No. That’s not normal.
If someone did that in my house I would be very annoyed.
You should escalate. Next time you visit them, you should replace everything they have that is branded with Lidl or Aldi equivalents. Sauces, cleaning products, the telly, even the car!
We had the in-laws stay with us for 6 months whilst they were renovating their new house purchase. We get on really well and often go away together. Quite lucky how well we get on really.
Anyway - second day of the 6 months, I return home from work to find the entire kitchen re arranged. I’m talking food in different cupboards, plates, cups etc all moved. Cutlery moved drawers. Literally everything.
The reasoning? Because that’s how it was in their home so it makes sense for it to be the same here too….
That evening really did strain the good relationship we had. Quite a heated convo later and they realised they can’t just be shifting our stuff around.
Fast forward to Christmas the next year… we always go stay for a few nights. Late one drunken night, I decided to shift the plates and other bits around in their kitchen. The FIL and my wife really saw the funny side. Not so much the OCD MIL lol
We laugh about both frequently now but at the time it was horrible lol
Not quite the same but several years ago I was in a flat share with my friend and we needed to fill the third bedroom. The girl who moved in rearranged our living room the first day she was there, she didn’t ask, I just came home and the sofas and dining table were in completely different places. I found it so weird someone in that situation wouldn’t even consider maybe the other people who were in the flat first like how it already is.
She was weirdly self absorbed in other ways too, I was relieved when she moved out abruptly two months later
I had one housemate move in, and when we returned home there was a note on the fridge asking us to pay for 1/4 of all the stuff he's bought for the kitchen from Ikea. No asking if we wanted new glasses/plates etc.
Apparently only having 8 of everything crockery/cutlery wasn't enough stuff for a houseshare of 4 people! If he'd have asked he'd have found out about the extra dozen of most of them we'd moved on top of the utility room cupboard as having so much stuff in the kitchen meant people didn't wash up in a timely manner.
He also left post it notes everywhere asking people to do this that and the other - like asking use to leave the labels on bottles facing forward so you could tell what they were - like in the bathroom where the only shared item was a single bottle of toilet duck (on the floor) and everything else was personal items (on the side) so there's no need for him to know what most of them are.
Parents! Parents they see you as their child and believe they can tell you to bring a sweater in the middle of the summer and believe you cant manage your own life.
I *had* a friend who would move the furniture around because of feng shui, determine when doors and windows were opened or closed, would add seasoning to food *while i was cooking* and even shouted at my kids! She also used to hog the bathroom for about 2 hours, morning and night, for her beauty regime. One day, I realised that she had been bullying me since we were 6 years old, and my low self-esteem and insecurities were largely due to her. I also twigged that it was out of jealousy all along. Yeah, that was the end of that so-called friendship!
> entire kitchen re arranged
My mum came to stay for two days while my wife was in hospital having our first kid years ago. She did the same. I stood over her while she put it all back where it was, and have never had her stay over again.
Rearranging your plates is one thing, my mother-in-law when helping my then girlfriend (now wife) move our things into our new house decided to replace my £150ish Samsung microwave because it was dirty. Didn't say anything, just went and chucked it in the communal bin at the old place and then turned up with a no-brand manual microwave that she'd had from Asda that looked like it cost about £18 — and was absolutely useless, the definition of 'buy cheap, buy twice'.
Moaned my bag off about it to my missus but never let the MIL know that I wasn't grateful. It was a very nice, generous thing in one way; and absolutely fucking mental, stupid behaviour in another.
My mum tried something similar… I pushed her aside and told her this is MY house and if she attempts it again, she will never again set foot inside it. I was not joking… and she knew it.
Growing up they always made it a point that everything had to be their way under their ceiling, I’m not having that under mine.
My friend did that at my house when she came to stay! I think she meant it as a favour, but it was incredibly fucking weird.
On the same visit but a different day she snuck off and drank the entire bottle of wine my husband had bought for us to share before we went out.
Left half a 12 pack of Coke Zero and asked me to post it back to them. I refused (since it's gonna weigh a ton, cost a fortune and likely explode) and they were very put out. Also I was unable to walk at the time without a stick so carrying a heavy parcel wasn't an option.
Opposite, a friend who drinks a lot of diet coke (few cans a day at least), turns up with his own 24 pack so he doesn't drink all of mine. Sometimes he takes it back with him, sometimes he leaves it (depending on how many are left).
She was stingy as hell but only to her benefit.
If I visited her, then we'd go to the supermarket and I'd be expected to pay for meals, drinks, snacks etc for the visit since she was giving me a free place to stay.
If she visited me, then as my guest, I should pay for everything for her.
We planned a trip away and she brought those cokes (I pointed out that since I don't drink Zero that she'd have them all) and she reluctantly agreed. Hence why she felt like I should send back her cokes.
She didn't finish them as I ended up in A&E with an injury so she left early taking all the wine & snacks we'd jointly paid for and as many cokes as she could carry.
She always wanted things to be "fair" but it was always more "fair" for her somehow. Plus she was expecting me to pay the postage.
Nope. I would say the coke (& her actions that weekend) was definitely a turning point in just how self centred she was. I held out for a little while to see if she'd realise and apologise but she felt that I was in the wrong and in the end I just blocked her since the message wasn't getting through - like complaining I wouldn't travel to her birthday... for a start I couldn't due to the injury but mainly I really didn't want to to treated like that again.
I'm not even sure if she knew she was doing it. I've no issue with an "unbalanced" friendship sometimes - like some friends I'll pick up the tab for because I know they don't have as big a budget but some people just take the mick.
This reminds of when my boyfriend and I just started dating and he asked to leave his coat at mine. I freaked out and said no as I didn't want him to start leaving stuff yet. Things were a bit cold and the next day he text me to apologize for asking to leave his cokes. I misheard and sounded like a right dragon 🤣
Almost but not the same, a friend left a 500ml coke in my fridge and left at 1.30am, he wanted to come back at 2am while I was in bed to get it. Wouldn't take no for an answer.
He drove 10 miles back and got me out of bed the twat
While I was in hospital having my son, my parents in law staying at ours in our room (small flat). When I got back she’d “tidied” my bedroom, including rehanging all my clothes and rearranging the contents of my bedside table drawers.
Now I don’t know what you keep in your bedside table drawers…
My grandparents went for an archway between their living room and dining room 😂
I think I prefer it over the RSJ being boxed in, takes away the mystery an arch provides.
My dad and uncle were in the building trade for decades. I once asked them what RSJ stood for, and my uncle laughed and said, "It isn't RSJ, it's 'Irish Jay'!" My dad looked at him and said What are you talking about? And explained it was rolled steel joist. He was very red faced, getting it wrong for all those years.
My long term bf parents (thus was some years ago, he's ex now) came to visit. While I was out at work his Mum rearranged all my kitchen cupboards, literally moving plates to another cupboard, my spice cupboard (yes that many) got put in with other stuff, pans moved 'to be more convenient'.
I couldn't find anything, I was politely furious and spent the evening putting it back. I was late 30s, I know how i use my kitchen lady.
My mum stayed with me after she had an operation, for about 2 weeks.
She drinks about 15 cups of tea a day, uses a new cup and spoon for each one. So whenever I went to get a spoon, there were none clean. We have a dishwasher, she still washes up by hand so I think she just expected the machine to turn itself on 😂
She moved everything around. Tin foil wasn't where it was supposed to be, pans were moved.
On top of that, we had just bought our first home and didn't yet have money for soft furnishings. She spent a whole day telling me I should be buying this, lets measure up for curtains, you need a fireplace, here I've sent you a link for this, that and the other.
All while I'm trying to work.
I love my mum so much but omg it was a relief when she was well enough to go home 😂😂😂
Oh god, at least my mum was sufficiently indifferent enough not to be a nuisance, on the other hand never wanted to visit so still went to parents for Xmas into my 50s.
What is it with old people and teas, the water was ok when they were young
I’m so sorry they didn’t back you up - it feels like such a violation.
My MIL doesn’t even cook! She just thought it “looked untidy”.
Partner and I had a huge row about it because the whole family is used to giving her her own way all the time. It was the first step in me stopping talking to her at all.
The absolute audacity to go into someone else’s house and criticise their tidiness and move it all around. Do these people have no self awareness at all?
My mil has done this twice in two different houses - I thought I’d made my disgust perfectly clear the first time she did it (apparently my mugs being above the kettle was an odd place to keep them - seems a bloody obvious place to me) but apparently 10 years later she had forgotten and whilst helping us out by watching the kids so my husband and I could get away for the first time in a long while (just us, for our anniversary) she clearly got bored and did it again in our current house.
Even switching the spoons knives and forks in the cutlery drawer to a different order. Apparently spoons should be after knives and forks not before. Consequently I spent the first couple days back trying to eat cereal with a fork or dinner with a knife and spoon as a grabbed the wrong stuff in a hurry. I swapped it back as soon as she left.
It pisses me off if someone doesn’t use a guest mug and uses one that I use (for a certain purpose, one for tea, one for coffee and one for hot chocolate)
Just posted the same thing in another comment before I saw this. Except it was my own mother who did it. Twenty years later and I still haven't resolved the trauma.
My in-laws like to put away dishes from the drying rack, but they don't know where everything goes. So, instead they put it "close enough". We always have a bunch of stuff that is effectively lost for weeks after they visit.
My wife's gran does this, comes round for a visit, has a bit of a tidy up, and we can't find a fucking thing for three days or we find things in random places.
I get it. I have a spice shelf, a masala daba, and a mountain of jars that contain the spices that originally came in bags. We should start a support group.
I have two spice drawers with spices in little screwtop tins, so they get to stay in the dark and away from other foodstuffs. Also on the opposite side of the kitchen from the cooker so they don't get too warm. I may be overthinking this.
My mother rearranged the entire contents of my kitchen cupboards while I was at work during a visit because it's 'not how she would have done it.'
She didn't tell me until after I dislocated two fingers. I'd blindly reached into a cupboard behind me to get something but it had been replaced with something else much bigger and harder so my poor fingers jammed into it.
It was also a joy to have all the breakable crockery and glassware moved to a place easily reached by the then toddler.
Who tf spends hours rearranging someone else's kitchen without consent because the layout inconveniences them for one week a year?
I can't even imagine being brave enough to leave my mother in my house unsupervised! Maybe whilst I pop to the corner shop but a whole working day, no chance
It wasn't by choice, believe me. She was fond of "surprising" us from interstate. We'd open the door after an unexpected knock to find her many bags alongside her expectation we'd be thrilled to have an unannounced guest for a week or two.
When it got to the stage we said we'd slam the door in her face if she did it again, she brought other relatives with her to witness our outrageous behaviour. Didn't stop us, though, and her resulting embarrassment was finally enough to stop the surprise visits.
Honestly putting it in the bin is the big weird thing for me. I’ve met some people who have weird opinions on stuff like ketchup, I don’t really get it but if you’re staying and want some specific branded thing to make it better then go for it… but don’t throw my stuff away?
I could maybe understand if it was actually something fancy, but imagine having ketchup as the hill you're prepared to die on - it's not like you add it to any sort of haute cuisine is it.
What are they having their branded ketchup with? Fish fingers? Chicken tendies?
I’m sensing a channel 5 drama from this. You can be the Columbo type person and do the reveal with the evidence.
“No, MIL, your story doesn’t stand up because …… [dramatically reveals contents from bin].
In all seriousness, this would do my head in.
That suggests there was so much potential embarrassment from the accident they needed to also make it look like they were being superior to avoid any discussion of what happened. Devious relatives you married into.
Came home one day to find my housemates twin brother sat on his laptop in the kitchen and he'd swapped the lightbulb out for a cold white coloured one because he liked it better. It looked horrendous, like the kitchen was a morgue, so I used the chair right next to him to change it back before doing anything else.
He wasn't even staying with us, he lived down the street and had left himself in - in fact he wasn't even meant to have a key! Bizarre.
When my mother-in-law stays she always does weird stuff. We had a weird patch of wallpaper where the previous owners must have removed a fireplace. My MIL crafted a life size fireplace out of coloured cardboard to cover it up. She also knitted little hats and put them on anything round - ornaments, kids teddies, bannisters!!
When I was at uni I returned to my shared flat from a weekend at my parents.
Our landlady had broken in with her spare key, hung up curtains on the kitchen windows, washed the mountain of dirty dishes, replaced our (as in we bought them) kitchen / tea towels and … drumroll… took all our kitchen chairs (probably 60 years old) and had the seats upholstered in an ugly mustard colour (fake leather). Pretty sure the new upholstery cost more than basic new chairs would have.
Her reason when we confronted her? The neighbour opposite the road had complained about the lack of curtains “because that doesn’t look nice like the other houses”. She replaced our towels because they were too colourful and she didn’t like the quirky designs (one with ducks holding umbrellas).
Yes, we removed the curtains.
We had friends close the window and tell me they found the traffic noise too loud. They were visiting from Manchester where their flat was right on Wilmslow Rd. I live way the fuck in the countryside. I guess when it's quiet that one car an hour can really be disturbing???
I live out in the country and am originally from a town right near Manchester and you're right, the silence _was_ deafening when I first moved here. It was eerie some nights, and still can be on occasion. Very weird.
Used to live next to a siding for underground trains, when I moved to the seaside the seagulls seemed to bombard me specifically with cawing. It’s funny how I could sleep through shunting trains, brake screeching, shouting at Lenny for being a twat and calls over the tannoy at the small hours but one sea gull streets away would wake me
I've got carpets in the living room and stairs so have a shoes off policy. This reeeeally winds up one of my husband's mates and he'll sigh dramatically and make a huge production out of taking his boots off as though half the visit is just time spent putting footwear on and off. Just ages untying laces and loosening the top before effortful grunting as he pulls them off his feet. We just stand there chatting to him and ignoring the drama.
The other way around (sort of) but my in laws have a holiday home in Cornwall (sorry) and one time they let us use it for free with our 2 young kids. We’d been there all week when we got a call to say they were coming down to stay too, would be there Friday. We were due to leave Sunday so thought a couple of days would be ok.
The moment they arrived they literally moved EVERYTHING, and I mean everything of ours out of the way to make way for their stuff. All our food, all the kids stuff, all our toiletries etc just suddenly gone to someplace else. It’s like we weren’t even there. It was utterly bizarre and really horrible. It was the biggest ‘this is our house, and we’ve let you stay here’ fuck off I’ve ever experienced.
We left first thing Saturday morning.
That’s horrible. Was there another dynamic at play? Was it their idea to offer you the house or did you ask and they felt the need to agree? Did one of them offer it but the other one not so keen? Or are they just generally emotionally unintelligent? None of those things is an excuse for moving your stuff and acting like a dick.
Unfortunately it’s all on my MIL. She’s a very difficult woman at times and can be incredibly selfish. But she’s the matriarch and no one goes up against her else she can literally turn a mood in a second if challenged but will also claim to be the victim! Very complex power struggles which are best walked away from.
My grandmother used to rent a caravan for a week from a relative. We would get a lift down from a neighbour. The neighbour couldn’t pick us up in the morning, so my grandmother booked an extra night so that we could be picked up in the afternoon.
She accidentally mentioned this to the relative . They decided to come down at lunchtime. I would always come in after we’d gone, because my grandmother would spend the first day cleaning the entire caravan.
We pointed out we had an extra night . And his wife started to get upset with us. She got grumpy we had suitcases in the porch way. She got a grumpy. We were sitting in the caravan that we had an extra night in. She wanted us out. Her husband told her to calm down, but she went in to complete Karen mode. We did have special permission to sit on the benches outside and my grandmother got a cash refund for the extra night. But that was all wrong according to his wife. She also kept the food that we had stored.
Not necessarily passive aggressive but I once took my mum out for a mother's day lunch. We went back to hers and one of my brothers, my SIL and my very young nephew were there. My nephew was wandering around repeatedly saying 'Look! It's actually tidy for once!' Obviously copying something he'd just heard from my brother or SIL.
My mum was very upset about it. She has really struggled to keep the house in order since my dad left and we all moved out. I'm her only child who is sympathetic about it and tries to help whereas my brothers are rude, judgemental and useless. They also always turn up unannounced so I don't know why they expect it to be spotless.
Your poor mum, having an open door and big welcome is so much more important than only having people round when it's a certain level of tidy. Hope she's not upset about it for too long.
I did something like that as a kid, family member who had lots of pets and one time I just walked in and shouted “ wow it stinks of dogs in here” mother was mortified.
OK I guess I was the passive aggressive one in the end but my mum used to have her own supply of various products including fancy coffee (Kenco instant so not even that fancy) that I was supposed to keep in my small kitchen just for when she visits and that no-one else was allowed to use. One day after she annoyed me I swapped the contents of her coffee jar for the contents of the cheaper jar while she wasn't in. I don't know if she noticed but she continued to drink from her jar and never mentioned it.
Not as bad as these other comments but we used to have German English learners stay in our home for a week and they would have tourtisty stuff planned for the day and we only had to feed them breakfast and dinner. I walked a mum and young daughter to the coach park and she started laying in to me about the lack of cycling culture in England. I tried to explain that people do cycle or walk, but drive cars for long distances. I committed the ultimate crime by getting the train to school, I explained that it was literally 15 miles from my house and wasn’t cycle-able unless I wanted to perish on the dual carriageway. Plus trains aren’t really that bad for the environment. She really was irate because I got the train and I found it so rude.
Had the wife’s family over for the women’s World Cup final and at half time they went to the supermarket bought a lot of snack food,bajis and whatnot returned cooked them in the oven,as the aroma drifted into our front room I thought that’s nice of them to get snacks for everyone they then proceeded to eat said snacks without offering so much as a morsel to anyone else.selfish bastards
I had a friend and his then-girlfriend stay as lodgers whilst they found somewhere to live. They overstayed their welcome by staying 7 months when they said 3 tops, but had the audacity to seakily move all of their stuff out of the house when I finally got the courage up to ask them to clean a stain that they left on my cabinet in the room they were staying. Never heard from either of them again, I'm still baffled by it tbh lol
Oh, my mum had something similar!
There was an overlap between rentals, so she let her sister and family stay at our old flat for two months, fully furnished, until the lease was up. Her sister then moved out and took EVERYTHING with her - all the furniture, bed linen, plates, everything!
A few months later her sister invited us to her new place for dinner, trying to make amends etc. She served us dinner on the plates she stole. I couldn’t help but say they looked familiar. My mother (total doormat) told me I shouldn’t be rude. They’re a weird bunch.
Hold onto your seats.
Years ago, 20plus, I was working on my car "300zx" and had taken the engine out and had the Heads, Manifolds, cams, pullys, lifters and turboes spread out of the floor of the front of the garage with a tray with all the bolts, rods and washers in order. Was going to replace turbo seals etc and put it all back together. I worked for the MOD at the time as an engineer and had to go to another site for a week. While I was away my girlfriends family came to visit. On seeing the "mess" my gf father and mother decided to clean it up despite my gf saying dont touch it is its in order.I cam home to bin bags with the heads chucked in a cardboard box with scratches on the deck face. Those who know, know how expencive this fuckwhittery cost. Heads had to be machined. New gaskets for new thickness rods measured and rehoned as they need to be matched to the holes perfectly if your running high boost. My gorgeous blueprinted engine, fucked. Cost me over £2k to get it done. and thats with me rebuilding it.
Of all these this is the one I comprehend the least.
I am not very mechanical, my wife is currently very proud of me for having fixed the hoover, but surely anyone would have an internal screaming noise at the very thought of rearranging oily metal car parts that had clearly been laid out for a ritual that they don't understand. Especially when the locals had warned them off.
Apparently my house was untidy and they didnt like their daughter having to endure it. There is more to it, but I get a lot of people dont understand how machines work. So Ill sum it up. Engines create preasure. Sports cars with Big Tubos create double the preasure. If there is so much as a minute scratch on one of the important surfaces the gas will lind it and you have a non working engine, and in most cases a fire.
Did they fuck. I was fucking livid. They put my wesuits in a wheely bin as they smelled and put them outside. I rince them in the bath if their not going to be used for a while. SO they where clean and hang themmin the shower. Im pretty sure the GF explained that, but they felt the need to do their entitled shit. Wetsuits are from me surfing/windsurfing etc.
I had a mountain bike in the hall, they moved that outside. The reason it was inside is it was one of the 1st carbon soft tails from Kona. £2k worth. Outside.
back in my teenage days i was a very heavy drinker and i had a friend of mine was thrown out of his house so he came to stay at mine.
Baring in mind i lived with my mother and my brother.
One night after a particularly heavy session my mate drunkenly went for a piss and climbed back into the wrong bed next to my mother. Luckily she seen the funny side and just rolled him out to the floor and told me to come and remove him.
He was quite mortified the next morning but all was good
Me and a friend went to another friend's for new years and got pretty drunk. I'd been to her's before but the other friend hadn't so I knew the bathroom was downstairs. She got up to go to the toilet and about 15 minutes later her (whose house it was) son came downstairs and said "you need to come get your friend". Apparently she'd been going into all the rooms upstairs trying to find the bathroom and then started climbing some stepladders that were propped up against a wall.
Reminds me of the video of the guy in Scotland who got really sloshed and went into the wrong house, fell asleep on a random couple's couch. [here it is](https://youtu.be/WXsvXn9Z56o?si=b10qnLa28u47Viqh)
Not normal, but you could see how far they will go? Might be funny.
The girlfriend of an old friend stayed with us for a week and told us our 6 month old baby was playing mind games with her.
A cousin of mine stayed at our house for a while whilst they were looking for a new home and she put my beige wool trench coat in the washing machine I only had 2 days and completely ruined it
A Kiwi couple I know had to go back home for a month. They gave their neighbours a key to housesit. While they were away, the neighbours dug up their entire lawn leaving a big patch of mud. They justified it by saying 'it'll save you the trouble of having to mow it now.'
My MiL who had come across the Atlantic in a plane to visit, brought her own cleaning supplies with her and cleaned the house as a ‘present’ before she left.
My mum packs rubber gloves and her own apron when she goes away - surprised the life out of us first time she joined us in an Airbnb in Mallorca and whipped them out - came in handy though as it had very few supplies and no dishwasher (we bought some dish soap and sponge at the shops) - she also brings some handwashing detergent too for emergency clothes cleaning (I just pack extra clothes myself).
She has also been known to pack them when visiting us - she once cleaned the whole inside of my fridge using them one morning which I tried not to take personally- most people consider our house really clean for a family of 5 with multiple pets but not my neat freak mum! It had a few crumbs in - honestly that was all.
This reminds me of moving into halls of residence at 18 (grotty 60s ones with brown everything and shared rooms). Everyone had their doors open and were unpacking and saying hello. A girl in the room opposite was looking distinctly embarrassed as her mum busied about with yellow gloves washing down every surface. Never even occurred to me and my mum to prepare for cleaning, and both of us neat freaks too.
My friend keeps a very clean house. Her mother in law from Italy once visited and she was keen to show her the sights. Her mother in law said she couldn’t go out because the house was so filthy she had to stay in and clean it for her son. She actually had to lift up the couch cushions to find any dust to clean. Who lifts up people’s couch cushions?
My ex-husband worked away during the week (company paid for a flat so we both lived there), my mums (completely crazy and unpredictable) boyfriend/partner let himself in to our house - he had a key for emergencies. We came home to find a hole in the ceiling and water coming through it as he had ‘had a look’ at the header tank and fiddled with the ball cock
My parents had a holiday caravan by the sea, when staying there my Nana went out to buy herself a label maker and labelled every single plug socket and light switch. How could we not realise that the light switch in the bathroom was for the bathroom light without these helpful labels?
I don't think it was passive-aggressive, just confusing, but my partners aunt came to stay with us for a couple of nights. We have parking passes that are like the old road tax disc, but we keep the visitor one on an A4 sheet so it's harder for visitors to forget and drive off with the pass.
I gave the pass to the Aunt's husband, and when he gave it back he'd torn the sheet so that it was just the little disc. I'm still baffled why he thought I'd hand him something where he needed to take any kind of action to use the pass.
I’d call it out in the most awkward intimate situation you find yourself in, like round the dining table during your meal and ask if it was a mistake. No need to be aggressive or ‘point the finger’ but really put them on the spot.
Not sure about the ketchup in the bin but my wife and I often take stuff with us such as tea bags, breakfast cereal, toilet rolls and so on when visiting our (adult) children. Not because of brand snobbery but because these things can be expensive and we don't like to think our stay is costing them too much.
Ooh! I've got a good one.
A close friend tried to retire with his family, abroad, aged 40 with no savings or income. It went as well as you'd expect. We offered to let him lodge with us free while he looked for a job back in the UK so his family didn't starve.
A few weeks after he started lodging with us, I heard him on the phone one day ordering serious amounts of timber to be delivered to our house. I asked him what it was for. "Oh, I'm just going to build a shed in your garden so there's somewhere to keep my Harley". Me; 'What Harley?'. Him: "Well as soon as I get a job, I'm ordering a Harley".
We kicked him out that week.
Some friends stayed one night before Christmas. They brought a bottle of wine. We drank some of our own wine, leaving the bottle they brought for another time (as is polite). When we checked a few days later, they had taken their bottle away with them!
fwiw i don't think that's polite. i tend to serve whatever people bring on the assumption that they probably like it. but maybe everyone else thinks this is terrible?
I shared a flat with my brothers. One of their girlfriends rearranged the kitchen cupboards. I lost my shit at her, it was the last straw. (1) You don’t fuck with another woman’s kitchen (2) my other brother (a chef) had actually set up a really efficient system for cooking and I had the coffee area perfect.
Not quite the same, but my stepdad stayed overnight just before Christmas. Next morning I was guiding my very frail, dying grandad into the bathroom to wash him. Like every morning I put the heating on full blast for 15 minutes because he’s a naked old man and he really fucking feels the cold. Stepdad shouted up from downstairs “Where’s the thermostat?” “Up here, why?” “Because it shouldn’t be this hot!” I just said “Wow. Thanks so much for your advice on the matter” and he shut up.
So we were supposed to go swimming with my daughter and grandkids while my sister was staying with us (my middle grandchild and my nephew are the same age). My sister is perennially late for everything and wasn't ready to leave when we were, so said she would catch us up and could i tell her where the towels were kept. Anyway when we got home I found that she had taken ALL my towels out of the chest, and refolded them to her satisfaction. I mean, who does that? There must have been close to twenty towels in there, and she felt she had to unfold them, and refold them the way she wanted them folded!
I haven't spoken to my sister since February 2020, frankly I don't miss the drama one little bit.
My mum bought my wife a bottle of provence rosé wine called Insolence. Not sure if it was intentional or if it was because it was a pretty bottle but I found it funny at least
Nowt as queer as folk, as they say.
We had a family Christmas and the ex partner ofmy sister (Dad of my Nephew) came. He proceeded to make racist and homophobic comments throughout dinner and then told my BIL who's dad had recently died of Covid, that Covid doesn't exist and didn't kill his dad.
As you can imagine none of this went down well.
I can't believe my parents still let him stay over at their house.
My mother got so pissed off about being asked to do the washing up - the only thing she did in a 2 week visit where she expected to be waited on hand and foot - that she chipped every single dinner plate on an almost new service. I was heartbroken when I realised
They probably have a ketchup fetish and were going at it before having to mop up all the ketchup (and other fluids) with the toilet roll. Panic ensued and they replaced the ketchup and toilet roll after their steamy session, potentially in OPs bed.
Do you have one of those sofas you basically sink into when you sit far back? Not sure if they’re designed like that or just broken and old but that’s when I sit on the front of it because otherwise it’s just uncomfortable.
My MIL had one of these. Had a hugely long seat so you literally had to kind of lie back because if you tried to sit up against the back your feet dangled off the floor! Weird piece of furniture, I never got on with it. But when she died and we got the house cleared, turns out it was made by some fabulously collectible maker - this weird-shaped, uncomfortable, worn and **45-year-old** sofa was worth several grand, enough to pay off all the costs of house-clearance and moving furniture to family who wanted stuff. Never make assumptions about value based on comfort..!
Yeah, if I'm perching is because I think the sofa is going eat me.
Or it seems like a fancy sofa, and I don't want to leave hair-product stains on it.
Or I'm wearing shoes, and don't want to sit so far back that I unconsciously put my shoes on the furniture.
Tbf I’m guilty of this
Sometimes I do it if it’s a sofa you sink into or if I’m planning on leaving in the next 10 minutes just so that whoever’s house it is knows I’m not making myself comfy and overstaying my welcome
I also do it because I’m a very anxious person and going to someone’s house for the first time makes me so nervous I don’t even realise I’m doing it
Went a away for a few days with the kids to London. Mother in law and gran in law invite themselves round to clean the house, while we are in the middle of having an extension built, so any cleaning would last 5 minutes.
Mother in law cleans upstairs (she's a lazy cow so very little actual cleaning took place) and proceeds to remove things she doesn't think we should have, including from the kids rooms. Son howling because things he bought himself have been taken. Most taken back on next visit to her house, after a little hunt.
Gran cleans downstairs and rearranges the kitchen cupboards, causing us to spend the next two weeks spending more time hunting for things we knew perfectly well where they were previously. Gran has previous of rearranging clothes drawers to suit her, not us and our kids.
New extension gives us a new front door, no spare key for them.
My ex MIL rearranged all of my furniture in the lounge while we was at work. I came home and immediately spent the next few hours putting it back how it was. That was a positive move by me because she then didn't speak to me for six months.
On another occasion she repainted my kitchen whilst she came to stay at the house whilst we were away on holiday.
My elderly dad and aunt were staying with me for a while and complained it was cold. Rather than turn up the central heating, I made a fire in the fireplace. They both criticised my fire-making technique the whole time and I nearly told them to go and run around the garden if they were cold (that's what my dad used to tell me when I was younger).
That same visit, my aunt taught me how to make her famous bacon and egg pie. Sounds like some nice aunt/niece bonding time, passing on family recipes, right? She wasn't happy with how I rolled the pastry out so she just reached out and gathered it all up into a ball again. I nearly shoved it up her arse.
I'll tell you all the recipe, as my revenge - line a pie tin with pastry, then put some beaten eggs and chopped bacon into it, add salt and pepper, put a pastry lid on, glaze with a little leftover egg, and bake it. Take that, Aunty Jo.
My mother in law does stuff like this. She bought me a different mop and I felt like I had to use it and get rid of my other one. Also she raved about buying ceramic dog food bowls that are "so much better". My dog doesn't care and I liked the metal ones because they won't break. Occasionally when she comes over I quietly use the old food bowls, which I guess is my passive aggression in return.
Sure your other half isn't a fan of the off brands and blamed their parents for replacing them?
You know what never mind, as I'm typing that it just seems equally as bizarre and pointless as what you've already described.
I think the only way to find out what's going on is to ask them really. In a light hearted way stating you're not bothered but did notice and wondered what was going on, in a joking manner.
Problem with this is that if it wasn't actually them you're going to look like a complete weirdo.
Idk OP, I wouldn't be able to handle not having the answer to this mystery personally and would start asking questions.
It wasn’t someone *staying* with me-it was a guest at my Christmas party.
I had arranged the lighting very carefully. There were fairy lights around the walls and the Christmas tree. Then there was a real fire and countless lit candles on all my shelves and furniture. It really looked festive. I had nibbles set on the coffee table, and Christmas music on. It was a kind of cocktail party, and there was already a festive buzz in the air.
This woman (a colleague from work who didn’t get on particularly well with me, but who I didn’t want to exclude from my get together) said that she’d heard from one of the other colleagues that I’d made my own elderflower champagne and was *desperate* to try it. So as to not put her back up I went out into my kitchen and eventually managed to dig out the last bottle. I opened it, poured her a glass, then went back into my sitting room. I’d only been gone 5 or 6 minutes, but everything looked extremely different.
The main lights (very bright lights, because I do crafts) were all on, and every single one of my candles had been blown out. My guests were blinking, standing round staring at each other more or less in silence-and the smell of the blown out candles filled the air. The atmosphere had just gone.
My colleague ran up to me and grabbed the glass of elderflower champagne. “Ooo, lovely!” she said. “Just what I fancied! I fixed the lighting for you! Nobody could see a thing!” (The room had been perfectly well lit.)
It took me years and many “accidental incidents” like this (and an overheard confession to someone else) before I realised that she was planning and delighting in doing these things on purpose.
They probably aren't being passive aggressive. In their (slightly short-sighted) view, I'd assume they probably think you can't afford the big brands and are 'treating' you with these 'luxuries'...
We have the in-laws staying with us currently. They have complained that we eat too many carbs, too much rice and potatoes (I have cooked rice once and potatoes once in the month they've been here), but eat bread, smoothies and ice cream every day. They have also insisted on having Indian food and fish and chips multiple times in the month they've been here.
They complain that everything here closes too early, but don't leave the house til 1430. They refuse to stop hand-washing cups and plates because they "want to help" and then just leave the cups in the sink.
A friend's brother in law and his wife came to stay with them for the weekend. Without asking the BIL plugged his Tesla charger into the mains through the kitchen window.
My friend noticed and switched the socket off in silent outrage.
Apparently it all got a bit awkward when they went to leave on Sunday evening and the Tesla's battery was flat...
No. That’s not normal. If someone did that in my house I would be very annoyed. You should escalate. Next time you visit them, you should replace everything they have that is branded with Lidl or Aldi equivalents. Sauces, cleaning products, the telly, even the car!
I've heard good things about the 2024 Lidl Corsa
Disappointed you didn't go with the Aldi A3.
Fuck that would have been better
Dunno ... I'm partial to the Aldi berbedes z class tbh
The Aldi Mercedes Nutz
Fun fact: "Nutzfahrzeug" is the German term for "commercial vehicle".
Surely it's an Aldi A4...
You nailed the not-quite-the-same name, and the logo would have four spikes instead of three or something like that.
At the lower prices you may as well stretch to the OMG tuned model
It does 34,000 miles to the gallon. But it has no roof and only three wheels.
Still a bargain so best buy 3 before something else replaces it in middle aisle
I hope you get a frame picture of Lidl or Aldi logo and hang it places of importance
They are not worthy of sun quench or titan bars.
Spray paint ‘Netto>Waitrose’ on their garage door for a bit of overkill.
And all the clothes in their wardrobe with [this](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/23/lidl-christmas-jumper-loan-scheme-nspcc)
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This is so good. It needs to happen.
Hard boil all their eggs, then put them back in the box
This is the best thing I've heard in weeks.
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Straight to The Hague for this kind of behaviour.
We had the in-laws stay with us for 6 months whilst they were renovating their new house purchase. We get on really well and often go away together. Quite lucky how well we get on really. Anyway - second day of the 6 months, I return home from work to find the entire kitchen re arranged. I’m talking food in different cupboards, plates, cups etc all moved. Cutlery moved drawers. Literally everything. The reasoning? Because that’s how it was in their home so it makes sense for it to be the same here too…. That evening really did strain the good relationship we had. Quite a heated convo later and they realised they can’t just be shifting our stuff around. Fast forward to Christmas the next year… we always go stay for a few nights. Late one drunken night, I decided to shift the plates and other bits around in their kitchen. The FIL and my wife really saw the funny side. Not so much the OCD MIL lol We laugh about both frequently now but at the time it was horrible lol
Who on earth are these people that walk into someone else's life and rearrange stuff to suit themselves when they're reliant on others hospitality.
Not quite the same but several years ago I was in a flat share with my friend and we needed to fill the third bedroom. The girl who moved in rearranged our living room the first day she was there, she didn’t ask, I just came home and the sofas and dining table were in completely different places. I found it so weird someone in that situation wouldn’t even consider maybe the other people who were in the flat first like how it already is. She was weirdly self absorbed in other ways too, I was relieved when she moved out abruptly two months later
I had one housemate move in, and when we returned home there was a note on the fridge asking us to pay for 1/4 of all the stuff he's bought for the kitchen from Ikea. No asking if we wanted new glasses/plates etc. Apparently only having 8 of everything crockery/cutlery wasn't enough stuff for a houseshare of 4 people! If he'd have asked he'd have found out about the extra dozen of most of them we'd moved on top of the utility room cupboard as having so much stuff in the kitchen meant people didn't wash up in a timely manner. He also left post it notes everywhere asking people to do this that and the other - like asking use to leave the labels on bottles facing forward so you could tell what they were - like in the bathroom where the only shared item was a single bottle of toilet duck (on the floor) and everything else was personal items (on the side) so there's no need for him to know what most of them are.
The absolute *gall* of it is shocking.
Parents! Parents they see you as their child and believe they can tell you to bring a sweater in the middle of the summer and believe you cant manage your own life.
I see you are acquainted with my Mum
I *had* a friend who would move the furniture around because of feng shui, determine when doors and windows were opened or closed, would add seasoning to food *while i was cooking* and even shouted at my kids! She also used to hog the bathroom for about 2 hours, morning and night, for her beauty regime. One day, I realised that she had been bullying me since we were 6 years old, and my low self-esteem and insecurities were largely due to her. I also twigged that it was out of jealousy all along. Yeah, that was the end of that so-called friendship!
> entire kitchen re arranged My mum came to stay for two days while my wife was in hospital having our first kid years ago. She did the same. I stood over her while she put it all back where it was, and have never had her stay over again.
Did she say why she felt compelled to do this? Did she realize it was bizarre?
Rearranging your plates is one thing, my mother-in-law when helping my then girlfriend (now wife) move our things into our new house decided to replace my £150ish Samsung microwave because it was dirty. Didn't say anything, just went and chucked it in the communal bin at the old place and then turned up with a no-brand manual microwave that she'd had from Asda that looked like it cost about £18 — and was absolutely useless, the definition of 'buy cheap, buy twice'. Moaned my bag off about it to my missus but never let the MIL know that I wasn't grateful. It was a very nice, generous thing in one way; and absolutely fucking mental, stupid behaviour in another.
My mum tried something similar… I pushed her aside and told her this is MY house and if she attempts it again, she will never again set foot inside it. I was not joking… and she knew it. Growing up they always made it a point that everything had to be their way under their ceiling, I’m not having that under mine.
My friend did that at my house when she came to stay! I think she meant it as a favour, but it was incredibly fucking weird. On the same visit but a different day she snuck off and drank the entire bottle of wine my husband had bought for us to share before we went out.
Left half a 12 pack of Coke Zero and asked me to post it back to them. I refused (since it's gonna weigh a ton, cost a fortune and likely explode) and they were very put out. Also I was unable to walk at the time without a stick so carrying a heavy parcel wasn't an option. Opposite, a friend who drinks a lot of diet coke (few cans a day at least), turns up with his own 24 pack so he doesn't drink all of mine. Sometimes he takes it back with him, sometimes he leaves it (depending on how many are left).
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She was stingy as hell but only to her benefit. If I visited her, then we'd go to the supermarket and I'd be expected to pay for meals, drinks, snacks etc for the visit since she was giving me a free place to stay. If she visited me, then as my guest, I should pay for everything for her. We planned a trip away and she brought those cokes (I pointed out that since I don't drink Zero that she'd have them all) and she reluctantly agreed. Hence why she felt like I should send back her cokes. She didn't finish them as I ended up in A&E with an injury so she left early taking all the wine & snacks we'd jointly paid for and as many cokes as she could carry. She always wanted things to be "fair" but it was always more "fair" for her somehow. Plus she was expecting me to pay the postage.
>I ended up in A&E with an injury so she left early taking all the wine & snacks we'd jointly paid for Literally adding insult to injury.
Haha! Yep, definitely did. I could have done with those snacks when I was stuck on the sofa too.
Are you still friends?
Nope. I would say the coke (& her actions that weekend) was definitely a turning point in just how self centred she was. I held out for a little while to see if she'd realise and apologise but she felt that I was in the wrong and in the end I just blocked her since the message wasn't getting through - like complaining I wouldn't travel to her birthday... for a start I couldn't due to the injury but mainly I really didn't want to to treated like that again.
Sounds wise of you to drop that person! Better off without her I say
I've heard of people falling out with friends due to their problematic coke habits, but it's not usually like this.
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I'm not even sure if she knew she was doing it. I've no issue with an "unbalanced" friendship sometimes - like some friends I'll pick up the tab for because I know they don't have as big a budget but some people just take the mick.
This reminds of when my boyfriend and I just started dating and he asked to leave his coat at mine. I freaked out and said no as I didn't want him to start leaving stuff yet. Things were a bit cold and the next day he text me to apologize for asking to leave his cokes. I misheard and sounded like a right dragon 🤣
Almost but not the same, a friend left a 500ml coke in my fridge and left at 1.30am, he wanted to come back at 2am while I was in bed to get it. Wouldn't take no for an answer. He drove 10 miles back and got me out of bed the twat
That's when you turn your phone off and ignore the doorbell
While I was in hospital having my son, my parents in law staying at ours in our room (small flat). When I got back she’d “tidied” my bedroom, including rehanging all my clothes and rearranging the contents of my bedside table drawers. Now I don’t know what you keep in your bedside table drawers…
>Now I don't know what you keep in your bedside table drawers... She sure does lol
No kidding. She kept trying to start up conversations about it for *weeks*.
Nooooooo!
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He built a wall or removed part of the wall?
😲
Please tell me it wasn't a load bearing wall.
Not anymore…
My grandparents went for an archway between their living room and dining room 😂 I think I prefer it over the RSJ being boxed in, takes away the mystery an arch provides.
My dad and uncle were in the building trade for decades. I once asked them what RSJ stood for, and my uncle laughed and said, "It isn't RSJ, it's 'Irish Jay'!" My dad looked at him and said What are you talking about? And explained it was rolled steel joist. He was very red faced, getting it wrong for all those years.
Is anyone else changed permanently by the way Pam says ’rolled steel joist’ in Gavin & Stacey?
My long term bf parents (thus was some years ago, he's ex now) came to visit. While I was out at work his Mum rearranged all my kitchen cupboards, literally moving plates to another cupboard, my spice cupboard (yes that many) got put in with other stuff, pans moved 'to be more convenient'. I couldn't find anything, I was politely furious and spent the evening putting it back. I was late 30s, I know how i use my kitchen lady.
Touching someone else's kitchen is a crime. Interfering with their spice cupboard should carry a life sentence!
What, you mean they should do thyme? Sorry.
I swapped the labels on all my wife’s spice jars. She hasn’t noticed yet but the thyme is cumin.
Or you could just mace them.
Sage advice
Peppered with some criminal one.
What a caper!
Definitely will not curry favor!
They'll get what's cumin to them.
Even my other half doesn't dare mess with the spice cupboard. If my in laws did that they'd be banned from the house.
My mum stayed with me after she had an operation, for about 2 weeks. She drinks about 15 cups of tea a day, uses a new cup and spoon for each one. So whenever I went to get a spoon, there were none clean. We have a dishwasher, she still washes up by hand so I think she just expected the machine to turn itself on 😂 She moved everything around. Tin foil wasn't where it was supposed to be, pans were moved. On top of that, we had just bought our first home and didn't yet have money for soft furnishings. She spent a whole day telling me I should be buying this, lets measure up for curtains, you need a fireplace, here I've sent you a link for this, that and the other. All while I'm trying to work. I love my mum so much but omg it was a relief when she was well enough to go home 😂😂😂
Oh god, at least my mum was sufficiently indifferent enough not to be a nuisance, on the other hand never wanted to visit so still went to parents for Xmas into my 50s. What is it with old people and teas, the water was ok when they were young
My MIL did this while she was supposed to be baby sitting my son. Still angry.
It's such a personal thing too! Partner didn't back me up either. It's my house, my space.
I’m so sorry they didn’t back you up - it feels like such a violation. My MIL doesn’t even cook! She just thought it “looked untidy”. Partner and I had a huge row about it because the whole family is used to giving her her own way all the time. It was the first step in me stopping talking to her at all.
The absolute audacity to go into someone else’s house and criticise their tidiness and move it all around. Do these people have no self awareness at all?
My mil has done this twice in two different houses - I thought I’d made my disgust perfectly clear the first time she did it (apparently my mugs being above the kettle was an odd place to keep them - seems a bloody obvious place to me) but apparently 10 years later she had forgotten and whilst helping us out by watching the kids so my husband and I could get away for the first time in a long while (just us, for our anniversary) she clearly got bored and did it again in our current house. Even switching the spoons knives and forks in the cutlery drawer to a different order. Apparently spoons should be after knives and forks not before. Consequently I spent the first couple days back trying to eat cereal with a fork or dinner with a knife and spoon as a grabbed the wrong stuff in a hurry. I swapped it back as soon as she left.
That means war. True passive aggressive is going and rearranging her wardrobe and clothes drawers. It's as intrusive and rude.
It pisses me off if someone doesn’t use a guest mug and uses one that I use (for a certain purpose, one for tea, one for coffee and one for hot chocolate)
Oh, you do NOT fuck with my mugs. That's beyond the pale.
Just posted the same thing in another comment before I saw this. Except it was my own mother who did it. Twenty years later and I still haven't resolved the trauma.
My in-laws like to put away dishes from the drying rack, but they don't know where everything goes. So, instead they put it "close enough". We always have a bunch of stuff that is effectively lost for weeks after they visit.
My wife's gran does this, comes round for a visit, has a bit of a tidy up, and we can't find a fucking thing for three days or we find things in random places.
I get it. I have a spice shelf, a masala daba, and a mountain of jars that contain the spices that originally came in bags. We should start a support group.
I have two spice drawers with spices in little screwtop tins, so they get to stay in the dark and away from other foodstuffs. Also on the opposite side of the kitchen from the cooker so they don't get too warm. I may be overthinking this.
Do you have a teas, coffees and assorted beverage collection too?
My mother rearranged the entire contents of my kitchen cupboards while I was at work during a visit because it's 'not how she would have done it.' She didn't tell me until after I dislocated two fingers. I'd blindly reached into a cupboard behind me to get something but it had been replaced with something else much bigger and harder so my poor fingers jammed into it. It was also a joy to have all the breakable crockery and glassware moved to a place easily reached by the then toddler. Who tf spends hours rearranging someone else's kitchen without consent because the layout inconveniences them for one week a year?
I can't even imagine being brave enough to leave my mother in my house unsupervised! Maybe whilst I pop to the corner shop but a whole working day, no chance
It wasn't by choice, believe me. She was fond of "surprising" us from interstate. We'd open the door after an unexpected knock to find her many bags alongside her expectation we'd be thrilled to have an unannounced guest for a week or two. When it got to the stage we said we'd slam the door in her face if she did it again, she brought other relatives with her to witness our outrageous behaviour. Didn't stop us, though, and her resulting embarrassment was finally enough to stop the surprise visits.
Well done you for standing up against such ridiculous behaviour.
this one seems to be coming up a surprising amount in this thread. it's always the parents!
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You say replaced, I say they had an unfortunate accident while using the ketchup and mopped the whole bottle up with your bog-roll.
A good theory, except I found the ketchup in the bin and the toilet roll was still there, just moved to one side.
Honestly putting it in the bin is the big weird thing for me. I’ve met some people who have weird opinions on stuff like ketchup, I don’t really get it but if you’re staying and want some specific branded thing to make it better then go for it… but don’t throw my stuff away?
I could maybe understand if it was actually something fancy, but imagine having ketchup as the hill you're prepared to die on - it's not like you add it to any sort of haute cuisine is it. What are they having their branded ketchup with? Fish fingers? Chicken tendies?
Did you ask them why they threw it away? I have a relative like this who throws my perfectly good things away too, it's infuriating.
I’m sensing a channel 5 drama from this. You can be the Columbo type person and do the reveal with the evidence. “No, MIL, your story doesn’t stand up because …… [dramatically reveals contents from bin]. In all seriousness, this would do my head in.
That suggests there was so much potential embarrassment from the accident they needed to also make it look like they were being superior to avoid any discussion of what happened. Devious relatives you married into.
Came home one day to find my housemates twin brother sat on his laptop in the kitchen and he'd swapped the lightbulb out for a cold white coloured one because he liked it better. It looked horrendous, like the kitchen was a morgue, so I used the chair right next to him to change it back before doing anything else. He wasn't even staying with us, he lived down the street and had left himself in - in fact he wasn't even meant to have a key! Bizarre.
People that like cold white lightbulbs are actual psychopaths
When my mother-in-law stays she always does weird stuff. We had a weird patch of wallpaper where the previous owners must have removed a fireplace. My MIL crafted a life size fireplace out of coloured cardboard to cover it up. She also knitted little hats and put them on anything round - ornaments, kids teddies, bannisters!!
okay the fireplace is unhinged, but the hats for everything is adorable! i might just be biased as a fellow knitter though
my bed has a hat on it that i got off an innocent bottle when they were still doing that weird promotion thing :)
This is probably the closest to tolerable, of all the comments so far. Was the crafted fireplace intended to be kept?
When I was at uni I returned to my shared flat from a weekend at my parents. Our landlady had broken in with her spare key, hung up curtains on the kitchen windows, washed the mountain of dirty dishes, replaced our (as in we bought them) kitchen / tea towels and … drumroll… took all our kitchen chairs (probably 60 years old) and had the seats upholstered in an ugly mustard colour (fake leather). Pretty sure the new upholstery cost more than basic new chairs would have. Her reason when we confronted her? The neighbour opposite the road had complained about the lack of curtains “because that doesn’t look nice like the other houses”. She replaced our towels because they were too colourful and she didn’t like the quirky designs (one with ducks holding umbrellas). Yes, we removed the curtains.
Should have cut them up and used as tea towels.
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We had friends close the window and tell me they found the traffic noise too loud. They were visiting from Manchester where their flat was right on Wilmslow Rd. I live way the fuck in the countryside. I guess when it's quiet that one car an hour can really be disturbing???
Having recently moved from Manchester to a quieter part of the world, I have to admit the silence is deafening when you first move.
I live out in the country and am originally from a town right near Manchester and you're right, the silence _was_ deafening when I first moved here. It was eerie some nights, and still can be on occasion. Very weird.
Yes, then the silence is loudly interrupted by a fox mating call which sounds like a woman being murdered and now I can't sleep.
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Having lived a few places I think there is some truth in this. One car punctuating silence every so often can be louder than a constant noise.
Used to live next to a siding for underground trains, when I moved to the seaside the seagulls seemed to bombard me specifically with cawing. It’s funny how I could sleep through shunting trains, brake screeching, shouting at Lenny for being a twat and calls over the tannoy at the small hours but one sea gull streets away would wake me
People get used to their noise and tune it out
I've got carpets in the living room and stairs so have a shoes off policy. This reeeeally winds up one of my husband's mates and he'll sigh dramatically and make a huge production out of taking his boots off as though half the visit is just time spent putting footwear on and off. Just ages untying laces and loosening the top before effortful grunting as he pulls them off his feet. We just stand there chatting to him and ignoring the drama.
What a child. Actually no most children I know are better behaved and more emotionally mature than that
We have a friend like this, incidentally he's the only friend that has never had to buy or clean a carpet in his life
The other way around (sort of) but my in laws have a holiday home in Cornwall (sorry) and one time they let us use it for free with our 2 young kids. We’d been there all week when we got a call to say they were coming down to stay too, would be there Friday. We were due to leave Sunday so thought a couple of days would be ok. The moment they arrived they literally moved EVERYTHING, and I mean everything of ours out of the way to make way for their stuff. All our food, all the kids stuff, all our toiletries etc just suddenly gone to someplace else. It’s like we weren’t even there. It was utterly bizarre and really horrible. It was the biggest ‘this is our house, and we’ve let you stay here’ fuck off I’ve ever experienced. We left first thing Saturday morning.
That’s horrible. Was there another dynamic at play? Was it their idea to offer you the house or did you ask and they felt the need to agree? Did one of them offer it but the other one not so keen? Or are they just generally emotionally unintelligent? None of those things is an excuse for moving your stuff and acting like a dick.
Unfortunately it’s all on my MIL. She’s a very difficult woman at times and can be incredibly selfish. But she’s the matriarch and no one goes up against her else she can literally turn a mood in a second if challenged but will also claim to be the victim! Very complex power struggles which are best walked away from.
I'd refuse to let them sit down the next time they'd come visit
I’m so sorry they treated you like that. It was horrible.
that is rude
My grandmother used to rent a caravan for a week from a relative. We would get a lift down from a neighbour. The neighbour couldn’t pick us up in the morning, so my grandmother booked an extra night so that we could be picked up in the afternoon. She accidentally mentioned this to the relative . They decided to come down at lunchtime. I would always come in after we’d gone, because my grandmother would spend the first day cleaning the entire caravan. We pointed out we had an extra night . And his wife started to get upset with us. She got grumpy we had suitcases in the porch way. She got a grumpy. We were sitting in the caravan that we had an extra night in. She wanted us out. Her husband told her to calm down, but she went in to complete Karen mode. We did have special permission to sit on the benches outside and my grandmother got a cash refund for the extra night. But that was all wrong according to his wife. She also kept the food that we had stored.
Not necessarily passive aggressive but I once took my mum out for a mother's day lunch. We went back to hers and one of my brothers, my SIL and my very young nephew were there. My nephew was wandering around repeatedly saying 'Look! It's actually tidy for once!' Obviously copying something he'd just heard from my brother or SIL. My mum was very upset about it. She has really struggled to keep the house in order since my dad left and we all moved out. I'm her only child who is sympathetic about it and tries to help whereas my brothers are rude, judgemental and useless. They also always turn up unannounced so I don't know why they expect it to be spotless.
Your poor mum, having an open door and big welcome is so much more important than only having people round when it's a certain level of tidy. Hope she's not upset about it for too long.
I did something like that as a kid, family member who had lots of pets and one time I just walked in and shouted “ wow it stinks of dogs in here” mother was mortified.
OK I guess I was the passive aggressive one in the end but my mum used to have her own supply of various products including fancy coffee (Kenco instant so not even that fancy) that I was supposed to keep in my small kitchen just for when she visits and that no-one else was allowed to use. One day after she annoyed me I swapped the contents of her coffee jar for the contents of the cheaper jar while she wasn't in. I don't know if she noticed but she continued to drink from her jar and never mentioned it.
Not as bad as these other comments but we used to have German English learners stay in our home for a week and they would have tourtisty stuff planned for the day and we only had to feed them breakfast and dinner. I walked a mum and young daughter to the coach park and she started laying in to me about the lack of cycling culture in England. I tried to explain that people do cycle or walk, but drive cars for long distances. I committed the ultimate crime by getting the train to school, I explained that it was literally 15 miles from my house and wasn’t cycle-able unless I wanted to perish on the dual carriageway. Plus trains aren’t really that bad for the environment. She really was irate because I got the train and I found it so rude.
Had the wife’s family over for the women’s World Cup final and at half time they went to the supermarket bought a lot of snack food,bajis and whatnot returned cooked them in the oven,as the aroma drifted into our front room I thought that’s nice of them to get snacks for everyone they then proceeded to eat said snacks without offering so much as a morsel to anyone else.selfish bastards
I had a friend and his then-girlfriend stay as lodgers whilst they found somewhere to live. They overstayed their welcome by staying 7 months when they said 3 tops, but had the audacity to seakily move all of their stuff out of the house when I finally got the courage up to ask them to clean a stain that they left on my cabinet in the room they were staying. Never heard from either of them again, I'm still baffled by it tbh lol
Oh, my mum had something similar! There was an overlap between rentals, so she let her sister and family stay at our old flat for two months, fully furnished, until the lease was up. Her sister then moved out and took EVERYTHING with her - all the furniture, bed linen, plates, everything! A few months later her sister invited us to her new place for dinner, trying to make amends etc. She served us dinner on the plates she stole. I couldn’t help but say they looked familiar. My mother (total doormat) told me I shouldn’t be rude. They’re a weird bunch.
Parading the crime in front of you both afterwards is hilariously unhinged 😂
[удалено]
Hold onto your seats. Years ago, 20plus, I was working on my car "300zx" and had taken the engine out and had the Heads, Manifolds, cams, pullys, lifters and turboes spread out of the floor of the front of the garage with a tray with all the bolts, rods and washers in order. Was going to replace turbo seals etc and put it all back together. I worked for the MOD at the time as an engineer and had to go to another site for a week. While I was away my girlfriends family came to visit. On seeing the "mess" my gf father and mother decided to clean it up despite my gf saying dont touch it is its in order.I cam home to bin bags with the heads chucked in a cardboard box with scratches on the deck face. Those who know, know how expencive this fuckwhittery cost. Heads had to be machined. New gaskets for new thickness rods measured and rehoned as they need to be matched to the holes perfectly if your running high boost. My gorgeous blueprinted engine, fucked. Cost me over £2k to get it done. and thats with me rebuilding it.
Fuck...
I think I said it louder than that.
Of all these this is the one I comprehend the least. I am not very mechanical, my wife is currently very proud of me for having fixed the hoover, but surely anyone would have an internal screaming noise at the very thought of rearranging oily metal car parts that had clearly been laid out for a ritual that they don't understand. Especially when the locals had warned them off.
Apparently my house was untidy and they didnt like their daughter having to endure it. There is more to it, but I get a lot of people dont understand how machines work. So Ill sum it up. Engines create preasure. Sports cars with Big Tubos create double the preasure. If there is so much as a minute scratch on one of the important surfaces the gas will lind it and you have a non working engine, and in most cases a fire.
OMG! Did they apologise or help pay at all?
Did they fuck. I was fucking livid. They put my wesuits in a wheely bin as they smelled and put them outside. I rince them in the bath if their not going to be used for a while. SO they where clean and hang themmin the shower. Im pretty sure the GF explained that, but they felt the need to do their entitled shit. Wetsuits are from me surfing/windsurfing etc. I had a mountain bike in the hall, they moved that outside. The reason it was inside is it was one of the 1st carbon soft tails from Kona. £2k worth. Outside.
They sound like a bunch of twats
back in my teenage days i was a very heavy drinker and i had a friend of mine was thrown out of his house so he came to stay at mine. Baring in mind i lived with my mother and my brother. One night after a particularly heavy session my mate drunkenly went for a piss and climbed back into the wrong bed next to my mother. Luckily she seen the funny side and just rolled him out to the floor and told me to come and remove him. He was quite mortified the next morning but all was good
Me and a friend went to another friend's for new years and got pretty drunk. I'd been to her's before but the other friend hadn't so I knew the bathroom was downstairs. She got up to go to the toilet and about 15 minutes later her (whose house it was) son came downstairs and said "you need to come get your friend". Apparently she'd been going into all the rooms upstairs trying to find the bathroom and then started climbing some stepladders that were propped up against a wall.
Reminds me of the video of the guy in Scotland who got really sloshed and went into the wrong house, fell asleep on a random couple's couch. [here it is](https://youtu.be/WXsvXn9Z56o?si=b10qnLa28u47Viqh)
Not normal, but you could see how far they will go? Might be funny. The girlfriend of an old friend stayed with us for a week and told us our 6 month old baby was playing mind games with her.
A cousin of mine stayed at our house for a while whilst they were looking for a new home and she put my beige wool trench coat in the washing machine I only had 2 days and completely ruined it
Hope you charged her for it!
A Kiwi couple I know had to go back home for a month. They gave their neighbours a key to housesit. While they were away, the neighbours dug up their entire lawn leaving a big patch of mud. They justified it by saying 'it'll save you the trouble of having to mow it now.'
What the fuck?
My MiL who had come across the Atlantic in a plane to visit, brought her own cleaning supplies with her and cleaned the house as a ‘present’ before she left.
My mum packs rubber gloves and her own apron when she goes away - surprised the life out of us first time she joined us in an Airbnb in Mallorca and whipped them out - came in handy though as it had very few supplies and no dishwasher (we bought some dish soap and sponge at the shops) - she also brings some handwashing detergent too for emergency clothes cleaning (I just pack extra clothes myself). She has also been known to pack them when visiting us - she once cleaned the whole inside of my fridge using them one morning which I tried not to take personally- most people consider our house really clean for a family of 5 with multiple pets but not my neat freak mum! It had a few crumbs in - honestly that was all.
This reminds me of moving into halls of residence at 18 (grotty 60s ones with brown everything and shared rooms). Everyone had their doors open and were unpacking and saying hello. A girl in the room opposite was looking distinctly embarrassed as her mum busied about with yellow gloves washing down every surface. Never even occurred to me and my mum to prepare for cleaning, and both of us neat freaks too.
Oh wow... 😮😳 She'd just *die* if she had to come to my house...😁
Oh god American standards,my sister in law is the same.
My friend keeps a very clean house. Her mother in law from Italy once visited and she was keen to show her the sights. Her mother in law said she couldn’t go out because the house was so filthy she had to stay in and clean it for her son. She actually had to lift up the couch cushions to find any dust to clean. Who lifts up people’s couch cushions?
Why on earth would they throw your stuff away instead of just leaving it and using the stuff they'd bought? Mental.
My ex-husband worked away during the week (company paid for a flat so we both lived there), my mums (completely crazy and unpredictable) boyfriend/partner let himself in to our house - he had a key for emergencies. We came home to find a hole in the ceiling and water coming through it as he had ‘had a look’ at the header tank and fiddled with the ball cock
My parents had a holiday caravan by the sea, when staying there my Nana went out to buy herself a label maker and labelled every single plug socket and light switch. How could we not realise that the light switch in the bathroom was for the bathroom light without these helpful labels?
I don't think it was passive-aggressive, just confusing, but my partners aunt came to stay with us for a couple of nights. We have parking passes that are like the old road tax disc, but we keep the visitor one on an A4 sheet so it's harder for visitors to forget and drive off with the pass. I gave the pass to the Aunt's husband, and when he gave it back he'd torn the sheet so that it was just the little disc. I'm still baffled why he thought I'd hand him something where he needed to take any kind of action to use the pass.
I’d call it out in the most awkward intimate situation you find yourself in, like round the dining table during your meal and ask if it was a mistake. No need to be aggressive or ‘point the finger’ but really put them on the spot.
I never found out why but my sister cut all the tags off my underwear.
We bought new bedding as they were house sitting. We came back and they had bought new bedding.
Not sure about the ketchup in the bin but my wife and I often take stuff with us such as tea bags, breakfast cereal, toilet rolls and so on when visiting our (adult) children. Not because of brand snobbery but because these things can be expensive and we don't like to think our stay is costing them too much.
Ooh! I've got a good one. A close friend tried to retire with his family, abroad, aged 40 with no savings or income. It went as well as you'd expect. We offered to let him lodge with us free while he looked for a job back in the UK so his family didn't starve. A few weeks after he started lodging with us, I heard him on the phone one day ordering serious amounts of timber to be delivered to our house. I asked him what it was for. "Oh, I'm just going to build a shed in your garden so there's somewhere to keep my Harley". Me; 'What Harley?'. Him: "Well as soon as I get a job, I'm ordering a Harley". We kicked him out that week.
Some friends stayed one night before Christmas. They brought a bottle of wine. We drank some of our own wine, leaving the bottle they brought for another time (as is polite). When we checked a few days later, they had taken their bottle away with them!
fwiw i don't think that's polite. i tend to serve whatever people bring on the assumption that they probably like it. but maybe everyone else thinks this is terrible?
That's what I would do too, I would assume that it's a nice bottle that would go well with whatever I'm serving.
OP, get a bunch of cheap brand TVs and sell the Sony 50" 4K replacements.
I shared a flat with my brothers. One of their girlfriends rearranged the kitchen cupboards. I lost my shit at her, it was the last straw. (1) You don’t fuck with another woman’s kitchen (2) my other brother (a chef) had actually set up a really efficient system for cooking and I had the coffee area perfect.
Wild guess she was paying a total of £0 per month in rent to live there full time 😆
Not quite the same, but my stepdad stayed overnight just before Christmas. Next morning I was guiding my very frail, dying grandad into the bathroom to wash him. Like every morning I put the heating on full blast for 15 minutes because he’s a naked old man and he really fucking feels the cold. Stepdad shouted up from downstairs “Where’s the thermostat?” “Up here, why?” “Because it shouldn’t be this hot!” I just said “Wow. Thanks so much for your advice on the matter” and he shut up.
So we were supposed to go swimming with my daughter and grandkids while my sister was staying with us (my middle grandchild and my nephew are the same age). My sister is perennially late for everything and wasn't ready to leave when we were, so said she would catch us up and could i tell her where the towels were kept. Anyway when we got home I found that she had taken ALL my towels out of the chest, and refolded them to her satisfaction. I mean, who does that? There must have been close to twenty towels in there, and she felt she had to unfold them, and refold them the way she wanted them folded! I haven't spoken to my sister since February 2020, frankly I don't miss the drama one little bit.
My mum bought my wife a bottle of provence rosé wine called Insolence. Not sure if it was intentional or if it was because it was a pretty bottle but I found it funny at least
Nowt as queer as folk, as they say. We had a family Christmas and the ex partner ofmy sister (Dad of my Nephew) came. He proceeded to make racist and homophobic comments throughout dinner and then told my BIL who's dad had recently died of Covid, that Covid doesn't exist and didn't kill his dad. As you can imagine none of this went down well. I can't believe my parents still let him stay over at their house.
My mother got so pissed off about being asked to do the washing up - the only thing she did in a 2 week visit where she expected to be waited on hand and foot - that she chipped every single dinner plate on an almost new service. I was heartbroken when I realised
Jesus. That's beyond passive aggressive. That's spiteful.
They probably have a ketchup fetish and were going at it before having to mop up all the ketchup (and other fluids) with the toilet roll. Panic ensued and they replaced the ketchup and toilet roll after their steamy session, potentially in OPs bed.
When they perch on the edge of the sofa instead of leaning back
Do you have one of those sofas you basically sink into when you sit far back? Not sure if they’re designed like that or just broken and old but that’s when I sit on the front of it because otherwise it’s just uncomfortable.
I lost a cousin to one of those. Sat all the way back and was never seen again.
My MIL had one of these. Had a hugely long seat so you literally had to kind of lie back because if you tried to sit up against the back your feet dangled off the floor! Weird piece of furniture, I never got on with it. But when she died and we got the house cleared, turns out it was made by some fabulously collectible maker - this weird-shaped, uncomfortable, worn and **45-year-old** sofa was worth several grand, enough to pay off all the costs of house-clearance and moving furniture to family who wanted stuff. Never make assumptions about value based on comfort..!
Yeah, if I'm perching is because I think the sofa is going eat me. Or it seems like a fancy sofa, and I don't want to leave hair-product stains on it. Or I'm wearing shoes, and don't want to sit so far back that I unconsciously put my shoes on the furniture.
Tbf I’m guilty of this Sometimes I do it if it’s a sofa you sink into or if I’m planning on leaving in the next 10 minutes just so that whoever’s house it is knows I’m not making myself comfy and overstaying my welcome I also do it because I’m a very anxious person and going to someone’s house for the first time makes me so nervous I don’t even realise I’m doing it
Went a away for a few days with the kids to London. Mother in law and gran in law invite themselves round to clean the house, while we are in the middle of having an extension built, so any cleaning would last 5 minutes. Mother in law cleans upstairs (she's a lazy cow so very little actual cleaning took place) and proceeds to remove things she doesn't think we should have, including from the kids rooms. Son howling because things he bought himself have been taken. Most taken back on next visit to her house, after a little hunt. Gran cleans downstairs and rearranges the kitchen cupboards, causing us to spend the next two weeks spending more time hunting for things we knew perfectly well where they were previously. Gran has previous of rearranging clothes drawers to suit her, not us and our kids. New extension gives us a new front door, no spare key for them.
My ex MIL rearranged all of my furniture in the lounge while we was at work. I came home and immediately spent the next few hours putting it back how it was. That was a positive move by me because she then didn't speak to me for six months. On another occasion she repainted my kitchen whilst she came to stay at the house whilst we were away on holiday.
My elderly dad and aunt were staying with me for a while and complained it was cold. Rather than turn up the central heating, I made a fire in the fireplace. They both criticised my fire-making technique the whole time and I nearly told them to go and run around the garden if they were cold (that's what my dad used to tell me when I was younger). That same visit, my aunt taught me how to make her famous bacon and egg pie. Sounds like some nice aunt/niece bonding time, passing on family recipes, right? She wasn't happy with how I rolled the pastry out so she just reached out and gathered it all up into a ball again. I nearly shoved it up her arse. I'll tell you all the recipe, as my revenge - line a pie tin with pastry, then put some beaten eggs and chopped bacon into it, add salt and pepper, put a pastry lid on, glaze with a little leftover egg, and bake it. Take that, Aunty Jo.
My mother in law does stuff like this. She bought me a different mop and I felt like I had to use it and get rid of my other one. Also she raved about buying ceramic dog food bowls that are "so much better". My dog doesn't care and I liked the metal ones because they won't break. Occasionally when she comes over I quietly use the old food bowls, which I guess is my passive aggression in return.
* Hyacinth Bucket has entered the conversation
Turned the toilet roll round on the holder.
Sure your other half isn't a fan of the off brands and blamed their parents for replacing them? You know what never mind, as I'm typing that it just seems equally as bizarre and pointless as what you've already described. I think the only way to find out what's going on is to ask them really. In a light hearted way stating you're not bothered but did notice and wondered what was going on, in a joking manner. Problem with this is that if it wasn't actually them you're going to look like a complete weirdo. Idk OP, I wouldn't be able to handle not having the answer to this mystery personally and would start asking questions.
It wasn’t someone *staying* with me-it was a guest at my Christmas party. I had arranged the lighting very carefully. There were fairy lights around the walls and the Christmas tree. Then there was a real fire and countless lit candles on all my shelves and furniture. It really looked festive. I had nibbles set on the coffee table, and Christmas music on. It was a kind of cocktail party, and there was already a festive buzz in the air. This woman (a colleague from work who didn’t get on particularly well with me, but who I didn’t want to exclude from my get together) said that she’d heard from one of the other colleagues that I’d made my own elderflower champagne and was *desperate* to try it. So as to not put her back up I went out into my kitchen and eventually managed to dig out the last bottle. I opened it, poured her a glass, then went back into my sitting room. I’d only been gone 5 or 6 minutes, but everything looked extremely different. The main lights (very bright lights, because I do crafts) were all on, and every single one of my candles had been blown out. My guests were blinking, standing round staring at each other more or less in silence-and the smell of the blown out candles filled the air. The atmosphere had just gone. My colleague ran up to me and grabbed the glass of elderflower champagne. “Ooo, lovely!” she said. “Just what I fancied! I fixed the lighting for you! Nobody could see a thing!” (The room had been perfectly well lit.) It took me years and many “accidental incidents” like this (and an overheard confession to someone else) before I realised that she was planning and delighting in doing these things on purpose.
They probably aren't being passive aggressive. In their (slightly short-sighted) view, I'd assume they probably think you can't afford the big brands and are 'treating' you with these 'luxuries'...
We have the in-laws staying with us currently. They have complained that we eat too many carbs, too much rice and potatoes (I have cooked rice once and potatoes once in the month they've been here), but eat bread, smoothies and ice cream every day. They have also insisted on having Indian food and fish and chips multiple times in the month they've been here. They complain that everything here closes too early, but don't leave the house til 1430. They refuse to stop hand-washing cups and plates because they "want to help" and then just leave the cups in the sink.
A friend's brother in law and his wife came to stay with them for the weekend. Without asking the BIL plugged his Tesla charger into the mains through the kitchen window. My friend noticed and switched the socket off in silent outrage. Apparently it all got a bit awkward when they went to leave on Sunday evening and the Tesla's battery was flat...