Is it ever ok to start tidying someone else's house without being asked. I think it's bloody ride

[Hoorhhuudde]

It's a MIL one.
We have two under fives and our house is in the process of being sorted out for our expected third baby. It's clean. I did the hoovering, mopped the floors etc before the in-laws came to visit. It's tidy in the way a toddler filled house can be. It's not minimalist retiree tidy.

MIL has never coped well with being a guest. Hovers round me asking to help. I tell her we have a small kitchen, I know where everything is and I don't need help. DH reinforces that we don't do too many cooks in the kitchen because it hinders, doesn't help and we have this rule even when it's just me and him.

Anyway, hovering commenced whilst I was trying to dish up family meal, with all the various meal preferences and extra faff that guests tend to bring. Politely sent MIL out of kitchen. DH putting out cutlery etc in living room.

Come in and she's 'tidying' the kids toys. I have SEN children so stations of things we use daily like mood boards etc. Swept into random places. It wasn't the type of thing where there was an obvious toy box and she was just putting them back. It was like she had deemed it not tidy enough and was implementing her own random system. And it was really random. It actually looked worse than when she started.
I've just spent ten minutes searching out things from random places. Am I being unreasonable here? Is this normal guest behaviour?
For context I wouldn't tidy up in someone's house unprompted but I'd get my kids and I to help when tidying was happening or offer if an appropriate time.

Yabu- yes it's normal to do impromptu tidying
Yanbu- that's a bit weird

Our stations have been planned with senco. They think they're right. They're useful to manage Sen. We'll stick with the experts rather than amateurs like you and mil who think autism isn't real and we're all on the spectrum anyway. If I was less charitable I'd say it was delibwrate the way she targeted that stuff.

And no we weren't both in the kitchen. DH in the living room setting up table and putting drinks and wine. Read the op.

Why should I put up with passive aggressive comments ànd actions for the sake of not appearing rude. Mil seems absolutely fine in ignoring everything I ask so she's not exactly worried about being rude. She just wants to do things her way in my house.
I was under the impression that you follow the rules of the hosting house. For example, if it's a shoes off house.keep your shoes off. If it's a small kitchen house don't follow your host into the kitchen when they've asked you not to relatedly for decades.
The fact that she took it upon her self to do this in the very brief time husband was occupied and not dancing attendence on her shows she was waiting for the opportunity.

It's starting to sound like you maybe just want a vent and a rant rather than actual solutions to this, which is fair enough.

Next time you're at their's excuse yourself and move some stuff around. If she asks what you're doing, just say you thought it was a game she enjoyed as she keeps doing it at yours and you wanted to join in her lovely little game.

It's equally rude to create your own narrative instead of reading what OP is saying. Their kitchen is small and they don't use it together, so I'm not sure where the hell you've got that they're both in the kitchen ignoring the PILs. It's not as if OP has mentioned and clarified it multiple times.

To be honest it's one of the main reasons I love my mum coming over.

I can see why it bothers you but also, there are many, many threads on here where people are furious that their parents or parents-in-law come to stay and don't lift a finger. I've seen so many threads in which people say 'They just expect to play with the DCs all evenng while I slave in the kitchen' or 'They'll literally sit there and watch me Hoovering and tidying around them, why don't they offer to lend a hand'. So I'm guessing your MIL thinks she's helping.

I have the opposite problem . MiL liked to be waited on hand and foot.

So rude
ex sil babysat one evening. Came back to an super today lounge

we hadn’t asked or expected her to tidy up exh was furious. It just felt so invasive

I couldn't imagine being such ungrateful sods tbh.

In my family and my husband’s, NOT tidying up or helping out would be seen as insanely rude and lazy. Neither of our backgrounds are English.
It’s because my PIL and parents don’t consider themselves (or us) guests in eachother’s houses, and we’re expected to muck in.

So it’s acceptable, it’s just you, personally, don’t like it. Have a word with your MIL and let her know. I’m sure her intentions are to help.

I get it. My MIL loves to attack my sink and descale the ffing kettle at really inconvenient times FFS.
BUT I grew up in a house where a parent would tear strips off you if you were sitting idle when someone was doing chores, serving up a meal or whatever. You had to find something to do and fast.

So I find jobs to suggest to her if she is looking fidgety. DH is great for finding mending that needs doing that for some reason neither asks me or does himself (as he's more than capable of sewing on a button or mending a pocket.); she'll go through colouring markers and sort so that the dead ones go in the bin; and she's god gift when it comes to sewing on name tapes.
We get on much better when I can channel her energies to things that will really help me.

It's incredibly invasive when someone starts to clean up, unasked and without a word to the host! Even if it's family.

We had friends come over years ago, the house was immaculate as we'd had it cleaned that day top to bottom.

I went into the kitchen to bring drinks and got back into the lounge to find one of the couple with his hand under the sofa and feeling for food scraps (they had kids, we didn't) and he said "just checking in case you'd shoved food there like our kids do"

My DH said, "first we're not kids and secondly it's time you went home" and kicked them out.

She can probably see you have lots on and is trying to be helpful.

My mum stays with us a lot and always gets right in there cleaning and ironing, taking the dog for a walk (and helping herself to food) doesn’t bother me or DH in the slightest. But she wouldn’t do this in my brothers house for fear of upsetting SIL (who very laid back) and MiL never did this in our house.

when a close friend had a baby, her husband was completely useless: so when I visited I would get stuck in cleaning and washing up etc while she was bathing baby.