Daughter taking my belongings /overstepping boundaries

[MumToOver18s]

I have a daughter in her mid 20s who is still in full time education and living at home. She has a job but all her money from her part-time job goes on her social life, travelling and clothes. We pay for everything for her. Her room is so messy there is no space to stand on it - dirty clothes, open make-up, sweet-wrappers, drinks with mould growing in them. I have repeatedly asked her to try to keep her room clean, but it falls on deaf ears. I am not allowed enter her room and at this stage, am happier not to go in there, it is so bad. However, she constantly comes into my room to use my hairdryer and straightener and when she is sitting at the dressing table, pokes around, uses my perfume, mascara, lipstick, leaves everything scattered around, jars of expensive cream with the lid off, bits of powder everywhere. She then rifles in my drawers, my jewellery box and takes my jewellery without asking. Problems: 1) She doesn’t ask 2) She uses them because she can’t find/ loses her own stuff 3) She could lose mine 4) I’m “selfish” and “horrible” (among other names) if I challenge her. Other Mums please help. What are your thoughts on this?

If I were you, I’d get a lock for my bedroom door. That way she can’t go in and disturb your space and the stuff in it.
Hopefully she’ll then realise that she needs to tidy her room so she can use her own space and her own stuff.

Now for the tough love, there’s no way on gods green earth that I would be allowing my child, no matter the age, to dictate where I go in my own home. Can’t be trusted to keep your room clean? I’ll be going in to clean it. The thought of mould growing is rancid.
Actions have consequences and sadly, if you behave like a child, you’ll get treated as one.

You mention she has mental health issues. This can be a cause for her behaviour and she needs help. On the flip side, as much as my anxiety eats away at me daily, I don’t have a choice but to soldier on. Sometimes, I don’t particularly want to look after my kids and husband, let alone myself and our home but I have to. It’s a privilege to be able to use mental health as a reason for not doing something.

Sometimes, inaction is the biggest cause of anxiety. She's anxious? A darn good clean of the bedroom she's being allowed to use will not only get some endorphins flowing, but give her an instant lift with how much nicer the room is once the crap is gone. Action. All this sitting around concentrating on how she's feeling anxious is far far worse for mental health than just DOING something and allowing the action to soothe her. If she's got to do something, it might as well be cleaning the room you're allowing her to use.

Wow. First, you put a lock on your door. You tell her, if her room is a no go for you, and it’s your house, your room is a no go for her as a guest.
You tell her you are going to go and clean her room if she hasn’t done it in a week,,and that means you are going in with bin bags.
She has to pay rent. ..or move out. If she verbally abuses you again, she will be thrown out, She can get another job and grow up or live on the street or wherever she can find.
We as parents are supposed to teach children to grow up to be responsible and independent of us.
Independent.
That’s because they are expected to outlive us and need to be able to look after themselves.

Mid 20s acting like a 10 year old? No way

This is me at 15! I would go and use my mum's makeup and perfume because she wouldn't let me buy any. I'm afraid I never was one for calling my parents name (my sister did that before so I was always scared to hurt them the way I saw they had been by her) so I can't comment on when she should grow out of that but I'd hazard a guess that it should have happened by now!

If it were me I'd be in there on a day when I know she's out for hours and sort everything into bin bags for her...

This sounds like my daughter aged about 13/14. She would go into my room and take things without asking, lie about having done so and I was left without say a hairbrush, tweezers or she had used a whole bottle or tube of cream or make up. She was equally territorial about her room and if something of mine ended up in her room it wasn’t seen again for months.

Solution was to lock our bedroom for a few months (this helped). I strongly suspect my DD is ND maybe yours is the same. Mine also never ever apologises. She is 19 now and at Uni most of the time so she is better when she comes home.

1. Put a lock on your door
2. tell her she needs to stop immediately with the attitude or she needs to move out immediately.
3. if she decides to stay, she needs to maintain basic hygiene in her room. Messy is her own choice, but mould is not ok. Give an ultimatum for her room to be cleaned (eg tomorrow) and if it’s not done put everything in bin bags and throw them out- for hygiene purposes. Living in filth is not only bad for her, it’s a health risk for the entire family.
4. start charging her rent

Move out. Leave her to it and do not send money. Go travelling, see the world.

Put a lock on your door. This would annoy me too. She needs to take care of her own room and respect yours. My daughter is the same

Honestly I'd give a 30 day notice to get it together or find somewhere else to live. She obviously doesn't appreciate all you do for her and needs a wake up call. She's an adult acting like a teenager. Implement some boundaries and stand your ground.

It sounds as though she is trying to provoke you. Trying your stuff is one thing, but leaving the top of expensive cream etc seems like a message. Like she wants you to know, she wants to piss you off. If you can’t get her to move out because she is still in education and simply won’t respect your space, in your shoes, I’d have a lock fitted to my bedroom door and not let her borrow anything. Just tell her you have asked her nicely and she has gone too far.

Firstly don't pay for everything. If she's working she should be paying for herself and contributing to the household.

She’s in full time education, so I doubt she is earning a lot.

@AnnieSnap full time education at FE & HE is normally around 3 days per week so not traditionally 'full time'. Even if the contribution is small it's good practice for an adult to learn responsibility. I paid £100 a month at uni

If she's not earning much, then taking a good portion off her to cover her rent and board is a good lesson in how difficult life will be for her should she force her Mum to evict her, wouldn't you say?

Might focus her mind on how good she actually has it and that shitting in her own bed is a really really stupid thing to do?

Everything sounds scarily familiar and has got worse, my daughter is 37 and has been doing it for most of her adult life. When she was living elsewhere it cost me more than when she was at home.
To cut a long story short she started abusing me verbally and physically and last week she kept me in my room and hurt me for 7 hours overnight including attacking me with a knife saying she wanted to kill me.

I only managed to escape when my neighbour came out to go to work, I called him out of the window and he started talking to my daughter while I ran out of the house.
She was eventually arrested and is on bail with conditions not to contact me until 9 weeks time.
I have not known calm and peace like this at home for years, I hope she doesn't come back, I hope she sorts her life out and makes a success of it,
I hope one day we will be friends again like we used to be. X

Time to move her out,zero respect for you your stuff and the home you’re providing for her let her go it alone for a while see how she gets on then

I cannot stop thinking about OP. What does she think that she deserves to be treated like this? Please, please know your worth. Get some boundaries and enforce them. You deserve better.

I second the suggestion to stop paying for her things and put a lock on your door. Is her father involved, what does he do/say about this?

Take time to draw yourself up a contract. Make the rules you want to enforce for both your sanity and her success. Then sit down and go over it with her. Its your home, you deserve respect, she deserves to be taught how to be successful.
rules like -Floors shall be kept clear of clutter, vacuuming will be done on Thursdays. If there is excessive clutter that prevents vacuuming on Thursday, the clutter will be bagged and binned- If you cannot bring yourself to do this hire someone, there has to be consequences you see? If you say something but do nothing to back up your words, then its easy to just ignore you.

mental health issues may cause clutter, but it continually pulls them down and overwhelms them. Having a set shelf and anything that doesnt fit on that shelf will be donated, is another rule you can have. She can figure out whats most prized to keep up, rest gets donated. Yes she will be unhappy but you are teaching her how to cope with her illness, i resent the decluttering process but I sure feel better with the results. with the finances you can enforce a savings account by saying she will pay 30% of her earnings each month for “rent” which will go into a savings account. 10% of her earnings to go into an investment account. If she refuses then the consequence will be money you spend on her will have to be diverted instead. For example if you spend xyz for cell phone and internet that will have to go instead into savings for her future if she is refusing. Lastly I would say it would be a huge benefit for you to get counseling or a support group to help you out as this is incredibly stressful for you, some childrens personalities really work against ours, instead of being complementary.

No wants to have to do this, but could you fit a lock on your door?

I would stop funding her extra money she needs until she starts respecting the house. However I wudnt have a problem with my child mooching about my dressing table and not asking to use stuff personally.

This needed sorting when she was 12, not 20 something.

Set a deadline to tidy the room or you will do it for her, and it will involve bin bags!! And it needs to stay clean. AND she needs to start contributing something to your household - chores and a bit of cash. If she doesn’t like it she can move out and be wildly surprised by how much she has to do and how much everything costs!

It’s the parents’ job to turn their kids into useful, functioning adults and you haven’t so far by the sounds of it. Time for some tough love for both your sakes!