Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

Why would she bring used soap to leave at my house?

69 replies

Samiamnot · 01/02/2022 10:42

DM visited recently. She always brings a lot of stuff with her. Always leaves things here like toothbrush, nighty etc so she doesn't need to bring things with her whenever she visits (lives far away so stays 3-4 nights every month or so). That's all fine and she has space in the spare room that is just for her stuff.

She also always brings stuff of hers like little notepads she no longer wants and presents it as a gift for me or my children, along with little things she's bought new like socks. (Although she has now also taken to 'gifting' her old socks to my eldest daughter).

On her most recent visit she brought a used bar of soap from her bathroom and left it in my downstairs toilet, along with the bar of soap I had put there AND the new bar of soap SHE put there just before Christmas. To be clear, this is not the en suite to the guest room that she uses. It is the downstairs toilet, next to the kitchen and living room.

What on earth is behind this behaviour? It's like an animal marking their territory (ie my house) or a squirrel hiding nuts all over a park. I can't imagine that sje does this in anyone else's house that she visits, so something to do with our relationship.

OP posts:

Branleuse · 01/02/2022 10:44

She might want to have that soap for when shes there?
Might be a little unusual but seems quite harmless

Original poster

Samiamnot · 01/02/2022 10:46

But she'd already brought multiple bars of soap and left them around my house on her previous visit...

OP posts:

SockFluffInTheBath · 01/02/2022 11:11

Can you put all her soaps and notepads and socks in a box in the spare room so all her tat is there for her when she visits?

TheFoundation · 01/02/2022 11:20

Why does it matter to you why she does it? It's not aggressive or abusive, it's just a quirk. She obviously values having the right soap handy.

If they're in your way, box up her things or put them in a nice pretty basket, and get it out for her when she visits.

SarahDippity · 01/02/2022 11:27

My very elderly mother is always ‘decluttering’ and can be quite misguided about it. Eg handing down really old clothes in case they’re handy for the garden; socks yes; an old pillow that the cat might like; even an old toothbrush once in case I wanted to clean my taps with it . I think she just feels she doesn’t need much anymore and might save me a few pennies, but it upsets me, not because of the items, but because her sense of what’s acceptable has gone way off.

Hopeisnotastrategy · 01/02/2022 11:34

My grandma used to be like this, she'd just really want to give you something, so if sometimes bizarre things were to hand, well that's what you got! It came from a place of love, so I'd see it like that unless there's a huge back story.

Original poster

Samiamnot · 01/02/2022 11:42

@TheFoundation

Why does it matter to you why she does it? It's not aggressive or abusive, it's just a quirk. She obviously values having the right soap handy.

If they're in your way, box up her things or put them in a nice pretty basket, and get it out for her when she visits.

Well I don't think I said or even applied she was being either aggressive or abusive.

I'm just curious about it. Most posts on this forum are questions about people's behaviour. Is mine any different? Or do you comment on them all asking why it matters?

OP posts:

mindutopia · 01/02/2022 11:44

I don't know if this would apply, but my mum would do things like this (we are NC now for totally unrelated reasons). Always buying lots of random, cheap junk to bring to us, coming with bags of the little shampoo bottles from hotels that she has collected, etc. I worked out over the years that it's probably do to a level of anxiety about not having things. She similarly has a massively full cupboard, fridge, and freezer, enough food that she could probably survive 6 months on it. Always buying like a million pound shop gloves for my dc, etc. She is quite wealthy and we are also very financially comfortable. Neither of us needs to panic about running out of food, or shampoo, or gloves. But I think it's a way of coping with her own anxiety about not having enough. She also freaks out and fills up with petrol when she's at half a tank. I think for her, it also calms her anxiety when she can bring things and make sure we have 'enough.' Even though we already have all we need. It's just her way of coping, I think especially out of the comfort zone of her home.

IncompleteSenten · 01/02/2022 11:47

You could put them in a box in her room and say you left these last time. You can take them back home when you leave.

Everything she leaves behind goes in the box for next time

Original poster

Samiamnot · 01/02/2022 11:48

@SarahDippity

. I think she just feels she doesn’t need much anymore and might save me a few pennies, but it upsets me, not because of the items, but because her sense of what’s acceptable has gone way off.

Yes - this resonates. Like she doesn't know what's acceptable. Does your mother do this with other people or just with you? Mine only does it, to this extent, with me but I think she often gifts inappropriate things to others too. She got my 8 month old daughter a game labelled for 6 year olds.

OP posts:

Wotagain · 01/02/2022 11:49

To be fair OP you are asking the wrong people, you really need to ask your mum why she brings soap with her, and passes on discarded socks.
The soap I sort of understand if it's a particular scent or favourite. And when you say 'left them around my house' do you mean in the kitchen?on the staircase? in the lving room?

TheFoundation · 01/02/2022 11:52

Well I don't think I said or even applied she was being either aggressive or abusive

I'm just curious about it. Most posts on this forum are questions about people's behaviour. Is mine any different? Or do you comment on them all asking why it matters

How defensive. The answer is that she does it because she wants to, and she's the best person to ask why, because nobody on a forum knows your mum better than your mum does.

AmandaHoldensLips · 01/02/2022 11:52

Just chuck it all in the bin.

StrawberryFever · 01/02/2022 11:56

Soap I think could actually be quite logical. I have sensitive/dry skin on my hands, and it only takes one wash with some soaps to completely strip them and have them red raw (mine still look like I'm wearing scaley gloves two weeks on from such an encounter at a friend's house).

I'm not organised enough to take my own soap with me most of the time, though I have done when it's been somewhere I go regularly where I know the soap irritates my skin (e.g. a particular place I worked at). Maybe it's something like that?

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 01/02/2022 11:59

@AmandaHoldensLips

Just chuck it all in the bin.

No! Shocking waste.

ValerieCupcake · 01/02/2022 11:59

How old is she? She sounds like a dotty old pensioner but I bet she's only around 70 at the outside.

Heroicghosts · 01/02/2022 12:01

It's probably a habit that she has adopted from her own mum. My late mother was a teenager during the second world war and she used to travel with a bar of half used soap in a little pink plastic box and would take her wet flannel in a plastic bag. That was what everyone did; you wouldn't dream of throwing anything away. I think our contemporary society is hugely wasteful and extravagant through their eyes. Even I remember the acquisition of "things" being so much less prevalent in the 70s; one had the bare minimum and a very few treats but most of the time, made do. Even if you were quite affluent , there wasn't the range and availability and overwhelming choice of products that there is now. And I think that has the added reverse effect that although they don't want to waste anything, they don't want to ever go back to being without, so they have lots of "spares" too.

RantyAunty · 01/02/2022 12:03

How old is your DM?

EvenMoreFuriousVexation · 01/02/2022 12:04

Obviously I don't know your mum or the history of your relationship. But my mum was a horrible gift giver - even when I asked her to just stop giving me stuff because we both got upset when I didn't like it, she carried on.

It's not the reason we're NC, but it's indicative of her total lack of respect for anyone's boundaries.

It's left me with such anxiety around gifts that I have refused to accept Xmas, birthday or any other gift for years.

SocialConnection · 01/02/2022 12:12

Maybe she loves the perfume. Or she has a bad allergy to other brands and can't risk the itchies. Or she likes what she's used to. Or doesn't want to impose.

GirlOfTudor · 01/02/2022 12:15

To be fair, you've let her leave stuff at your house so I assume she wouldn't find a bar of soap any different.
Perhaps she likes that specific brand of soap and thought it would be handy for when she visits?
The handing down of used socks is a bit odd, and bordering on gross, but to note that she gave your 8 year old a game marketed for 6 year olds is a little picky...

VivX · 01/02/2022 12:26

This is the sort of thing that my mother would do.
Also, offloads lots of other random stuff - anything from costume jewellery to ornaments to clothes - onto my children, whether we were visiting her or being visited by her.
Often didn't check age-appropriateness of the items.

She thinks helpful and generous and also I think she struggles with letting go of things so passing stuff on might seem less traumatic.

Sometimes, I'd just pass it on or bin the items myself afterwards as it was easier to having to repeatedly explain.

Hoolihan · 01/02/2022 12:33

My in-laws are a bit ike this, they just want to give us stuff regardless of how wanted/needed/appropriate it is. And they never throw anything away so they're always coming down from the loft with random crap for the children. I think they really want to get rid of stuff but don't know how (slight hoarder tendancies) and also they love us but don't know how to express that other than through the unwanted gift of a box of glassware collected from the Esso garage in the 80s.

Hoolihan · 01/02/2022 12:34

@GirlOfTudor

To be fair, you've let her leave stuff at your house so I assume she wouldn't find a bar of soap any different. Perhaps she likes that specific brand of soap and thought it would be handy for when she visits? The handing down of used socks is a bit odd, and bordering on gross, but to note that she gave your 8 year old a game marketed for 6 year olds is a little picky...

The child was eight MONTHS.

Original poster

Samiamnot · 01/02/2022 12:47

@GirlOfTudor

To be fair, you've let her leave stuff at your house so I assume she wouldn't find a bar of soap any different. Perhaps she likes that specific brand of soap and thought it would be handy for when she visits? The handing down of used socks is a bit odd, and bordering on gross, but to note that she gave your 8 year old a game marketed for 6 year olds is a little picky...

Yes I agree that would be picky but it was a game for a 6 year old, given to an 8 month old.

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 3

Swipe left for the next trending thread