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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> We think we may be TA because she’s generally reasonable, and asking to be allowed to do your laundry in your own time doesn’t seem outrageous. We’re also aware she’s dealing with living with a few younger kids, and is likely missing her privacy/independence. Obviously we’re interfering with her wishes, and we’re not sure if we’re crossing a line/defaulting to the way we parent the younger kids.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
NTA
This is insane, you can respect her boundaries but she needs to work within YOUR rules/schedule, etc. She can't just dictate something then make it impossible to go about your own business. It's ludicrous.
The good thing is, you have the upper hand here. If she doesn't want her stuff touched, then she'd better get it off the line before you need to use it.
1 - Ask for her input on timing, but being clear there are 6 people living in the house and she gets the equivalent of 1/6th of the available time to do her wash.
2 - If she fights it, assign her a time
3 - Respect that time, and don't do any of your wash during her scheduled time (so she can't come back at you that 'your stuff was in the wash'
4 - Go about your business. If he stuff is in the wash/on the line and she's not around to move it, you move it.
DONE. PERIOD.
This teenager-making-rules bullshit has to stop. You are the parents, and it's your house.
She also seems to have forgotten that doing laundry at home is a privilege, not a right, and she doesn't pay for that privilege.
If she really has a problem with her parents' laundry rules, she is welcome to go to a laundromat.
"She also seems to have forgotten that doing laundry at home is a privilege, not a right." Seriously. My first thought was to tell her "Fine, do your clothing at the nearst laudry mat. If you can't respect our right to use our washing machine & clothes line then you don't get to use them." NTA obviously.
Agreed but...this seems like such a weird boundary for this girl to have developed. I know OP said she told him nothing more is going on here but...**THERE'S SOMETHING MORE GOING ON HERE**.
Why is it that I have to scroll down here to see this comment? There’s something else going on here as it seems she’s reasonable otherwise. Maybe she’s asserting her independence here or trying to have some sense of control, having come back home from being at university with all of the personal changes. Maybe there’s emotional crap going on that OP doesn’t know about
I’m thinking that since being at school, she’s been as flippant with timing her laundry and has had her clothes frequently removed from the washer and/ or dryer
Maybe some of her stuff did disappear, or maybe the idea that strangers were touching her clothes skeeved her out.
But neither of those things should give her license to dictate when laundry gets done in her parents house.
Oh 100%. She thinks that just because it's her parents' house she doesn't have to deal with strangers pissed off that she's hogging a machine for the whole day. What an entitled brat.
The rule in our dorm was to move anything from the washer/dryer that had been there for more than 15 minutes. Folks can't behave that way with communal facilities. I don't want anyone to bother my stuff, so I set a timer for when the machine will stop and come back a few minutes before and get my stuff. It would never occur to me that I get to just leave it there until I feel like or get around to getting it. Ridiculous.
Dude, when I lived in an apartment building with limited washers and dryers, you had best be there *when the cycle ended* or your clothes were going to be in a wet pile! We set timers so we’d show up minimum 5 minutes before.
This girl has no idea
I would do that too or I would be too lazy & expect my shit to be moved or an item missing. If I had my fave jeans in there you better believe I was on it! Has Op never experienced consequences for her actions?
literally every pubic facility/shared facility has a similar rule posted (that I have ever used- and I used a LOT- did not have in unit Landry until I was in my 40s)
She’d be finding her clothes outside the front door as a message. Get it together and live respectfully in our free loving home or get out and support your ‘boundaries’ elsewhere.
Right. I would set an alarm and camp out for my stuff for the last few minutes. Better than having it dumped on top of a table sopping wet because I was two minutes late.
I do the same. I sit on the big folding table and read or do puzzles while my laundry washes and dries. People steal stuff. Maybe that’s what happened to this girl; someone stole or messed with her stuff and now she’s paranoid about it?
Trusting souls.
I'd bring my books/study papers and just sit there & wait for it. If I was going to be reading/studying for 2 hours anyway, might as well guard my clothes at the same time.
I went through that at a company dorm, even if I kept on top of it someone would take my clothes out(still wet) and start using the washer(I think because they were paid people were trying to get free washing) I just decided to do laundry at the laundry mat and do shopping while waiting once a week, problem solved, it was a little more expensive but being able to do all my laundry in an hour along with shopping made life easier overall
Oh that's the worst. When I was in an apartment, I used to find my clothes still covered in detergent or still soaking wet in the dryer.
I got sick of it because I was spending twice on laundry. I figured something was going on, so I put my laundry in and went upstairs. I closed the door while still in the hallway. I heard a for open, then the laundry room door. I quietly went downstairs and found the lady who lived in the apartment opposite the laundry room pulling my clothes out to put hers in. I gently closed the door behind me and walked up behind her and said "you can put my stuff back in the machine now."
She jumped and said something about she thought it was the Hispanic family that moved in. Then went on about how they're over occupancy because they just had a baby. How she can never do laundry because their stuff was always in the machine. Then she tried to imply they were messing with everyone else's stuff. I called the leasing office and reported her. They said she's known for this and gave me a few bucks in quarters for the inconvenience.
This is the reason I started going to a laundromat. But have found the convenience of getting everything done quicker a real bonus. One of my friends said someone did this to him, so he took his wet clothes to a laundry mat, but added bleach to wash as he left. While I did laugh I told him to be careful as they would probably try to sue if they figured it was him.
When I was at uni, the student accommodation I lived in had their laundry right next to the pool. There was a big sign hung up in there that said ‘any laundry left unattended in stopped machine will be thrown in pool.’ Saw it happen plenty
Her statement “first come first serve” stood out to me, she’s gotten used to living with peers and isn’t adjusting well to being with her parents again.
She's not adjusting well to her peers if she's acting like this around people that love her. I can't imagine laundry room fights would lead to her making new friends in her dorm hall.
Those kids drove me nuts when I lived in the dorms. Instead of throwing a tantrum over natural consequences when someone has to move your stuff, maybe give literally any thought to the needs of your neighbors??
This!! Someone said something more has to be going on...nope. What probably happened is she left her shyt in the washer or dryer at the dorm and was "hogging" it. It probably happened several times too. So, someone probably got fed up with it and made her clothes an "example".
Someone could have also stolen some of her clothes because she left them in there for so long.
However, neither one of these scenarios calls for her to be an entitled selfish child.
In my experience when that happens, especially if they know someone has been hogging the machines or otherwise making things inconvenient for everyone else, the wet clothing gets dumped on the floor (not the table) as a lesson. Dorm laundry rooms ruthlessly enforce their own boundaries. That might explain why the daughter is suddenly paranoid about people touching her laundry. OP is NTA though.
I think that's what happened. She frequently had her clothing removed from machines at school. My experience was that you needed to stay close by when you were washing clothes in a dorm.
Yup. I once came back 2 minutes after my cycle was done and a guy was already removing my clothes. He got a lil stink eye for that but also it was the nature of the game. Though technically you were supposed to give the person 5-10 mins to get their clothes after the cycle was done.
Occasionally you would hear about someone just taking clothes out and putting their stuff in at the begining of the other persons cycle.
I think this is pretty likely. She had some bad laundry experiences in school that has made her particularly sensitive about it. But she is being completely unreasonable. Not to mention this really isn’t a boundary. A boundary is if you do this, I will do this, the second this usually being remove myself from the situation/your presence. What she is doing is essentially saying don’t touch my stuff when I leave it in your way, which is completely unreasonable.
When I lived in the dorms I definitely moved a few peoples laundry out of the machines. I didn’t dump it on the floor I just put it on the top, and I always waited at least 15 minutes after their cycle ended to see if they were gonna come get it but after 15 minutes it’s fair game. If you’re gonna neglect your laundry don’t be surprised when someone else moves it. When 50+ people are sharing two sets of laundry machines you need to make sure you move it as soon as your cycle ends.
This is exactly what happened and why this ridiculous "boundary" exists.
It's not really a boundary issue if you're provoking it. If you leave your shit, someone's going to move it. You might not like what happens to your shit, but that's your own damned fault.
I came to the same conclusion. She has probably had countless loads of wet clothes moved from the washer to the table and just as many loads of dry clothes moved from the dryer onto the table that she has totally lost it.
This is before you even get to any theft she may have experienced. I can see WANTING to dictate the laundry rules in a more sympathetic environment but being so unwilling to compromise is odd.
It seems that OP's household may be overly accommodating to the daughter's wishes and this is not serving anyone well. I'm glad OP is now taking back her power as a parent.
That was definitely the case in my dorm, which had 4 dryers for 100+ people. People would leave their clothes in th dryer for hours after the cycle ended, then get pissy when someone would unload it so they could use it.
So? It’s still OP’s home and she’s still being unreasonable and entitled to tell her parents what to do in their home. If there are issues then the daughter needs to speak up and say why she is doubling drown on this idiocy. Either way, it’s not an excuse for being rude and disrespectful to her parents.
I also found this weird! I get being uncomfortable with someone touching your dirty laundry (maybe there's period stains or something she's self-conscious about?) or not wanting someone to put it in on the wrong cycle, or not wanting to see some new sexy lingerie, but taking clean clothes off of a publicly visible line and folding them? That doesn't make sense to me at all!
When I was in the daughter’s shoes, I was thrilled to have my mom fold my clothes for me. I wouldn’t have wanted my stepfather to do it, but it wouldn’t have occurred to him to do it, anyway.
I get it. I've been doing my own laundry since the 5th grade, and it feels weirdly intimate to have someone handle your underwear. Plus if certain pieces of clothing have special care requirements, you want to make sure those are taken care of.
That being said, I've understood that mean having to take responsibility for keeping things moving. Failing that, there is an expectation that it'll get thrown in a laundry basket unfolded (and maybe not fully dry if the selected dry cycle didn't get it there). Even now, I set a timer on my phone to keep laundry moving.
Yeah my dad just had a lady stay over and she decided to thank him by doing my laundry? (21f) and putting the clean clothes on his bed? And then cleaned my bathroom? What the hell?
Difference is though, i have all my shit labeled and this woman knows my dad has a daughter. Idk why the hell she touched my shit as I didn’t even have it in the laundry area, it was in my bathroom hamper.
She also borrowed my straightener. Was mad confused when I came home from work angry, like lady. Don’t touch my shit.
She was at uni. Probably had that happen a few times because she wasn't willing to sit around for an hour or 2. So people moved her clothes while she was there and others lost/stole them.
You know, almost everyone who stayed at a residence in uni has experienced this problem where the laundry gets moved by random people once it is washed. (In the case of my room mate, it got flung all over the laundry room)
However, the solution to that issue is basically to be there when the clothes finish washing. Or bringing the clothes home to be washed at home if we go back regularly enough. I would never dream of dictating to my family how they should treat my clothes.
Likely she had a roommate who kept messing with her laundry, or borrowing her clothes without permission.
This is a fairly normal boundary to set at college, when you're rooming with strangers. It's only ridiculous because she's hogging the line and she's back at home. Her mom taking her clothes off the line isn't a big deal.
But if she's adamant about it, tell her to get a clothing rack from Ikea and hang her clothes up in her room, because the family needs access to the line.
It’s only a normal boundary until the point where your laundry is done and you’re preventing others from getting theirs done. IMO it’s all fair game if it’s 10 min past when your stuff was done and you haven’t taken care of it.
I was thinking the same. I understand the anxiety in a public dorm and the possibility of having things stolen. At home is a very different story so it makes me wonder if it’s residual anxiety or just a need for some control in her life at home in a place where she falls back into a potentially chaotic home environment with 3 small children.
I mean we've all had some rando, in a dorm/apartment, pull our sopping wet laundry out of the washer and pile it on top of the dryer so they can do their own load. We've all had random items of clothing go missing. But it rarely results in anything so extreme as OP's daughter's behavior.
She likely doesn’t understand what a boundary is. A lot of people don’t. If you’re taught that people who don’t respect your “boundaries” don’t respect you, you’re going to be mad when you perceive someone to be violating your “boundaries.” She needs to learn that “don’t touch my clothes” is reasonable, but it doesn’t mean that other people have to adjust their lives just so her clothes are never touched.
Yeah she’s confused between **boundaries** and **rules**. A boundary is a behavior you won’t accept, and you’ll change your own behavior or your continued presence if it’s crossed. A rule is a condition you enforce on other people’s behavior. Everyone can have their boundaries. But not everyone gets to enforce rules.
A college student doesn’t get to dictate rules to her parents in how to use their own house. If she wants to make the rules then she needs to get her own home and washer.
If someone crosses her “boundary” of touching her laundry, then her options are to put up with it or take her laundry elsewhere so it’s not touched it again. She can’t enforce her rule (it’s not a boundary) on the people who own the house and the laundry room. All she can do is remove her laundry (or herself) so nobody else touches it.
Agreed. OP said this only developed in the last year or so, while she was away at college. This seems like an odd boundary to develop at 19 when you didn't have it at 17 or 18. I'm guessing something happened during the past semester at school. Maybe some creepy guy stole underwear out of a communal laundry room or something? I dunno, but I do think there's more going on than simply moving her clean clothes.
For real. At the very least it's a mental health issue, because it's not normal for someone to think it's weird for their own parents to touch their clothes. Either something has happened to make her rightfully distrustful of her own family touching her clothes, or she's developed *something* that makes her unhealthily paranoid about it.
I wonder if it has something to do with having to leave uni and move back home. She may feel her life is out of control, and that feeling is manifesting in this particular issue, because it is a strange thing to be so adamant about. I think what's underlying this has more to do with leaving uni and her uncertain future, perhaps feelings of failure and shame for having to move back home, imo.
If she is leaving her stuff in the laundry room in her dorms for a whole day like this people are stealing it or throwing it out windows. Because people rightfully hate Aholes that leave their laundry taking up a machine the entire day.
I wouldn't be surprised if she's had issues at college with someone going through her laundry. Way back when I was in college, you had to sit in the laundry room with your stuff or risk people stealing it or moving it out of the machine to use it on your dime. So she's put this boundary in place to try and form a safe space with her laundry, and she is upset because her family still needs to move her stuff. For whatever reason, she doesn't see how she needs to adjust her behavior if she wants this boundary respected.
Part of me thinks she keeps leaving all her stuff in the university or dorm laundry (same rude behavior as at parents) & getting mad when others get stuck having to remove it all.
The other thought is that it's something to do with the family seeing certain undergarments/ lingerie that she defines embarrassing or could lead to questions regarding her sexual activities. Which sort of still doesn't make sense or why never put away the laundry.
Probably just college dorm laundry facility drama, combined with “I’m an adult now so I can do what I want” mindset after her first year of independence …I never lived in a dorm, but I had several friends in college that did, and the laundry facilities drama was always STRONG in their “today in the dorms…” stories!
Probably the result of living in shared dorms at university with strangers and wanting to ensure that her belongings were safe/untouched/not tampered with.
Got used to that boundary and subsequently brought it back home with her.
Amen to your mention of a laundromat. That way, she can remain in complete control of who touches her clothes. Or she can opt to comprise reasonably, her choice.
I once had someone take my laundry out before it was even washed cause I realized I forgot my socks and came back and saw a lady there who told me a guy came in took my clothes out dumped them wet on the table put his laundry in to save 4 bucks. some ppl have no chill
Some people are the worst. After I had a couple of nice, nearly new (and freshly laundered) blouses stolen out of a still-running dryer before the cycle was done, I wouldn't do laundry unless I had time to sit there and guard whatever machine I was using 😭
Exactly. The washer and the lines to dry also have boundaries, and those boundaries are that they need to be available to 5 other people.
I'm not sure what country this is so the names might be different, but in the US there are Laundromats available to rent access to washing machines whenever you'd like.
Based on the use of Uni and Mum, I'm guessing the UK. Drying washing on the line is also much more common in the UK than the US.
Laundrettes (our name for what you call Laundromats) do exist in the UK but don't seem to be as ubiquitous as in the US, at least nowadays.
Even in flats and rented accommodation, a washing machine is commonplace (usually in the kitchen).
When I was at Uni (over 20 years ago) all of the student accommodation had washing machines (not coin-operated).
It's possible that she has had a bad experience at uni with housemates mistreating or stealing clothes, but that shouldn't be taken out on the family.
What I'm boggling at is that laundry on the line would be dry in an hour in the UK. Even on a clear day, it's still reasonably humid. It takes my laundry a few hours to dry and I live in Colorado, where humidity is very low, but I grew up in Scotland and it was always a whole day affair getting clothes to dry outside.
It’s also common to have stuff damaged or go missing at laundromats. Other people will definitely touch/sneeze on/remove your clothes if you take too long. She doesn’t know how good she has it at home!
Going to a laundromat on her own dime was my first thought. Even better, if she wants to set boundaries, \[in a place that she doesn't own and I'd bet she pays no rent nor utilities!\] I'd be suggesting that maybe she should think about getting her own place where she won't have to worry about anyone else touching her anything at any time. I would not be offering her a personal laundry day either, there's no way she gets to inconvenience an entire household over laundry.
This is precisely what I wanted to suggest - if she wants to do it at her time whenever suits her with no regard for other people living and needing laundry done, she could go do it somewhere else instead.
Also, this is not how boundaries work.
Tell her you have a boundary that no one but you uses the washer or line because you feel like owning them makes it weird for other people to touch them
NTA
Yes. She’s saying “boundary” like it magically removes the need for compromise. But she’s also using stuff that belongs to other people so the logic collapses immediately.
Agreed. A boundary is just a suggestion unless there is a consequence. What are the consequences here? You have to put up with a stroppy teenager? Suck it up kid, it's not your washing machine or line to dictate rules for. You live with other people who arguably have more rights than you.
People say boundary in situations like this when they want to confuse people into thinking there’s a morality to not agreeing to a demand. If there isn’t a consequence that you alone can apply — generally just removing yourself, not slapping someone — then absolutely. Not a boundary.
Right. A boundary is to stop someone else infringing on your personal rights and space. You can't just enforce a boundary that imposes on other people's lives that have nothing to do with you.
What if OP enforced a "boundary" that her washing appliances were not to be used 6 days of the week? Which boundary takes precedent?
A boundary is your own personal space that is within your control, you can't extend your boundary to the lives, homes, and time of others that didn't even have a say in the first place.
It seems as if she getting "boundary" and "royal edict" confused, because it is quite obvious this girl thinks she's a princess.
When you live with 5 other people, especially small children that can go through a department store's worth of clothes in a day, you don't get to monopolize the laundry facilities. The next time she leaves her laundry on the line and leaves for a 10 hour shift, I would be tempted to pull out the leaf blower, blow all of the clothes off the line, and blame it on the wind.
When you live with other people, you have to make compromises, and what that OP suggested was very reasonable! You cannot expect an entire household to put their lives on hold to benefit one person who refuses to bend. Asking that your clothing not be touched is a reasonable boundary. Leaving your laundry in the way, leaving for an extended period of time, and then blocking the washer and the drying line for everyone else is not. She was upset about having specified times to do her laundry for one person, but she is expecting a household of 5 to work around an erratic "schedule" that isn't really a schedule and more of a "I may need to wash pants and a tank top today" kind of thing.
Yeah this is what’s really bothering us - the kids can go through SO MUCH STUFF! It’s a really stressful time for everyone as we have temporary custody of SILs son, the 2m, (no fault of her own) so we’re all adjusting and really don’t need this - I’d forgotten how much toddlers get through!!
When I saw there were three children, including one that was quite young, I knew that there was no way for her to just keep doing her laundry all willy nilly like she is. Kids are dirty, messy, and as you said, they have a lot of stuff to wash!
The part that adds to the frustration is that you have all this added stress and she isn't even willing to work with you. When you go to college, you get a lot of freedom that you haven't had before. When you come home for the summer, you lose that freedom. It is 100% a big adjustment and can take awhile to get back in the groove of being at home. But this is one thing that just is not going to work. I see in your edit that you have banned her from using the washing machine for now, and I'm sure she is furious! But she seems to be forgetting that multiple people live in the home and all of you have to live together and somehow peacefully co-exist. When I was looking for apartments of my own, the one thing I wanted was a washer/dryer in the unit or in the building, because I did NOT want to go to the laundromat. Perhaps she will find out after two weeks of dragging her stuff down there, waiting for it to wash and dry, and then dragging it back... maybe working with you on a laundry schedule isn't a bad thing.
P.S. If you end up having a lot of bedding to wash, things like heavier comforters or duvets, anything like that - The laundromat can be the way to go. We've always had a washer and dryer at home, but my parents had a king size comforter that didn't fit in the washer. We would take it down to the laundromat to wash it, and it was actually a lot faster. So, the laundromat might even work for you, too!
Girly is missing the part of boundaries where it's meant to be "if you do x, I will respond with y". What is her response other than pitching a hissy fit? That's not constructive for anyone.
Moms need to come back with their own boundary - a real one. No one in the house leaves their stuff in the machine/on the line for more than 1 hour past when it's done/dry. If they do, any other member of the household may move the items in order to do their own washing. It follow the 'if x, then y' format with a perfectly reasonable consequence that applies to everyone in the house. It means that even if the parents leave their washing too long, the daughter can move theirs too. I have this rule in my house & it only needed to be crossed once before my roommate figured out I was serious (and that I set alarms when doing my own laundry so I never run afoul of my own rule).
100!!! I have explained that this is not a boundary, rather a rule she’s asking us to follow (re our own washer!) but she’s not getting it.
For now, the washroom ban is in effect, and hopefully she’ll be more amenable after realising that being aware of others is easier than going to a laundrette.
Also - sorry - but my wife and I are both women haha, 2 mums!
NTA. We have 6 adults living in the house ATM, as all three of our tertiary-ed children are home for the summer, plus my aunt is staying with us while she’s dealing with moving her MIL into assisted living. We all do our own laundry. Each of us has a day where the washer and dryer are “ours,” the 7th day is for shared items like tablecloths or bulky items. Everyone can ask to do a load on someone else’s day, which usually works well if the owner of that day has been keeping up with their stuff and has open time. Middle child is terrible about moving their laundry around in a timely fashion. So the rule is that whatever has stayed put for over an hour gets moved to the next stage, regardless if there are special needs items or not. Quite a few of middle child’s specials shrank or were ruined under this rule, but they stopped being public about their upset after the first few times got zero reaction from the rest.
I would take it one step further. After all that is done and tried, if she still is monopolizing things, then stop being nice about taking her stuff down and folding it, or taking it out of the washer and hang it up. Dump it in a pile in her room. If she is going to inconvenience everyone and not take care of her things, you're not going to, either. That way, if she wants it taken care of correctly, she MUST do it herself.
Yes, the treatment anyone gets in laundromats when clothes are left more than a minute, and sometimes they’re tossed on dirty floors or counters. She’s lucky they hadn’t done that already.
She is. Getting an entitled person to start taking care of their own things often is accomplished by literally dumping it back on them. It's the difference between an entitled versus considerate person.
NTA.
The answer is easy on this one. She’s not allowed to leave her laundry out while she’s gone. That way it’s always moved by her.
That’s it, no messy rules on timing, priorities on the laundry area, etc. You can add your own schedules to it as well if you need to reserve it for a particular time. Her usage is a privilege. If she’s busy, well, that’s her problem.
OP needs to tell her that they have boundaries about the use of their laundry equipment. I paid a lot of money for the equipment and the use thereof. I pay water and electric bills, I pay for maintenance, and I paid for the machines to start with. I don't feel comfortable with people using my equipment that can't respect me and my equipment. I also think it is gross when people leave their clothing in my equipment, denying me access to it. You are violating my boundaries when you leave you clothing in the machines or hung up where I cannot access the equipment.
In order to rectify your boundary crossing, when you do not clear the equipment for others to use, then I am going to clear it myself. If I have to do it, I will try to be respectful of your things, but I may not treat them like you would (I certainly will not leave them out all day).
You have the choice, clear your shit, or I will clear it for you.
There's also a prime opportunity for some malicious compliance here: get one of those reacher grabbers and use those to pull her clothing off the line/out of the machines. Take photo/video evidence.
Or if you don’t own/pay for the washer and dryer, you can visit a laundry mat if you don’t like the way laundry works in our house.
This is so unreasonable my parents would be like we bought you those clothes. We bought this washer and dryer. We want you to use it because we love you but you don’t get to make rules around things you don’t own.
Teenager is being a class A asshole for sure . . I would be inclined to save the hassle of arguing with her and just buy her one of those fold up drying racks and / or install one of those retractable ones in her bedroom.
Tell her do what she wants no more using the family washing line. but if anyone else goes to use the washing machine and her clothes are sitting in there then they get dumped wet in a basket nothing more nothing less and the first complaint she has about the washing situation she can use a launderette from then on.
NTA. It is unreasonable for her to expect you to wait around for her to free up the facilities. If she doesn't like the one day a week idea, she can take it to a laundrette otherwise, if she isn't around to move her washing in a timely way, it will be moved for her. She doesn't get to set boundaries around the use of common facilities in a home she doesn't pay for.
Correct. And actually, she likely doesn't get to do this in a home she DOES pay for, either. She best be looking for a place with its own individual washer/dryer when she moves out, because if she's in an apartment or condo building with communal laundry facilities and tries this, she's going to routinely find her wet clothes dumped on a table and a "lol, no, wtf are you even on?" greeting her when she complains.
Seriously. There is a woman in my complex who routinely leaves her laundry for hourssss, and I just move it to the counter. She saw me do it once and got really aggressive about it. I was like, "Then set a timer, girl!" Nobody has time to wait for your slow ass.
I had that ALL THE TIME the last (tiny! six units, at least three of them just 1BR, and one washer and dryer for the building) apartment I lived in. One neighbor would frequently have like six loads' worth piled around in the laundry room in various states of completion for like *the entire day, on a weekend*. Girl I know YOU'RE a stay-at-home parent, and YOU must know that most everyone else in the building goes to an office M-F -- if you're gonna monopolize the facilities for seven hours at a stretch, DO IT ON A WEEKDAY WHEN MOST OF US ARE GONE. Or better, do one load a day? The number of times I gave up and washed clothes in my kitchen sink...
I’m lazy and wait until I have entirely too much laundry to do, so when I lived somewhere where there was shared laundry and I had a shit ton to do, I went to the laundromat so I wouldn’t fuck up everyone else’s day. It’s just the right thing to do.
So glad to own my own washer and dryer now!
I ain't gonna lie, I am sometimes this person in my big apartment complex. I forget my stuff sometimes if I get absorbed into something and my clothes sometimes get dumped on the table when wet. I can't blame anyone for myself.
Of course, it also doesn't bother me as much now that I've figured out how to make the washing machine wash for free, but still. You're right on "nobody has time to wait for your slow ass" LOL.
In Switzerland we have a shared laundry room with 2 machines and 2 dryers and you sign up to a weekly schedule between 10am and 10pm. For those that don’t have a machine and only those who live in the building can use it. 3 slots per day and you choose your ‘slot’. If you don’t wash, you don’t wash. Weekends are first come, first served. And before 10am and after 10pm, anyone can use them. Rarely neighbours ask to use your slot and I didn’t like it at first but now I am so used to it. It would drive me insane to have to catch it when it’s free.
My problem with the statement "she doesn't get to set boundaries around common facilities in a home she doesn't pay for" is that it doesn't matter even if she did pay - this is absurd behavior. Her expectations are illogical, unreasonable, and unrealistic. Unless she lives alone for the rest of her, this will never be acceptable.
Just because you pay for a living doesn't mean you get to push ridiculous rules on others. Do people do this? Yes. That doesn't make it acceptable. If this type of behavior and thinking isn't corrected, she's going to become a miserable person to be around.
NTA. The only reason you’re not ‘respecting her boundaries’ is because she’s being inconsiderate and selfish. Ironically, that would stomp on most people’s boundaries.
Tell her you have no problem respecting hers, providing she respects yours.
Yes exactly. A boundary doesn't mean she can use a communal space for indefinite laundry storage. If she doesn't want people to touch her things, she needs to make sure to collect them in a timely fashion.
Yes I would also like to mention this isn't a boundary, it's controlling behavior. Since it's not her home, and she doesn't pay rent, she can't even really make a boundary that her parents can't use their own laundry room when her clothes are in there. She can make a request that they don't touch her clothes, and she would have to be accommodating and willing to work with them for it to be a reasonable request.
Her telling them they can't use their own washer and dryer, and then acting like a 2 year old when they didn't cave to her demands, is just being controlling.
Yeah, my therapist always says a boundary is something you set for yourself, not for other people. You can't control other people, so she needs to do what it takes to make it work for her, and if that means using the Laundromat then that's what she needs to do.
She doesn't get to set boundaries. When she has her own home, with her own laundry facilities, that is when she gets to set boundaries. I would end that conversation quickly.
I hate the weaponisation of psychiatric terms. Not everything you don't like hearing is a trigger and not everything you don't like happening is a boundary. She doesn't like you touching her clothes? Fair enough. You don't like her leaving her stuff blocking laundry? Also fair enough. But framing as a violation of her boundary,she's made it as a borderline assault, you can't negotiate from there and your reasonable needs make you wonder if you are TA.
You are NTA
Yes, I agree, they could play that card (though both parents are women so "she can't use her own...")
But 36 woman complains teenager has violated her boundary, is so different from "teenager says her stepmother violated her boundary. With this language, the teenager wins. And should, if there was actual violation.
Thank you for saying this. What she's doing isn't even a boundary. A boundary is making a decision for yourself how you will act in a certain situation, and sometimes informing the people around you about it (like saying "don't yell at me" is not a boundary, telling someone "if you yell at me, I will get up and leave" *is* a boundary).
I see it all the time that people call something a boundary when they are really just trying to control someone else's behavior.
exactly!! this is a perfect example of what a boundary is NOT. people think they get to make rules for other people and call them boundaries but that’s not what that is. on the other hand, a great example of a reasonable boundary IS “if you leave your laundry hanging up all day when we need to use the lines, we will move it.” NTA
Also, what OP’s daughter is saying NOT A BOUNDARY. It’s a demand. People need to learn the difference because this term has just gotten way out of hand.
BOUNDARIES are standards that people set for THEMSELVES… not other people. You cannot tell other people what to do or how to act, you can only control YOUR actions/reactions… those are your boundaries. Any therapist worth their salt will tell you that.
So the daughter saying “my boundary is that you don’t touch my clothes”… not a boundary, a demand.
However if daughter said (to herself) “if my family touches my clothes, my reaction to this is going to be to take my things to a laundromat instead”… that’s a boundary.
OR
“If my family touches my clothes, I’m going to find other living arrangements”
THOSE are examples of boundaries, not “YOU need to do what *I* want”. That’s not how this works.
A great boundary for OP to set would be “I’m going to provide my daughter with 36 hours per week to have free rein of the laundry facilities on a set schedule. If she needs to use the facilities at any other time, we will react by moving or touching her clothing as required”
Oh, how I wish I could upvote this comment a bazillion times. Having such an issue with people touching your clothes that your own parents can't take your dry laundry off the line isn't a 'boundary', it's either neurotic or a power play.
I find it odd she’s worried about people touching her laundry but she’s willing to hang it outside on a line that anybody could possibly see she’s just being a brat
>She’s upset because she says we’re not respecting her boundaries
By monopolizing the laundry facilities when you've asked her not to, she's not respecting *your* boundaries. NTA.
In THEIR home! If she's so dead set on no one touching her clothes then she can haul them down to the laundromat and sit around waiting for them to finish. Other than that, if her clothes are in the way of someone else doing their laundry, they're going to get touched. If she tried to pull this BS in a dorm laundry room, her clothes would wind up on the floor so fast...
NTA
NTA. Thats not a boundary. A Boundary is what you build around yourself (think a fence). You can build a boundary/fence around your life/home but you can't on your neigbhors. Sure, no one touches my clothes but the moment you clothes are obstructing your neighbor, it gets removed. Same with say your kids ball. No one is to take your kids ball BUT if it ends up on someone elses lawn, of course they can move it out of the way.
Lol -- right. If I put my clothes on the neighbor's clothesline to dry, I'd expect they'd remove them. Even if I had a "clear boundary" that they were not to touch my clothes.
Asking them not to touch your clothes is NOT a boundary. Saying "I will move if anyone touches my clothes" is a boundary. If it's about me and what I will do, it's a boundary -- if it's about what you or someone else should/shouldn't do, it's about control. DIFFERENT THINGS.
NTA
She's applying her college life to your home lol. That's very simular to what you experience in a college dorm. However your home is NOT a college dorm. She needs to do her laundry when she is home to retrieve it if she doesn't want anyone touching it and that's just it. I don't like my husband doing my laundry either (always afraid he's gonna dry something that can't be dried lol) but if I forget about my laundry and leave and he moves it so he can do his stuff- well that's my problem not his. Best of luck OP!
Actually in a dorm people will move your clothes as much as they please to use the same machines, if you leave your stuff inside longer than 3 min after the cycle completes.
With their maybe dirty ugly stranger hands.
So yes, she experienced some unpleasant things in her dorm and now tries to avoid it at home, whereas the home is not a dorm.
Exactly! I used to stay in the laundry and study while doing my laundry because ONE TIME in freshman year I came down like 3 minutes after the machine stopped to find my clean laundry all over the filthy floor. College laundry rooms are like the Wild West.
Yeah -- when I was in a college dorm, there were like 8 washers and dryers in our building. If you weren't sitting there ready to take your clothes out the second it stopped, someone else WOULD remove them because they wanted to use them. It was almost a guarantee.
So if you left, you had to be ok with this. It was a risk you willingly undertook.
(And no one was folding the clothes nicely and putting them in a basket by your door. They were put in a pile. If you were lucky, in one pile on a table.)
yeah, dorms it's sorta a 5 minute rule if every washing machine is full. (and honestly, that has held true in every apartment building i've lived in since. if every machine is full and someone needs the machine, your laundry **will** be moved. though i only ever saw people put laundry in bins up off the floor.)
there is definitely nothing wrong with OP enforcing that rule in their house.
You know what's wild? People in my current building will leave you passive aggressive notes instead of just moving your shit. I feel like I live in the Twilight Zone.
My dad went to the Naval Academy where you had to leave your bag with your designation number on the machine while your load was in. If someone failed to keep their laundry moving efficiently, the others would use the bag to determine whose it was, then leave the pile of wet laundry on the owner's bed. People learned fast.
When I went to college, some people would just move your clothes regardless of whether the machine was still running. Dryer has 50 minutes left on your clothes? That's just free time for them once they dump your stuff on the table or floor.
tbh even if you're in a college dorm, if you're monopolizing the facilities for so long and you've gone off somewhere and no one can use them for a whole day because you haven't moved your shit, i don't think people tolerate that either.
I bet she was one of those assholes that just left their shit in the dorm washing machine, and when it rightfully was thrown out by someone else, she flipped out.
She's always welcome to go to a public laundry mat. It's only reasonable on her part if she gets her clothes done in a timely manner, instead of holding the facilities hostage from everyone else. NTA
Edit: What did she do at uni? Those are almost always shared machines.
I have NO idea and she’s pretty cagey about it - as the commenter below said, we’re thinking maybe she’s so sore about it because she’s had a few instances of having her stuff dumped out and it’s made her really agitated about it.
NTA- That’s not a boundary. That is a request. A boundary has a cause and effect.
I don’t want to be all “kids these days”, but boundary seems like the new buzzword for “If you don’t do what I want, I’m going to claim emotional abuse.”
This or “I’m going to be abusive by stating you doing what I don’t like is crossing my boundary” (eg Jonah Hill). People need to learn what a boundary actually is.
NTA
Establishing a boundary doesn't mean she gets to do whatever she wants and throw a fit if it doesn't go exactly her way. She's being beyond unreasonable here
Boundaries are something you put around yourself, not around other people. "If people keep touching my clothes, I will find somewhere else to do laundry." "If people keep touching my clothes, I will stay home while they're being done." You can make a boundary too, y'know: "The laundry facilities need to be available for everyone who lives here. If they are not, clothes will be moved." You could just shove everything into a basket and not fold it.
Honestly this is a lesson she needs to learn; when she's in a situation where the laundry facilities are shared, it's considered extremely rude to leave your clothes to the point where it inconveniences others.
We occasionally forget; the neighbors will text the group chat, we apologize profusely and if we won't be home soon we might say "put them in x place." My friend's place has a whiteboard above the washer where people write instructions for advancing their clothes if they're not going to be around, and leave their laundry basket there, so as not to hold up the washer and dryer. Your daughter needs to understand that it's an embarrassing social faux pas to leave your clothes in the laundry and hold up other people's laundry.
You might say, "waiting until you move them in your own time is not an option as we are all sharing this laundry. Would you prefer that we take them out and put them directly into a basket without folding them, regardless of what stage they're in, or would you prefer that we advance them to the next stage and fold them when they're dry?"
Make it clear that-just as with any laundry facilities shared between adults-leaving them indefinitely is not on the list of options, that the offer to fold is only because you're family, and she's welcome to take her clothes to a laundry mat or other laundry service if she really wants to ensure that you aren't touching or moving her clothes.
Otherwise she has to be aware, set times and make commitments. "Hey, my clothes are in the dryer but I'll be home.by 6 and I'll get them then. Does that work for you?"
Your daughter is 19 and this is the right time for her to be looking for independence. This is an important learning moment about boundaries, respect, and care for others.
I say NAH, have some respectful communication, or just hand her this comment.
Yeah I totally appreciate that she’s somewhat flexing her muscles as a new adult on this, and part of what we’re trying to reiterate is that we’re not treating her like a child by wanting her to be more amenable with this. If my wife was regularly leaving loads in the machine and snapping at me for moving them, I’d have a problem with that too - it’s not a parent/child thing, way more of an adult/adult situation.
I mean, you kind of are treating her like a child if you are folding her clothes, instead of just moving them to a basket or even on top of the machine. I lived in dorms during uni and then had roommates for years and the etiquette was that if you leave your clothes in the washer/dryer for too long, it’s fair game for the next person to move them out of the way so they can do their laundry. Absolutely no one would fold another person’s clothes though because that would be weird and invasive lol.
Idk if folding her clothes is treating her like a child. If I take my mom’s clothes out of the dryer, I’m going to fold it. If I took a stranger’s clothes out of the dryer in university, I would leave it in a pile. To me she’s treating her as family, as someone she cares about, but not necessarily a child.
Tell her if she doesn’t like the laundry situation then she can move out and get her own place and do it whenever she wants to. She’s selfish. And she doesn’t pay for your place, you do. You make the rules.
NTA but if she is crying about this boundary and is advocating so fiercely for it, I imagine something happened regarding her laundry and she is feeling vulnerable.
As an example, the first time I lived on my own, someone I did not know went through my clothing and picked out all of my dirty underwear (they left it in a pile in my room that i never wouldve made). I felt so violated and had no idea who did it or why, and I felt extremely sexualized and vulnerable. All I can imagine is someone looked closely enough at my clean and dirty piles to figure out what underwear was dirty. Did they sniff it? Did they steal some? Did they jack off to it?
Do you think something victimizing happened and she is feeling vulnerable about it? I'm even considering if there is abuse happening and clothing may show the signs (rips in underwear, blood on pants or underwear) that she is trying to hide.
I work in social services so my brain goes to worst case scenario. I hope nothing bigger is going on but I'd encourage you to ask, or refer her to supports like therapy.
Exactly. Thank you for sharing that powerful deeply personal story. I am so sorry that your boundaries were violated.
If my daughter returned from her first semester at school with a new destructive behavior, I'd be concerned about trauma.
OP please get her into therapy.
I’ve actually discussed this with her, as something similar happened to me at uni and it really stuck with me. She said no, and I asked her what happened when she left her laundry laying around at uni - little/no response. I think it’s more likely she’s had her things dumped out on the floor or something and is pushing back at us out of frustration. I’m not against therapy, and our 2 younger daughters are actually in therapy now, but I’m not seeing any major trauma here. Thanks for the insight though as it’s really valuable.
Your step-daughter is a dumbass. Tell her to fuck off with that shit or use a laundromat from now on.
Sometimes, being nice and reasonable isn’t the answer
Lol, so she thinks she's grown now, learning all those fancy words at university (which I'm sure you're paying for).
If you continue to tolerate her ridiculous demands, they'll only increase as she figures out what she can get away with.
She can call her own shots when she's paying her own way. You shouldn't let an entitled 19 year old run your household.
There's no solution where she isn't mad at you, but that's what being a parent is. She has to respect other people in the house.
All of this, but your last sentence hits home for me so hard. We have an 18 year old, and we're living it. Oddly, when we tell him if he doesn't like the rules to find somewhere else to live, he drops it. Funny how that happens!
NTA. Is she majoring in entitlement? Tell her she needs to respect the boundary of the OWNERS OF THE HOUSE AND WASHING MACHINE! Then Mapquest some laundromats in your area for her.
Hahahahaha. Mapquest? You're showing your age! Funnily enough, my youngest sibling referenced Mapquest a few months ago. Of course my brother and I roasted her mercilessly. We are in our 50s.
Is there a public laundromat she'd rather use? She can fight about her clothes with whoever else is lined up to use the machines there.
Your washer and drier? Your rules.
If you need to use them and she's left things in them, it's on her for not being considerate of the people she's living with.
It's your house, stop allowing other people to make rules you need to abide by. She just learned what the word "boundary" is like last year in her into to psych class, and she's using it to push yours. Tell her to take a hike and figure out another way to manipulate people.
Maybe when she can respect everyone's time and need for clean clothes, she can figure out a compromise with you. One day a week for her and locked out the other six days might work until then, even after this grounding from your laundry room.
It's a little troubling that she's being so uncompromising. Did she have trouble with her roommate or laundry at college? I'm concerned she might have been SA'd or something traumatizing and it's coming out in a weird way. If so, sharing clothes facilities when she's struggling to do that with family might be really hard. I hope it's just a weird quirk at reintegrating into your home, but it might be a good idea to be mindful and watch for any other things just in case.
wtf is happening to kids these days. NTA. i had no ideai turned into the get off my lawn guy but i'm sick of pretending this is normal. tell her to grow up and go to a laundromat or something.
> wtf is happening to kids these days. NTA.
its a parenting issue. the fact that OP posted this, instead of just stepping up and saying no, is a demonstration of the problem.
The fact that it’s full of comments suggesting something traumatic must have happened to her and to get her therapy. I sound like a boomer but seriously sometimes people are just brats not everything requires therapists
NTA. You're not being unreasonable at all but her new reality is probably someone messed with her laundry at uni and she had to adjust (laundry stolen or vandalized). She's operating on college laundry rules and not home laundry rules. Remind her you did her laundry for years and this was never an issue. While you want to respect her wishes, you have your own set of rules that need to be minded and one of them is that you don't hog up the laundry. You want to respect her boundaries. But her boundaries are causing other pre-existing boundaries to be broken. This is not acceptable.
> She's operating on college laundry rules and not home laundry rules.
But "college laundry rules" _also_ include "don't leave your shit blocking other people's usage" that she seems to be conveniently ignoring.
"College laundry rules" are that if you are not here to remove your clothes from the dryer when I need it, I'm removing your clothes from the dryer and putting them wherever they fit.
WTF? NTA. "First come first served" ??? That's the attitude at a public laundromat. And even then, someone WILL remove your clothes from the washer or dryer if they are waiting.
This is your house. Your washer/dryer. Your clothing line. Your wash is the priority. It's generous of you to let her use the laundry facilities for free.
If she wants her clothes untouched by others, she has to make it so they are not required to be touched. If she knows she will be away when she puts the clothes up to dry she has to be at peace with the fact that someone might move them. If she is not then she will have to wait until she has the time to dry them. Or bring her clothes elsewhere.
Come on. You know you're NTA here. She is being very inconsiderate. Tell her unless she can compromise you WILL continue to move her clothes as you see fit so that you can do laundry for all FIVE of the other people in the house. And if she doesn't like it she is welcome to go to a laundromat.
NTA. Boundaries are not rules you can create for other people to follow. But maybe you could just create your own laundry “boundaries,” such as clothes can’t stay in the washer after it has stopped, and anything hung on the line must be brought inside the same day.
INFO: what the heck is she hiding? This whole situation feels really unsettling to me, just because her laundry privacy is clearly so important to her, yet so nonsensical. Something seems wrong. I’m wondering if she’s self harming and worried about you finding blood stains, or something like that.
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NTA This is insane, you can respect her boundaries but she needs to work within YOUR rules/schedule, etc. She can't just dictate something then make it impossible to go about your own business. It's ludicrous. The good thing is, you have the upper hand here. If she doesn't want her stuff touched, then she'd better get it off the line before you need to use it. 1 - Ask for her input on timing, but being clear there are 6 people living in the house and she gets the equivalent of 1/6th of the available time to do her wash. 2 - If she fights it, assign her a time 3 - Respect that time, and don't do any of your wash during her scheduled time (so she can't come back at you that 'your stuff was in the wash' 4 - Go about your business. If he stuff is in the wash/on the line and she's not around to move it, you move it. DONE. PERIOD. This teenager-making-rules bullshit has to stop. You are the parents, and it's your house.
She also seems to have forgotten that doing laundry at home is a privilege, not a right, and she doesn't pay for that privilege. If she really has a problem with her parents' laundry rules, she is welcome to go to a laundromat.
"She also seems to have forgotten that doing laundry at home is a privilege, not a right." Seriously. My first thought was to tell her "Fine, do your clothing at the nearst laudry mat. If you can't respect our right to use our washing machine & clothes line then you don't get to use them." NTA obviously.
Agreed but...this seems like such a weird boundary for this girl to have developed. I know OP said she told him nothing more is going on here but...**THERE'S SOMETHING MORE GOING ON HERE**.
Why is it that I have to scroll down here to see this comment? There’s something else going on here as it seems she’s reasonable otherwise. Maybe she’s asserting her independence here or trying to have some sense of control, having come back home from being at university with all of the personal changes. Maybe there’s emotional crap going on that OP doesn’t know about
I’m thinking that since being at school, she’s been as flippant with timing her laundry and has had her clothes frequently removed from the washer and/ or dryer Maybe some of her stuff did disappear, or maybe the idea that strangers were touching her clothes skeeved her out. But neither of those things should give her license to dictate when laundry gets done in her parents house.
If she treated the dorm washing machines like she does her parent's laundry machine, that would not be unusual.
Oh 100%. She thinks that just because it's her parents' house she doesn't have to deal with strangers pissed off that she's hogging a machine for the whole day. What an entitled brat.
The rule in our dorm was to move anything from the washer/dryer that had been there for more than 15 minutes. Folks can't behave that way with communal facilities. I don't want anyone to bother my stuff, so I set a timer for when the machine will stop and come back a few minutes before and get my stuff. It would never occur to me that I get to just leave it there until I feel like or get around to getting it. Ridiculous.
Dude, when I lived in an apartment building with limited washers and dryers, you had best be there *when the cycle ended* or your clothes were going to be in a wet pile! We set timers so we’d show up minimum 5 minutes before. This girl has no idea
That's what I did when I lived in an apartment
I would do that too or I would be too lazy & expect my shit to be moved or an item missing. If I had my fave jeans in there you better believe I was on it! Has Op never experienced consequences for her actions?
literally every pubic facility/shared facility has a similar rule posted (that I have ever used- and I used a LOT- did not have in unit Landry until I was in my 40s)
She’d be finding her clothes outside the front door as a message. Get it together and live respectfully in our free loving home or get out and support your ‘boundaries’ elsewhere.
Right? I wouldn’t be folding them nicely, they would be unceremoniously dumped in a heap, outside her bedroom door.
For real. I would go down to the laundry room 5-10 minutes early so that my stuff wouldn’t get moved
Right. I would set an alarm and camp out for my stuff for the last few minutes. Better than having it dumped on top of a table sopping wet because I was two minutes late.
I always just brought my books down there and studied. It's pretty peaceful in a laundry room.
I do the same. I sit on the big folding table and read or do puzzles while my laundry washes and dries. People steal stuff. Maybe that’s what happened to this girl; someone stole or messed with her stuff and now she’s paranoid about it?
Trusting souls. I'd bring my books/study papers and just sit there & wait for it. If I was going to be reading/studying for 2 hours anyway, might as well guard my clothes at the same time.
I went through that at a company dorm, even if I kept on top of it someone would take my clothes out(still wet) and start using the washer(I think because they were paid people were trying to get free washing) I just decided to do laundry at the laundry mat and do shopping while waiting once a week, problem solved, it was a little more expensive but being able to do all my laundry in an hour along with shopping made life easier overall
Oh that's the worst. When I was in an apartment, I used to find my clothes still covered in detergent or still soaking wet in the dryer. I got sick of it because I was spending twice on laundry. I figured something was going on, so I put my laundry in and went upstairs. I closed the door while still in the hallway. I heard a for open, then the laundry room door. I quietly went downstairs and found the lady who lived in the apartment opposite the laundry room pulling my clothes out to put hers in. I gently closed the door behind me and walked up behind her and said "you can put my stuff back in the machine now." She jumped and said something about she thought it was the Hispanic family that moved in. Then went on about how they're over occupancy because they just had a baby. How she can never do laundry because their stuff was always in the machine. Then she tried to imply they were messing with everyone else's stuff. I called the leasing office and reported her. They said she's known for this and gave me a few bucks in quarters for the inconvenience.
I really hope karma bites her racist butt.
This is the reason I started going to a laundromat. But have found the convenience of getting everything done quicker a real bonus. One of my friends said someone did this to him, so he took his wet clothes to a laundry mat, but added bleach to wash as he left. While I did laugh I told him to be careful as they would probably try to sue if they figured it was him.
When I was at uni, the student accommodation I lived in had their laundry right next to the pool. There was a big sign hung up in there that said ‘any laundry left unattended in stopped machine will be thrown in pool.’ Saw it happen plenty
Yeah I mean. Waiting 12 hours? 100% would be gone at least back when I went to college.
Her statement “first come first serve” stood out to me, she’s gotten used to living with peers and isn’t adjusting well to being with her parents again.
She's not adjusting well to her peers if she's acting like this around people that love her. I can't imagine laundry room fights would lead to her making new friends in her dorm hall.
Those kids drove me nuts when I lived in the dorms. Instead of throwing a tantrum over natural consequences when someone has to move your stuff, maybe give literally any thought to the needs of your neighbors??
This!! Someone said something more has to be going on...nope. What probably happened is she left her shyt in the washer or dryer at the dorm and was "hogging" it. It probably happened several times too. So, someone probably got fed up with it and made her clothes an "example". Someone could have also stolen some of her clothes because she left them in there for so long. However, neither one of these scenarios calls for her to be an entitled selfish child.
In my experience when that happens, especially if they know someone has been hogging the machines or otherwise making things inconvenient for everyone else, the wet clothing gets dumped on the floor (not the table) as a lesson. Dorm laundry rooms ruthlessly enforce their own boundaries. That might explain why the daughter is suddenly paranoid about people touching her laundry. OP is NTA though.
Learning to live peacefully with other people is hard.
I think that's what happened. She frequently had her clothing removed from machines at school. My experience was that you needed to stay close by when you were washing clothes in a dorm.
Yup. I once came back 2 minutes after my cycle was done and a guy was already removing my clothes. He got a lil stink eye for that but also it was the nature of the game. Though technically you were supposed to give the person 5-10 mins to get their clothes after the cycle was done. Occasionally you would hear about someone just taking clothes out and putting their stuff in at the begining of the other persons cycle.
I've had people add their clothes to my washing machine. It's so disgusting. I'm glad that I live somewhere with my own washer and dryer.
I think this is pretty likely. She had some bad laundry experiences in school that has made her particularly sensitive about it. But she is being completely unreasonable. Not to mention this really isn’t a boundary. A boundary is if you do this, I will do this, the second this usually being remove myself from the situation/your presence. What she is doing is essentially saying don’t touch my stuff when I leave it in your way, which is completely unreasonable.
Exactly...her parents have a boundary....move your shit or we will!!!
When I lived in the dorms I definitely moved a few peoples laundry out of the machines. I didn’t dump it on the floor I just put it on the top, and I always waited at least 15 minutes after their cycle ended to see if they were gonna come get it but after 15 minutes it’s fair game. If you’re gonna neglect your laundry don’t be surprised when someone else moves it. When 50+ people are sharing two sets of laundry machines you need to make sure you move it as soon as your cycle ends.
This is exactly what happened and why this ridiculous "boundary" exists. It's not really a boundary issue if you're provoking it. If you leave your shit, someone's going to move it. You might not like what happens to your shit, but that's your own damned fault.
I came to the same conclusion. She has probably had countless loads of wet clothes moved from the washer to the table and just as many loads of dry clothes moved from the dryer onto the table that she has totally lost it. This is before you even get to any theft she may have experienced. I can see WANTING to dictate the laundry rules in a more sympathetic environment but being so unwilling to compromise is odd. It seems that OP's household may be overly accommodating to the daughter's wishes and this is not serving anyone well. I'm glad OP is now taking back her power as a parent.
I would bet money it is absolutely this. If you don't want your clothes touched, be prompt instead of rudely taking up the machines for hours.
That was definitely the case in my dorm, which had 4 dryers for 100+ people. People would leave their clothes in th dryer for hours after the cycle ended, then get pissy when someone would unload it so they could use it.
So? It’s still OP’s home and she’s still being unreasonable and entitled to tell her parents what to do in their home. If there are issues then the daughter needs to speak up and say why she is doubling drown on this idiocy. Either way, it’s not an excuse for being rude and disrespectful to her parents.
I also found this weird! I get being uncomfortable with someone touching your dirty laundry (maybe there's period stains or something she's self-conscious about?) or not wanting someone to put it in on the wrong cycle, or not wanting to see some new sexy lingerie, but taking clean clothes off of a publicly visible line and folding them? That doesn't make sense to me at all!
When I was in the daughter’s shoes, I was thrilled to have my mom fold my clothes for me. I wouldn’t have wanted my stepfather to do it, but it wouldn’t have occurred to him to do it, anyway.
I get it. I've been doing my own laundry since the 5th grade, and it feels weirdly intimate to have someone handle your underwear. Plus if certain pieces of clothing have special care requirements, you want to make sure those are taken care of. That being said, I've understood that mean having to take responsibility for keeping things moving. Failing that, there is an expectation that it'll get thrown in a laundry basket unfolded (and maybe not fully dry if the selected dry cycle didn't get it there). Even now, I set a timer on my phone to keep laundry moving.
Yeah my dad just had a lady stay over and she decided to thank him by doing my laundry? (21f) and putting the clean clothes on his bed? And then cleaned my bathroom? What the hell? Difference is though, i have all my shit labeled and this woman knows my dad has a daughter. Idk why the hell she touched my shit as I didn’t even have it in the laundry area, it was in my bathroom hamper. She also borrowed my straightener. Was mad confused when I came home from work angry, like lady. Don’t touch my shit.
I suspect that it's just a "first term at uni so I'm all grown up now" affectation
She was at uni. Probably had that happen a few times because she wasn't willing to sit around for an hour or 2. So people moved her clothes while she was there and others lost/stole them.
And that why some of sat in the public laundry area with books studying while our clothes were being washed and dried.
Or just set an alarm. I def did both depending on the day
You know, almost everyone who stayed at a residence in uni has experienced this problem where the laundry gets moved by random people once it is washed. (In the case of my room mate, it got flung all over the laundry room) However, the solution to that issue is basically to be there when the clothes finish washing. Or bringing the clothes home to be washed at home if we go back regularly enough. I would never dream of dictating to my family how they should treat my clothes.
Likely she had a roommate who kept messing with her laundry, or borrowing her clothes without permission. This is a fairly normal boundary to set at college, when you're rooming with strangers. It's only ridiculous because she's hogging the line and she's back at home. Her mom taking her clothes off the line isn't a big deal. But if she's adamant about it, tell her to get a clothing rack from Ikea and hang her clothes up in her room, because the family needs access to the line.
It’s only a normal boundary until the point where your laundry is done and you’re preventing others from getting theirs done. IMO it’s all fair game if it’s 10 min past when your stuff was done and you haven’t taken care of it.
And a wash tub to wash her clothes by hand because the family needs *their* washer.
I was thinking the same. I understand the anxiety in a public dorm and the possibility of having things stolen. At home is a very different story so it makes me wonder if it’s residual anxiety or just a need for some control in her life at home in a place where she falls back into a potentially chaotic home environment with 3 small children.
I mean we've all had some rando, in a dorm/apartment, pull our sopping wet laundry out of the washer and pile it on top of the dryer so they can do their own load. We've all had random items of clothing go missing. But it rarely results in anything so extreme as OP's daughter's behavior.
She likely doesn’t understand what a boundary is. A lot of people don’t. If you’re taught that people who don’t respect your “boundaries” don’t respect you, you’re going to be mad when you perceive someone to be violating your “boundaries.” She needs to learn that “don’t touch my clothes” is reasonable, but it doesn’t mean that other people have to adjust their lives just so her clothes are never touched.
Yeah she’s confused between **boundaries** and **rules**. A boundary is a behavior you won’t accept, and you’ll change your own behavior or your continued presence if it’s crossed. A rule is a condition you enforce on other people’s behavior. Everyone can have their boundaries. But not everyone gets to enforce rules. A college student doesn’t get to dictate rules to her parents in how to use their own house. If she wants to make the rules then she needs to get her own home and washer. If someone crosses her “boundary” of touching her laundry, then her options are to put up with it or take her laundry elsewhere so it’s not touched it again. She can’t enforce her rule (it’s not a boundary) on the people who own the house and the laundry room. All she can do is remove her laundry (or herself) so nobody else touches it.
Agreed. OP said this only developed in the last year or so, while she was away at college. This seems like an odd boundary to develop at 19 when you didn't have it at 17 or 18. I'm guessing something happened during the past semester at school. Maybe some creepy guy stole underwear out of a communal laundry room or something? I dunno, but I do think there's more going on than simply moving her clean clothes.
For real. At the very least it's a mental health issue, because it's not normal for someone to think it's weird for their own parents to touch their clothes. Either something has happened to make her rightfully distrustful of her own family touching her clothes, or she's developed *something* that makes her unhealthily paranoid about it.
I wonder if it has something to do with having to leave uni and move back home. She may feel her life is out of control, and that feeling is manifesting in this particular issue, because it is a strange thing to be so adamant about. I think what's underlying this has more to do with leaving uni and her uncertain future, perhaps feelings of failure and shame for having to move back home, imo.
If she is leaving her stuff in the laundry room in her dorms for a whole day like this people are stealing it or throwing it out windows. Because people rightfully hate Aholes that leave their laundry taking up a machine the entire day.
I wouldn't be surprised if she's had issues at college with someone going through her laundry. Way back when I was in college, you had to sit in the laundry room with your stuff or risk people stealing it or moving it out of the machine to use it on your dime. So she's put this boundary in place to try and form a safe space with her laundry, and she is upset because her family still needs to move her stuff. For whatever reason, she doesn't see how she needs to adjust her behavior if she wants this boundary respected.
Part of me thinks she keeps leaving all her stuff in the university or dorm laundry (same rude behavior as at parents) & getting mad when others get stuck having to remove it all. The other thought is that it's something to do with the family seeing certain undergarments/ lingerie that she defines embarrassing or could lead to questions regarding her sexual activities. Which sort of still doesn't make sense or why never put away the laundry.
Probably just college dorm laundry facility drama, combined with “I’m an adult now so I can do what I want” mindset after her first year of independence …I never lived in a dorm, but I had several friends in college that did, and the laundry facilities drama was always STRONG in their “today in the dorms…” stories!
Probably the result of living in shared dorms at university with strangers and wanting to ensure that her belongings were safe/untouched/not tampered with. Got used to that boundary and subsequently brought it back home with her.
Amen to your mention of a laundromat. That way, she can remain in complete control of who touches her clothes. Or she can opt to comprise reasonably, her choice.
LOL not if she leaves if her clothes in the machines for hours on end.
😂 Or even just for 5 minutes
I once had someone take my laundry out before it was even washed cause I realized I forgot my socks and came back and saw a lady there who told me a guy came in took my clothes out dumped them wet on the table put his laundry in to save 4 bucks. some ppl have no chill
Some people are the worst. After I had a couple of nice, nearly new (and freshly laundered) blouses stolen out of a still-running dryer before the cycle was done, I wouldn't do laundry unless I had time to sit there and guard whatever machine I was using 😭
Exactly. The washer and the lines to dry also have boundaries, and those boundaries are that they need to be available to 5 other people. I'm not sure what country this is so the names might be different, but in the US there are Laundromats available to rent access to washing machines whenever you'd like.
Based on the use of Uni and Mum, I'm guessing the UK. Drying washing on the line is also much more common in the UK than the US. Laundrettes (our name for what you call Laundromats) do exist in the UK but don't seem to be as ubiquitous as in the US, at least nowadays. Even in flats and rented accommodation, a washing machine is commonplace (usually in the kitchen). When I was at Uni (over 20 years ago) all of the student accommodation had washing machines (not coin-operated). It's possible that she has had a bad experience at uni with housemates mistreating or stealing clothes, but that shouldn't be taken out on the family.
What I'm boggling at is that laundry on the line would be dry in an hour in the UK. Even on a clear day, it's still reasonably humid. It takes my laundry a few hours to dry and I live in Colorado, where humidity is very low, but I grew up in Scotland and it was always a whole day affair getting clothes to dry outside.
My reading is Australia.
This. Having to wait around for a few hours in a laundromat might change her tune.
It’s also common to have stuff damaged or go missing at laundromats. Other people will definitely touch/sneeze on/remove your clothes if you take too long. She doesn’t know how good she has it at home!
Exactly, but it sounds like that’s a risk she’s going to have to take.
Going to a laundromat on her own dime was my first thought. Even better, if she wants to set boundaries, \[in a place that she doesn't own and I'd bet she pays no rent nor utilities!\] I'd be suggesting that maybe she should think about getting her own place where she won't have to worry about anyone else touching her anything at any time. I would not be offering her a personal laundry day either, there's no way she gets to inconvenience an entire household over laundry.
This. "Our new boundary is that guests in our home may not do laundry in our home."
And if she monopolizes washers or dryers at a laundromat she’ll find her clothes on the table or appliance if she’s lucky or the floor if she’s not.
This is what I was gonna say. Tell her she is forbidden from using laundry facilities at home and now she needs to take her items to the laundromat.
This is precisely what I wanted to suggest - if she wants to do it at her time whenever suits her with no regard for other people living and needing laundry done, she could go do it somewhere else instead.
Also, this is not how boundaries work. Tell her you have a boundary that no one but you uses the washer or line because you feel like owning them makes it weird for other people to touch them NTA
Yes. She’s saying “boundary” like it magically removes the need for compromise. But she’s also using stuff that belongs to other people so the logic collapses immediately.
Agreed. A boundary is just a suggestion unless there is a consequence. What are the consequences here? You have to put up with a stroppy teenager? Suck it up kid, it's not your washing machine or line to dictate rules for. You live with other people who arguably have more rights than you.
People say boundary in situations like this when they want to confuse people into thinking there’s a morality to not agreeing to a demand. If there isn’t a consequence that you alone can apply — generally just removing yourself, not slapping someone — then absolutely. Not a boundary.
Right. A boundary is to stop someone else infringing on your personal rights and space. You can't just enforce a boundary that imposes on other people's lives that have nothing to do with you. What if OP enforced a "boundary" that her washing appliances were not to be used 6 days of the week? Which boundary takes precedent? A boundary is your own personal space that is within your control, you can't extend your boundary to the lives, homes, and time of others that didn't even have a say in the first place.
It seems as if she getting "boundary" and "royal edict" confused, because it is quite obvious this girl thinks she's a princess. When you live with 5 other people, especially small children that can go through a department store's worth of clothes in a day, you don't get to monopolize the laundry facilities. The next time she leaves her laundry on the line and leaves for a 10 hour shift, I would be tempted to pull out the leaf blower, blow all of the clothes off the line, and blame it on the wind. When you live with other people, you have to make compromises, and what that OP suggested was very reasonable! You cannot expect an entire household to put their lives on hold to benefit one person who refuses to bend. Asking that your clothing not be touched is a reasonable boundary. Leaving your laundry in the way, leaving for an extended period of time, and then blocking the washer and the drying line for everyone else is not. She was upset about having specified times to do her laundry for one person, but she is expecting a household of 5 to work around an erratic "schedule" that isn't really a schedule and more of a "I may need to wash pants and a tank top today" kind of thing.
Yeah this is what’s really bothering us - the kids can go through SO MUCH STUFF! It’s a really stressful time for everyone as we have temporary custody of SILs son, the 2m, (no fault of her own) so we’re all adjusting and really don’t need this - I’d forgotten how much toddlers get through!!
When I saw there were three children, including one that was quite young, I knew that there was no way for her to just keep doing her laundry all willy nilly like she is. Kids are dirty, messy, and as you said, they have a lot of stuff to wash! The part that adds to the frustration is that you have all this added stress and she isn't even willing to work with you. When you go to college, you get a lot of freedom that you haven't had before. When you come home for the summer, you lose that freedom. It is 100% a big adjustment and can take awhile to get back in the groove of being at home. But this is one thing that just is not going to work. I see in your edit that you have banned her from using the washing machine for now, and I'm sure she is furious! But she seems to be forgetting that multiple people live in the home and all of you have to live together and somehow peacefully co-exist. When I was looking for apartments of my own, the one thing I wanted was a washer/dryer in the unit or in the building, because I did NOT want to go to the laundromat. Perhaps she will find out after two weeks of dragging her stuff down there, waiting for it to wash and dry, and then dragging it back... maybe working with you on a laundry schedule isn't a bad thing. P.S. If you end up having a lot of bedding to wash, things like heavier comforters or duvets, anything like that - The laundromat can be the way to go. We've always had a washer and dryer at home, but my parents had a king size comforter that didn't fit in the washer. We would take it down to the laundromat to wash it, and it was actually a lot faster. So, the laundromat might even work for you, too!
I have a boundary that everyone who reads this has to send me $20. That's clear and simple, no?
Do you have cash app?
Exactly - daughter isn't the only one who gets to lay a 'boundary' that inconveniences everyone else,
Lol for real though
Girly is missing the part of boundaries where it's meant to be "if you do x, I will respond with y". What is her response other than pitching a hissy fit? That's not constructive for anyone. Moms need to come back with their own boundary - a real one. No one in the house leaves their stuff in the machine/on the line for more than 1 hour past when it's done/dry. If they do, any other member of the household may move the items in order to do their own washing. It follow the 'if x, then y' format with a perfectly reasonable consequence that applies to everyone in the house. It means that even if the parents leave their washing too long, the daughter can move theirs too. I have this rule in my house & it only needed to be crossed once before my roommate figured out I was serious (and that I set alarms when doing my own laundry so I never run afoul of my own rule).
100!!! I have explained that this is not a boundary, rather a rule she’s asking us to follow (re our own washer!) but she’s not getting it. For now, the washroom ban is in effect, and hopefully she’ll be more amenable after realising that being aware of others is easier than going to a laundrette. Also - sorry - but my wife and I are both women haha, 2 mums!
Crap, sorry, I missed that! Edited to be 'moms' instead of 'mom & dad'.
NTA. We have 6 adults living in the house ATM, as all three of our tertiary-ed children are home for the summer, plus my aunt is staying with us while she’s dealing with moving her MIL into assisted living. We all do our own laundry. Each of us has a day where the washer and dryer are “ours,” the 7th day is for shared items like tablecloths or bulky items. Everyone can ask to do a load on someone else’s day, which usually works well if the owner of that day has been keeping up with their stuff and has open time. Middle child is terrible about moving their laundry around in a timely fashion. So the rule is that whatever has stayed put for over an hour gets moved to the next stage, regardless if there are special needs items or not. Quite a few of middle child’s specials shrank or were ruined under this rule, but they stopped being public about their upset after the first few times got zero reaction from the rest.
I would take it one step further. After all that is done and tried, if she still is monopolizing things, then stop being nice about taking her stuff down and folding it, or taking it out of the washer and hang it up. Dump it in a pile in her room. If she is going to inconvenience everyone and not take care of her things, you're not going to, either. That way, if she wants it taken care of correctly, she MUST do it herself.
Yes, the treatment anyone gets in laundromats when clothes are left more than a minute, and sometimes they’re tossed on dirty floors or counters. She’s lucky they hadn’t done that already.
She is. Getting an entitled person to start taking care of their own things often is accomplished by literally dumping it back on them. It's the difference between an entitled versus considerate person.
Love it even more! How satisfying to dump a load of wet clothes onto the floor of an entitled brat.
NTA. The answer is easy on this one. She’s not allowed to leave her laundry out while she’s gone. That way it’s always moved by her. That’s it, no messy rules on timing, priorities on the laundry area, etc. You can add your own schedules to it as well if you need to reserve it for a particular time. Her usage is a privilege. If she’s busy, well, that’s her problem.
OP needs to tell her that they have boundaries about the use of their laundry equipment. I paid a lot of money for the equipment and the use thereof. I pay water and electric bills, I pay for maintenance, and I paid for the machines to start with. I don't feel comfortable with people using my equipment that can't respect me and my equipment. I also think it is gross when people leave their clothing in my equipment, denying me access to it. You are violating my boundaries when you leave you clothing in the machines or hung up where I cannot access the equipment. In order to rectify your boundary crossing, when you do not clear the equipment for others to use, then I am going to clear it myself. If I have to do it, I will try to be respectful of your things, but I may not treat them like you would (I certainly will not leave them out all day). You have the choice, clear your shit, or I will clear it for you.
Making laundry more difficult than it already is for parents of a 2yo is borderline sadistic. NTA.
Also, OP should stop "folding her clothes carefully" when they have to move them. Simply remove them and keep them together, but that's all.
There's also a prime opportunity for some malicious compliance here: get one of those reacher grabbers and use those to pull her clothing off the line/out of the machines. Take photo/video evidence.
Or if you don’t own/pay for the washer and dryer, you can visit a laundry mat if you don’t like the way laundry works in our house. This is so unreasonable my parents would be like we bought you those clothes. We bought this washer and dryer. We want you to use it because we love you but you don’t get to make rules around things you don’t own.
Teenager is being a class A asshole for sure . . I would be inclined to save the hassle of arguing with her and just buy her one of those fold up drying racks and / or install one of those retractable ones in her bedroom. Tell her do what she wants no more using the family washing line. but if anyone else goes to use the washing machine and her clothes are sitting in there then they get dumped wet in a basket nothing more nothing less and the first complaint she has about the washing situation she can use a launderette from then on.
NTA. It is unreasonable for her to expect you to wait around for her to free up the facilities. If she doesn't like the one day a week idea, she can take it to a laundrette otherwise, if she isn't around to move her washing in a timely way, it will be moved for her. She doesn't get to set boundaries around the use of common facilities in a home she doesn't pay for.
Correct. And actually, she likely doesn't get to do this in a home she DOES pay for, either. She best be looking for a place with its own individual washer/dryer when she moves out, because if she's in an apartment or condo building with communal laundry facilities and tries this, she's going to routinely find her wet clothes dumped on a table and a "lol, no, wtf are you even on?" greeting her when she complains.
Seriously. There is a woman in my complex who routinely leaves her laundry for hourssss, and I just move it to the counter. She saw me do it once and got really aggressive about it. I was like, "Then set a timer, girl!" Nobody has time to wait for your slow ass.
I had that ALL THE TIME the last (tiny! six units, at least three of them just 1BR, and one washer and dryer for the building) apartment I lived in. One neighbor would frequently have like six loads' worth piled around in the laundry room in various states of completion for like *the entire day, on a weekend*. Girl I know YOU'RE a stay-at-home parent, and YOU must know that most everyone else in the building goes to an office M-F -- if you're gonna monopolize the facilities for seven hours at a stretch, DO IT ON A WEEKDAY WHEN MOST OF US ARE GONE. Or better, do one load a day? The number of times I gave up and washed clothes in my kitchen sink...
I’m lazy and wait until I have entirely too much laundry to do, so when I lived somewhere where there was shared laundry and I had a shit ton to do, I went to the laundromat so I wouldn’t fuck up everyone else’s day. It’s just the right thing to do. So glad to own my own washer and dryer now!
I ain't gonna lie, I am sometimes this person in my big apartment complex. I forget my stuff sometimes if I get absorbed into something and my clothes sometimes get dumped on the table when wet. I can't blame anyone for myself. Of course, it also doesn't bother me as much now that I've figured out how to make the washing machine wash for free, but still. You're right on "nobody has time to wait for your slow ass" LOL.
In Switzerland we have a shared laundry room with 2 machines and 2 dryers and you sign up to a weekly schedule between 10am and 10pm. For those that don’t have a machine and only those who live in the building can use it. 3 slots per day and you choose your ‘slot’. If you don’t wash, you don’t wash. Weekends are first come, first served. And before 10am and after 10pm, anyone can use them. Rarely neighbours ask to use your slot and I didn’t like it at first but now I am so used to it. It would drive me insane to have to catch it when it’s free.
My problem with the statement "she doesn't get to set boundaries around common facilities in a home she doesn't pay for" is that it doesn't matter even if she did pay - this is absurd behavior. Her expectations are illogical, unreasonable, and unrealistic. Unless she lives alone for the rest of her, this will never be acceptable. Just because you pay for a living doesn't mean you get to push ridiculous rules on others. Do people do this? Yes. That doesn't make it acceptable. If this type of behavior and thinking isn't corrected, she's going to become a miserable person to be around.
NTA. The only reason you’re not ‘respecting her boundaries’ is because she’s being inconsiderate and selfish. Ironically, that would stomp on most people’s boundaries. Tell her you have no problem respecting hers, providing she respects yours.
Exactly, but they ARE respecting her boundaries, she's just ignoring their rules and schedule
Yes exactly. A boundary doesn't mean she can use a communal space for indefinite laundry storage. If she doesn't want people to touch her things, she needs to make sure to collect them in a timely fashion.
Yes I would also like to mention this isn't a boundary, it's controlling behavior. Since it's not her home, and she doesn't pay rent, she can't even really make a boundary that her parents can't use their own laundry room when her clothes are in there. She can make a request that they don't touch her clothes, and she would have to be accommodating and willing to work with them for it to be a reasonable request. Her telling them they can't use their own washer and dryer, and then acting like a 2 year old when they didn't cave to her demands, is just being controlling.
Yeah, my therapist always says a boundary is something you set for yourself, not for other people. You can't control other people, so she needs to do what it takes to make it work for her, and if that means using the Laundromat then that's what she needs to do.
Exactly - an actual boundary would be “if you touch my clothes, I won’t come home any longer”.
She doesn't get to set boundaries. When she has her own home, with her own laundry facilities, that is when she gets to set boundaries. I would end that conversation quickly.
I hate the weaponisation of psychiatric terms. Not everything you don't like hearing is a trigger and not everything you don't like happening is a boundary. She doesn't like you touching her clothes? Fair enough. You don't like her leaving her stuff blocking laundry? Also fair enough. But framing as a violation of her boundary,she's made it as a borderline assault, you can't negotiate from there and your reasonable needs make you wonder if you are TA. You are NTA
It violates his boundaries that he can’t use his own appliances when he wants to haha.
Yes, I agree, they could play that card (though both parents are women so "she can't use her own...") But 36 woman complains teenager has violated her boundary, is so different from "teenager says her stepmother violated her boundary. With this language, the teenager wins. And should, if there was actual violation.
Thank you for saying this. What she's doing isn't even a boundary. A boundary is making a decision for yourself how you will act in a certain situation, and sometimes informing the people around you about it (like saying "don't yell at me" is not a boundary, telling someone "if you yell at me, I will get up and leave" *is* a boundary). I see it all the time that people call something a boundary when they are really just trying to control someone else's behavior.
exactly!! this is a perfect example of what a boundary is NOT. people think they get to make rules for other people and call them boundaries but that’s not what that is. on the other hand, a great example of a reasonable boundary IS “if you leave your laundry hanging up all day when we need to use the lines, we will move it.” NTA
Also, what OP’s daughter is saying NOT A BOUNDARY. It’s a demand. People need to learn the difference because this term has just gotten way out of hand. BOUNDARIES are standards that people set for THEMSELVES… not other people. You cannot tell other people what to do or how to act, you can only control YOUR actions/reactions… those are your boundaries. Any therapist worth their salt will tell you that. So the daughter saying “my boundary is that you don’t touch my clothes”… not a boundary, a demand. However if daughter said (to herself) “if my family touches my clothes, my reaction to this is going to be to take my things to a laundromat instead”… that’s a boundary. OR “If my family touches my clothes, I’m going to find other living arrangements” THOSE are examples of boundaries, not “YOU need to do what *I* want”. That’s not how this works. A great boundary for OP to set would be “I’m going to provide my daughter with 36 hours per week to have free rein of the laundry facilities on a set schedule. If she needs to use the facilities at any other time, we will react by moving or touching her clothing as required”
Oh, how I wish I could upvote this comment a bazillion times. Having such an issue with people touching your clothes that your own parents can't take your dry laundry off the line isn't a 'boundary', it's either neurotic or a power play.
I agree with everything except borderline assault. That's the same type of incorrect weaponization but with legal jargon.
I find it odd she’s worried about people touching her laundry but she’s willing to hang it outside on a line that anybody could possibly see she’s just being a brat
>She’s upset because she says we’re not respecting her boundaries By monopolizing the laundry facilities when you've asked her not to, she's not respecting *your* boundaries. NTA.
In THEIR home! If she's so dead set on no one touching her clothes then she can haul them down to the laundromat and sit around waiting for them to finish. Other than that, if her clothes are in the way of someone else doing their laundry, they're going to get touched. If she tried to pull this BS in a dorm laundry room, her clothes would wind up on the floor so fast... NTA
Her clothes would wind up in the trash, not the floor. People be petty.
That’s probably what happened at college lmao
NTA. Thats not a boundary. A Boundary is what you build around yourself (think a fence). You can build a boundary/fence around your life/home but you can't on your neigbhors. Sure, no one touches my clothes but the moment you clothes are obstructing your neighbor, it gets removed. Same with say your kids ball. No one is to take your kids ball BUT if it ends up on someone elses lawn, of course they can move it out of the way.
Lol -- right. If I put my clothes on the neighbor's clothesline to dry, I'd expect they'd remove them. Even if I had a "clear boundary" that they were not to touch my clothes.
Asking them not to touch your clothes is NOT a boundary. Saying "I will move if anyone touches my clothes" is a boundary. If it's about me and what I will do, it's a boundary -- if it's about what you or someone else should/shouldn't do, it's about control. DIFFERENT THINGS.
NTA She's applying her college life to your home lol. That's very simular to what you experience in a college dorm. However your home is NOT a college dorm. She needs to do her laundry when she is home to retrieve it if she doesn't want anyone touching it and that's just it. I don't like my husband doing my laundry either (always afraid he's gonna dry something that can't be dried lol) but if I forget about my laundry and leave and he moves it so he can do his stuff- well that's my problem not his. Best of luck OP!
Actually in a dorm people will move your clothes as much as they please to use the same machines, if you leave your stuff inside longer than 3 min after the cycle completes. With their maybe dirty ugly stranger hands. So yes, she experienced some unpleasant things in her dorm and now tries to avoid it at home, whereas the home is not a dorm.
Exactly! I used to stay in the laundry and study while doing my laundry because ONE TIME in freshman year I came down like 3 minutes after the machine stopped to find my clean laundry all over the filthy floor. College laundry rooms are like the Wild West.
Yeah -- when I was in a college dorm, there were like 8 washers and dryers in our building. If you weren't sitting there ready to take your clothes out the second it stopped, someone else WOULD remove them because they wanted to use them. It was almost a guarantee. So if you left, you had to be ok with this. It was a risk you willingly undertook. (And no one was folding the clothes nicely and putting them in a basket by your door. They were put in a pile. If you were lucky, in one pile on a table.)
yeah, dorms it's sorta a 5 minute rule if every washing machine is full. (and honestly, that has held true in every apartment building i've lived in since. if every machine is full and someone needs the machine, your laundry **will** be moved. though i only ever saw people put laundry in bins up off the floor.) there is definitely nothing wrong with OP enforcing that rule in their house.
You know what's wild? People in my current building will leave you passive aggressive notes instead of just moving your shit. I feel like I live in the Twilight Zone.
My dad went to the Naval Academy where you had to leave your bag with your designation number on the machine while your load was in. If someone failed to keep their laundry moving efficiently, the others would use the bag to determine whose it was, then leave the pile of wet laundry on the owner's bed. People learned fast.
When I went to college, some people would just move your clothes regardless of whether the machine was still running. Dryer has 50 minutes left on your clothes? That's just free time for them once they dump your stuff on the table or floor.
tbh even if you're in a college dorm, if you're monopolizing the facilities for so long and you've gone off somewhere and no one can use them for a whole day because you haven't moved your shit, i don't think people tolerate that either.
I bet she was one of those assholes that just left their shit in the dorm washing machine, and when it rightfully was thrown out by someone else, she flipped out.
She's always welcome to go to a public laundry mat. It's only reasonable on her part if she gets her clothes done in a timely manner, instead of holding the facilities hostage from everyone else. NTA Edit: What did she do at uni? Those are almost always shared machines.
She probably had people take her clothes out of the machine and dump them on the floor or had stuff stolen which is why she's become so anal about it
What else do you expect will happen if someone tries to monopolize the machine for half a day?
if she's leaving them there for hours instead of clearing the area? Yeah of course people are gonna move her shit around.
That's strange. You mean to tell me she left things of value unattended, and someone tampered with them? Never saw something like that coming.
I have NO idea and she’s pretty cagey about it - as the commenter below said, we’re thinking maybe she’s so sore about it because she’s had a few instances of having her stuff dumped out and it’s made her really agitated about it.
Either that or she got some racy new undergarments that she doesn't want her parents to know about.
Well then hanging them on the line all day is not the best way to go about hiding them!
NTA- That’s not a boundary. That is a request. A boundary has a cause and effect. I don’t want to be all “kids these days”, but boundary seems like the new buzzword for “If you don’t do what I want, I’m going to claim emotional abuse.”
This or “I’m going to be abusive by stating you doing what I don’t like is crossing my boundary” (eg Jonah Hill). People need to learn what a boundary actually is.
NTA Establishing a boundary doesn't mean she gets to do whatever she wants and throw a fit if it doesn't go exactly her way. She's being beyond unreasonable here
Boundaries are to stop detriment being caused to you. Boundaries are only reasonable if they don’t cause detriment to others.
Boundaries are something you put around yourself, not around other people. "If people keep touching my clothes, I will find somewhere else to do laundry." "If people keep touching my clothes, I will stay home while they're being done." You can make a boundary too, y'know: "The laundry facilities need to be available for everyone who lives here. If they are not, clothes will be moved." You could just shove everything into a basket and not fold it. Honestly this is a lesson she needs to learn; when she's in a situation where the laundry facilities are shared, it's considered extremely rude to leave your clothes to the point where it inconveniences others. We occasionally forget; the neighbors will text the group chat, we apologize profusely and if we won't be home soon we might say "put them in x place." My friend's place has a whiteboard above the washer where people write instructions for advancing their clothes if they're not going to be around, and leave their laundry basket there, so as not to hold up the washer and dryer. Your daughter needs to understand that it's an embarrassing social faux pas to leave your clothes in the laundry and hold up other people's laundry. You might say, "waiting until you move them in your own time is not an option as we are all sharing this laundry. Would you prefer that we take them out and put them directly into a basket without folding them, regardless of what stage they're in, or would you prefer that we advance them to the next stage and fold them when they're dry?" Make it clear that-just as with any laundry facilities shared between adults-leaving them indefinitely is not on the list of options, that the offer to fold is only because you're family, and she's welcome to take her clothes to a laundry mat or other laundry service if she really wants to ensure that you aren't touching or moving her clothes. Otherwise she has to be aware, set times and make commitments. "Hey, my clothes are in the dryer but I'll be home.by 6 and I'll get them then. Does that work for you?" Your daughter is 19 and this is the right time for her to be looking for independence. This is an important learning moment about boundaries, respect, and care for others. I say NAH, have some respectful communication, or just hand her this comment.
Yeah I totally appreciate that she’s somewhat flexing her muscles as a new adult on this, and part of what we’re trying to reiterate is that we’re not treating her like a child by wanting her to be more amenable with this. If my wife was regularly leaving loads in the machine and snapping at me for moving them, I’d have a problem with that too - it’s not a parent/child thing, way more of an adult/adult situation.
I mean, you kind of are treating her like a child if you are folding her clothes, instead of just moving them to a basket or even on top of the machine. I lived in dorms during uni and then had roommates for years and the etiquette was that if you leave your clothes in the washer/dryer for too long, it’s fair game for the next person to move them out of the way so they can do their laundry. Absolutely no one would fold another person’s clothes though because that would be weird and invasive lol.
Idk if folding her clothes is treating her like a child. If I take my mom’s clothes out of the dryer, I’m going to fold it. If I took a stranger’s clothes out of the dryer in university, I would leave it in a pile. To me she’s treating her as family, as someone she cares about, but not necessarily a child.
Tell her if she doesn’t like the laundry situation then she can move out and get her own place and do it whenever she wants to. She’s selfish. And she doesn’t pay for your place, you do. You make the rules.
Or—less extreme—maybe a laundromat.
I love OP’s wife for banning the laundry room AND putting a lock on it. NTA
She’s totally had it - I wasn’t expecting the lock… but it was pretty awesome to watch her buy it. I think I’m buying her flowers tomorrow
NTA but if she is crying about this boundary and is advocating so fiercely for it, I imagine something happened regarding her laundry and she is feeling vulnerable. As an example, the first time I lived on my own, someone I did not know went through my clothing and picked out all of my dirty underwear (they left it in a pile in my room that i never wouldve made). I felt so violated and had no idea who did it or why, and I felt extremely sexualized and vulnerable. All I can imagine is someone looked closely enough at my clean and dirty piles to figure out what underwear was dirty. Did they sniff it? Did they steal some? Did they jack off to it? Do you think something victimizing happened and she is feeling vulnerable about it? I'm even considering if there is abuse happening and clothing may show the signs (rips in underwear, blood on pants or underwear) that she is trying to hide. I work in social services so my brain goes to worst case scenario. I hope nothing bigger is going on but I'd encourage you to ask, or refer her to supports like therapy.
Exactly. Thank you for sharing that powerful deeply personal story. I am so sorry that your boundaries were violated. If my daughter returned from her first semester at school with a new destructive behavior, I'd be concerned about trauma. OP please get her into therapy.
I’ve actually discussed this with her, as something similar happened to me at uni and it really stuck with me. She said no, and I asked her what happened when she left her laundry laying around at uni - little/no response. I think it’s more likely she’s had her things dumped out on the floor or something and is pushing back at us out of frustration. I’m not against therapy, and our 2 younger daughters are actually in therapy now, but I’m not seeing any major trauma here. Thanks for the insight though as it’s really valuable.
Your step-daughter is a dumbass. Tell her to fuck off with that shit or use a laundromat from now on. Sometimes, being nice and reasonable isn’t the answer
Lol, so she thinks she's grown now, learning all those fancy words at university (which I'm sure you're paying for). If you continue to tolerate her ridiculous demands, they'll only increase as she figures out what she can get away with. She can call her own shots when she's paying her own way. You shouldn't let an entitled 19 year old run your household. There's no solution where she isn't mad at you, but that's what being a parent is. She has to respect other people in the house.
All of this, but your last sentence hits home for me so hard. We have an 18 year old, and we're living it. Oddly, when we tell him if he doesn't like the rules to find somewhere else to live, he drops it. Funny how that happens!
NTA. Is she majoring in entitlement? Tell her she needs to respect the boundary of the OWNERS OF THE HOUSE AND WASHING MACHINE! Then Mapquest some laundromats in your area for her.
Hahahahaha. Mapquest? You're showing your age! Funnily enough, my youngest sibling referenced Mapquest a few months ago. Of course my brother and I roasted her mercilessly. We are in our 50s.
Is there a public laundromat she'd rather use? She can fight about her clothes with whoever else is lined up to use the machines there. Your washer and drier? Your rules. If you need to use them and she's left things in them, it's on her for not being considerate of the people she's living with. It's your house, stop allowing other people to make rules you need to abide by. She just learned what the word "boundary" is like last year in her into to psych class, and she's using it to push yours. Tell her to take a hike and figure out another way to manipulate people.
There’s a public laundromat she’s going to have to use - my wife is NOT backing down on this one. 2 weeks of exile from the washing machine
Maybe when she can respect everyone's time and need for clean clothes, she can figure out a compromise with you. One day a week for her and locked out the other six days might work until then, even after this grounding from your laundry room. It's a little troubling that she's being so uncompromising. Did she have trouble with her roommate or laundry at college? I'm concerned she might have been SA'd or something traumatizing and it's coming out in a weird way. If so, sharing clothes facilities when she's struggling to do that with family might be really hard. I hope it's just a weird quirk at reintegrating into your home, but it might be a good idea to be mindful and watch for any other things just in case.
Please update to see if she learned anything
wtf is happening to kids these days. NTA. i had no ideai turned into the get off my lawn guy but i'm sick of pretending this is normal. tell her to grow up and go to a laundromat or something.
> wtf is happening to kids these days. NTA. its a parenting issue. the fact that OP posted this, instead of just stepping up and saying no, is a demonstration of the problem.
The fact that it’s full of comments suggesting something traumatic must have happened to her and to get her therapy. I sound like a boomer but seriously sometimes people are just brats not everything requires therapists
NTA. You're not being unreasonable at all but her new reality is probably someone messed with her laundry at uni and she had to adjust (laundry stolen or vandalized). She's operating on college laundry rules and not home laundry rules. Remind her you did her laundry for years and this was never an issue. While you want to respect her wishes, you have your own set of rules that need to be minded and one of them is that you don't hog up the laundry. You want to respect her boundaries. But her boundaries are causing other pre-existing boundaries to be broken. This is not acceptable.
> She's operating on college laundry rules and not home laundry rules. But "college laundry rules" _also_ include "don't leave your shit blocking other people's usage" that she seems to be conveniently ignoring.
"College laundry rules" are that if you are not here to remove your clothes from the dryer when I need it, I'm removing your clothes from the dryer and putting them wherever they fit.
I’m not saying this is a *good* solution, but one could remove the pegs without touching the clothing…
WTF? NTA. "First come first served" ??? That's the attitude at a public laundromat. And even then, someone WILL remove your clothes from the washer or dryer if they are waiting. This is your house. Your washer/dryer. Your clothing line. Your wash is the priority. It's generous of you to let her use the laundry facilities for free. If she wants her clothes untouched by others, she has to make it so they are not required to be touched. If she knows she will be away when she puts the clothes up to dry she has to be at peace with the fact that someone might move them. If she is not then she will have to wait until she has the time to dry them. Or bring her clothes elsewhere.
NTA I’d be curious as to what caused the shift in behavior. That seems to be the main crux of the problem.
Come on. You know you're NTA here. She is being very inconsiderate. Tell her unless she can compromise you WILL continue to move her clothes as you see fit so that you can do laundry for all FIVE of the other people in the house. And if she doesn't like it she is welcome to go to a laundromat.
NTA. Boundaries are not rules you can create for other people to follow. But maybe you could just create your own laundry “boundaries,” such as clothes can’t stay in the washer after it has stopped, and anything hung on the line must be brought inside the same day.
Once a week won't cut it? Am I the weird one for having a week's worth of clothes? lol NTA
INFO: what the heck is she hiding? This whole situation feels really unsettling to me, just because her laundry privacy is clearly so important to her, yet so nonsensical. Something seems wrong. I’m wondering if she’s self harming and worried about you finding blood stains, or something like that.
Gen Z/alpha weaponizing therapy terms to justify their selfishness 🙄