I (33f) keep getting steamrolled by visitors to my house.

A woman shares her frustration with older visitors who repeatedly ignore her instructions in her home, leading to unnecessary expenses and stress. Despite her attempts to set boundaries, they proceed with “fixing” things without her consent. She seeks advice on being more assertive and maintaining control over her space. Read her story below.

‘ I (33f) keep getting steamrolled by visitors to my house.’

Tl;dr Visitors to my home keep ignoring my specific instructions to not do things, is this just how older people visiting are, or how can I be more assertive? My boyfriend (36M) and I (33F) bought an older house four years ago near a town where we moved. We’re from 2 different countries, and we’re living in another one. When we have visitors, they have to stay a while because it takes a while and a bit of money to get here. I’m running into a recurring problem when we have older visitors coming, from both our families.

The house we bought is not perfect and needs some work, but it’s perfectly liveable. We know we have some large expensive chuncks of renovation that will need to be done (new roof, better isolation) and we’ve been saving up for these. There are other problems that are small or more cosmetic that would cost some money to fix, but we chose to set these aside while saving up for the rest. My issue is that when older visitors come (and it’s only older people), they decide to go off and fix my house even when I ask them not to.

Example 1: Boyfriend’s parents come over for a visit. There was some ivy growing on a wall outside that would need a trim within a couple month. However, our ladder is broken, and my boyfriend knows he can get a ladder from his work in a couple weeks. My father in law decides he’s going to trim the ivy, and I explain to him that we don’t have a safe ladder to do so, and I’ll get to it in a couple weeks.

I leave him alone a few minutes to take a shower, and come back outside to find him having built a completely unsafe table to stand on to reach the top of the ivy (like, even less safe than he broken ladder) and trim it. I asked him five times to come down because I could see the structure wobbling and I was terrified he’d fall and get hurt. He ignored me, and when he eventually came down smiled and said “see, nothing happened”. I was furious. I told him I was angry at him, and even that didn’t get through to him.

Example 2: My dad visits with my aunt and uncle. One of the small issues with the house is that the water pressure isn’t great. I know the cause, and I know it will take a plumber to have it fixed – we need to replace some pipes that are placed in a way that we need a professional. It’s actually not a big bother – just don’t do the dishes at the same time someone takes a shower and no one even notices the problem. my dad and uncle decide that they want to fix it anyway.

I tells them not to – and explain why I know it will take a professional. Same as with my FIL – I go do something else and before I know it, they’ve cut the main water to fix the pipes. I go tell them to stop and they don’t. Short of me physically pushing them away, I try everything to stop them, no luck. Exactly as I had planned, though, the problem can only be fixed by a professional, and long story short, they mess things enough that we have to cut the water to the whole house until a plumber can be called.

It’s Sunday night, so I only got someone coming around the next morning. I had to dip into the structural changes savings fund to pay the plumber, and the long term issue with the pressure is still there – we still have to replace the pipes some day. Again, I was furious at my dad and uncle, and they didn’t even apologize.

Example 3: my mom is over this week. She was making food in a very nice iron pan we have that we have been seasoning for over a year. This means the bottom of the pan is blackened. If this was a teflon pan, it would be a sign it’s unusable, but for an iron pan, it means it’s just right. I told that to my mom multiple times, but would not believe me and tried to scrub off the seasoning behind my back, causing small specks to go in the food. Again, these are not dangerous, but we do need to redo the seasoning on the pan now. She nearly destroyed the pan and would not believe me until I made her read the manufacturer’s website.

I am a very conflict-avoiding person. It’s already taking a lot of going against my nature to stand up to all these people and say “no, don’t do that”, but I do it every time. I’m sure there’s an element of sexism here (this only happens when my boyfriend isn’t home). I want to figure out how to make myself more assertive, and for all these people to just listen to me in my own home. I’m tried of getting steamrolled, and I am coming to dread those visits. Tl;dr Visitors to my home keep ignoring my specific instructions to not do things, is this just how older people visiting are, or how can I be more assertive?

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

Freefalafelin −  Your dad and uncle need to be footing the plumbing bill.

SelectNetwork1 −  I think this is bad enough that you can stop letting them stay with you. This isn’t like “they keep forgetting to take their shoes off,” or “they put the dishes away wrong” – your dad and your uncle did serious structural damage to your house! Your boyfriend’s father could have seriously injured himself on your property! Your mom’s thing didn’t risk life and limb, but it’s still really frustrating!

If you don’t feel like you can turn them away, then I think you need to have A Talk with your relatives, preferably at a time when they’re not at your house, and there are no visits scheduled in the immediate future (also, your boyfriend should be in on this too!). The plumbing incident is a good excuse – it was expensive, and sometimes people who won’t listen to, “this hurts me,” *will* listen to, “this costs me money.”

That said, it’s worth remembering that the only people who are seeing this as a pattern are you and your boyfriend – when your mom determinedly scrubs the seasoning off your pan, she’s not thinking of herself as the latest person to ignore you and damage something in your home, she’s thinking, “Oh, I’ll helpfully fix this thing (that isn’t broken).”

That does **not** mean you have to let it keep happening! But it means that when you talk to each of them, you have to *explain* that there’s a pattern – I think you can use the plumbing thing as a jumping-off point, to say something like, “it made us realize that we’ve been giving in on things that are actually causing problems for us, and if you can’t commit to respecting our wishes in our own home, then you can’t stay with us.”

lwaIOER −  Ugh this sounds very frustrating. These people still clearly see you as a child who can’t deal with these things alone. For a start, you should be sending them a bill for that plumbing since they were the direct cause and you clearly told them not to do it. Be assertive and say they need to pay for the damage they caused. What’s the worst they can do – refuse to stay with you again? Warn people that if they don’t follow your rules then in future they will have to stay in a hotel and follow through.

Also, stop giving them reasons for why the tasks haven’t been completed yet. It just gives them an opportunity to think your reason isn’t valid and undermine it. Just say “that is being taken care of. I don’t need your help with it and don’t touch it.”

Not_Ashamed_at_all −  Stop inviting them over. If they ask to come, decline. When they ask why you stopped inviting them over. Tell them in plain and clear English that it’s because they are incapable of following your very simple instructions about not doing s**t you told them not to. When they get pissy about that, and say “why’s this such a big deal, who cares? You’re making something out of nothing”, turn that around on them. “If it’s not a big deal then why were you so insistent on ignoring my requests?”

I don’t invite my mom into my place anymore. Last time she came in she tried to clean my room, and it took me literally *screaming* at her to get her to listen, stop, and leave. She’s not allowed in anymore, maybe in 5 years she’ll get another chance.

I am a very conflict-avoiding person. It’s already taking a lot of going against my nature to stand up to all these people and say “no, don’t do that”, but I do it every time. I’m sure there’s an element of sexism here (this only happens when my boyfriend isn’t home). I want to figure out how to make myself more assertive, and for all these people to just listen to me in my own home. I’m tried of getting steamrolled, and I am coming to dread those visits.

You know the reason why, now you can work on changing that. It’s not very helpful, but at a certain level you’ve just gotta grow a pair. Look into assertiveness classes maybe?

zanpher717 −  Get a big water gun and shoot them like a pesky cat until they leave it be.

disagreeabledinosaur −  It’s not a perfect solution but assuming you otherwise like these people and don’t wish to never see them again, your best strategy may be redirection. As in, when they start talking about doing things that shouldn’t be done, point them in the direction of something they can do/look into to help out. Like Dad looking at the ivy, point him at the Bush that needs to be cut back or uncle at the plumbing point him at a leaky tap. I’d work on your own assertiveness and conflict having skills in parallel but it may save frustration in the mean time.

Elfich47 −  Stop inviting them over and keep the doors locked. When they start asking, that is when you tell them why.

[Reddit User] −  This is absolutely horrible. I established boundaries with my parents long ago and would not put up with disrespect like this. If they will not listen to me in my home they will be asked to leave and told not to come back until they are prepared to respect me. I’m very sorry your family treat you this way, they are beyond disrespectful and you don’t deserve it.

[Reddit User] −  I don’t have a solution – all I can say is that reading your post gave me anxiety because my family is the same way. Similarly, mine don’t live near me (6 hour flight) and last time they stayed at my home I nearly had a breakdown and no one could understand why I was so stressed out. Maybe y’all taking half the stuff in my garage to the d**p while I was at work had something to do with it? Or when you “fixed” my dishwasher by putting a 1’x3′ hole in my drywall.

I think it’s because you don’t live near by that they still have a mental image that you’re still a child rather than an adult. They aren’t aware of your daily life and how you handle things, so they are compelled to “help”.

ChrisssLOP −  A word of advice: never watch the movie Mother! with Jennifer Lawrence. You will want to rip your hair out about 3/4s of the way through. On a more serious note, I cannot stand people who do this regardless of their age. It grinds my nerves.