MIL hoarder now sending me junk...

[FastHands]

DH and I are pretty sure MIL is a hoarder. The extent of it is the only unknown at this point. The majority of it comes from her ordering crap on the internet. When she came ovee for Tgiving, she brought us like 15 plastic...things. I still don't know if they are ice scrapers or spatulas orrr? She said she could obly buy them in a case, so she has a ton. Well yesterday we come home to find a roasting pan has been delivered to our house. MIL "Saw it for $5 and couldn't pass it up. Not sure if you have one, so I figured I'd order it for you." This is ironic due to the fact that we host EVERY holiday (they invite themselves), and she has seen us use a roasting pan twice in the last 6mos. But more importantly -- NO. NO NO NO. Do not start thinking of my home as a place to deposit junk. No. We are giving the pan away, but if this happens again, DH is going to have to ask her to stop, which will cause a shitstorm of epic proportions. Ugh.

[TheSeaward]

is your MIL my MIL?

[Odonata]

My grandfather was like this. And now I can see the hoarding in my mother, too. She has taken up the entire second floor of their house and my father has even suggested therapy.

My grandfather would purchase things just because it was a good deal. He once bought a king size mattress from Sears Surplus (anyone remember that store?) and they only had a queen bed frame. He had no intention of changing the bed frame (unless there was a good deal on that, too) so the mattress stayed in the basement until he died and we threw it out. He was always bring stuff over that he bought us.

My mom, however, buys things for herself. Most things are clothing and she never wears them. There is a room literally filled (you can barely walk in) with clothing with tags still on them. So while she never dumps any of it on me, if I do ever need anything of a certain color I can always go "shopping" at her house.

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 9:07:37 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

She'll freak out if you ask her to stop sending things? Because it seems like a reasonable request.

I had a grandmother like this. She'd send the oddest things. Ice-cream spoons, paste jewelry, plastic wineglasses.

I think she would, yeah. She is known for extreme reactions to reasonable requests/situations. Regardless of how gently H put it, even if preceded by "we live that you think of us when you are shopping, but we are trying so hard to keep household "stuff" to a minimum especially with the baby coming," I can pretty much guarantee that she'll get irate and say that no one appreciates her and how could she have ended up with such an ungrateful child and so on. There are definitely issues at play there of some kind (which I'm sure feed into the hoarding).

[spitforspat]

Just throw it away.

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 9:18:36 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

Apr 5, 2014 9:13:22 GMT -5 FastHands said:

I think she would, yeah. She is known for extreme reactions to reasonable requests/situations. Regardless of how gently H put it, even if preceded by "we live that you think of us when you are shopping, but we are trying so hard to keep household "stuff" to a minimum especially with the baby coming," I can pretty much guarantee that she'll get irate and say that no one appreciates her and how could she have ended up with such an ungrateful child and so on. There are definitely issues at play there of some kind (which I'm sure feed into the hoarding).

I don't know if I'd approach it then.  Can you just quietly get rid of whatever she sends?

I left it up to DH. I certainly won't be broaching it at all, but I think he's worried about it coming up later, "how did you like __?" So I'mma stay out of it and let his vast experience guide him through the minefield. I don't ever talk to her one-on-one anyway.

[papie]

Oh no. My aunt is a hoarder, currently under control but she has gone through phases where her basement was piled to the ceiling with brand new crap. Sometimes she will give me something like "I saw this at the store and thought of you" and I just donate it. But it is only like 2-3 times a year, I guess if it was more frequent I would maybe say something.

[papie]

Apr 5, 2014 9:23:16 GMT -5 FastHands said:

Apr 5, 2014 9:18:36 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

I don't know if I'd approach it then. Can you just quietly get rid of whatever she sends?

I left it up to DH. I certainly won't be broaching it at all, but I think he's worried about it coming up later, "how did you like __?" So I'mma stay out of it and let his vast experience guide him through the minefield. I don't ever talk to her one-on-one anyway.

I think my aunt forgets, she buys so much stuff that she doesn't keep track. But even then it is easy to lie and say it is very nice thanks.

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 9:32:11 GMT -5 papie said:

Apr 5, 2014 9:23:16 GMT -5 FastHands said:

I left it up to DH. I certainly won't be broaching it at all, but I think he's worried about it coming up later, "how did you like __?" So I'mma stay out of it and let his vast experience guide him through the minefield. I don't ever talk to her one-on-one anyway.

I think my aunt forgets, she buys so much stuff that she doesn't keep track. But even then it is easy to lie and say it is very nice thanks.

Yeah I'm hoping that's the case here. I hate the drama.

[starlily]

Apr 5, 2014 9:08:22 GMT -5 TheSeaward said:

is your MIL my MIL?

Ditto.

We've asked MIL not to bring us anything numerous times. It goes in one ear and out the other, and she still brings a carload of crap from her hoarder-esque house and the swap meet every single time she visits. So it comes in our door and goes right out our door into the trash when she leaves.

A gem from her last visit included a gallon size Ziploc filled with gum that expired in 2007.

The best of all time was 50 onesies with "Property of XYZ Hospital, AZ - 2005" printed on it. DD was born in 2011 and we live in CA. They were accompanied with used bottles, one of which had a freaking hair encrusted on the nipple.

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 9:38:30 GMT -5 starlily said:

Apr 5, 2014 9:08:22 GMT -5 TheSeaward said:

is your MIL my MIL?

Ditto.

We've asked MIL not to bring us anything numerous times. It goes in one ear and out the other, and she still brings a carload of crap from her hoarder-esque house and the swap meet every single time she visits. So it comes in our door and goes right out our door into the trash when she leaves.

A gem from her last visit included a gallon size Ziploc filled with gum that expired in 2007.

The best of all time was 50 onesies with "Property of XYZ Hospital, AZ - 2005" printed on it. DD was born in 2011 and we live in CA. They were accompanied with used bottles, one of which had a freaking hair encrusted on the nipple.

Oh my. That is WAY more unfortunate. The hair!!! *gag*

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 9:56:58 GMT -5 @cse1960 said:

Apr 5, 2014 9:04:53 GMT -5 FastHands said:

DH and I are pretty sure MIL is a hoarder. The extent of it is the only unknown at this point. The majority of it comes from her ordering crap on the internet. When she came ovee for Tgiving, she brought us like 15 plastic...things. I still don't know if they are ice scrapers or spatulas orrr? She said she could obly buy them in a case, so she has a ton. Well yesterday we come home to find a roasting pan has been delivered to our house. MIL "Saw it for $5 and couldn't pass it up. Not sure if you have one, so I figured I'd order it for you." This is ironic due to the fact that we host EVERY holiday (they invite themselves), and she has seen us use a roasting pan twice in the last 6mos. But more importantly -- NO. NO NO NO. Do not start thinking of my home as a place to deposit junk. No. We are giving the pan away, but if this happens again, DH is going to have to ask her to stop, which will cause a shitstorm of epic proportions. Ugh.

she is of course looking at your house as a place to deposit junk, likely because she is experiencing some kind of pressure or push back surrounding where she usually deposits it. Either her spouse, or her storage facilities, or her friends, or her land lord, or whoever, is pushing like hell on her, so she seeks out other places to put it, since she 'can't' put it where she normally does but can't stop buying/acquring it. You and dh are delaying the fight, which is fine, but right now she's testing the waters. One of these days you are going to get a HUGE dump of some pile of crap that will blow up right in your faces. I would put the foot down right now. 

This is part of my concern too. I know her H enables it, but I'm thinking/afraid she may have just literally run out of room. We are definitely kicking the can down the road, but as long as none of the stuff stays in my house, I will let DH decide when/how to discuss it with her. I think doing it now would definitely come off as ungrateful for one small gift. If a pattern emerges, I think he'll have an easier time addressing it. We shall seeeee..

[Muddled]

Is she sending you stuff that she already had lying around or stuff that she bought "just for you"?

I'm team suesue, but if it's stuff she had lying around already, there is a remote possibility that she is trying to get rid of things and just can't bear to toss it or send it to someone she doesn't know when it's clearly so useful.

Either way, I don't think you should put off a conversation for too long.

[thebreakfastclub]

My Dad never fails to stop by with junk. Last time was a video camera from 1990. He has no idea that a phone can now record similar quality video.

He called the other day asking if I wanted a box of glass bowls from my deceased uncle. I told him we are all good on bowls, so hopefully those won't show up.

He also buys old dirty toys at yard sales for DS, which go. directly to the trash.

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 10:15:55 GMT -5 Muddled said:

Is she sending you stuff that she already had lying around or stuff that she bought "just for you"?

I'm team suesue, but if it's stuff she had lying around already, there is a remote possibility that she is trying to get rid of things and just can't bear to toss it or send it to someone she doesn't know when it's clearly so useful.

Either way, I don't think you should put off a conversation for too long.

It's been one of each so far. The spatula things at thanksgiving she apparently had like 100 of and was sharing. The pan yesterday came straight from Amazon, so purchased for us explicitly. It's kind of at the pre-issue stage, yeno? It was 6 months apart and small items that were at least new. So if it continued with a couple of random gifts a year, nbd. Discard and move on. I just worry that it will escalate.

[Deleted]

Say a bright "Thanks, MIL!" Then donate.

[flex]

Apr 5, 2014 9:09:47 GMT -5 bricco said:

That's frustrating. Definitely tell her to stop.

My MIL constantly brings us stuff of H's. LOL. Like from his childhood. I make him go through the stuff and throw a bunch out when he gets it, but then he ends up with a storage tote of stuff he 'can't' throw away. Inevitably, we end up going through these totes again like a year later, and he decides to part with more.

I wish I could tell her just to keep the stuff! Haha, but I get it.. it's H's.. she doesn't want it in her house.

this is me.  I was holding on to a bunch of DS1's stuff because of his apartment space, but when he moved to OK, I had him go through everything.  The stuff he didn't want was thrown out.  I have enough of my 'stuff' to deal with--I don't need more.  Besides, I'm moving out of state in a few years and I don't want to have to drag it along with me.

[renna]

Do you think MIL will inundate you with baby stuff? If so, I would probably think hard on having the discussion now with her rather than when baby is here and there's just so much going on.

I do feel so sorry for you, FH. We know people like this and their adult children have a lot to contend with. (You should have seen it when those people had to move to assisted living. OH MY WORD. It took a CREW.)

[livinitup]

Hoarding is a mental health disorder. Pretending otherwise isn't dealing with the real issue. At all.

[pinkplasticdoll]

My mother is a hoarder and after trying to talk to her with no results I finally just started taking the things she gives me and either selling them (depending on the item,value and time) or donating them. I hate to give away my mothers hard earned money but at this point in life I have had enough fights about it that it with no result so I have stopped. My mother is one that just picks stuff up because it is cheap and then will pawn it off on someone. My sister has taken the same approach as I have with my mother.

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 11:06:58 GMT -5 renna said:

Do you think MIL will inundate you with baby stuff? If so, I would probably think hard on having the discussion now with her rather than when baby is here and there's just so much going on.

I do feel so sorry for you, FH. We know people like this and their adult children have a lot to contend with. (You should have seen it when those people had to move to assisted living. OH MY WORD. It took a CREW.)

That's a good point. So far there's no sign she'll be buying baby stuff (it seems like a good excuse to buy things, but she hasn't yet), but I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm already overwhelmed by the stuff we'll actually NEED for baby. Lol

[MrsPenny]

Apr 5, 2014 9:38:30 GMT -5 starlily said:

Apr 5, 2014 9:08:22 GMT -5 TheSeaward said:

is your MIL my MIL?

Ditto.

We've asked MIL not to bring us anything numerous times. It goes in one ear and out the other, and she still brings a carload of crap from her hoarder-esque house and the swap meet every single time she visits. So it comes in our door and goes right out our door into the trash when she leaves.

A gem from her last visit included a gallon size Ziploc filled with gum that expired in 2007.

The best of all time was 50 onesies with "Property of XYZ Hospital, AZ - 2005" printed on it. DD was born in 2011 and we live in CA. They were accompanied with used bottles, one of which had a freaking hair encrusted on the nipple.

My ex MIL was like this. She goes to Goodwill every single day. She would constantly bring stuff over that she bought because it 'made her think of us'. Once was a bunch of lighthouse decorations for my living room - half of which were broken. I had no lighthouse esque stuff in my house, so why she thought I needed that is beyond me.

She would bring used bottles and pacifiers for the kids. Broken walkers (yes, multiple) . As they got older she started bringing them broken toys - dolls with missing arms or legs, barbies with the hair cut off and no clothes.

She would buy broken or dirty stuff for her house and then six months later set all of it in her yard with random for sale signs.

Don't miss that at all.

[renna]

Apr 5, 2014 11:18:51 GMT -5 FastHands said:

Apr 5, 2014 11:06:58 GMT -5 renna said:

Do you think MIL will inundate you with baby stuff? If so, I would probably think hard on having the discussion now with her rather than when baby is here and there's just so much going on.

I do feel so sorry for you, FH. We know people like this and their adult children have a lot to contend with. (You should have seen it when those people had to move to assisted living. OH MY WORD. It took a CREW.)

That's a good point. So far there's no sign she'll be buying baby stuff (it seems like a good excuse to buy things, but she hasn't yet), but I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm already overwhelmed by the stuff we'll actually NEED for baby. Lol

It's good that you are defaulting to your H to handle things with his mom.  I hope your H can keep her in check when it gets closer to baby's birth.  Communication is going to be key.  It's okay not to let her make your house another flop house for her stuff.

Congratulations on baby coming!

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 11:11:38 GMT -5 livinitup said:

Hoarding is a mental health disorder. Pretending otherwise isn't dealing with the real issue. At all.

I know that. I'm not in a position to address/assist with her mental health, though.

[FastHands]

Apr 5, 2014 11:22:22 GMT -5 renna said:

Apr 5, 2014 11:18:51 GMT -5 FastHands said:

That's a good point. So far there's no sign she'll be buying baby stuff (it seems like a good excuse to buy things, but she hasn't yet), but I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm already overwhelmed by the stuff we'll actually NEED for baby. Lol

It's good that you are defaulting to your H to handle things with his mom.  I hope your H can keep her in check when it gets closer to baby's birth.  Communication is going to be key.  It's okay not to let her make your house another flop house for her stuff.

Congratulations on baby coming!

Thank you!

[circa1978]

I have the same problem. When we moved into our house 5 years ago, I wasn't really aware of the extent of the issues. She has two homes, three storage units and is "keeping things" in our basement and in SIL's basement. Right now, we have three 12 foot Oriental rugs, two desks, a dresser, a secretary, several chairs, two trunks...the list goes on.

[ECB]

Apr 5, 2014 9:13:22 GMT -5 FastHands said:

Apr 5, 2014 9:07:37 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

She'll freak out if you ask her to stop sending things? Because it seems like a reasonable request.

I had a grandmother like this. She'd send the oddest things. Ice-cream spoons, paste jewelry, plastic wineglasses.

I think she would, yeah. She is known for extreme reactions to reasonable requests/situations. Regardless of how gently H put it, even if preceded by "we live that you think of us when you are shopping, but we are trying so hard to keep household "stuff" to a minimum especially with the baby coming," I can pretty much guarantee that she'll get irate and say that no one appreciates her and how could she have ended up with such an ungrateful child and so on. There are definitely issues at play there of some kind (which I'm sure feed into the hoarding).

People who react like this do so because they know that they'll end up "getting their way".  your DH is afraid to say anything.  So therefore he doesn't and therefore she keeps getting to do what she wants to do w/ no regards to your feelings.

she wins. 

Stop being afraid of her reactions!