Would you charge your parents rent in these circumstances?

[TheSummerof25]

Long story short for the past 8 years my parents have stored (both inside and out) a number of large items/vehicles at our house. One in particular (a huge caravan) blocks our view and I WFH, without it, i have a lovely open aspect and can watch my chickens and the wildlife on my front from my office window. With it, all I can see is the bloody caravan. They know we don’t like it, we’ve reluctantly tolerated it because they’re our parents.

They do help with childcare, but tbh it’s got to the point where they moan so much and have other priorities we don’t bother asking, for example over the summer I’ve just sent them to clubs where they should have been with parents because their apathy was so apparent - it was four days of the summer I’d asked for.

We look after their pets when they go away, we pay a sitter for ours as we know “how busy” my retired parents are. Whereas we just slot it in.

When I bought a house early in my career, I with much lower pay, they lent me £35k for the deposit. I paid it back within 4 years (moved in with now DH and sold my house) but they charged me “rent” proportionally to the value of the house before it sold. DH always thought this was mean. Both parents retired at 55 and have had several inheritances which have mostly funded the stuff dumped at our house - my point they’re comfortable and have reliable income streams.

Now we’re moving, into a house with an income stream to support retirement plans and they have assumed they can continue to store all their junk, but not only that, want an upgrade of dry storage for all items. Storage is used by the business and so there is a loss associated with letting them have that for free. I said they could get planning and build their own barn, but they don’t want the expense. DH has looked and storage for all their items is easily in the region of £350 per month if not more. He said they can store it but they have to pay - like they charged me rent. This move is a huge investment from us and is with a long term view.

I’m reluctant to charge them, but equally don’t think waterproof items which are now stored outside should be prioritised for items we actually need to store for the business. It will create a gap for us. Parents think we could just make it work. Although haven’t enquired how.

YABU - you can’t charge your parents storage
YANBU - they’ve had 8 years free and can put their hands in their pocket.

Hi OP, I'm glad that it appears to be over, and hope that the move goes well now. However, I really think that you need to distance yourself from your parents once you've gone, as doing this to your kids is absolutely horrible, and so unfair.

Ugh, promising kids stuff so you sound like a nice, generous, fun grandparent and then never actually following through on it is horrid behaviour.

Anyway well done on getting rid of their stuff - hopefully the new house will prove to be just that bit too far away to regularly show up unannounced and upset the kids/be rude to you!

OP, you do realise you have allowed them to upset and irritate your husband for years?

You do realise you allow them to disappoint and mess your children about?

The irony of this situation seems to fly over your head.

Your have put your parents ahead of your husband and children for years by tolerating their behaviour.
Your mother in particular, is a nasty woman.
But they both are an embarrassment as parents.

I rarely feel sorry for men on MN, but your husband really has my sympathy with inlaws like that.
They are just awful people.

What is the point of this?

Does it make you feel good to make someone else feel awful, or do you expect the OP to find a time machine in the barn and go back umpteen years and tell her parents to fuck off back then? Because lets be honest, it is one or the other!

Dealing with manipulative parents is not easy, not even remotely. Their behaviour is your normal, their behaviour has shaped who you are and how you respond to things. Stepping out of the role they put you in is fucking difficult, particularly when it is ongoing and you also have the rest of your life to be dealing with too.

I am sure OP is now truly seeing the light and taking the necessary steps to stop her parents fucking with her life and that of her kids and husband!

The point is that the OP has claimed she wouldn't upset someone for years,..... but has clearly allowed her husband to be upset at a caravan parked in front of the house for YEARS.

Blocking HIS view, in HIS house...for years.

Don't normalise the situation, because this was a choice.

Her parents consistently let her children down.

Many people have difficult, awful parents, but they don't allow their home to be used as a free storage unit, for years.

Men rightly get a total roasting on MN for selfishly putting their own comfort/easier option, and parents, ahead of their wives and children, how is this any different?

There IS no time machine, but don't pretend you haven't put your parents ahead of your own husband and children for years by tolerating their selfishness.

The OP has known of her husbands frustrations for years.
Denying this is not helpful to her.

IMO if you want to constructively move forward, you need to at least be honest with yourself, for the part you have played in the situation.

Normalising an imposition such as this on her husband and home, does not help the OP.

I really wish the OP a fresh start with her house move, and the strength to put her husband and children ahead of her awful parents.

So have they removed the car and the van?

That was a real moment of awareness when an acquaintance was trying to get me to offer her the use of our basement...it isn't just my home.
Your parents sound mean and entitled.

You need to tell them you won't be having their stuff at the new house. Focus discussion on the practicalities of moving it to their home or disposing of it - try to avoid discussion of why you won't keep it, they will try to wear you down, twist your arm, etc.
Don't go down the charging rent route - it would just legitimise them dumping their junk on you, permanently. This is you best opportunity to break the cycle and escape the junk-dumping.
Make sure nothing of theirs goes with you. Give them a date (or dates) when you will take it to theirs and say it will be left outside if they are out, so it won't inconvenience them - and they can arrange to move it sooner if they wish. Email reminder of dates so there is written record. The caravan is difficult - presumably insurance needed to tow it... maybe for an extra fee (but worth it) you could get the solicitor dealing with the move to write an official letter saying they wish to keep the caravan they need to remove it from the property by a certain date as the property is being sold. Good luck xxx

I don’t agree I’ve prioritised my parents over my children. I can’t control their empty promises, I can only do my best to manage it - like withdrawing from childcare, attempting to manage my children’s expectations surrounding empty promises. I think you’re extrapolating here.

I have also agreed, and acknowledged that this action of allowing the van to stay has been unfair to DH and having now taken steps to address it, I’m not clear what else you’re hoping to achieve by turning the screw?

I have acknowledged it and made steps to address it. As a PP says I don’t have a Time Machine.

That is one very small element of my life I’ve chosen to share and discuss on MN. Storage at our home isn’t the beginning and end of mine and DH’s marriage. It’s pretty naive (and frankly a bit arrogant) to think you have such a good understanding of us from one singular post that you’re in a position to deliver up lectures 🙄

@TheSummerof25 so glad they got the van. Going forward I think the only thing to do is a zero patience policy with them and obvs no storage of anything of theirs. Good luck with everything else that's going on :)

Excellently put - but you won't get anywhere with OP and her cheerleaders with your logical, 100% correct post as they are in an echo chamber of "you go gilrllll"

I’m not sure the OP has deliberately put her parents ahead of her nuclear family.
By default though, it will possibly appear to her DH that she has. Taking the path of least resistance is still a choice, albeit a passive one
Hopefully now, she will be more vigilant of their f*ckwittery and step in promptly.

Theres a long fall should you stumble 😉

I think you’re forgetting that OP has had to put up with her parents’ property being on her property as well, it’s not just her DH who has been disturbed.

And her DH probably knows that if the situations were reversed, OP would support him rather than blame him.

Your poor, poor husband. Get a backbone, prioritise your husband’s v reasonable wishes, and stop letting your CF parents walk all over you.

I'm not bothering with the current arrangement because I can see how that happened HOWEVER you now have the perfect excuse as you are moving - stay firm - explain this all needs to move by x date as new owners move in on y date , sorry but we have no storage at our home business .

To be kind I might suggest they have a sort out to whether they needed it and then store it at their home - perhaps they can tighten the security options thre ?

They’re not bringing anything to the new house.

Point of order, Madam Chair. OP has ‘had to’ do no such thing; isn’t this the reason so many here are pretty fired up about the story?
She can’t change what has gone before, but every step forward now has to be with a new resolve that not one sodding inch will ever again be given to these ghastly people.
Failure to stick to that really would be a declaration that her husband’s happiness is of small concern to her.

Myself, I’d very definitely wash my hands of them entirely at this stage, including the end of all access to my children. (That bit has been unclear to me throughout: why would one want such a fell influence on one’s kids, no matter how much they liked granma and grandad? These are not decent people)
Anyway it’s certainly time for the husband’s patience and self-abnegation to be repaid now, and for this move to be a new chapter free of those two frightful bullies.

the end of all access to my children. (That bit has been unclear to me throughout: why would one want such a fell influence on one’s kids, no matter how much they liked granma and grandad?

Until fairly recently my youngest has enjoyed a really special bond with his Grandad. They’re not all bad. That’s in large why both me and DH have tolerated them using our home for storage. I’ve always had a more strained relationship with my Mum, but they have helped us out on occasion for which I’m grateful. This issue has been a bit of dampener and I’m obviously disappointed at their response when I did try and pull back.

Theyve had a reshuffle of priorities over the last year and become really self absorbed, basically they’ve bought a house to renovate and they don’t really have the budget nor the resources to do it. So it’s all consuming for them. Its been a really bad move and I can see it’s really impacted their mental health - my dad aswell has noticeably lost weight. Probably ten years too late for the sort of project they’ve undertaken. But they’re grown ups and it’s up to them. Neither handle stress or pressure well.

In my experience people pleasers always allow those closest to them to suffer the most.
Their own emotional needs must be met first.
Hence the OP's terror of fallout from asserting herself with her parents.
Better her husband suffer years of upset and annoyance, denied the lovely view of his home and enjoy his lawn.

Spouses and children come second.
A month of this cherky fxxkery is something a lot of people might get caught for, but years and years of your view being blocked, and your husband endlessly pissed off about it, his lawn destroyed, him having to move a caravan to mow his lawn?

Unfathomable that you would allow him to be subjected to irritation of that level by your parents....

Parents who had to make money from their own childs first home🙄.

I really hope OP reads back over HER words, describing her husbands upset and annoyance, and it fuels her to wake up to what her parents are really like.

They certainly shouldn't be allowed to mess with her children again.

Unbelievable that you would justify their behaviour by saying you are managing a small childs disappointment, by telling them not to expect follow through from their own grandparents.

This is one of the worst cases of FOG on MN that I have read.

I ought to have moderated my language, and not speak of your parents in such terms.
And yet….Im sure I’m not alone in discerning even now a softening in your resolve, as you reflect on past kindnesses, happy moments, Dad’s current frailty, and so on.
Feck all that! Your immediate family is the priority, and always should have been. So don’t start chipping away at the wall around your new life out of concern, as you ought to know by now that manipulation is their MO.
(And anyway…they do have other offspring, after all)

I think they have shown that their characters now, whatever about their more noble traits in your childhood, must be inculcating an undesirable moral code in your children, unavoidably.
Wheedling and guilt tripping and exploiting you and your husband as a general way of going about things is not what a beloved Granma should be demonstrating to young charges.

But seriously, be very careful right now, with your newfound success with the van business.
You might feel the war is won, but I don’t doubt that further battles are planned regardless. So now’s the time to be even more resolute, and not relax your guard where they and their demands are concerned.

Still, apologies for the rather excessive description of Mr and Mrs OP Sr.
Good luck with everything; and don’t look back.
(You know what Satchel Paige said about that: something might be gaining on you!)

But if she bowed to your opinion, that would be okay, presumably. 🙄

It's not about getting the OP to bow to anything.
This is an anonymous site.
This is the OP's life, her choices.
She is a young busy woman with a family trying to juggle a lot.
Her parents have completely taken the piss for years.
She has written she didn't expect such a response.
I hope the harsher posts give her real pause for thought to help her shape a better future.

Her husband has been historically shocked by her parents and their treatment of her.
He seems to see them very clearly.
I hope this whole episode has given her greater perspective on her parents behaviour and her own.
She clearly loves and respects her husband, indeed he sounds like a very good man.

The OP and her family deserve much better from her parents.
She shouldn't excuse her father's enabling of her mother, he too could have made different choices.

The extra distance physically from them will hopefully give her and her family space, and peace, to form and hold much stronger boundaries.

I really wish her well.

@TheSummerof25 hi op, please come back and let us know how you get on with the move and if parents have attempted to join the entourage to your new premises with their items and/or van. Obviously, you wont expect them to help you move. good luck xx