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Q: Does your mother in law hide things in the house?
Mine does.
She hides cooking oil in the spare bedroom. She hides eggs in the wardrobe. She hides money so well she can never find it again.
I am sure it a habit she picked up from the days of communal living. But maybe I am totally wrong and she is just a bit nuts.
Has anyone else experienced this?
No she doesn't, but she does have some hoarding tendencies. My wife recently spent several evenings (while the MIL was out) just throwing out old stuff, she didn't even notice most of it. Some hoarder living next door picked most from the garbage, so the legacy lives on.
She might have a stash of cash that I am unaware of, wouldn't surprise me.
derek:
I'm with ya on the hoarding as well. My MIL has never met a shoe box or gift bag she didn't like.
Hulk:
Our in-laws are serious hoarders... but they have to be due to their poverty level.
Probably. She also has an annoying tendency to throw away things my wife still uses, and can't apologize for it.
Yeah, they hid the hukou once.
My mother, who is not Chinese, constantly hides things all over the house... but she's genuinely nuts.
She hides cash and then in 3 months or so forgets where she hid it. We once spent four hours searching the house for 15,000 yuan she hid behind the washing machine. For some reason she does not trust banks. Anyone know why?
Scandinavian:
as well as explaining the concept of inflation, also explai the concept of low interest rates.
Anyway. Many Chinese don't trust banks because during the Cultural Revolution all assets were taken by the government, so everyone became poor overnight. Many people fear it will happen again.
mike695ca:
My wifes granpa did that. Hide money everywhere. When he was dying , for the past few months weve been going through all his shit. They found 60,000 rmb..... From like 1965! It was usable, but like relic money. They were sooooo pissed. Imagine how much 60,000 was in 1965. Like half a million in todays money? More? Aparently he didnt know about inflation or investing. My FIL was soooo mad.
She has never been to my house because she doesn't approve of our relationship, but my wife hides/organizes my stuff all the time and then forgets where. Also she has no sense of how to organize a kitchen, things are placed randomly throughout the cabinets and rarely in the same place twice. I organized it and she stated that now she couldn't find anything. 
Scandinavian:
ah shit, both my wife and MIL uses the same system for kitchen stuff. To boil an egg you have to go on a treasure hunt for stuff. A daily waste of time.
I helped my wife organize my MILs kitchen. A shelf for cups, a shelf for bowls, food in one area organized by type (e.g. bottles, glasses, bags) Two weeks later, there is everything everywhere... and the reintroduction of small ants, which was the reason why we started in the first place. She also fails to close containers properly, so great I spent time going to get a lot of storage jars and plastic boxes to combat bugs since they now are all left open.
Nessquick:
I got it worse with my wife. probably from boredom, she have some period of weeks, or 1-2 month, when she move cabinets, or the things in them, around the house. Once in while that happen, I search for something on its usual place, but is not there. so I ask, where is it. most of the reply was a bit angry" on the old place" , what? okay, show me. ooh, sorry, I have move it there. next time again. so after a year, you have about 5-6 old place for each item at home, sometimes they go back to the starting position. I am from family where we moved things once in several years, during wall paintings or so, or even after painting we put things back at same place. not every month ... But here I am not allowed to do wall paint, because is not " our house" , just move things to looks it better...
She doesn't so much hide stuff as tidy around and put things where she thinks they should go. Not where they actually go.
I get rather annoyed at that.
ScotsAlan:
Yeah.
Me: " Where's my phone charger?"
Wife: "Don't know, mum tidied up. Have you looked behind the sofa?"
Nothing is where I leave it 
My in laws don't live with us. They are far too dirty and don't want to learn how to be cleaner even if it means their health would be better. My MIL definitely has hoarding tendencies. My husband cleaned their whole place while she was out. He said it was disgusting. I actually made a surprise visit one day and there was food on the floor, trash everywhere. My hubby was nice enough to buy them a place and they just trash it. I flat out refuse to live with them. Thank god he agrees. We're probably going to buy a home outside China in the next year or two. I told him they could visit but never live with us.
