was after they had finished our windows

Oh and BAGPUSS what do you mean by 'not putting away food not eaten' ??

StayingDavidTennantsGirl it makes perfect sense to me not to have sex on clean sheets - but DH always still seems to think that if I've changed the sheets, it is precisely because I'm up for it that evening.

This is one rule he seems never to recall, yet it is my only rule.

He has lots of rules , e.g. stacking dishwasher, which i do try and keep to - but he is much more obsessive better at stacking it than me.

My mum will not abide a kitchen bin in the house. We (and they still do) had an empty huge ice-cream on the utility worktop that could take one (1) plastic bag which we would remove and put in the wheelie bin when it was full. The logic behind this was we would never empty a proper, full-size kitchen bin. The logic never made sense to me tbh, but I didn't care that much because it's only a bin FFS.

My rule? Put MOBILE PHONE, LAPTOP CHARGERS etc away after charging is finished.