To tell my Mum she can come and stay as long as she doesnt 'tidy'

[Voidka]

We are going away in half term and my Mum has asked if she can come and stay in our house while we are not here (She uses it as a base to go walking in Derbyshire).

Last year when we went away she did the same thing and we came back to find she had spent time decluttering our stuff. She gave away some of the children's toys to the charity shop, threw away lots of my paperwork which I keep in a letter rack (including some very important stuff), rearranged the kitchen cupboards and furniture in the front room and threw out my hoover.

I have told her yes but she cant take it upon herself to get rid of things. She thinks I am being ungrateful and she did me a massive favour.

Oh how I would love your mum to come and stay with me, lol....could do with a declutter.

Seriously, YANBU, of course she shouldnt be getting rid of your stuff!

Oh nooo she shouldn't do that! By all means have a dust around and maybe polish a few glasses or something, but to get rid of your stuff!!! That is very rude!

My DCs would slay me alive if I did that!
She had no idea which toys were precious and she must have read your paperwork!

VV rude!

Could she come and stay here instead?

Yanbu, could she do some cleaning instead but not throw anything out?

This sounds like my mum who used to babysit for my DDs while I went to night school - came back one night to my living room rearranged and all my paperwork in a pile on the floor to be sorted!! Plus clean (to me anyway) dishes taken out the cupboard, washed and piled up for me to put away! YANBU, but at least she tidied up after herself after decluttering lol, does my head in though.

If you can't trust her not to throw anything out, then she can't stay.

I can't believe she did that, my mum has mega OCD issues about cleaning and tidying but she would never throw things out. When I was in labour with DS1 the hospital sent me home and my mum bleached all the kitchen cupboards jsut to keep busy.

I would be happy with her cleaning or ironing but definitely throwing things out.

Tell her if she wishes to declutter then perhaps do it into bags and store them in the shed for you to check later rather than throwing them out, esp. paperwork

Not a chance.

YANBU at all. Isn't that technically stealing? I would never allow her to stay.

I thought you were going to describe my mum - she comes to let the dog out for us sometimes and takes it upon herself to wash up, hoover, iron etc etc

I'm grateful obviously, but she's already doing us a massive favour and she should just take the half hour as time out to have a cup of tea in peace and eat all my choc biscuits and the fact she doesn't drives me mad.

However yours is an entirely different ball game - she's out of order. One mans trash is another mans treasure and all that!

Yanbu at all. I would be pissed off to find my stuff gone.

Yanbu at all.

Tidying is fine.

Going through paperwork and getting rid of stuff is not fine.

I honestly wouldn't let her . If she really thinks you're being 'ungrateful' that she threw away your children's toys, your paperwork etc then what's to say she won't do it again? I wouldn't be able to relax on holiday worrying about it. That's not tidying.

How rude of your mum. I would make it clear she is on her last warning!!

YANBU, she has to accept that it is your house and there is a difference between keeping the house tidy which is normal when staying in someone else's house and rearranging their stuff and chucking stuff out which is interfering and rude.

Leave her a mammoth pile of washing and ironing to keep her bust, and don't clean the kitchen or bathroom for a month