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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU in expecting MIL to pay for my ceiling repairs

200 replies

Justnonono · 03/06/2018 01:31

I am currently sat downstairs with a large glass of wine and DH is still on the phone to MIL.

Me and DH went out tonight for the first time in a while and MIL offered to sit our 4yo DD. MIL is usually easy to get on with but has a habit of overstepping boundaries occasionally, she has left me a few times feeling that my privacy has been invaded.

Me and DH have a spare room that has a desk, storage and a pole in. Fitness, dance or stripper pole whatever you want to call it. I've used it since having DD. The door is always locked but has a key in the lock that we leave in there. The room has a lot of personal papers of mine, old pictures, journals that sort of thing.

So we left for dinner, we were out until 10, got home everything all good and DD is fast asleep upstairs. MIL keeps us chatting for an hour, said she hoped we had a good night and reassured us everything was fine. DH drops her off as he hasn't had a drink.

I go to get changed, everything seems okay and then I go to get my iPad from the spare room. The pole has come away from the ceiling hit my wall and knocked my art off the wall as well as that there's a huge hole in the plaster in the ceiling. Think football sized.

I ring DH and he is already on his way home and equally as shocked as me, I asked him to ask MIL. DH gets home and texts his mum asking if she's still awake, she is and he asks if he can give her a quick call. She denied even going in the room, she said she didn't know I even kept a pole in there, which is a complete lie as she knows I've been doing it for a few years. Obviously I'm getting quite pissed off at this point because I know a pole, held up the way it is cannot just fall down in that way causing a huge hole in the ceiling.

DH has seen the damage and basically tells her straight that he knows she's been in the room because glass from the artwork has been cleaned up!! She completely backtracked said that she had been in but only briefly so she wasn't lyingHmm and that she bumped into it, tried to put it back up.

I'm sorry but I just don't believe her, she has no explanation as to why she went in there. I really think she has been on it and it's come away as she exceeds the weight limit. DH said the hole is where she's tried to force it back up without knowing what do properly.

I'm fuming, I feel like she's invaded my privacy, she's probably gone in to snoop as she has done with my things before and she's refusing to even pay for the damage she's caused or even apologise. AIBU??
Surely this story she has come out with doesn't make any sense, FIL is siding with her and has said it's an accident.

OP posts:
Mummyoflittledragon · 03/06/2018 06:33

MrsFassy
You can’t make someone pay for the damage without going through legal channels. Mil and fil are both digging their heels in. It’s about battle picking. Unless op wants to threaten to take her mil to court that is.

RiddleyW · 03/06/2018 06:41

Fitness poles correctly fitted shouldn’t really have a weight limit. What on earth can she have been doing to it?!

Juells · 03/06/2018 06:41

I wouldn't leave her alone in your house ever again, or if you do, lock all doors and take the keys with you.

bubbles108 · 03/06/2018 06:42

Take it out of her babysitting fee.

This ^^

MIL was wrong to lie but she was embarrassed and didn't know how to get out of it. Silly of her but no one has died

You know she has form for snooping so you should have locked all private stuff away securely

Claim it on home insurance and don't mention it again

Pay for a babysitter in future and lock private stuff away

bubbles108 · 03/06/2018 06:48

Oh and .... when someone shows you who they are , believe them, the first time.

lljkk · 03/06/2018 06:49

Waiting for the update that MIL is actually about 300 lbs.

lljkk · 03/06/2018 06:49

... oh better yet, MIL + her secret lover together weigh about 400 lbs.

Coyoacan · 03/06/2018 06:50

I know it must be really annoying, OP but it is also so funny. It sounds like something out of a Peter Seller's film. Just think you are never going to be able to look at your MIL again without imagining her surreptiously swinging off the pole as it falls down.

Anniegetyourgun · 03/06/2018 06:51

I strongly disagree with those suggesting that because MIL babysits she should be allowed to damage the OP's house without consequence. Yes, she's doing them a favour which would otherwise cost money and could be difficult to arrange. But she agreed to do them that favour, and is presumably happy enough to do so because it means extra time with her grandchildren (as I would). Wrecking rooms was not in the bargain. You do sort of expect a minimum standard of decorous behaviour from visitors or even tradespeople, surely? Mothers even more so because it is their child's house.

Pengggwn · 03/06/2018 06:52

As angry as I would be, I couldn't humiliate her further. Breaking someone's pole and smashing their ceiling is punishment enough because it is so mortifying.

I would say something clearly unlikely like, 'It must have happened in the recent storms' and laugh into my sleeve forever.

SoaringSwallow · 03/06/2018 06:52

I agree with Tatty upthread: pole dancing classes for Christmas!!

MrsFassy · 03/06/2018 07:05

Mummy where did I say that the OP could force her MIL to pay? I actually said nothing even remotely like that. I said I'd be annoyed because of the lies and lack of apology, mentioned not a thing about forcing payment.

Oysterbabe · 03/06/2018 07:09

It was an accident. Claim on your home insurance, that's what it's for.

americanlife · 03/06/2018 07:16

I would be grateful she did not hurt herself on your cowboy fitted pole to be honest. Repair and move on.

Pratchet · 03/06/2018 07:18

Yes I wouldn't bother with them again

Mummyoflittledragon · 03/06/2018 07:19

MrsFassy
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I don’t agree with you that some posters are saying it’s ok. They aren’t. Some of us, including me have said it probably wasn’t secure enough and was dangerous, others are saying it’s not worth the fight. I never said you’d force them to pay. What I am saying is bottom line, the 2 courses of action right now seem to be to shrug, write it off to experience and be grateful it wasn’t more serious or fight.

HopelesslydevotedtoGu · 03/06/2018 07:19

Amazing what some MNers will put up with in exchange for some free babysitting.

Of course babysitting for free doesn't mean she is entitled to enter locked rooms, go through private papers, break things and then lie about it.

If you have the money to repair it yourself though I wouldn't waste time and energy chasing her for the money. The significant damage is to your trust for her, not the ceiling. I'd tell her that the invasion of privacy and lying had damaged our relationship and that she would never be unsupervised in my house again, and we would be meeting her less often because we dislike people who don't respect our privacy and lie to us. That is the consequence of her actions.

Very odd that so many posters are fixed on the babysitting being 'for free' meaning your are apparently entitled to do whatever you like whilst in the house. My in-laws occasionally babysit because they enjoy it. They offer to and are really happy to do it as they love spending time with their grandchildren without us hovering around. They would think we were nuts if we tried to pay them for it. I have never heard of anyone paying a grandparent to babysit, sometimes for regular childcare whilst the parents are working yes, but never for ad hoc babysitting.

hopelesslydevotedtogu · 03/06/2018 07:20

It was an accident.

She accidentally fell through a locked door and then onto the pole?

The op locked that door for a reason.

TheNoodlesIncident · 03/06/2018 07:21

You don't have any appropriate outfits to wear whilst using the pole, do you OP? Just wondering if MIL could have sneaked into your bedroom to find something a little, cough, sassier for doing her pole dancing routine in...

If she isn't going to pay willingly then I'd let it go and get it sorted myself, but I wouldn't place MIL in a position of trust again. No more being in the house without supervision, which does mean hiring a babysitter unfortunately.

mum11970 · 03/06/2018 07:25

Sounds like mil has used the pole and it’s come away from the ceiling, pulling down the plaster it was, obviously, inadequately fixed too and knocked a picture off the wall. Stop over-exaggerating it all, there is no evidence she has snooped, a couple of marks on the wall will take minutes to paint over and the glass in the picture easily replaced. We are really only talking about replastering a hole in the ceiling. Why would you bolt a pole to plaster in first place? It was bound to give way eventually, unluckily for your mil it happened while she was having a go.

PurpleStarInCashmereSky · 03/06/2018 07:29

Urgh. I do think you will have to suck up the cost but I would never allow her in the house alone again and tell her why if she asks.

WizardOfToss · 03/06/2018 07:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HunterHearstHelmsley · 03/06/2018 07:31

I wouldn't allow her in the house at all, let alone on her own.

Kingsclerelass · 03/06/2018 07:37

Try looking at it from her side. She was curious, went to have a look, got a bit carried away - middle aged probably not very fit lady has a go at pole dancing - and the pole breaks. She is probably mortified- the idea of her son knowing what she’d been doing etc.
I’d get the repairs done, and not say anymore. I bet it never happens again.

mum11970 · 03/06/2018 07:42

What’s all this about snooping? From what the op says there is no evidence of any snooping, just the use of the pole. Think the op just added a bit of possible snooping to bulk out the complaints.