My mum has thrown away over £150 worth of makeup and medication

[nostyleandnoclothes]

I have a small pouch that I carry around with me everyday. It’s got a lot of medication in it (antihistamines, painkillers, stomach medicine), as well as 5 lip sticks and 4 lip liners. In total it comes to over £150 worth of stuff in a space NK small pounce (which is expensive in itself!).

I was at my mum’s on Thursday night when she complained about her having bad hay fever. I pulled out the pouch and handed it to her, and although I thought I’d put it back in my bag I must’ve left it on the side. I realised tonight it’s missing as I’ve gone through my bag ahead of work tomorrow and she’s admitted that she has thrown it away.

AIBU to say she should replace it? Both the makeup and medication she’s thrown away?

No reasonable person throws away another person's belongings. My Mother did stuff like this once or twicw, she would never replace or recompense, so I would just cut her off for a few months- it was the only way to get the message through, if she asked me to visist , or do something for her I would say no, I'm working extra shifts to pay for the stuff you threw away , eventually she got the message.

I must say though, I’m still reeling in incredulity at the Apple Watch story… 😧 I can’t even afford a knock off Smart watch from Aldi for my child, let alone an Apple Watch and people are buying them to save a walk back to security in an Airport?! Good lord. How the other half live. Mystifying.

Oh that’d annoy me intensely and there is no way in hell I’d be rummaging around the rubbish bin for makeup items .
Just ugh 😣 no .
if they’d gone in the recycling ♻️ I’d chance it .
my husband once accidentally knocked my makeup bag , some items fell into the toilet and I told him he was paying for the replacements as there was not a chance in hell I was using a mascara and eyeliner that’d gone in the loo ( they were good brands too )

I voted YANBU because it’s bizarre behaviour to just throw it out, surely any normal person would text to let you know you’d left it and arrange where to leave it so that you could pick it up.

But the more I read on in this thread that the rubbish hasn’t been collected and yet you are refusing to look in the rubbish - YABU. Even if you still want to replace the pouch after you find it, the contents of it should still be fine. And yet you accuse your parents of being carefree with their belongings?! They may be, but clearly so are you.

See I find that a really odd thing to do. Why do you pile things on the counter to launch into the bin when you could just… put them in the bin rather than on the counter?

She has already looked and found it all covered in bin liquid.

You’ve never left anything behind before? Particularly at your own parents house? Sure 🙄

From what you've said, I'd be really cautious around her in future, not just with belongings but your feelings too.

The fact that she found your gross bin experience amusing, argh it makes me shudder. Plus you only got the bag out in the first place to kindly offer her an antihistamine. I've taken a real dislike to your mum.

Maybe if she had t waited 3 days it wouldn't have been

Yes! I leave stuff lying around a lot as I am very easily distractible, but I still think it's my responsibility to look after my stuff, and I just keep on trying to get better at being organised and making little routines for the start or end of visits etc from home.

So, for example, I left something in a community space last week and when I realised, I WhatsApped to say what I had misplaced, and said that if it's gone it's not a problem but that otherwise I'll collect it at X time. And the other person replied to say it was already safe and waiting for me, which was great. But I'd prepared myself to suck up the loss, if necessary.

I'd definitely be more upset in the OP's case but our parents can have personal stuff going on too, that we might not know about yet. For the sake of the relationship (if the relationship is not dead in the water already) I think it's sometimes worth taking a step back and maybe having another 2-way sharing of issues when things have cooled down.

This is AIBU and people are sharing different perspectives. The OP can obviously take from it whatever is helpful and ignore the rest.

Only realised it was missing last night and found out she’d binned it last night

Well if she won’t look for it then surely she should be offering to pay for it ? She’s your mother and she’s got money ? Does she not like you or what ? Could never imagine doing that to one of mine

If I had thrown something away that was my daughter’s I would definitely be replacing everything. It’s just common decency and manners. If she doesn’t then she must be either very selfish or in a world of her own

Your mum should definitely be replacing all the makeup and the bag and you should send her a list of it all. Especially since you have demonstrated that it is not salvageable by finding it. I would be very upset by this too. It's one thing to be frivolous with your own possessions but not things that belong to someone else. L

She owes you to replace it, it's damaged because of her carelessness.

And yeah, I'd be binning her stuff constantly after this.

It clearly wasn't an accident, otherwise she wouldn't have known she'd done it. She saw it, she knew what it was, she knew it was yours, and she chose to bin it. I'd literally be throwing her bag in the bin while she's there.

I wouldn't want to be digging through my own bin let alone someone else's. Id ask for the money to replace everything, it a reasonable request

I would let her know how much it was worth. Throwing something out by not checking because you don’t care, is very different to throwing something out inadvertently.

I have very little time for ‘More money than sense’ types.

I agree, she knew what she was doing... and the fact that she was treating it all as a joke. Complete lack of respect. I think it was a really mean thing to do.

As if she wanted an excuse to tell you off for leaving something. Was she a bit jealous of your nice makeup or the fact that you buy yourself nice things?

Its expensive to replace but not outlandishly so at least. And as you say, some of it was old. There are offers on in Boots and superdrug and JL at the moment.

Well I guess you won't be visiting as much after this. Hope she enjoys her stupid joke.

Are you somebody who finds yourself having to regularly buy new spoons?

Then it's not so valuable to you, is it!
If it were important, you'd go searching. Or you're more like your parents than you want to let on.

The tablets will have been heated over their limit which is normally about 35c and the lip products have probably melted. My black recycling bin got hot enough in the sun to start melting a plastic bottle inside it. **

Send her a list of the contents including the bag and the prices and tell her to either send you the money to replace them or order them herself!!

this isn’t something you can do on accident!!

Your mum sounds unhinged.

Ok, so it was an "accident" - so what are you supposed to do? Also, I assume you talked to her on the day it happened - and she did not suggest going to the bin to retrieve it? Your whole family have isses

Unlucky

I can't understand why you're getting such a hard time, I think people just want to argue! 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm astonished your mum did this. My own DM is extraordinary at decluttering but she would never, ever in a million years chuck away something like that, because she has respect for other people's belongings. Honestly the same goes for everyone I know. My mil kept a manky bottle brush for 3 months because I left it behind and she thought I might need it. A bit extreme the other way tbf but she has respect for other people's belongings.

It would take me a long time to forget this if I'm honest.