Kind/Helpful/Ridiculous/Insulting or what....

[Bathsheba]

I recently took my 3 DD's to stay with me at my Aunt's for a few days - give my DH some space and let him do some DIY jobs - he had taken some time off work, is very very stressed at the moment etc..

Just as we were leaving to go, his Mum phoned up and said she was heading up to our house "to help him" - he didn;t look 100% thrilled by that prospect but we waved bye bye and headed away.

This morning I was told "This place is a mess, I can't believe the mess you have made since you got back (me and 3 children late yesterday afternoon) - "My Mum had this place thoroughly scrubbed the other day.

The info has since then been drip fed, to the extent that I now know that she pulled out our sofas (I do that every few months to get all the toys out etc) and "scrubbed clean" behind them.....with sterilising fluid of all things...

Am I alone in thinking "WTF..."....scrubbing behind sofas with sterilising fluid...if she really WANTED to help us there is ironing that needs done,. or a huge amount of rubbish litering HER SON'S MAN CAVE (our garage), or heck, clean the oven...

But no, her level of helping him, and us as a family is scrubbing behind the sofa with sterilising fluid.

Now, her help was neither asked for nor expected, she offered to help voluntarily and I wasn't here in any way to be an ungrateful cow etc.....

I'm now left confused if I should be thrilled that my walls and skirting boards in an unseen area are now sterile, or should I be insulted that her idea of helping me is to scrub our living room with sterilising fluid...

YABU, she cleaned for you. Does it matter where she cleaned?

FWIW my SIL got out the duster and polish and started dusting at DS's 1st birthday party as she 'can't stand dust.' I thought that was incredibly rude.

Not sure what happened with the bold there but never mind!

I'd be pleased. You'll do the ironing anyway, but you'd probably never get round to cleaning behind the sofas - with or without the sterilising fluid.

Where did she get the sterilising fluid from?

That's what I want to know.

Was this a pre-meditated assault on assumed or known grime or did she rifle your cupboards?

Is your DH implicated in this?

So MANY questions I have.

The sterilising fluid was in the cleaning cupboard from when DD3 was little..

Dh was painting the en suite at the time

Well at least you know that she didn't bring it with her. She was just improvising.

So it's probably a nice thing she did, to be helpful.

As long as she didn't sterilise your bed or anything....

I´d be more pissed off with husband tbh.

"Mummy cleaned up & you´ve got it dirty again".

She didn´t have to do anything, as you said, so it doesn´t matter that the thing she did wasn´t useful to you.

As long as she didn´t make work for you!

Tell him that if he wants it cleaned to that standard, he needs to clean it to that standard and he needs to quit bitching.

Were you visited by my mother?

My Mum comes over when ever we go away and cleans 'to her standard', we do not live in filth or squalor but it's her way of doing something to help and being kind.

It doesn't harm you to have clean skirting boards and it makes her feel good.

Your DH on the other hand is a cheeky blighter...3 kids make mess. His reaction does make me question whether he aske his Mum to come and clean while you were away, if he did you need to be having words.

"Your DH on the other hand is a cheeky blighter."

Indeed.

Why is it that if OPs cleaning gets messed up, that´s OK, but not his mums?

no one ever cooks as well as your mum, thats the law :)

and mums do look after their boys better than anyone else, thats a known face

fact, doh

DMIL - ridiculous for cleaning behind sofa but kind and helpful.

DH- idiot for accussing you of messing up 'mum mum's' hard work.

You - annoyed with wrong person.

if it were me I would forever describe it as 'that crazy time your mother came and sterilized the sofas' while doing that gesture where you circle your finger around the side of your head.

YABU to feel insulted that you MIL cleaned for you. The person you should be insulted by is your DH for his comment about messing up his mum's cleaning.

MIL = crazed and deranged. DH = git. Mention this often. Mention it as suggested by Fanjo ^ or as 'the time your mum showed you how to clean behind the sofa'. Never let them forget it. And never clean behind your sofas again. Let them know that this is because they have shown that you don't know how to.

YANBU. Your mil was rude.

Your DH is a tosser though, frankly.

She'd have a field day behind my sofa!

I'd be fucked off. Cleaning behind the sofas? She's mental and rude. And your DH is a bit spoiled by the sound of it. Having said that - don't sweat the small stuff.

fecking heck your MIL is barmy cleaning behind the couch but your OH is a tosser of magnanimous proportion to moan about messing up the house his mummy cleaned when you guys have 3 kids!! daft pillock i'd give him a skelp round the ear for that hopefully he's not always so careless with his words :)