light fingered relatives.

[plasticrose]

my nieces has moderate special needs, she is a sweet girl, and all the family cousins get on well with each other. When she was small she was a bit light fingered with my daughters belongings. Or she would go in her bedroom and break or tear personal things like necklaces.
My BIL was apologetic but found it difficult to stop this impulsive behaviour. So we learnt over the years to sweep the house of anything she might be tempted by or destroy and hide it before she came.
For a long time she seemed to have grown out of this, and is now past her teens, although still not capable of independent life without support.
We had her over for a sleep over with all her cousins and they had a fantastic time. My daughter left her make up on her bed, the stuff she uses every day and is has now gone. This make up was worth over £100 and some of it was saved from christmas and birthday money and some my mum brought her together on a day out.
We cant tell her father, it wont end very well. there wont be any confession of guilt from her because although she grasps that she had belongings, other peoples are a bit 'fluid'.
If we tell BIL it will end up him getting cross with us for the whole situation,and its not worth it.
my daughter is very upset, and I feel so angry and frustrated with the whole thing. I cant let her come in to our home again as we cant trust her.

she is not going to confess, we have no proof and quite frankly this wasn't received well.
hubby is upset, because of the reaction of his family and my anger. He feels we should just forget this happened, and drop it. For his sake I agree, but once a family gathering is suggested I am going to state our house rules and make it clear they are not going upstairs. Or even better they don't come around.

Oh dear-I'm sorry it's not been resolved. Your husband really ought to defend your daughter though.

hubby said just buy her replacements. But the make up palate was a Christmas special and to get the correct colours had to buy them separately. So its cost far more than we first thought.

I don't mean to be unkind OP, but if you think not mentioning it but then saying the niece can't come around (or putting limits on where she goes) won't cause upset, think again. Honesty would be better here.

I think you can raise this without sounding accusatory. E.g. 'Hey BIL, I'm really sorry but DD has just noticed that a lot of makeup is missing. She stupidly left it out on the bed when you guys were around. I was wondering whether you could check whether [niece] has picked it up? Sorry, I know it's a pain, we should have made sure it was in a drawer'.

You don't need to use emotive language like 'stealing' and 'theft' and you don't have to be angry or upset about this. Clearly this girl doesn't have the capacity to understand property, so it's not ill-intentioned and there simply is no need to describe it in criminal terms. But that doesn't mean that you have to let her take anything she touches. Gentle and constant reinforcement of the normal boundaries may actually help her.

Oops, my apologies, I didn't read the updates.

I stand by what I said that this is about handling the situation with tact and diplomacy!!

Mental note to self: RTFT!

OP you did what you could. I'd be very annoyed with bil.
If your dn continues to 'take' things she fancies without repercussions your bil might be very if it escalates ( stealing from shops) and the police get involved.

Was it not possible to speak with her Mum?

I'm sorry things didn't work out. Sounds a very awkward situation all round.

Your DH is being very unreasonable. There is no need for you to just "forget it". Someone stole from his DD and he should be caring more about her than the thief.

A practical suggestion: buy an old chest of drawers that has keyholes in the drawers. Then take a drawer to a locksmith and get a key made.
Put relevant things in there and lock them up when the cousins come round.