‘What’s the most annoying thing your in-laws do that they’re convinced is ‘helpful’?’ – 25 relatives who drive you up the wall
People love to moan about their in-laws being annoying, thoughtless or just plain weird, but they’re not really as bad as people say, are they?
Well, maybe they are, if the answers to this question posed by bnwprc on the AskUK subreddit are anything to go by…
What’s the most irrationally annoying thing your in-laws do that they’re absolutely convinced is ‘helpful’?
Mine: every time they leave our house, they fill the kettle to the absolute brim like they’ve just completed a community service project. We don’t drink hot drinks at night. Ever. So it just sits there… a full kettle… achieving nothing except taking longer to boil in the morning.
I’ve mentioned it. Repeatedly. Politely at first, less politely now. Still happens without fail. At this point I’m convinced they think they’re offsetting their stay. Not quite a mortgage payment, but in their heads it’s probably close.
Anyone else got in-laws performing completely useless ‘acts of service’ that no one asked for?
Perhaps these tales of bizarre relatives will make you feel a little bit better about your own…
1.
‘Leave the fridge open overnight as it’s ‘too cold’ and not good for the food. We’ve thrown away so much food at this point. My wife and I had food poisoning many times before realising what was happening.’
–GenericDefaultGuy
2.
‘Buying the kids loads of crap off Temu. I don’t want it, kids don’t want it, we don’t have space for it.’
–cockerspannerell
3.
‘Turn all my fucking plug sockets off…’
–The-Baron-Von-Marlon
4.
‘My aunty and uncle do this, when they stayed at my parents, they switched off the internet router and Virgin box which took days to reconnect, and put the landline out of actions, switched the freezer and the boiler off.’
–UniquePotato
5.
‘Not my in-laws but my own (lovely) mum. Just as COVID was kicking off I’d been away with my ex in Devon. This was just as all the shops were empty, no toilet paper, the week before we went into lockdown. She’d popped into ours to check on things and saw a ‘big scary looking red light’ on in the kitchen and turned that switch off. It was the fridge and freezer. So while all the shops were EMPTY, she’d also defrosted all our food. I laugh about it now and she can’t stand me reminding her.’
–Percypocket
6.
‘Inviting them over to see their grandchildren. They spend the time doing the house work saying they are giving me a break. SPEND TIME WITH THE GRANDKIDS SO I CAN HAVE A REST.’
–kiddj1
7.
”Tidied’ my bedside table drawers whilst I was in hospital having my son.’
–MonkeyHamlet
8.
‘Ah yes, mine rearranged my entire kitchen whilst I was having my son.’
–evb666
9.
‘They load the dishwasher, but so badly that I think they must be trying to see how bad it can be before we speak to them about it. I’m talking wooden things in there, a single glass taking up four plate spaces in the bottom rack, all the dinner spoons spooning together in the cutlery basket, plates that still have entire pieces of pasta on them lying flat in the top rack.
These people have a dishwasher, use it daily, and their house and plates, etc., are always immaculate. This cannot possibly be how they load their own dishwasher.’
–SeniorPea8614
10.
‘Glasses facing up here. What the absolute fuck.’
–smoulderstoat
11.
‘I receive a WhatsApp asking for assistance in regard to something, like logging on to a BT account. I stop whatever job I’m doing and respond immediately with ‘what’s the 4 digit code they have sent to your mobile?’
And I don’t hear from them for days as they have wandered off and not noticed my reply. Next time I speak to them they ask ‘Did you fix it?”
–FirmDingo8
12.
‘Doing the washing up. The trouble is their eyesight isn’t fabulous and we find the plates still have traces of food on them. We end up having to wash the whole lot again anyway. They will not leave the stuff alone either. It has got to near arguments and shouting at times.’
–Physical-Bear2156