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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be pissed off at my friend for disorganising my houseevery time she comes to stay?

90 replies

duchesse · 03/09/2007 11:29

My friend and I have what I consider to be a mutually beneficial arrangement, whereby she comes to housesit our house and pets in the countryside for a couple of weeks at a time. She has a holiday away from the town, and we have relatively fuss free time away.

But every time she comes for a fortnight, it takes me another fortnight to restore the house to its usual level of organisation. I am not in any way anally tidy, but I do have certain things organised the way I like them. Like the kitchen and the airing cupboard. It takes three hours every time we get back to find everything in the kitchen and to put it back where it should go. There are cooking utensils in the cupboard with the plates, saucepans rammed any old how into the drawer so the drawer is virtually falling off its runners (there are only six of them and the all stack neatly three by three). All the cutlery is jumbled up, with things like tin openers in the with them instead of next to the stove. When we got back, there was a sheet on the table, and the tablecloths were all with the sheets, dotted all over the airing cupboard.

Her kids throw stones all over the lawn, break things willfully and leave sweets all over the house. I have to hide the sweet jar kept for rewards or difficult times, or they all disappear. Ditto any crisps or biscuits, which her children pinch without her knowledge.

I suspect I'm being a complete bitch about it, but this bugs me even more than the fact they left three days early, and we had to make remote alternative arrangements for the dog, chickens and guinea pigs. I think she is just a really really disorganised person, and tries very hard, but the overall effect is of a gremlin coming to stay. I rather like the old stick, but she drives me BONKERS!!!

Am I being unreasonable or not? I think I am.

OP posts:
Kewcumber · 04/09/2007 13:46

Ooh she sounds like my sister. If I put my handbag down at my sisters, it is tidied away in a cupboard within minutes. Does my head in.

ScottishMummy · 04/09/2007 13:50

lol tidying bag away too much

Isababel · 04/09/2007 18:10

This reminds me of a friend of mine who was so picky with tidyness and cleanliness that not only washed all the curtains in the house weekly, she changed the grouting of her beige ceramic kitchen floor 3 times in 2 months as it was turning grey. At the end, the flooring guy was so fed up that he re grouted, painted the grouting white and then gave it a layer of varnish. She was very very pleased with the results!

Then she had a dog and a child and she was cured

McEdam · 04/09/2007 18:21

Blimey Hurly, your ex-friend is soooo rude. I'd send a stinking email back and dump her as an acquaintance, never mind a friend.

I think I suffer from housework-related incomprehension - can never do the washing up at my sister's because she's so fussy about what goes in the sink in what order etc. etc. etc. but I'd be OK house-sitting for a tidy person. Would make a nice change and I'd KNOW where everything went because it would be there in the first place!

Please can I come next time, I promise not to throw stones, to water your tree and put stuff back in the right place?

McEdam · 04/09/2007 18:21

Please can I come obv. addressed to Duchesse, not Hurly.

NotQuiteCockney · 04/09/2007 18:30

This sort of thing is just bloody tricky. We recently rented someone's house, when they were on holiday. It wasn't someone we knew, so I had a friend go around beforehand, to check that it wasn't immaculately tidy, because I knew we'd make someone like that miserable.

duchesse · 05/09/2007 14:00

Scottishmummy- at your friend. I think she may have a problem... Changing your cup while you're in the loo is just...odd. What does she do to the loo after you've gone? Clean it with industrial disinfectant?

OP posts:
ScottishMummy · 05/09/2007 14:17

i think she snaps on the marigolds as soon as i am gone and commences full scrub down. bit too much stressed me out i live in happy chaos with many tea cups sat about.

i recently went on infection control training day and made the mistake of telling her about aerosol and droplet transmision of viruses/infection

oh and the faecal spray from your toilet to toothbrush..she looek visibly shaken

Isababel · 05/09/2007 20:52

ScottishMummy, I had another friend who was very much like that, last time I went to her house it was for a dinner party (we were around 22-3 yrs old, so imagine how extreme the case was, it was not that everything was presented in an impecable form and removed swiftly from the table, removing the used cutlery and methodically reorganising the one left at the table for the next plate, etc. But then, when we arrive to the meat... erm, it was a bit hard, she was sitting besides me and obviously noticed something was wrong, so while I was joking with the person sitting on the other side, she began to cut the meat on my plate!

I don't know what was worse, if my shock of seeing her cutting my food as if I were a small child or the pity I felt for her deep perfectionsim.

kickassangel · 05/09/2007 20:58

my parents are staying with us atm & they are nowhere near as tidy as we are (and we aren't anal)
last time they put the tea pot on the kitchen table & damaged it, then denied they had done it when i saw it - so obviously the 3 burn rings just magically appeared.

today i come home to find the newish table we have on loan from a shop (because our order has been delayed for months) has ring marks on it. they weren't there this morning - i cleaned the table. but they swear they never put a mug on it - so now i'm worried that i will have to pay for a table i don't even want!

however, dh is beginning to appreciate why i make him tidy up!

potoroo · 05/09/2007 21:11

My MIL hoovered the garage when she was staying with us. Beat that.

ScottishMummy · 05/09/2007 21:16

maybe she could hoover the air get ri of pollen

Isababel · 05/09/2007 21:20

Potoroo! I hoovered the front garden in the week before DS was born!

Does that count?
Glad the only neighbour who saw me has now moved out of the country!

potoroo · 05/09/2007 21:27

I think you win Isababel (although pregnancy makes you do strange things - I just agreed to DH ripping out the kitchen and LO 2 is due in 3 weeks).

MIL will be here in a couple of months. I shall suggest hoovering the air...

tigermoth · 06/09/2007 07:51

duchesse, as you and your friend seem close,(this is what I gather), she must realise how well ordered you like your house? I think it's unreasonable of her to leave saucepans jammed in the cupboards, sheets on the table etc. It should be so obvious where the things go as I bet all your cuboards are extremely tidy.

Some other the other things - sweets dotted around the house (were they very hidden so she might have missed them?) may have been an oversight.

Leaving three days early (if she did this without much warning) would bug me, as she is there to help, not just to have a holiday.

We stay with my MIL who is very anally retentive with housework and a demon for neatness and cleanliness. She admits this herself. We stay in her holiday flat and I try so hard to keep it clean and leave it as we found it. We too have children of a simmilar age to your friend's (boys 8 and 13) and they tend to run riot if left to their own devices so we have to watch thisa and keep tidying as we go. I spend a long morning cleaning and tidying the small flat before we leave. Yet every time, I know I will have done something wrong.

I would never not clean, I think it would be very rude. I am not that into perfect tidyness or cleanliness at home - far from it. I deliberately up my standards when we are away there. I try to put everything back where it lives. (it isn't that hard as the flat is small and not cluttered)

However I know that whatever I do, my MIL will always find a few things to do after we leave and there is always some niggle over a housework issue when we are there! (ie like us mistakenly putting the wrong sort of plastic in the recycling bin) But she can see(I sincererely hope) we have made the effort. As she lives downstairs she is witness to my cleaning and tidying efforts.

Is there evidence that your friend did try to clean and tidy in preparation for your return? If not, I think she is really taking you for granted.

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