My mother-in-law reorganizes our kitchen every time she visits and calls it helping

The first time my mother-in-law reorganized our kitchen, I thought I had misplaced everything. The coffee filters moved from the drawer below the machine to a cabinet across the room. The mixing bowls were nested above the refrigerator. She had created a ‘snack station’ on the counter using containers we normally kept in the pantry.

She was staying with us for four days and had done it while my husband and I were at work. When I asked where the vegetable peeler was, she smiled and said, ‘You’ll thank me once you get used to the system.’

I did not get used to it. I put the kitchen back after she left.

She has now done some version of this on three visits. She says she cannot cook in an inefficient space, and cooking is how she contributes when she stays. She is a generous cook. She makes dinner, freezes soup for us and leaves the stove cleaner than she found it. The help is real. So is the hour I spend reopening every cabinet after she goes.

Before her last visit, my husband told her clearly not to move anything. She agreed. On the second day she relocated our spices because the drawer was ‘bad for them’ and moved my baking supplies to make room. When I objected, she said she had only changed two things and that I was policing her while expecting her to feed everyone.

I said she did not have to cook. That hurt her more than I expected. In her family, a guest who sits while others work is failing. She heard my boundary as refusing the form of care she knows how to offer.

My husband supports me in theory but becomes vague in the room. He says, ‘Mum, maybe leave that there,’ which she treats as a suggestion. Later he says we can move things back and reminds me how much money we save on takeout when she visits.

She arrives again next month. I am considering putting painter’s tape on cabinets labeled ‘Please do not reorganize,’ but that feels like preparing for a mischievous contractor rather than welcoming family.

How do we make the boundary unmistakable without turning every meal into a power struggle? Is it reasonable to say she may cook only if she uses the kitchen as it is, even if that means rejecting work she experiences as love?