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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Redecorating in laws

30 replies

rambleon123 · 21/07/2017 06:15

In laws are redecorating their house. Keep calling us with offers / trying to force us to take their OLD sofa, television, table and chairs etc.. and when we politely say no we're met the likes of.. "Why wouldn't we want their old tatty furniture that they're now getting rid of? Why don't we want to have a old blue leather sofa in our brand new home? Why don't we want their old tv up on our wall??" Like they just don't understand why we're saying no and calling us unreasonable and precious for not taking their stuff!

God it's driving me crazy, it's a different item every day. DH is such a softie, if I wasn't there, he would have said yeah just to avoid a row.

AIBU or are they just crazy?

OP posts:
Angelicinnocent · 21/07/2017 06:24

My mil is like this. I always think it's because she is a hoarder and hates letting things go to the tip. Fortunately, she has some other relatives who always want everything so she doesn't try and dump it on us anymore.

Only thing I can suggest is find a charity that does furniture up for people in need and suggest they could use it.

Tofutti · 21/07/2017 06:28

YANBU. Don't be their bin.

KC225 · 21/07/2017 07:33

My MIL faked a false move as we bought a renovation project. Even her own daughter said it was a kick back against us buying a house she didn't like and refused to visit.

We had calls asking us to 'store' two chest freezers from 1980s (she is a widow on her own) and two single beds and different pieces of furniture as she was moving from a large house to one bedroom flat. When I put my foot down she called off the move, cancelled the estate agent and took her house off the market citing that citing that people were making her life difficult (me).

I think she was unable to part with her things and knowing they would be in our house meant they were still there. She told a neighbour I was ungrateful and a spendthrift for not accepting her things.

It's a difficult one. You have to stand firm or else it's the start of a slippery slope
Good luck.

NormaSmuff · 21/07/2017 07:40

why dont you advise Freecycle/freegle to them?
or suggest they ask a charity shop if they would like to collect their tat furniture?

theotherendofthesockportal · 21/07/2017 07:41

I see some of you have the same mil as me then! I was offered several items when we moved into our new house, which I thought was her being generous. I turned them down as I didn't need them, only to be greeted with the reply that she was "offended" I hadn't taken them.

pictish · 21/07/2017 07:44

Yanbu. My mother was a bit like this and so is my mil.
Why on earth would you want to choose and buy your own stuff when you can have their ugly and knackered old crap for free?! More money than sense! Wink
Just keep politely saying no.

Zaberwocky · 21/07/2017 08:05

Another similar set of in laws here Grin

They honestly seemed to expect us to chuck out the entire contents of our kitchen once to accommodate their gifted stuff.I said yes to a saucepan set (that wasn't compatible with our induction hob) as to not offend her, then a week later she asked for them back so she could gift them to someone else!

The woman is crackers.

Fluffyears · 21/07/2017 08:06

Oh god this morning s my mil. Even worse when she volunteered Ina shop and was always buying some tat she 'thought we'd like'.

She was also always giving dp things when he lived alone to 'keep' for her but when we moved we needed our storage space and she was annoyed we gave her stuff back. There was a hold-all full of China (dump it ffs!)

Original poster
rambleon123 · 21/07/2017 10:15

We've said no all these times but the backlash of saying no is god awful. I don't understand why they think we would want their old stuff they don't want - think blue leather sofas / ratty old scratched dining table / old fashioned telly. And then the actual shock when we say we won't take it!

DH has a thick skin when it comes to them, I don't, and it just causes rows between me and DH as it takes him so long to say no to them! Argh!

OP posts:
pictish · 21/07/2017 11:08

I just wrote this in another similar-ish thread.

I think this is a generational thing because my mum was like this, my mil is like this and even dh's aunt has to be herded off at the pass with her cast-offs or bargains. My mum and in-laws were born during or just after the war, when make-do and mend was the order of the day. It's ingrained and came from their own parents who did and had to.

I remember being skint but at the stage of needing ds1's first proper bed. Mil and her dh insisted they had a wonderful single bed and mattress going spare and offered to drop it off for him. We accepted but certainly hadn't expected the sagging, rusting iron sprung bedstead and accompanying hard, lumpy and scratchy fucking horsehair mattress that they cheerfully deposited in ds1's bedroom.

We immediately bought an Ikea cheapy and stashed the iron maiden in a cupboard. Mil was testy and pinchy-faced AF when I offered it back after a diplomatic few months. I was very much made to feel like a spoiled and wasteful little madam...which I am fucking not. It's the closest we have come to having a falling out.

goujonsfortea · 21/07/2017 11:28

Same here - I was expected to be grateful to be given large sets (think 20 settings) of car boot sale purchases MIL had made. A simple and emphatic No each time and she has now stopped. Can't really get my head around it, but maybe it's a different mindset some people have of 'wast not, want not' going back to their own childhood.

Want not, most definitely Grin

rollonthesummer · 21/07/2017 11:30

What do they actually say when you say, 'no thank you, we already have a sofa we like and no room for another'?

mistlethrush · 21/07/2017 11:31

"Why don't you keep it yourself MiL" said with sweet smile and apparent sincerity...

pictish · 21/07/2017 12:14

I just remembered that one of, if not the most catastrophic rows I ever had with my mother was over this sort of thing.

Our cooker broke down back in the skint days and we were happy to go to the local second hand appliance place and buy a replacement. My mother bulldozed in and sent my brother through to our place with a cheaper cooker she bought off a local guy for £30.

It was immediately obvious that this thing hadn't seen a cloth in the entire time it had been in this man's possession...and I am not kidding. Filthy doesn't even cut it. It was clagging with a thick, solid, crust on the outside and oozing and lumpen with years of built up grease and ancient food remains on the inside. The whole thing was black, inside and out. It was reeking. I mean oh my very fucking God...what is this thing hulking in my kitchen?! Shock

I phoned my mum to tell her she had been mugged off (thinking she would phone the guy and give him what for) and to my utter bewilderment, she went full radio rental on me. I was ungrateful, lazy, precious, totally full of myself and needed to remember that beggars can't be choosers. I told her I wasn't a fucking beggar and hung up on her.

Dh immediately made use of a sheet of tarpaulin and hauled the poor, abused appliance thing to the dump to put it out of its misery. My mother didn't speak to me for weeks.

pictish · 21/07/2017 12:22

P.s My mum hadn't seen the cooker, just sent my brother to buy and deliver. She had no idea what she had sent to my house.

TonicAndTonic · 21/07/2017 12:28

Yanbu - watch out for when ILs try 'divide and conquer' i.e. they wait until your OH is out of the room and then insist they have spoken to him separately and he's agreed to take all their junk. Then they repeat with your OH when you leave the room, insisting that you just agreed to take the stuff Angry

Scottishchick39 · 21/07/2017 12:41

My MIL is like this, I dread to see what the kids or my husband come back with EVERY time they visit her. When I'm there I just say no.

ihavetoWORK · 21/07/2017 13:24

Right there with you. We bought our house off another family member who didn't seem to understand that we didn't want to purchase the house fully furnished (with old tat), nor was any of it worth any money to sell. We managed to get rid of the stuff inside the main house quite quickly, but for the loft and garage we ended up doing stealth drops to their house of stuff, or just taking old knackered stuff to the tip bit by bit. When we had some renovations done (3 years after we moved in) we explained we absolutely couldn't store any more stuff anymore and they needed to come over and take what they needed. Nevertheless a few months ago said relative was inquiring about the whereabouts of some tools. We moved here in 2012!!!!

It's worth noting their house as all the finest and newest bits and pieces, and NO clutter!

On another note my Mum when totally batshit when we decided to upgrade the old dining table and chairs they had given us when we first moved out to a new still secondhand but not broken set 4 years later. The set must have been over 20 years old by then!

Zaurak · 21/07/2017 13:29

My in laws are the same. We already have a horrible Welsh dresser of theirs. Now they are moving (to our town) and want to store half their stuff in our garage.

It's like they want our house to be theirs and it causes no end of bother. I hate it. It's like they're moving in!

MagdalenNoName · 21/07/2017 13:29

I don't particularly like my home to look like a showroom. So I was very pleased to accept some good quality carpet that my parents gave me when they were having new carpet fitted, as well as an old-fashioned tea trolley from Heals. I like the continuity and the sense of things getting passed along. Yes, there is stuff they have which I wouldn't want - but some old furniture etc is actually better made than newer items.

Rinkydinkypink · 21/07/2017 13:36

I get this but mainly because if someone doesn't just take it then they have to deal with it. The older they get the less they want the hassle.

BackforGood · 21/07/2017 13:41

She's not crazy for offering.
Obviously I have no idea what stage of life you are at, but I was very appreciative of people's cast offs when I bought my first home (and 2nds, and beyond) as money was tight.
when I replace anything now I always try and find a home for things that are still functionable.
However, if you don't want, then point her in the direction of one of the charity furniture shops, or freegle.

myusernamewastaken · 21/07/2017 13:50

My ex mil used to do this to us....turn up with bits of random shite from her loft etc...i struggled to say no so would often accept and then bin it a few days later....im now a single mum and have a couple of friends who keep off loading crap onto me too....luckily the tip is only 10 mins down the road...

KickAssAngel · 21/07/2017 13:55

I'm another one whose parents grew up with rationing, and a very strongly engrained ideology about making things last. For them, when people got married, the only way to set up house was by having the cast-offs from relatives. Getting new things didn't happen until much later - possibly once the family had left home. It was a real sign of finally "making it" to have the money to buy something.

Rejecting their offerings was akin to rejecting them and all their life efforts, so took some diplomacy and determination.

BackforGood · 21/07/2017 14:00

Well put KickAssAngel

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