Holy Jalapeno

[Cooper]

So I woke up around 1PM. Those who are following my archives thread know that I went to bed around 2 last night due to all the trouble, and I didn't have to work today, so this was completely fine.

Soon as I got up, my mother asked how the house was, as I'm closer to said house than she is. I said: "There's a few medium sized branches down."

Her: Well, I was wondering if more rock walls came down.
Me: Oh, I can check that. I have to get pants on first. They disappeared last night. It was hot. XD
Her: XP
Me: I can take care of the branches. (This was about 1:33 PM. Important.)

My grandma comes up to the house, and has what I can only assume is a panic attack.

Grandma: Oh my god [Cooper.] How can you live like this?

For context, this is what she's looking at:



She goes on and on about how I'm a smart girl, I shouldn't live like this, and she's going to call the health department on me.

Her: And the dishes!

*My sink is full of dishes to be done, but my drying rack is full of dishes as well, making doing dishes at this moment not entirely possible*

Her: Get up! You're going to start cleaning!

Me:Grandma... is this really necessary?

Grandma: I will call the health department on you! Then where will you live?!

Then she went off on me for supposedly not helping my parents clean the vacation home, even though I raked the yard, helped with the rock walls, swept, and painted (some. I was going to do more, but while I was at school they finished it up.)

Grandma: And when you're done here you're going to clean out your car (admittedly a war-zone. No complaints here. It does need to be cleaned.) And then you'll; clean up the sticks (fallen from the storm last night) and help your parents out! I don't know why you girls can't just help them!

Me: Grandma, I just offered to clean up the sticks.
Grandma: Your mother didn't tell you to?!
Me: No, I offered.
Grandma: I'm going to call her to confirm that.
Me: I can prove it. Here's the IM conversation.
Grandma: And when was that? One? It's two now!
(1:50.)

My grandma gets a call, and goes through the same rant again with who is clearly a family member, but who I can't identify.

She goes off on me for another ten minutes or so, then leaves, saying she'll check in on me in a half hour. It's been five hours later, and she hasn't.

Can she even call the health department on me for this? I mean, I know I have an excess of pets (I have six pets in this little space, three of them baby bunnies, two of them are leaving in two days, one I'm actively looking for a home for.)

I do know I'm not forgiving her for this. I don't care how stressed everyone is.

[Aethian]

No she can't call the health department on you for that. She's over reacting.

[Ellain]

She can call the hd, but I bet they'll laugh her out the door. While the pic shows a bit of a mess, it's nowhere NEAR that bad. I've lived in places that might warrant that reaction, but yours doesn't.

I do sympathize. My grandmother had a similar fit when I stayed with her (for a month, I couldn't stand it any longer) when I left my underwear on the floor while I took a shower.

[malmalthekiller]

No, it just looks lived-in. It's not even close to hoarding status.

[Food Lady]

What's wrong with it?

[Pixilated]

I don't see anything wrong with the picture you posted. I'll be happy to post a couple of photos of my housekeeping skills for comparison ... ... and even my lousy housekeeping isn't nearly enough to get health department intervention.

Your grandmother needs to get a life -- one that doesn't involve micro-managing everyone around her.

[Draper Mel]

Yeah, that's nothing. That's "I live alone, nobody cares if I don't put my laundry away for a couple days." Not "I have 27 cats and I haven't taken the garbage out since 2003."

Grandma needs a hobby. Or a boyfriend.

[bhskittykatt]

Man, my apartment is way worse, and BFF's house looks like an episode of Hoarders for the moment, so I don't think you should have any complaints about your place. It seriously looks fine to me. I'm guessing you have the clean-but-cluttered thing going on. Your trash can isn't overflowing and the floors look clean, which is more than I can say for my place right now.

[Cooper]

Yeah, I admit this place is normally a mess, but I cleaned up before she came. (lucky on me. I had no idea she was coming. I try to clean once every two weeks.) Still, I'm in the middle of renovations, (hence the ladder, though I may keep it around as a impromptu laundry drier, as I do most of my laundry in the sink.)

I just don't know what to do. I like this grandmother, I do, but I can't forgive her for this. I don't think I could even if she /apologized.' Threatening to make me homeless because I need to do dishes?

She's around for a few more months though, and avoiding her is going to be neigh-impossible. (She lives three doors down from me.)

[Akasa]

Lock your doors at all times and don't let her in. If she has a key change your locks. If she gets on your case about not letting her in just keep repeating "That doesn't work for me."

[Cooper]

Well, I'm in a tough position where my door is a sliding glass door, so I can only lock it while I'm inside (at this moment. The previous renter apparently had an external lock on it, which I have to look into sometime.)

I'm economically dependent on my family, or I'd have cut ties the second I moved out. I have job interviews on the horizon, and hopefully a few months of regular employment will allow me to cut economic ties, though I'm still living on their property, rent-free. (I say I'm fixing the place up, but they say it's not entirely neccesary. Filling all the holes in the place with caulk have made all the ladybugs disappear, so I've managed to do in half-a-year what they haven't been able to do in a decade.)

And my father is a huuuge family guy, when it comes to /his/ family. When it comes to me and my sister? Not as much. So if he feels I'm mistreating his mother, he will probably kick my ass.

In fact, shortly after this, my father showed up. I asked him if he was going to yell at me too, and he said: "My sister called to tell me Mom was here and upset, and I had to talk her down. So if she's not here I have to go. I don't have time for this!"

I'll keep an update on if this gets fixed, but I doubt it. My grandmother thinks my apartment is her baby, and this is semi-justified. She helped me put the floor down, and paint the walls. She used to live here. But I feel I take priority over the house.

[Pixilated]

Sounds as if you're going to have to walk a fine line for a while. Hang in there and grit your teeth until you are financially on your feet. Try to avoid grandma as much as possible ... and when you can't avoid her, try to keep it chill but polite. You are right; she was WAY out of line with that threat, even if there was no way for her to enforce it.

Once you are on your own, if you still want to slam the door in her face, you can do it then without having to worry about the repercussions coming back to bite you in the butt.

[Eevie]

That's messy? Got nothin' on my room. Mom cleaned it out because she couldn't stand it. She swore she'd find a dead cat in there somewhere...

[Gizmo]

Ha! Needs to see my place which is lived in by 2 depressives and one lazy 'collector'... she'd have a fit!

[Aethian]

If she wants to throw a fit she should see my Mom's place. A lady who once could work 9 hours, drive a hour, cook full meals, and still keep up with laundry, cleaning the floors, and making the bathroom sparkle. She's been in heavy depression for about 10 years now and the house has really deteriorated because of it. A nice church she goes to now just helped her get back running water after 3 years.

Before anyone tells me I should have done something, it's not exactly easy to do anything until the person themself figures out they need help. Over the last year I'm starting to see the lady I grew up with coming back and it's awesome. Her house still isn't home, but it's coming back...and I can now get back to my gardens and shrubberies making the outside look better from it's overgrown state.