To be annoyed at DMIL for putting a wet towel in the dustbin?

[FloralFantastic]

DS peed on the bathmat this evening - the in laws were kindly babysitting. When we got home we were told that DMIL had thrown away the bathmat - in the outside bin, drenched with both water and pee. Rubbish won't be collected for another week. I was livid at 1) the wastefulness as would have just washed in, and 2) why on earth she'd put it in wet, as whilst I'm not gonna eat my dinner from my outside bin I'd also rather not needlessly invite bacteria and mould to it. She said she put it in a bin bag if that helps.

DH is telling me I'm being needlessly irate and should 'just' be grateful for the babysitters - thoughts?!

My thoughts are: I’d take it out the bin and sling it into the washing machine on a 90 degree wash. That’s it.

Well yes.

Why MIL did it & what others would do doesn't matter because Op can retrieve it, wash it & hey presto!

Everything as it was!

@Kool4katz "Your MIL is weird. Does she have OCD as I can’t understand her bizarre behaviour otherwise?"

Not as weird as the person fretting about bacteria from a wet bath mat in her bin.....

I don’t think I’d fish it out if it’s in a really flimsy bag - because passers by put dog shit in my bin and the entire bin stinks - even if it’s bagged, the smell remains in the plastic of the bin. So I wouldn’t be getting a bath mat out.

Just replace the bath mat and forget about it. It would obviously have been a better idea to put the bath mat in the washing machine, but she didn’t. She treated your stuff the way she’d treat hers presumably. No malice intended.

Yep, both are strange behaviours alright. All my friends are in our 60’s/70’s and I can’t imagine any of them getting that hung up over a pee’d on bathmat. 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

Bit of an over reaction. Just get it out the bin and wash it.

I'd have laughed, got the bath mat out of the bin and washed it. No drama.

This thread is nuts. My son gave his toast and butter to the dog yesterday, we couldn't get it off her, the predictable happened and there was an 'episode' on the bathroom floor, incl. crap on the bathmat, scraped it off and put it in the wash with laundry cleanser...these things are washable, OP.

Have you perhaps thought that you may of been embarrassed that your son peed on the bathmat so projected your embarrassment into anger of losing the bathmat or maybe your mil’s way of handling the situation made you feel like its something that she’s above? Just feels a bit much to be this angry over just losing a bathmat.

Easy to fish out and wash then!

And your MiL is nuts! What if the pee was on carpet?

You should simply be grateful that MiL was prepared to babysit and you got a night out.

I put wet towels in laundry baskets. They get boil washed. I don't see the issue.

DS is 4 and definitely doesn't routinely still have accidents so would have been a surprise I guess! And a regular Next bathmat, probably only a year old or something. I'd be pro taking it out the bin and washing it but should have added the point is we're away for a few days and they're housesitting / looking after the kids... we only found out about this on checking in with them after bedtime... so I'd be needing to convince the in laws to do the fishing out of the bin and washing! I'm not ungrateful for their babysitting although DMIL does continually play the "I insist that we babysit because I didn't live near family when I had kids and it was terrible" card which makes it hard to be anything but positive about their help/ say no once they know we have a wedding or possible plans etc. I think she just has more money than sense, not OCD as far as I can tell, but doesn't seem to understand that we can't afford to bin everything the kids make dirty even if she can!

Oh, so in that case I'm team shut up and say thank you. YOU can choose to wash a pissy bath mat, if she's not comfortable then you can't ask her too. Tbh pee doesn't bother me much so I'd wash without thinking about it. If it was poo I would really struggle as makes me heave. So we all have our things we don't want to handle, pissy bath mats are clearly hers 🤣

If you can't afford to throw out a bathmat then you definitely can't afford to piss off willing family who are generous enough with their time to want to help you out.

Given this is mentioned in some of the replies, we did cloth nappies with both kids, so no objections personally to washing wee/ poo in my machine and no nappies in my bins either not that I'd have been bothered about that. I wasn't trying to nitpick r.e. the mouldy bin point, you've all convinced me it's irrelevant it just came into my head at the time of posting (and yes we were at a wedding having had a few drinks!). Minus the effect of alcohol I'm afraid I'm still a bit wound up that she chucked a perfectly good bath mat though and that there's no easy way to address it!

Ask your FiL to fish it out of the bin and leave it for you to deal with?

You are getting several days away without your dc and you are complaining?

Oh come on, @FloralFantastic,your OP barely the waste of the thrown away bathmat! It just mentioned the bin bacteria.

You've both been a bit weird. Move on.

You don't put wet towels in laundry bins because it's inside and will smell....the outside bin stinks anyway unless you wash every tin, nappy etc. who would do that?

I would think the main thing is not letting your ds become upset at the accident and thinking it's some big deal.

I think you sound really ungrateful, particularly as you’ve now mentioned that you’re away for a few days.

This falls under the category of ‘let it go’.

Appreciate the childcare, appreciate the time away, stop stressing about germs in bins (wtf?!) and buy a new bathmat. Ikea do really cheap white ones that are fab. Get a few of those for next time the in laws are down.

Come on tell us why you really don't like her?

She shouldn't have actually thrown it in the dustbin. She could have put in in the bag and left it outside the back door so you could decide what to do with it.

Or... she could have put it in the washing machine, which is what I would have done.