“How the Parents-in-Law Sold Their Apartment, Lied About Being Poor, and Showed Up to Live with Their Son and Daughter-in-Law—Until They Got Kicked Out”

“How the Parents-in-Law Sold Their Apartment, Lied About Being Poor, and Showed Up to Live with Their Son and Daughter-in-Law—Until They Got Kicked Out”

“Wait, stop!”—Judging by his tone, Anton was starting to boil. “Enough dodging. Tell us everything as it is.”
“So now you don’t even believe us?”

“Fine, then we don’t need any help from you. Tomorrow we’ll go to a real estate agency and look for you a new apartment. Meanwhile, you’ll stay in a hotel.”
“Well, my dears, we’ll be living with you now!”—declared the mother-in-law, Raisa Alexandrovna, right from the doorway. “I want to be closer to my grandson. And you’ll need help with the newborn anyway.”

Yevgeniya stared in shock as her in-laws carried their huge suitcases into their two-room apartment.
“How do you mean, with us?”—she finally managed to speak. “We have nowhere to put you.”

It was the absolute truth: in their small two-room apartment already lived three people—Yevgeniya herself, her husband Anton, and their newborn son, Lyenya. One room was the couple’s bedroom, the other the nursery.
“How do you mean ‘nowhere’?”—her father-in-law, Bogdan Anatolyevich, was surprised. “You have two rooms. You in one, us in the other.”

“That’s the nursery!”—Yevgeniya raised her voice to remind him.
“Try yelling at me again here!”—the mother-in-law protested. “Lyenya is only a month old; why does he need a separate room?”
“Because a month won’t last forever. He will grow. And we didn’t buy a separate apartment to cramp the three of us into one room! I’m against it.”
“And who’s asking you?”—her father-in-law smirked.

“Exactly,”—the mother-in-law chimed in. “This is my son’s home, and he will decide!”
“This is our shared apartment!”—Yevgeniya corrected her. “And without my consent, no one will live here!”
“Oh really?!”—the mother-in-law exclaimed, grabbed her phone, and called Anton. “Hello, son. Explain to your ill-mannered little wife that she has no right to kick us out… Well, she won’t even let us step inside; we arrived, and she says, ‘Get out’… Imagine that. Should I hand her the phone?”—Raisa Alexandrovna looked at Yevgeniya and extended the phone. “Here, Anton will explain your place to you.”

Yevgeniya pressed the phone to her ear.

“Jen, what’s going on?”—Anton asked, surprised. “I understand you don’t get along with my mother completely, but kicking them out right at the door? They came to visit, what’s the big deal?”
“Tosh, they didn’t come to visit—they came with suitcases! They want to take Lyenya into our room. He’s only a month old; why does he need a separate room? Before you make claims at me, explain why your relatives decided to stay with us forever?”
“What do you mean, forever?”
“Exactly like that!”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes!”

Yevgeniya somehow managed to prevent the in-laws from immediately unpacking. After lengthy arguments, they at least left the suitcases in the hallway and went to the kitchen. Yevgeniya silently poured tea, trying not to look at the uninvited guests. Bogdan Anatolyevich sat gloomily in a corner. Raisa Alexandrovna chirped in a deliberately carefree manner about how nice it would be for everyone to live together.

Yevgeniya couldn’t even imagine this “nice.” The brazenness of her in-laws could drive even the most phlegmatic Anton to a white-hot fury. His relationship with his parents was also quite peculiar.

On one hand—they were his parents, and one is supposed to love them. And he did. He tried to help as much as he could, to support them. On the other hand… he couldn’t tolerate the level of “closeness” his parents demanded, as they were unwilling to acknowledge any boundaries. So, they saw each other very rarely.

They almost never invited the in-laws over, and they themselves tried to go less often. Especially Yevgeniya. Usually, Anton went to them alone. The in-laws took a long time to get used to not barging into their son’s home.

For several years, they had maintained some semblance of peace between the two families. And yet, every now and then, Raisa Alexandrovna would barge into their apartment uninvited, handing out her invaluable advice along with comments:

“Completely forgotten your mother—you don’t visit, don’t invite me over, so I decided to come.”

Usually, forty minutes was enough for Yevgeniya, after which she would start to pack up conspicuously, insisting they had plans and needed to leave. Anton always supported this. On this pretext, they managed to get the mother-in-law out, and life would go on until the next maternal love attack.

And now, for some reason, Raisa Alexandrovna and Bogdan Anatolyevich decided to move in with them. Yevgeniya, of course, was completely against this turn of events.

Anything but this. She could only hope that Anton wouldn’t succumb to their manipulations. Yevgeniya decided for herself that not a single day would be spent in the same apartment with her in-laws. If she couldn’t kick them out, she would pack her things and leave for her parents.

Family is family, but nerves are more valuable.

Anton, of course, didn’t arrive in twenty minutes. Between explaining the situation to his boss, finishing current tasks, and getting there… at least an hour passed, fortunately, the roads were clear during the day.

“Mom, can you explain what’s going on? Why have you suddenly decided to move in with us?”
“As if I need a reason to be closer to my son!”
“You do need a reason, and a very good one. Is something wrong with your health? Do you need care?”

“Anton, I’m not ready,”—Yevgeniya tried to interject.
“Wait, I’m just trying to understand for now.”

“No!”—the mother-in-law cut her off. “I just thought—it must be hard for Zhenya alone with a baby. We could help: with cleaning, cooking, and taking care of Lyenya would be a joy for us.”

“Mom, if we needed help, we would have told you. Zhenya handles everything perfectly. If necessary, I’ll help her myself. So your moving in isn’t necessary.”

“Well, but we’ve already arrived!”

“That’s a separate matter: you should have called us first, discussed your idea, and only if we agreed—if—we could consider moving in. But I repeat, we don’t need your help, and there’s no extra space.”

“But an entire room is free!”
“That’s my son’s room. You’re not going to take space away from your beloved grandson!”

Raisa Alexandrovna faltered, searching for a reply that wouldn’t make her seem cold and insensitive. After all, over years of confrontations, Anton had learned to choose just the right words to affect his mother—at least temporarily.

“So, you’re kicking us out?”—Bogdan Anatolyevich intervened. “Kicking your own parents onto the street?”
“Why onto the street?”—Yevgeniya asked, surprised. “You have your own apartment.”
“And we sold it. We need to move out by the end of the week. By the way, Antosh, clear some space in the garage; we need to move the furniture, and there are a few small things as well.”

“How sold it?”—the couple asked in unison.
“Just like that, sold it!”—Raisa Alexandrovna replied. “We decided to move in with you, why keep a second apartment? Deal with it! This way, we could have helped you financially. We could have even bought a bigger apartment, so Lyenya could have his own room.

Well, eventually. For now, it’s better for him to be with his mother. He needs attention, and you keep him behind a wall. How is that acceptable?”

Yevgeniya smirked. She found a way to turn the situation: portray herself as the neglectful mother-in-law, while Raisa Alexandrovna posed as the caring grandmother. Clever use of words.

Still, the story about selling the apartment seemed odd. Why did they decide to part with it so hastily? And without telling their son a word. Yevgeniya saw that this news was just as unexpected for Anton as it was for her.

And the way they talked about money seemed strange. “We could have…” as if now they couldn’t help financially. Then where’s the money from the apartment sale?

“Don’t dodge!”—Anton also seemed to sense the oddities in his mother’s words. “What’s this story about selling the apartment? Why the rush?”

“I told you, we wanted to help,” she said.
“And why did you assume we need help? Everything is fine. We have an apartment, the mortgage is fully paid, jobs, salary, a child. If something were wrong, we would have said. Asked for help.”

“Well, you yourself say there’s no space to host us, isn’t that a reason?”
“We never intended to settle you in!”—Anton said firmly. “We’re perfectly fine living as the three of us—our family. That’s why we bought our own apartment. And what’s with the dodging? What do you mean ‘we could have’? And now, it means we can’t?”

Bogdan Anatolyevich looked at his wife with annoyance, snorted, and then said:
“Why are you in such a rush? You say you don’t need help, yet when it comes to money, you’re suddenly asking questions! Why hurry? Where would you expand now? You’d only have more cleaning in a bigger apartment. Mother is right; for now, Lyenya is better off in a room with his mother.”

Raisa Alexandrovna nodded exaggeratedly cheerfully.

“Stop!”—Judging by his tone, Anton was beginning to boil. “Enough dodging. Tell us everything as it is!”

“So now you don’t even believe us?”
“Fine, then we don’t need any help from you. Tomorrow we’ll go to a real estate agency and look for you a new apartment. Meanwhile, you’ll stay in a hotel.”
“Not a chance! I said we’ll live here!”

“You won’t!”—Anton said firmly. “This isn’t up for discussion. So, should I call the hotel and the agency?”

The parents-in-law exchanged glances.

“We don’t have money for an apartment,”—Bogdan Anatolyevich said with a heavy sigh.
“What do you mean you don’t? You sold your own—” Now Anton was completely bewildered.

“What a day,”—thought Yevgeniya. “News after news. And each one worse than the last! I’m even scared to imagine what comes next.”

“Just like that!”—Raisa Alexandrovna’s voice trembled. “We ran into scammers. We signed the papers, they said the money would be transferred any minute, and then… silence. And now they’re demanding we vacate the apartment.”

“Okay, calm down. What exactly did you sign?”

Anton really tried to stay calm, although Yevgeniya was close to panicking. If the in-laws really had lost the apartment… Does that mean they’d actually have to move in with them? No, she couldn’t bear that. She needed to come up with something.

“Just some papers, a contract, something like that.”

“Good Lord, did they sign without even looking? How is that possible?”—Yevgeniya’s thoughts froze. Anton, seemingly sensing his wife’s panic, took her hand.

“Did you sign to receive the money? Before anything was even handed over to you?”
“I don’t know!”

Yevgeniya felt Anton’s fingers tremble slightly. He was clearly angry.

“Show me the documents.”
“You don’t think we carry them everywhere with us!”
“Fine. Let’s go to your agency and check the documents there.”
“Why bother?”—Bogdan Anatolyevich feigned surprise. “What will that solve?”
“Well, we need to figure out what happened. If you can’t explain properly yourselves, I want to see the documents.”
“It won’t change anything anyway,”—Raisa Alexandrovna continued to fuss.

“Which agency did you sell the apartment through?”—Yevgeniya asked finally, her voice trembling as she struggled to keep her emotions in check.
“‘Square Meters,’”—the mother-in-law admitted reluctantly.

“Let’s go!”—Anton said decisively. “We’ll sort this out.”
“I’m not going anywhere! Just give us the room, and that’s it! Why drag out this circus?”
“Let’s go!”—Yevgeniya had never seen Anton like this. There was steel in his voice so sharp that even her mother, with all her unyielding audacity, faltered and obediently followed him to the exit.

Yevgeniya was left alone with her father-in-law. Normally, she didn’t know how to behave around him, and now… Luckily, five minutes after Anton and his mother left, Lyenya woke up: fussing and grunting. Yevgeniya immediately went to him, picking him up before he started crying. The next hour was fully occupied with her son: bathing and changing him, feeding him, then entertaining him with a rattle to capture his attention.

She could have left him to lie with his mobile crib toy, enjoying the colorful hanging toys spinning to soft music, but she didn’t want to go to the kitchen to sit with her father-in-law, still sitting sullenly in the corner. What would she even say to him? Or he to her? Better to stay here with her son.

An hour later, voices could be heard in the hallway. Only then did Yevgeniya kiss her son on the nose, lay him back in the crib, and switch on the mobile. Once she was sure it had fully captured his attention, she returned to the kitchen. She was eager to find out what had really happened.

The kitchen was oppressive with silence.

“So, what’s the situation?”—she asked cautiously. Her voice seemed unnaturally loud, breaking the almost tangible quiet.

“Bad,”—Anton muttered. “They sold the apartment. Nobody cheated them. The money was paid in full.”
“Well, is that really bad? That means they can buy a new apartment, right?”—Yevgeniya asked hopefully.
“No,”—Anton sighed gloomily. “They spent the money.”
“Spent it? That’s millions!”
“Just like that!”—Raisa Alexandrovna had proudly turned toward the window. “They had debts. Over the years they took out loans and couldn’t repay them, so they decided to sell the apartment and move in with us.”

“They could have warned us… maybe we could have done something, figured something out.”
“I knew you wouldn’t agree! Now there’s no way out anyway!”

Yevgeniya felt a chill of horror. Anton wouldn’t be able to kick his parents out. This was the end!

“Even now, we won’t agree!”—Anton said firmly. “With this approach, you’ll fray my nerves and destroy our family. How could you accumulate so many debts?”
“Well, we wanted to live decently, at least in our old age! How much time do we have left?”
“Don’t exaggerate! You’ve still got work to do! You’ll outlive me.”

“So where are we supposed to go?”—Bogdan Anatolyevich asked. “You gonna throw us out?”

“Rent an apartment!”—Anton said decisively. “If needed, I’ll help with finding and paying for one.”
“What nonsense!”—Raisa Alexandrovna protested. “Why rent when you have a free room? We could help you, solve so many problems for you!”
“For now, you’re just creating problems.”

“Rai, let’s get out of here!”—Bogdan Anatolyevich said. “We’re not needed. We raised our son on our own heads! Ungrateful!”

The in-laws silently grabbed their suitcases and left.

Yevgeniya stared in shock at the door as it clicked shut behind them.

“So, where will they go now?”—she asked, confused.
“They rented an apartment!”—Anton said through gritted teeth. “I called the neighbor to ask. She said they rented a one-bedroom in the same area. They’ve been living there for a week. They just barged in here, hoping it would work.”