In laws cleaned our house while away....

[ohnnoclean]

We were away for Christmas. In laws have our key for emergencies. The night before we left, in laws came round. I was in the middle of packing and a lot of things were everywhere ( but the house wasn't actually dirty ).

MIL kept saying, ' don't worry about cleaning the house before you leave, you won't have time '.. ( she's been asking me whether I was packed to go for about a week before I left. I don't pack a week early. I tend to pack the day before and I always manage fine. I travel a lot and always have and have traveled with my kids a lot too, so I do know what I'm doing..

Anyhow, the house wasn't dirty, there was just clothes everywhere as I was packing. MIL kept repeating I should not worry about cleaning.. kind of annoyed me, as it wasn't dirty. But OK.. I ignored it. She then said she'd come and clean while we were away. I said no don't worry at all, it's not dirty..

Of course, we got back and it's clearly been cleaned a bit ( fridge has been cleaned, for example ). Of course I'm grateful and I've said thanks. But I'm really uncomfortable with it. I assume she thinks I'm a dirty cow of course. Just the way she kept saying I shouldn't worry about cleaning - when it wasn't really dirty. The fact she was here when we were not here and the fact I had declined the offer of her cleaning my house.. it's annoyed me. I won't start a fight over it, but next time we go away, this can't happen.

Id hate that too. I think getting the key off her is the best bet.

I wouldn't ike this either, my MIl and FIl stayed at our place once when visiting and we stayed with my parents, as not enough room for us all and she reorganised our drawers including bedroom drawers, I was less than happy!

My mother got the landlord to open up my flat to her and another relative whilst I was out at work.
she and my relative cleaned the whole place then rang me at work to berate me about how dirty my flat was.

I actually flat shared and the other person who was not happy some stranger had been messing with her stuff.

Ended up having to move out as my mother couldn’t be trusted to not gain entry again.

You need to tell her firmly that although you've thanked her, on reflection you don't feel comfortable with her doing this.

I had my SIL do this once. I wasn't on holiday, I was preparing for DHs surprise birthday party, I had two children under 2 and she had come over to sit with them. The idea was that DH and I went out to the pub, found no mates there on his birthday and then back home.

On the way out she had said about there being toys everywhere (there was a toy box, with a lid. That was it) and she said the place looked "cluttered".

In the just over an hour we were out, she had fucked about with my cupboards and moved loads of stuff around. I could barely find anything for weeks. She is very minimalist though, we aren't. She looks uncomfortable every time she visits which is thankfully not often.

I told her after that to never ever do it again. That if my house is cluttered, I like it that way and I don't go into her home and fiddle with stuff.

She has never done it since.

The op has already said her house wasn't dirty or even messy.

Even if it was it doesn't constitute an emergency does it?

If you feel judged, that's on you I'm afraid - nothing in the post suggests that's where it came from.

Very few houses have literally NOTHING that needs cleaning at any one moment - you said yourself you could tell she'd been. Plus an empty house is so much easier to clean.

I would switch your perspective - she's a kind woman who remembers what it was like trying to get a family ready to go on holiday and thought of one thing she could do to lighten your load.

What a kind gesture.

Exactly.

And you know she was snooping.

The woman would never have another unsupervised moment in my home.

@FusionChefGeoff you haven’t read all of the OP’s posts have you?

Redraw your boundaries with a heavier pencil If you don't she will keep overstepping I've had to do this with my own mother!

The op has already said her house wasn't dirty or even messy.

One person's dirty and messy might not be the same definition as someone else's

I think due to how much she mentioned it before hand, she was planning it as something nice to do and it has no reflection really at all on how clean or tidy it was. She was going to clean and tidy while you were away because she wanted to, to be nice. It could have been a show home and she would have cleaned it!
But I do understand how you feel judged as most of us would. I think a kind, honest chat is best.

That's for the people who live there to decide isn't it?

Not MIL who has been told no!

People use the words "clean" and "tidy" interchangeably. They almost certainly saw that you were stressed and wanted to help.

My DS and DIL regularly go off for days/1 week holidays sometimes 2. I pop in at their request just to check all is okay. I often find their used breakfast bowls and half full juice glasses in the kitchen. I rinse them out and leave them on the side..I don't clean them properly as I know my DIL would be mortified

On the other hand if I go to my DDs house I do the mountain of washing up hang out the washing on the line if it's fine and sort out the cat litter if nec.

She thanks me, says I didn't need to I say I know..she loves me for it.

Know your relatives is my motto.

@LookItsMeAgain yes you're right, it's different because I've checked they are happy for me to do it but because the OP says 'its a nice gesture but there's probably some judgement in it' I suppose I'm trying to say that she's right, there is, unavoidably, a little bit of judgement in it - but really so what?! Any judging I do is my problem, it reflects on me, not on my DD and SIL. And it's honestly only a tiny (unavoidably human, I hope) part of why I've just tugged a lump of hair out the shower plughole🤢😂!

I used to find it excruciating to accept help of any kind because I've felt people might be judging me weak, hopeless, lazy or whatever. Now I reckon people help others for a whole, complicated mixture of reasons - but the overriding reason is almost always because we care about each other. Of course the OP has the right to tell her MIL to not do it again, but I think not worrying about being judged is a good solution too.

It was a kind gesture.

If it was your parents it would be welcomed. Because it's your husbands it's an insult.

I'm scared of being a MIL of a boy when he's older. No matter what I try and do it will always be wrong. Then people get annoyed the in laws don't do enough, only for the daughters 🙃

I wouldn't like it. Seems a little controlling to me. When we went away my MIL pulled out my plants that "may have been dangerous" to my son from our garden. As if I'd let him eat any of them ffs.

Dirty is dirty, whether someone 'sees it' or not.

Haven't RTFT. I'd be embarrassed that someone had cleaned my house, but on the other hand, I'd be so happy to come home to a sparkling house that I didn't need to clean for a few days! So I'd enjoy it, OP!

Other than the fridge, if the house was left as clean as you claim, how do you know that it had been cleaned?

Ie if you left it freshly dusted and hoovered, you wouldn't have been able to see that she'd been in and done it again?

How can you get worked up about this shit?
Who cares if she is judging you anyway?
If you are happy to live with a bit of dirt, then why do you care if she thinks less of you for it?

My sister in law took it upon herself to clean our house - opening doors and going into our bedrooms and our home offices - when we were out and I was really angry with the intrusion, so I totally understand. She’d been asked to feed our cat and nothing else. I wasn’t even asked. You were asked and said no, and that hasn’t been respected. It comes across as judgemental when someone tells you your house needs cleaning by them and is also an invasion of privacy when you aren’t expecting someone to be going into your rooms or through your stuff in your absence. I think by thanking her, you’ve created a situation where your boundary is now even less clear and it will happen again when you say no.

My MIL no longer has a key, done in a nice way.

I've come home to things broken she had no need to be near (upstairs bedroom) never mind touch. All electrical items unplugged including things that absolutely needed to be plugged in, apparently because she'd been in the house and would therefore have felt responsible if there had been a fire !!!

The dishwasher that had been run and turned off before I went away unloaded but everything just piled up on the counter, like that's helpful when you come in from holiday and want a cup of tea.

Same for things in the dryer, a load of towels I'd washed and dried and left in the dryer (turned off) to put away when I got back, minding its own business and not in the way was folded and on the kitchen counter, so completely in the way and I was annoyed the instant I walked it.

I remember one of my exH cousins getting married and her mother arranging for several (female) family members to go to her house for essentially a cleaning party while she was away as a surprise, so cousins and aunties going through your wash basket and drawers !!!

The mil doesn't live there, whether she thought it dirty or not has nothing to do with her.
Would you pop into your neighbours and start cleaning or rearranging stuff to suit yourself?
No, because its not your house.

Depends what their intention was. I suspect they were just being nice and thinking how lovely it would be for when you get back. Remember, it is the shit we add to situations that make us unhappy.

Yeah I cba to read that far because at the end of the day she’s whining about a free clean.

The fact OP’s paranoid that MIL thinks her house is dirty indicates it could be cleaner.