Is she being unreasonable about holidays?

[Giveme2gins]

I have a sibling who lives abroad in Australia. He wanted to come home on holidays and it was his plan for months to come home this summer on holidays. My mom was cleaning the house in preparation for his return home.

He called home recently to say he's taking his fiancée and child. We met his fiancée before and she is a beautiful lady through and through. I am looking forward to seeing them.

Now my mom is apprehensive about him coming home. She is upset and anxious. We don't have the best of homes. It's ok. It's a roof over our heads. I was helping mom cleaning.

Now she doesn't want them coming home. She says she will get me to look for a holiday home for their stay and she will pay. I had a nightmare online all night looking for a place for them to stay but honestly I am having no luck whatsoever. I actually feel sick. The only places available are actually costing 1000s for a month.

Mom went to bed and she said we will look again tomorrow. I really don't think my mom is understanding me. Accommodations is is not available. Summer rentals would have been booked months ago and months in advance. My mom is expecting me to find a place out of thin air and within her budget. Three times toniishe asked me about the local apartments. Those apartments were always long term rentals and they are not available. She is expecting me to magic a home out of thin air. I don't get this though. The space is available at home. It's not the best quality but it's ok. Some cleaning over the next few more weeks and it should be better. My mom is flat out turning down the idea of now having them stay at home nor will she tell them what her stance is on this. It's all a mess. I think she's just being nervous but I think it will fall into place of they do come home. When they do come back and if they stay at home, they won't be here all the time. They will be going away here and there.

My mom is flat out turning down the idea of now having them stay at home nor will she tell them what her stance is on this. this is so unfair on your brother. She needs to own her choice. You shouldn't even have to get involved with this.

I don't think you are being unreasonable your mom is , but that fact isn't going to help the situation. Are you living in proximity to a university/college campus? Sometimes they are available during the summer months. You could contact the colleges to see if private landlords would be willing to short let the houses they rent to students. I'm in Ireland too so I know just how ridiculous her request is but the simple fact of the matter is that their visit is causing her extreme anxiety.
Could you broach it as this being a perfect opportunity to get the house in order, if you are near the real capital😉i know of a c9npany called clean bee who will come in and blitz the whole house from top to bottom inside and out for about a grand. I'll try send a link if I can

Sorry I don't know how to link it but it's clean bee.ie they did a fab job on my moms house, just clear and dump what you need to first, maybe once she sees that done she might decide to do painting or whatever is annoying her about the house

It's pretty unreasonable to tell someone they can stay, let them book flights then pull the rug out from under them though. And likely to severely damage the relationship with her son and his family.

Is the kitchen & bathroom accessible & user friendly albeit maybe dated or tired/shabby? No offence intended.
How long do you have before they arrive?
Need you go to the trouble of decorating/painting? Your mum may be embarrassed but as long as it’s functional & clean that’s all that really matters.

I agree with those saying rent a storage unit for the clutter, bring in a cleaner and a decorator to give the place a spruce.

This sounds very stressful.

Your dm is obviously a hoarder. She will not be able to allow someone to take control. This is how her brain works. To non hoarders, we see the 'stuff', we can easily say bag it up, store it, throw it out. To a hoarder this is their life's precious possessions.

A hoarder will want to keep their things in the home. Unless they have reached the point of wanting to get rid of some of it you'll have to work around it and come up with a plan to make some space.

Your brother obviously knows his dm is a hoarder, he will have told his partner. His partner will know it's more than untidiness.

Speaking from personal experience, when I couldn't get a hotel when visiting my parents and had to stay with them, I arranged one bed room, the sitting room, the kitchen. The bedroom I would stay in I would move the stuff out off to another room, same with the sitting room, move stuff to a spare room. The kitchen I would wash and sort dishes and make enough space to cook. Anything I moved into a spare room I would then lock that room. I would then air the rooms and put fresh bedding on, give it a good hoover etc

It's overwhelming for a hoarder to have their belongings touched, it's overwhelming for them to do it. It's overwhelming for them to watch it being done. You need to explain that you're just temporarily moving things and will move them back. You're not throwing anything out.

By just doing a couple of rooms, enough for your brother and his family to stay, it won't take as long and they'll have a room they can stay in comfortably.

I wouldn't be giving up beds and rooms, you could assemble the bed and put in a high air bed, there's fantastic air beds out there now. The child can sleep in with the parents on an airbed. Buy a small TV for the bedroom so that they can go there for their own space. Tvs are really cheap now and they can watch Netflix on it.

The main thing is, once there's enough space to move around the rooms they'll be using then it will feel better. It doesn't matter if the walls are lined with possessions. Sometimes when we think of hoarders we think of those programmes on TV where they're climbing over 6ft of stuff, but there are hoarders who just keep everything and stack it in any space available meaning they can never clean properly or have it looking tidy.

Once your dm sees the progress without having to throw her belongings out she will be OK. She probably won't while it's happening and there'll be arguments etc but I always found not working at a really fast pace, showing I was careful and respectful of their belongings and explaining what I was doing helped.

Good luck with it all. I understand the stress and it is very difficult to deal with.

If they just need a bed for a few days and somewhere to leave bags why can't they leave bags at yours ) and just book b&b for those days?

If mom was to leave me at it cleaning for a whole entire weekend I could put shape to a lot of rooms but she won't let me because she wants control over it all

That's why hoping to "get the place in shape" is unlikely to work, and I doubt a bit of "airing" will cut it

It's not clear whether your DB realises just how bad things are, but it'll probably be a hell of a shock to his fiancee. Personally I wouldn't want a child around this sort of thing, and if she comes and feels the same there could be an even worse problem

There doesn't seem any easy solution, but I'd tell your DM very clearly that the rented accommodation isn't going to work and perhaps have a very honest conversation with your DB

You need to be honest with your brother and tell him your Mothers concerns. He might be up to stay elsewhere or alleviate your Mothers concerns. It's all going to come out in the wash anyway. Phone/email/txt him. He's your brother I'm really trying to think why you are going through all this stress before speaking to him. Are they never going to enter your Mothers home. Your making a rod for your own back.

You've got to tell your brother everything.

It's so unfair to let him and his family walk into this with no idea what's going on.

My sister in law is so beautiful. She is down to earth. She is not someone who would look for a 5 star accommodation. She is so down to earth. She's very realistic and somewhat frugal and smart with money. She is so beautiful. True and true. She was at home before but just for a day so she never really stayed for long. She saw the place before. She knows it too.

She doesn't have a problem with the place.

I think all they need is a stop of place to put their heads down and bags in while they go in between places here and there.

It may be worth contacting estate agents - even if they are letting long lets many landlords would be glad of a months rent rather than their flat being empty if it isn’t shifting.

The bathroom is good and so it the kitchen. It's not very bad.

The time to book accommodation was months ago. Not now. There's little dates here and there on places but nothing continuous. My head is going to explode with the dumping that my mom put me under.

The house is ok. It's functional and livable and some reworks wouldn't be too bad.

I will just phone the brother tonight and I'm going to stay out from it.

I'm with your mum, to be honest. Your brother massively changed the goalposts by suddenly deciding to being his partner and child. He needs to understand that hosting an entire family is completely different to hosting her grown up son.
I don't think that either you or he understand this. Perhaps because neither of you have ever had to do it yourselves?
Whilst she needs to understand that accommodation is expensive, your brother needs to contribute as well, as he is the one who has changed things so drastically.

My brother was going to take his child as a surprise and I was going to make it work by giving up my room. It was going to work.

You need a talk with your dB and your DM. He needs to tell her it will be fine. And you need a skip. Don't store the crap in the lounge, get rid of it. Then you can have a nice lounge. This is chance for your mum to turn things around at home.

A surprise child visitor is even worse.
Believe me, there is a lot more to 'hosting' than just giving up your room.

I was going to say phone your DB and let him decide what to do, so I'm glad that's what you are going to do.

Honestly, it would be cheaper to hire a storage unit and put the coffin sized boxes there for the duration of their visit. My honest advice would be to put everything, I mean absolutely everything in the storage unit that you won't need during the visit. Go through your hot-press first. Keep a spare set of bedding for each bed in the house and apart from that it goes in storage. Same with towels. Then move from room to room, and, if you don't use it or if it already has a layer of dust, off it goes to storage.

When your brother leaves, if you haven't had a need for it during the visit, when you go back to the storage unit, get a skip bag and throw stuff out.

While the rooms are empty of stuff and clutter, paint them. Put up some nice curtains and get a few reasonable lamp shades to give the place a fresh look. There is some lovely stuff out there.

I know lots of people who are embarrassed by their homes, because there is something not 100% perfect with it. But if you look at it, it's what makes it home.

Ditch the idea of finding an apartment or somewhere for them to live. What with the housing crisis and the influx of refugees, space is at a premium at the moment.

Best of luck with it.

This

This is my line of thinking as well. We had about 2 or 3 months to prepare for my brother arriving home so it's not too bad right now. I was cleaning my room in case he brought his child and I was going to give up my room.

Accommodation is really nil. I am out of home now for the day but if my mother is still sitting tight on her position, I will just tell her I can't magic a months accommodation out of thin air within in her budget. I call the brother and he can't decide whether or not to come home and cancel or find somewhere else in Ireland and we probably won't even get to see them if they find somewhere else to stay in Ireland because I have my life where I am. I can't just give it up to holiday for month with little notice. It's a nice idea and all. It's so sad. How they want to come home and we may not even see them because mother is turning them away.

I had suspicions for a few months that maybe mom might have the start of dementia. There's something up with her. This isn't the first time where planning and organising was a nightmare with her. We can't even accept wedding invitations because of the problems she creates. There's more hassle than anything else.

(SIL) saw the place before. She knows it too ... She doesn't have a problem with the place

Fair enough, though I guess there's the question of how much worse it's got since she saw it, if it's been a while

All the ideas for shifting stuff are great, but if your DM takes against the idea all you'll end up with is her in a state which could spoil the visit - so since you can't find anywhere else and it's too late to stop them coming, the pieces may just have to fall where they will

Best of luck with it all