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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To do my DD20’s laundry

39 replies

Sockntired · 17/12/2024 22:57

I live with my adult children as a single parent. They both pay a small amount of rent per month. My older child does their own laundry and has done for many years.

My younger child cannot seem to manage to do any laundry. I am talking months worth of clothes. She will either wear things a lot without washing them or she will borrow my clothes or buy new ones. The laundry pile is usually truly gigantic - at least 10 loads if not more. She has a fairly small room and our house isn’t huge so it’s just on the floor not in a basket.

I keep asking her to address the pile for a few reasons. Firstly it does smell after a while even if she thinks it doesn’t. We have carpet and musty old clothes surely aren’t good for smells on carpets. Secondly she is afraid of spiders and expects me to come help get rid of them but the washing is attracting them as a hiding place. Third it’s often all over electrical items, laptops, extension leads and I think it’s posing a fire hazard. Fourth I do find it a bit revolting and embarrassing if anyone was to ever visit. We live in social housing and I have had workman in before and she leaves her door wide open, it just gives me the ick and cringe. I also don’t like my family visiting I am embarrassed if they were to see it.

We have reached an impasse before where I have done her laundry in the end and she was grateful for the help, so as it’s coming up to Christmas I have done a few loads in my spare time to try to get the volume down.

she has got really cross with me for going in her room and taking the clothes and washing them. She says I am controlling and that it gives me the ick is not her problem. She doesn’t want to live the same way as I do so I need to get over it

WIBU

OP posts:

grassyknees · 17/12/2024 23:51

She needs to learn the routine. Saturday morning, one load in and dried, Sunday morning, another load in a dried.

I guess it's about good habits.

My dc has adhd and we do admin/boring every Saturday morning 10.30 to 12. It's dull but it sticks after a while

Hayley1256 · 17/12/2024 23:52

To be honest I would pay a laundry service to come and collect it, clean it then drop it off so its all clear. Then I would do 1 load a week and if she doesn't like it then she can do it herself or move out.

littlemissprosseco · 17/12/2024 23:53

Get her to pat you, or her dister to do it.Its cheaper than her option!

BibbityBobbityToo · 17/12/2024 23:55

Don't put up with it, from 1 Jan all clothes on the floor will be bagged up and binned. That's a nice 2 week warning for her.

DramaAlpaca · 17/12/2024 23:56

I charged my boys a nominal amount of rent when they were both working and living at home.

DS2 was always very organised with laundry, DS1 not so much. As a solution, DS1 suggested that if I agreed to do his laundry, he'd pay me extra rent.

It was a good compromise and worked well for us.

SnoopySantaPaws · 17/12/2024 23:57

RosesAndHellebores · 17/12/2024 23:32

Has she got a linen basket.

The Answer is in the OP

TheCatterall · 18/12/2024 00:02

Sounds like a sensory thing and I know many folks with children with autism that have similar issues - sensory processing disorder.

is she paying rent? Would you be willing to do a launderette session on her behalf every other week if she paid extra rent?

id suggest she either pays extra or has to figure out how to creat a system that allows her to live within the standards you expect of those under your roof. I’d also set the standards so the household know what is expected from them all.

if she doesn’t like it she will have to move out?

id also tell her no more borrowing clothes as she doesn’t wash and return them.

Boltonb · 18/12/2024 00:05

Honestly, I generally think to a certain degree that adults sharing a house should live and let live. However, you’ve said her room smells, and she’s posing a fire risk.

So I’d say no to borrowing my clothes. I would tell her that laundry needs to be kept on top of, for the smell and the fire risk. I’d be clear that I would regularly (once a week?) be clearing all dirty clothes from the floor and throwing them away. I suspect you’d only have to do that once. I probably wouldn’t actually throw them away, but id certainly put them in bin bags and hide them for a while.

If she doesn’t like it, it’s time for her to move out.

SnoopySantaPaws · 18/12/2024 00:12

her 'room' is in your house, you have every right to go in it.

if her room wasn't a stinky a shithole you wouldnt need to go in it!!

controlling, you're entitled to be when she's not getting laundry done or accepting help to get it done. She's leaving it to feste to & damage your carpet & make your house smell.

your ick will be her problem when you stop accepting this & tell her if she wants to live like this she can go do it elsewhere as you've had enough of her lack of hygiene in your house!!

Original poster

Sockntired · 18/12/2024 07:38

I’m just going to carry on doing it and not get into a silly disagreement, as everyone says she has other options to move out or do the laundry herself. I wasn’t sure if anyone else would just do the laundry anyway. Someone has to do it and I am not resentful it’s me. I am a parent after all.

OP posts:

Spondoolies · 18/12/2024 08:08

Would it help her to have more than one laundry basket, so one for undies for example and maybe one for ‘still clean/floordrobe’

RabbitsEatPancakes · 18/12/2024 10:17

A big part of being a parent is teaching your children how to be adults. Laundry/ all household chores are part of that, whether she chooses to do them herself or outsources to a paid laundry service. At 20 she does need to start taking responsibility for herself.

Boltonb · 18/12/2024 16:13

I don’t think “I am a parent after all” means doing the laundry for an adult because they can’t be arsed to do it themselves.

Presumbaly in the next few years your DD will be running or co-running a household and laundry will be just one part of those duties. It’s utterly unreasonable for her potential future partner, for your DD to be learning that if you can’t be arsed to do things, someone else will magically take care of them for you.

Onlycoffee · 18/12/2024 17:37

Does she have ADHD or struggle with executive functions such as organisation, time keeping etc
I'm just wondering as you mentioned a floordrobe which is very common with ND people.
If so, she might find the number of steps involved completely overwhelming and go into freeze mode.

It can look like laziness but it's not, the nervous system gets overwhelmed very easily and causes her to shut down/freeze.

I would talk to her about the most practical aspect which is the spiders potentially breeding in her room and the fire hazard.

Offer to help her not to control her but to minimise the above! Good luck op x

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