My Sister-in-Law is a Nutjob (long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My sister-in-law has issues. It wouldn’t bother me so much if she didn’t live with my husband and I, which is an arrangement that will hopefully change soon. I thought about posting in the Pit, but I’m not pissed off at her enough today to warrant that. I just needed to vent a little bit.

On the surface she’s basically a shut-in and a slob with no friends. My husband and I have her sharing our place since owning a home in Southern California can be a challenge, and we figured it would be a mutually benefical arrangement to have her move in with us. She’d save on rent, since otherwise she’d be renting an overpriced 1-br apartment, and her contribution in rent would help us be able to afford a larger place. However, had I realized the kinds of issues we’d be dealing with, I would never have agreed to it at the time.

I came across this link in another thread, which is a pretty good description of how she lives. I suppose it’s a bit of a blessing that she’s such a shut-in, which means that it’s only her bedroom that looks like this, and it only occasionally bleeds into our shared space. It probably bothers me a lot more than it should, but I just can’t understand how someone can LIVE like this.

There’s actually more to it than this, though… she has some health issues. My husband and I think she’s addicted to pain medication. She’s on more drugs than I can name for various things and has multiple doctors prescribing different things for her. My Mother-in-Law (her mom) passed away early in the year so she’s been on anti-depressants since then (at least - it’s highly possible she was on them before her mother even got sick since she’s had emotional problems since she was a teenager). She also recently had back surgery (in April) and was laid up for the entire summer - our power bills were through the roof as a result. She only just went back to work in August and only part time. She comes home and sleeps all afternoon - I rarely see her since she’s in her room all the time.

While she was home recovering from her surgery she had a couple “episodes” which I believe were actually drug overdoses but which she claims were simply “bad reactions” to a specific combination of two drugs she was taking (the antidepressant and the muscle relaxant, supposedly). The first episode resulted in her flooding her bathroom because she tried to take a bath while she was drugged out of her mind - water actually started pouring through the floor down into our living room. She’s lucky it was a weekend and my husband and I were home at the time - we had to drag her out of the bathtub sopping wet and naked and get her dressed and my husband drove her to the hospital since she was stumbling around incoherently and hurting herself (we discovered broken glass in our bathroom later and blood on our bathroom rug). While my husband was gone with her to the emergency room I took it upon myself to CLEAN the pigsty that is her bedroom. I don’t think this woman knows how to use a trash can… the floor of her room was literally a trash heap. I actually found TWO broken glasses buried underneath the trash right next to her bed - it’s amazing to me that she hadn’t stepped on one of them and cut her foot open. And there were PILLS EVERYWHERE - pill bottles everywhere, random pills scattered on the floor amongst the trash and dirty laundry.

And this happened again a couple weeks later… only the second time she actually just collapsed in the middle of the kitchen floor and lay there twitching - we had to call the paramedics that time. I didn’t bother cleaning her room that time (even though it had reverted back to its original disaster area state). After the first episode, my husband got into a screaming match with her and told her she needed to move out if she didn’t get her shit together, but then changed his mind (she’s a total irrational bitch when she’s in a bad mood, which is 90% of the time).

My husband has tried to gently urge her to clean more often. Thinking that perhaps it’s because she just had back surgery so maybe it’s difficult for her to clean - he’s offered to help but she always turns him down. We have the worst carpet in the world to keep clean so we have it professionally cleaned every couple of months (white berber - I seriously wanna rip it out as soon as we can afford to replace it with something more manageable). The last time we did the carpets, my husband asked her very nicely if she could please have her room clean so the carpet guys could get her floor, too. She seemed completely outraged at the idea that we would set a time frame on her cleaning her room, insisting that her floor didn’t NEED cleaning - all it needed was vacuuming (when she said this, my thought was “Have you even SEEN your floor within the last month??”)

My husband and I aren’t exactly neat freaks, but we don’t like living in filth - we do the dishes and the laundry a couple times a week and vacuum the floors regularly. House cleaning doesn’t happen quite as often as I would prefer since I have a bad hip. I do as much as I can, but my husband has to do the more strenuous stuff and it’s easier to just let him do things on his terms than to nag him about stuff, since I know it’ll get done eventually. My SIL, on the other hand, never does any housework. For the first couple months after we moved into the place she would do the dishes, but that stopped. She leaves trash laying around - I don’t know how she can have such a mental block about picking something up and throwing it away instead of just blindly letting it fall to the floor (things like candy wrappers and the like, mostly). Basically she just can’t throw anything away. Her closet is jam-packed full of crap. We tried to offer her alternatives - we even made room in our own closet so she wouldn’t be so cramped, yet she insisted that she needed all her stuff NEAR her. There’s a bunch of junk that belongs to her that’s filling up our closets simply because she won’t get rid of it - stuff that she has yet to use. Stuff that’s still new in its original package that probably sat in another closet for two years before she moved it into ours, plus stuff that IS junk and needs to be tossed.

For awhile I tried to figure out if there was something I could do that would improve the living arrangement somehow so that she would be happier. Then I finally realized that she pretty much thrives on being miserable. I’m sick of having someone who’s constantly in that state of mind around me. It’s not enough that she keeps her bedroom door closed - just knowing the state of the space on the other side is an offense to me. Unfortunately we didn’t set a time frame on our arrangement when we asked her to move in with us - the only stipulation was that she quit smoking (which she did for a few months but has started again).

Our financial situation is about to change soon so that we won’t need her contribution anymore, so we’re going to have to have a talk with her about moving out. I really, really, really can’t wait.

2

If she’s really that much of a slob, and her “issues” really bother you that much, and you really need the contribution of rent–why not evict her, and rent out the room to someone else? In any other situation, her landlord would have booted her long ago–why don’t you do the same?

ETA: I realize “blood is thicker than water”, but she wouldn’t treat a landlord like this, I’m betting. Maybe she’s assuming that you won’t evict her because she’s “family”, and maybe she’s assuming that you need her rent money. So maybe it’s time to have a heart-to-heart with her, more definite than “hints”, and point out that you can, after all, rent the room to someone else.

3

I feel your pain. I lived with my brother a dozen or so years ago for the longest two years of my life. I have the disadvantage of being a bit neurotic when it comes to my home being clean and he really didn’t care nor notice if things were messy. It almost destroyed our relationship having to pick up after him all the time. I was the same about his room…kept the door closed but every once in a while I caught a glimpse and I would rag on him to at least throw out the pizza boxes and wash his darn sheets! We were both glad to finally get away from each other. Fortunately for him, he married a gal who is just as much a slob and pack rat as he is so they are happy little piggies.

4

We haven’t kicked her out because she’s family. And the entire family has had a pretty rough year (actually it’s been more than a year). First they found out one of their uncles had leukemia, their mom had a severe stroke during heart surgery, another uncle committed suicide, the uncle with leukemia died, their grandmother died, their mom died.

Along with all that stuff, my husband and I got married (well, getting married wasn’t the hard part, it was having a wedding that stressed us out - it was a happy occasion but we wish we had eloped), we bought our first home, my sister-in-law had major surgery, and I’m about to have major surgery. We were hoping this year would be uneventful so we could recover from all the events of last year, but no such luck.

It’s been kindof a tough call letting her stay, honestly… but what would be more stressful at this point? Dealing with her there, or dealing with the drama of asking her to move out? If there is a more constructive way to handle it, that’s what we would prefer to do - we just have to figure out what that would be.

The thing that breaks my heart is knowing that there’s really nothing we can do to help her. She’s probably going to end up one of those lonely old women (with a cat) in an apartment piled high with trash, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

5

IANAD etc, but she sounds like she might benefit from some time spent as an inpatient in a mental health facility. There she cannot self-medicate, and she can be helped–more so than she is now.

I also have to third or fourth her no longer living there. She may never be as clean as you need it to (not that your standards are excessive, by any means)–just different strokes for different folks etc.

Good luck.

6

We had my BF’s brother living with us for what was supposed to be 3 or 4 months. We never made an agreement with him on a move-out date, we just let him tell us that it would be 3 or 4 months. Bad move on our part, because 4 months turned into 9, and if I hadn’t put my foot down, he’d still be with us now. He was going through a rough time also, but he did not one thing to improve his lot and work toward his own solution to the housing situation while he was with us. We realized that it turned from him taking advantage of a generous offer of help, to him taking advantage of us. It was hard to ask him to leave, but we realized that ultimately he is the captain of his own destiny.

7

[long pause]

Drama? You’re worried about drama? Hon, you’ve got nothing BUT drama so far. What’s a little more?

And…listen to yourself:

Right. You can’t fix her. She’s not going to change. So, why continue to allow her to inflict all this suffering on you? “Gentle urging” isn’t going to work; you’re going to have to put it to her in words of one syllable: “shape up or ship out.” This was actually quite promising:

So, what happened? What’s holding him back now? Pity? Guilt?

8

What Duck Duck Goose said.

Tell her to hit the road in the morning.

9

You’re right. Some people need drama. You will have an increase in drama for a short while. But you won’t believe the amount of relief you will feel after she’s gone. As hard as it may seem, you’ll remember even more stuff that annoyed you about her after she’s gone.

Mia,
Whose MIL is now living with her niece.

10

Since she’s already been told shape up or ship out, we are now to the “just ship out” part. Give her two weeks to find a place and move her stuff. If she doesn’t, change the locks.

(I’m assuming you have no formal lease arrangement).

11

She doesn’t just have issues, she has the whole subscription.

Help her find an apartment. Move her stuff. Wish her luck. Change your locks. Cross your fingers.

There’s nothing else you can do. She’s chosen to make a mess of her life, that doesn’t give her the right to make a mess of yours.

In your mental catalogue file this, for future reference, under “Shit which I will not put up with.”

12

Man, I feel for ya.

My Dad is the same way. Luckily, he does not live with us.

It’s so hard to understand. A few years ago, I rented a 20 yard roll off dumpster so I could clean his house. Of course it’s back to the way it was.

It’s like they can’t even see it.

13

Since she’s family and she’s kind of a mental case, I think I’d tell her that either she gets herself some serious help or she’s going to have to relocate. I’d give her 6 weeks to get back to work full time and find a place. I agree with those who think she might need in-patient care. She’s not firing on all four cylinders.

14

Good advice there.

You guys are enabling her negative habits. She needs to grow up and get her life in order. Therapy could go a long way here.

What’s even worse is that she started with eight. :smiley:

15

Before you do anything else, have a discussion with your husband about it and make sure you act jointly.

16

At the risk of being blunt, so what?

Sounds like a rough year. That doesn’t excuse the mess, however. I bet she was like this before everybody got sick and died, right?

You guys are newlyweds, trying to start a life together. You know what you need to do. You just have to do it.

Sweetie, you provided a roof over her head, got her to the hospital when she (probably) overdosed, etc etc etc. You can’t fix people who don’t want to be fixed.

I would give her two options. Either she goes to a mental health facility, or she’s out on her own. No yelling, no screaming, she has 30 days.

Do not bend on this one. You are not helping her get better. You’re allowing her to get away with staying where and how she is.