My husband & I have been together 5 years this spring. His mother is a hoarder. For background, my husband has a younger brother & his dad passed away very young when my husband was only 13. My mother in law has always hoarded and it’s not just a bit of clutter, it’s a serious mental illness for her that she has never acknowledged or seeked help for. When I met my partner she was still living in the family home where the boys grew up & it was in a terrible state with dead rats in some rooms, no heating in others, no hot water & a horrific smell that never left the house - being the eldest, my husband had tried to help in all different ways, he’d cleaned up, fixed things but within days the room he’d sorted would be messy again. Obviously by visiting here, I had some insight into how my husband and his brother grew up, they are both full of trauma from years of neglect and embarrassment. About 3 years ago, she sold her house & moved to another about 4 hours away. In the old house, you couldn’t even sit down or make a cup of tea so visiting was limited, so when she moved into a rather large beautiful house, her sons were delighted that they could finally visit her somewhere clean. Over the last 3 years, we have visited every 3-6 months or so & stay there. I have watched it fill up with stuff & fall into disrepair. She has a cleaner who cleans the bathrooms as her 89 year old mother is now living with her also and we have made it clear that to not have clean rooms is unacceptable for his nan. I’ve also been able to stay there and deal with it, it’s been less than ideal and uncomfortable at times but the bed sheets are clean, the bathrooms are clean and there’s a dishwasher so I’ve made the best of it to support my husband and her relationship. Now I’m pregnant and for me everything has changed. We visited there this Christmas and my husband made it clear that the stairs/hallway etc need to be clear before we arrived, the house was the worst I’d ever seen it, there wasn't even a clear pathway from our bedroom to the bathroom. I was shocked by my own reaction but I felt extremely emotional and really let down by her lack of care towards the woman carrying her first grandchild. She does weird things all of the time and is very self centred, she isn’t very supportive to her sons but requires a lot of support and energy from us. I suddenly feel intolerant to her and I’m really struggling to move past it. For years I’ve accepted she’s not well and wouldn’t choose to live this way but now I feel terrified of how we are going to navigate visiting her with a baby. I feel protective over my unborn child and don’t want her anywhere near them as I’ve seen first hand how much she’s hurt her own children again and again. She doesn’t respect boundaries anyway and is very righteous, she’s completely in denial about her house and says bonkers things about making a room into a nursery so she can help with the child care. I already know I will not leave my child with her unsupervised because she’s told me inappropriate stories about how she raised her own children. It’s an extremely difficult situation and I feel like I am going to cause world war 3 because I’m the only one that will be prepared to upset to keep my child safe