36-Year-Old Woman’s Mom Keeps Sneaking Into Her House to Clean & It’s Affecting Her Mental Health

Having a mom who can’t respect boundaries can be an actual nightmare. Once you become an adult, you want your mom to recognize you as one and give you space accordingly. One woman is trying to create boundaries with her intrusive mom, but she is struggling with her decision.

For the woman, her overbearing mother doesn’t understand why she can’t come into her daughter’s house whenever she wants to. So, the woman has decided that the only way to make an impact is to take back her house keys — and her mom isn’t pleased.

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The latest visit was unexpected.

The 36-year-old woman reached out to the AITA community on Reddit to see how she should handle her intrusive mom and her lack of boundaries.

“My mother just let herself into my house and walked into my bedroom at around 910am without a heads up she was coming over, nor asking if she could come over, or even knocking at the damn patio door that was open for my dog and yelling in that she was there,” the woman wrote.

The intrusive mother began asking why the woman was still in bed instead of working. When the woman told her mother to leave, the older woman allegedly “pottered around in my kitchen ‘cleaning’ stuff” instead.

This is not uncommon behavior.

“She has essentially ocd and it drove me nuts when I was a child, but coming into my house to nitpick everything is just unacceptable,” the woman explained.

Thankfully, the daughter wasted no time asking her mother “multiple times” to leave. “After a good 5min plus of that I told her to get the f out asap,” the woman said, adding that her mom “did not take kindly” to the request. She then went on to explain that her intrusive mom “never takes kindly” to her “establishing boundaries.”

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Dealing with her intrusive mom is deeply affecting her mental health.

woman frustrated
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After explaining that her mom comes to her home unannounced “around once every other month,” she shared that her “anxiety is off a cliff” as a result.

“I know she wants to ‘help’ but I am going insane over the intrusiveness. I am having mental health problems (severe depression and anxiety and chronic insomnia) which I have been working on all through 2024 and now am going to have a first app with a psychologist next week,” the woman explained.

She said that she needs to know if she is “over-reacting or under-reacting” because for her “whole life” her parents haven’t respected her boundaries.

People tried to make her understand that she isn’t in the wrong.

“I’d change all your locks as well as taking away her keys. Someone who is that OCD that she wants to control wht goes on in YOUR house as well as theirs probably made copies,” one person wrote. “If she does it again, get a restraining order.”

“Are you kidding?” another person commented. “Lock your doors. Change the locks if she has keys. Keep them locked. Get a doggie door for the patio door. WTF?! You are legally and morally entitled to privacy in your own home. Anyone entering without your express permission is a trespasser. Is she going to crawl through a doggie door?”

Someone else suggested: “You are going to have to take a very hard line with her and I would start with a Cease and Desist Letter. No, I am not kidding. Find a template online and send it via certified mail. Define the activity (that she must desist) as Entering the residence at full address without and explicit invitation.”

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