Hi all,
I have never posted on here but I just desperately need to get all of this out.
I want you all to understand that I love my parents and my family. They are wonderful people and I love them so dearly so please don’t demonise or victimise them.
When my little baby son was just 9 days old, our landlady decided she wanted to sell our property. She came around and just announced it like it was nothing. She needed us to move out as soon as possible so she could sell up. My husband and I were devastated. This is the third time in 7 years that this has happened to us, each lying landlord worse than the last. My husband and I both have earn good salaries. We don’t smoke, we don’t do drugs and we don’t drink a lot. We pay our rent every month without fail. We don’t scam the government, we pay our taxes, we don’t claim benefits. We have always kept our properties in immaculate condition and have often done work on them using our own funds. She knew I was pregnant and yet she waited until after our son was born to make her decision.
Long story short, due to covid/new baby/stress of recovering from an emergency c-section we decided that we simply couldn’t face the rental market again. We decided that we would move in with my parents, temporarily, and continue to save a deposit for our own house.
The problem is, my parents have some strange habits. I understand fully that it is their house and they are being unbelievably generous by letting us live here, entirely free of charge, but it gets so unbelievably frustrating.
So. Here we go. House rules:
- Taking a shower. Whenever you get out of the shower, it may be cleaned immediately. One cleaning cloth is used to clean the exterior ledge of the shower, another is used to clean the interior shower tray and then a Karcher window vac is used to clean the doors/cubicle of the shower. The Karcher must be emptied after every use.
- No toilet brushes. You must use bleach, water and a jug to flush away any marks in the toilet.
- Laundry is done 6 days a week, sometimes every day of the week. It is dried on 2 electric clothes horses stood by an electric radiator. The dehumidifier has to be set up and packed away every single time you put wet clothes out. You must also pack away the dining table and chairs every time you put the clothes out because there is nowhere in the house they can go and no room in the dining room (their house is tiny.)
- You cannot cook hot food if wet laundry is out (so that is most days.) There is no frying pan or wok and you cannot use oil, garlic or onions. They have a ceramic hob but you are not allowed to use it. If you try and use it, you are interrogated and my dad will go on and on and on about how you should use the microwave oven instead.
- You are not allowed to use the kitchen counter to rest anything on. It must be covered in up to 20 place mats before you can put anything down on it. This also applies to the dining table and the coffee table. You then have to clean all of the mats and put them back in the drawer.
- You must wash up everything as soon as you have used it. You have to do your washing up before you can sit down to eat your food. You can’t leave things to air dry, they have to be dried and put away immediately.
- All pots must be thoroughly rinsed and cleaned...before you clean them. So that you don’t make the washing up water dirty.
- Bedding and towels are washed several times a week. My dad keeps track of how long our bedding has been on for and will comment if it’s been a bit longer than a week.
On top of this, they argue constantly, as they have done my entire life. From dusk till dawn it’s shouting and sniping and nastiness to each other. Then my dad will complain to me for hours on end about how much he despises my mum. I’ve just stopped listening and now I sit in silence.
I’ve suffered with anxiety and depression in the past and I can’t cope with hearing stories about child abuse at all. They are my worst trigger and it’s so hard pretending that it doesn’t bother me. At least once a day, my dad logs into yahoo and reads out all the worst news headlines he can find. He often goes into graphic detail. He always seem to be able to find a story about a baby being murdered or abused and will just read it out louder and louder if you ask him to stop. This will usually end in a fit of rage and screaming and shouting as he rants about the lack of justice in our country or how criminals deserve to be put to death.
You can’t talk to them. The slightest comment is perceived as a huge insult and leads to an enormous argument and then being ignored for days on end.
There are no bedroom doors. There is no privacy. I don’t get a minute to myself. It’s destroying my relationship with my husband. I get criticised all day long, every day.
There is a list as long as my arm and I feel too upset and emotional to keep typing now. I’m sorry everyone, I just feel so unhappy.