Woman Upset After Mom Secretly Makes Changes to Apartment While She’s Away on Vacation

A young woman turned to Reddit for advice after an emotional argument with her family about home renovations done without her permission.

In her post, the 25-year-old explained that she and her fiancé live in an apartment owned by her mother. While the apartment has “its problems,” they love it and consider it in “good condition.”

Soon after moving in, they went on a family vacation with her fiancé’s parents. During that time, her mother entered their home and cleaned it without asking.

“We felt very uncomfortable,” she wrote, adding that it felt like “a breach of privacy” and made her feel that her efforts to make the space theirs were “not enough.”

She told her mother that while they appreciated the help, they wanted to set clear boundaries. “I told my mum that while we were thankful for the help, please don’t do it again because we are not comfortable.”

This year, she noticed some improvement. Before another trip, her mother asked if she could wash their curtains while they were away. Since the young woman needed help anyway, she agreed and decided to trust her.

However, when they returned, it was clear more had been done than they agreed on. “It was obvious more things changed than what we know about,” she wrote, pointing out duct tape on damaged furniture, a ripped rug, and rearranged belongings.

She also noticed that the bathroom cabinet seemed to have been broken off from the wall and that there was fresh paint on the bathroom ceiling and toilet wall. She worried because she knew “a simple paintjob won’t fix it” due to previous renovation issues.

The young woman explained that she understood her family wanted to help, but these were repairs she had intentionally delayed.

“I would rather wait for a good job that needs to be done once than fix it over and over again,” she said, adding that her fiancé’s father had done “an amazing job in the kitchen” and she was willing to wait for similar quality.

When she asked her mother why the changes were made without discussion, the conversation became tense. “They could tell we were upset, but they did not know that my silence and short answers were because I was trying not to cry,” she shared.

She said she wasn’t being ungrateful but wanted understanding. “It is not about the help but the trust… their trust in me to be able to do things, to be on their level,” she said.

Instead, her mother and grandmother seemed to take her question personally. “They basically sent me away, clearly thinking that my fiancé was turning me against them,” she wrote.

The main source of her frustration is feeling left out of decisions about her own living space. “Them not including us,” she said, summing up the heart of the dispute.

In the thread, one commenter asked if she has a written agreement about living in her mother’s flat or if she pays rent. They noted that without such an agreement, her mother “has every right to feel concerned about the loss of value” but added it’s “not ok that she doesn’t communicate openly about it.”

The young woman explained that they only have a spoken agreement. “We wanted to pay rent but they said it was for us… if we ever wanted to have our own place,” she said, adding that the only condition was to pay the bills, which she and her fiancé split.

She also said that repairs have been done with family involvement in the past. “We did repairs in the past together,” she noted, which makes the recent lack of communication even more upsetting.

While she appreciates her family’s intentions, she believes decisions about her home should involve her.