When my in-laws asked to leave a few boxes in our unused guest room, my wife Sarah and I happily agreed. What was meant to be a short-term favor turned into five years of free storage. We tolerated the clutter until we found out Sarah was pregnant. Suddenly, that room wasn’t just full of stuff; it was meant to become our baby’s nursery. We politely asked her parents to clear the space, but they kept delaying with vague promises of doing it “soon.”

Eventually, I put my foot down and set a firm deadline. That’s when Janet, my mother-in-law, came over, found a fur coat with moth damage, and exploded. She accused us of ruining it and even sent us a $695 invoice for a replacement. I was stunned. After storing her things free of charge for half a decade, she was blaming us? So, I decided to respond in kind with an invoice of my own: $9,000, the fair market rate for five years of storage.

Janet ignored the bill, but her husband Greg didn’t. A week later, he came by the house looking sheepish, collected the rest of their belongings, and discreetly handed me an envelope. Inside was a check. “This is for the storage,” he said, admitting that Janet would never do the right thing on her own. Sarah and I were shocked and grateful. That check became the foundation for building our baby’s nursery.

In the end, the guest room transformed into the cozy space we had imagined. Janet tried to sell the ruined fur coat online for triple its worth, but we didn’t care. Our home was finally ours again, free from clutter and entitlement. And Greg? He earned himself a permanent invite to taco night.