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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to think WTF is going on?

580 replies

ScaredWorriedAndAngry · 31/03/2011 22:35

We recently realised we may had been burgled my DH noticed weird notches and marks on our front door...so he called the police they came and confirmed that someone had definately been into our house and we suddenly realised why small but valuable items had started going missing over a period of about 5months ..3 phones a hand-bag, my husbands watch I brought him for our anniversary last year and probably other things we have not realised...things you might think you have misplaced or lost..anyway the police officer asked to look upstairs so my husband said ok...when she cam back down the stairs she said 'how many children did you say you had?' my DH answered 2 ..she then said well why is there just 1 bed/mattress upstairs?' my DH explained that we will be buying a futon for them and that we are just in the middle of things.

now for some back-ground...my DDs bless their cotton socks are home-wreckers...they had a lovely IKEA bed but they jumped all over it and smashed the slats beyond repair..they have also dug holes in the walls and pulled off their own room door when they made a 'swing' on the handle amongst other things..unfortunately my DH is not a DIY person a nor am I...we chucked out the bed bits and just had the made up mattress on the floor (which they think is bluddy marvellous and like a 'sleep-over'),we have a new bed that we brought originally when we brought the first bed..but decided not to put it up because they might end up breaking it again, we decided to buy a double futon so they can jump as much as they want till we have set up DD2's room...

We have lived in the house for quite a while but we are really struggling with decorating and many things have gone wrong with the property,mould, bolier broken, man half fitted the kitchen and ran off with the money..plus other personal stuff.. so yes it looks a bit of a state decoration wise and at the moment we just don't have the time money or energy to sort everything out and it's also very cluttered not dirty..just messy...and we also have alot of wine bottles in bags in the kitchen because I'm too lazy to walk round to the bottle bank often enough (more fool me)...so it looks a bit much when I look at it from someone elses perspective..maybe they think we are drunks or something?

Well after they left and I came home my DH mentioned what happened and said he thought she might say something..I said no way because our house is a bit messy and you explained about the matress etc etc...

2 weeks later the police return and we thought it was the discuss the break in..no..it turns out there we some concerns with our children and their living arrangements??, 2 officers from the youth crime reduction team are here?? they ask to come in the house is a bit wild because I'm doing washing..they said they have spoken to the school about us and our children and about the time off they have had etc...and last year my DDs caught quite a few colds ansd stomach bugs and the school policy is you must keep them off for at least 48 hrs so yes their attendance looks dodgy but not more so than other children..they asked us if there was food in the house??...we both work and have decent jobs but bills a mortgage and debts and I don't want to get into anymore debt..

so now a day later they are coming back again with another person...and I'm sure I saw them drive pass the house earlier...we asked for help from the police and now we feel like suspects for something we haven't done...am i overrating/paranoid?..is this normal practice?...am i in some kind of denial?..are we on a list?

I have been trying to hold this all in but I'm tearful/angry and worried and too ashamed to talk to anyone about whats happening...

sorry this is so long..

OP posts:
CakeandRoses · 05/04/2011 12:57

Ah but you've said two separate things are excessive there tom (excellent taste in husbands, may I say):

You said drinking 1.5 glasses daily is excessive - which I agree with (and isn't what I said I do)

Then you said drinking daily is excessive - which I partially agree with but am cool with in terms of how much/what I drink (most days, probably 6 days a week, I will drink 1 small glass of red wine with food. I don't drink any other type of alcohol, other than champagne for celebrations natch)

tomhardyismydh · 05/04/2011 12:59

i belive both are exessive

sundayrose10 · 05/04/2011 13:02

Well sorry! I just don't appreciate this woman trying to paint black women as unkempt home keepers.

JoBettany · 05/04/2011 13:08

I don't believe the OP has done that sundayrose

CakeandRoses · 05/04/2011 13:08

Does it exceed recommendations tho? I thought it was 14 units and isn't a glass of wine 2 units?

Tbh, this is the type of stuff I believe I can make my own mind up about rather than let government guidelines dicate my behaviour.
I'm very health-concious and don't really do anything else to excess. In places like Italy they have a healthy diet and good longevity outcomes but daily drinking of red wine is the norm, asfaik.

Could this thread go off at any more tangents?! :-)

thinNigella · 05/04/2011 13:13

Look I really think you need to get it sorted. Can you take some time off - beds shouldn't be in bits in the garden. I know the rest will take some money to resolve (kitchen etc) but couldn't you get it tidied and clean?

I think that they social services / police have put two and two together and made five in your case, and I would suggest that you need to have an honest talk with them. IMO its not acceptable for a child not to have a bed, though understand the mattress is a good temporary fix.

Get it clean and tidy, have a good chat with the SWs - they may be able to help you somehow, and get it sorted out. If it's so untidy you didn't notice a burlgary, the mind boggles somewhat I'm afraid !

tomhardyismydh · 05/04/2011 13:41

that depends if you measure your small glass (most people dont at home) and if so what small glass measurements you use, some 2 units some 2.5 units.

i was giving my opinion.

howlonguntiltheweekend · 05/04/2011 13:52

Just caught up.

Pleased it worked out OK Op. :)

CakeandRoses · 05/04/2011 14:16

I'm interested in your opinion. Once (years ago) I measured how much I have in a glass and it equated to just under 2 units (can't remember the ml offhand). Is that excessive?

An excessive drinker is probably one of the things I'd have been least likely to have described myself as so this could shake my self-view somewhat! ;-)

sundayrose the op didn't say that or infer that at all.

ifaistos · 05/04/2011 17:16

Could this thread get any sillier?

sundayrose, I also don't think the OP has done this. People clearly misunderstand her comment about ethnic families.

thinNigella, SS were not involved, the OP has made this clear many times. She's also explained that they did notice the stuff going missing, just didn't put 2 and 2 together that it was a burglary.

Even though the OP has said the mattress was temporary, I don't even get the shock about having a mattress rather than a bed. Isn't that what the whole of Japan does (traditional Japanese beds, not because of current circumstances, before that gets misconstrued too)? I slept on a mattress for ages. My daughter did too. I genuinely don't understand the problem. But now you're making me feel like I warrant a police investigation.

And one poster even said it was physically impossible to have a clean but cluttered house. Wtf?

RelievedThoughtfulandGrateful · 05/04/2011 19:30

sundayrose just to put your mind at ease, mothers house is show-home level and so are my sisters and my grandmother had plastic covered sofas and a sitting room you could only sit in...you could not move..seriously all dusted ornaments and antique tables..lol...I think the 'tidy' gene skipped me in a big way..but I am definately going to change after this experience!

FlaminGreatGallah · 05/04/2011 20:25

Nope, ifaistos, I actually said, "You can't really clean a cluttered surface" and, "Clutter to my my mind is piles and piles of stuff everywhere except where it should be as per lesley's post. Rubbish which should be in the bin on the kitchen floor" for example.

They are the direct quotes. I did say NOT that it is physically impossible to clean a cluttered house. Where did you get the physically impossible bit from? What the fuck indeed Hmm

FlaminGreatGallah · 05/04/2011 20:26

say NOT= NOT say

lest I be misquoted again Grin

ifaistos · 05/04/2011 21:19

Sorry flamin You're right, I paraphrased you wrongly. I guess when I read "I still don't get the idea of "clean but cluttered"" and "you can't really clean a cluttered surface" to me that means you're implying a cluttered house can't really be cleaned. Which comes to more or less the same thing. And which I don't agree with. But again, sorry, didn't mean to misquote.

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 05/04/2011 21:26

FFS two glasses of wine a day is not excessive drinking. Unless you are the sort of catsbumface who thinks that half a glass of sherry on your birthday is 'living dangerously'.
Do bear in mind that the Government Guidelines on drinking are completely made up.

Mumcentreplus · 05/04/2011 21:28

@ Brassypants

Lovecat · 05/04/2011 21:31

What SGB said, especially about the wine. How po-faced can people get?? Are we turning into America, where more than 1 drink is seen as dangerously hedonistic?

Have read all 23 pages utterly gobsmacked at the turns this thread has taken...Confused

We were burgled recently and the policeman attending did say to us 'ooh, did they make all this mess' - we had to confess that no, our living room was generally that cluttered - and he just laughed. Worked in our favour, though. If the surfaces had been clear and tidy they'd have found and nicked the laptop, portable dvd player and Wii as well.... :o

FlaminGreatGallah · 05/04/2011 21:38

ifaistos that's fine. You are entitled to your opinion. It's probably my issue seeing the way my parents and sister live and the way I used to have to live.

The only exception to clutter I make is for books and the DC's things. DD's are out of sight and mind in her room but DS has for example this and I can't believe the dust it attracts!

Probably it's also me being a lazy mare not wanting things around that I have to move to clean Grin

macdoodle · 05/04/2011 21:40

I'm sorry SGB you make thing the guidelines are "made up", though there is good evidence behind them.
But 2 glasses of wine is 2, more like 3 units a day. Which is at least 14 and more like 21 units a week.
That's too much, no matter how you feel about it or not. But make excuses all you like.

macdoodle · 05/04/2011 21:43

Nope actually I'm wrong that was based on one glass a day, so actaully its at least 28units a week, and more like 42 units , no way thats healthy.

Mumcentreplus · 05/04/2011 21:47

notice the word guidelines...does not mean you are a alcoholic if you drink slightly above the guide-lines

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 05/04/2011 21:50

Macdoodle: Completely made up.

FlaminGreatGallah · 05/04/2011 21:55

SGB but it's necessary surely? Especially for women of child-bearing years. We shouldn't drink anything at all as we could be pregnant and that would never do Shock

tomhardyismydh · 05/04/2011 21:59

the times....well enough said

it is about reliable as the daily mail

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 05/04/2011 22:06

Tomhardy: Would you like to provide a link to any proper evidence that drinking 15 units of alcohol a week will make a woman's liver explode?
Have you never considered, for instance, that women's body mass varies quite a lot, which means that there's a fair bit of variation in the amount of alcohol they would need to consume to become drunk?