Yana lived with her husband, Igor, in an apartment she had bought herself long before marriage—without help, without guarantors, and without any loud declarations.
She’d purchased the two-bedroom place five years earlier. Back then she worked as a programmer at an IT company and earned good money. She saved for three years, then took out a small ten-year mortgage—and paid it off early, in just four years.
Every payment felt like a personal win.
The apartment was in a new building in Mitino. Not the city center, but close to the metro, a park, and all the necessary infrastructure. Yana chose the layout herself and did the renovation herself. Everything was done with her own hands and her own money.
She met Igor two years ago at a developers’ conference. He worked as a system administrator at a bank. They met, started dating, and a year later they got married.
“So I’m moving in with you?” Igor asked before the wedding.
“Yes,” Yana nodded. “But I want to agree on something right away: this is my apartment. I bought it before we got married. It’s in my name.”
“Understood. That’s fine.”
“You’re not against it?”
“No, of course not. I respect that.”
Igor moved in. Their first year together was quiet—no problems.
After the wedding, though, Igor insisted that his mother, Lyudmila Sergeyevna, should “stay for a little while” while she sorted out her issues.
It happened a year after the wedding. Igor called from work on a Wednesday afternoon.
“Yan, listen… Mom has a problem.”
“What kind?”
“She got into a fight with her neighbor. A serious one. They’re threatening lawsuits, they called the police. She needs somewhere to lay low. Can she move in with us for a week or two?”
Yana was sitting at her laptop, finishing some code.
“Igor, we didn’t agree to this.”
“Yan, she’s my mother. She’s really having a hard time right now. Just a couple of weeks. Max.”
“And where does she go after that?”
“She’ll find something. Or she’ll make up with the neighbor. I don’t know. But right now she needs help.”
Yana sighed.
“Alright. Two weeks. No more.”
“Thank you, sweetheart!”
Lyudmila Sergeyevna arrived on Friday evening—with two suitcases. And boxes.
That “little while” stretched into months, and the apartment slowly stopped feeling like Yana’s home.
Two weeks became a month. A month became two. Then three.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna settled into a room, unpacked her things, and took up half the hallway closet.
“When is your mother moving out?” Yana asked Igor every week.
“Soon, soon. She’s looking.”
“It’s already been two months.”
“Yan, you know it’s not easy to rent a place quickly. Everything’s expensive right now.”
“We agreed on two weeks.”
“Just be patient a little longer, okay?”
Yana tried.
But the apartment stopped being her home. Her mother-in-law’s things were everywhere. Her dishes appeared in the kitchen. Her cosmetics filled the bathroom. Her food took over the fridge, marked with sticky notes reading “don’t touch.”
Yana came home from work and felt like a visitor in her own apartment.
Her mother-in-law woke up later than everyone, commented on Yana’s every move, and loved to repeat that “real work isn’t sitting at a computer.”
Lyudmila Sergeyevna didn’t work. At all.
She got up around eleven in the morning—when Yana and Igor had already been at work for hours. She made herself breakfast, watched TV series, and wandered around the apartment.
Yana worked remotely three days a week. On those days her mother-in-law wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Yanochka, why are you sitting at that computer again?” she’d say, walking into the room without knocking.
“I’m working, Lyudmila Sergeyevna.”
“What kind of work is that? Real work is on your feet, with people, sweating for it. And you just press keys.”
“I write programs. That’s my profession.”
“Programs,” her mother-in-law would snort. “Sits at home in warmth, drinks tea, and that’s what you call work. In my time, people didn’t work like that.”
“Lyudmila Sergeyevna, I need to concentrate.”
“Yes, yes—concentrate. And who’s going to cook lunch?”
“I’ll cook for myself.”
“Well then cook. Since you’re so independent.”
Every workday at home turned into torture.
Igor preferred to pretend nothing was happening, disappearing into his phone or leaving the apartment.
Yana tried talking to her husband.
“Igor, your mother has had enough of me. She comments on everything I do. She barges into my room when I’m working. She says my job isn’t a real job.”
“Yan, she’s just old-school. She doesn’t understand remote work.”
“I don’t care what she understands. This is my apartment. I work here. And I want to be left alone.”
“Alright, I’ll talk to her.”
But nothing changed.
Igor would come home, eat dinner, and go to the other room with his phone or the TV. If a conflict started between Yana and his mother, he would silently walk out.
“Work’s calling,” he’d say—and disappear.
Yana was left alone with her mother-in-law.
That day, Yana returned after a long work meeting and found her mother-in-law in the kitchen—with a neighbor.
It was Tuesday. Yana had gone to the office for a meeting with a client. It dragged on until seven in the evening. She got home exhausted and hungry.
She opened the door with her key. The apartment smelled of boiled potatoes, and voices were coming from inside.
She took off her shoes and walked down the hall.
In the kitchen, Lyudmila Sergeyevna was sitting at the table with the neighbor from the fifth floor, Aunt Sveta. They were drinking tea and eating cookies.
The conversation was loud and shameless, as if the owner of the apartment didn’t exist.
“I’m telling you, Sveta,” Lyudmila Sergeyevna was saying, “young people today don’t know how to work at all.”
“Really?” Aunt Sveta chimed in.
“My daughter-in-law, for example. She sits at home all day. At the computer. And that, supposedly, is what she calls work.”
“And what does she do?”
“Who knows! She types something. Writes some kind of programs. I don’t even understand what programs. That’s not work!”
“But they pay her, don’t they?”
“They do, sure. But it’s still not real labor. Real work is at a factory, in a hospital, in a school—working with people, doing something real. Sitting at home staring into a computer—that’s just fooling around.”
Yana stood in the kitchen doorway, listening.
With a smirk, Lyudmila Sergeyevna explained that her daughter-in-law was a “lazybones,” because she was “home all day and has nothing to show for it.”
She still didn’t see Yana. She kept talking.
“My son works from morning till night. He works at a bank—big responsibility. And she’s a lazybones. Sits at home, drinks tea, browses the internet. And she even gets all high and mighty—‘I’m working, don’t bother me.’ What kind of work is that? When I was her age, I worked two jobs. That was real life! And now what? Home all day, and no results. No proper lunch, no order. Nobody even irons Igor’s shirts! I iron them myself—because there’s no one else.”
“No way!” Aunt Sveta gasped.
“Cross my heart! She’s a lazybones, not a wife.”
Yana slowly walked into the kitchen.
She stopped in the doorway, took off her jacket slowly, and carefully placed her keys on the shelf.
She didn’t rush. She took off her jacket. Hung it over the back of a chair. Pulled her keys from her pocket and set them down on the shelf by the refrigerator.
Then she looked at her mother-in-law.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna cut herself off mid-sentence. She saw Yana—and went pale.
Aunt Sveta also froze, cup in hand.
“Yanochka…” the mother-in-law began. “When did you get here?”
“Just now,” Yana answered evenly.
“Ah, well… we’re just having tea with the neighbor…”
“I heard you.”
Her face stayed calm, but her eyes turned icy—focused, sharp.
Yana didn’t yell. She didn’t wave her arms around. She simply stood there, looking straight at her mother-in-law.
But Lyudmila Sergeyevna flinched. Something in her daughter-in-law’s gaze made her look away.
“Yan, I didn’t mean it like that…”
“I heard everything perfectly,” Yana said quietly. “You called me a freeloader. In my apartment. In front of a stranger.”
Aunt Sveta jumped up in a hurry.
“I should go. I completely forgot—I’ve got soup on the stove!”
She slipped out of the apartment in ten seconds flat.
“A freeloader, am I? Then I’m renting this place out—and you can pack your stuff and get out!” Yana said to her mother-in-law.
Her voice was soft, but every word landed like a punch.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna sprang to her feet.
“What?! Yana, what are you talking about?!”
“Exactly what you just heard,” Yana replied, folding her arms across her chest. “I’m the ‘freeloader’ who sits at home all day and is good for nothing, right? That’s what you were just telling the neighbor.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“It is exactly what you meant. I heard every single word.”
“Yan, forgive me, I just—”
“I’m not interested in your excuses. You’ve been living in my apartment for three months. For free. You don’t work. You lie on the couch watching TV shows. And you call me—the person who bought this place and pays every bill—a freeloader. That’s quite the logic.”
“Yana, I didn’t want to hurt you…”
“But you did. And you know what? If I’m such a useless freeloader, then I’m renting this apartment out. Let decent people live here—people who actually pay. And you can pack your bags and leave. Today.”
A heavy silence fell over the room, making her words sound even more final.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna stood there with her mouth open, unable to believe what she’d just heard.
“You… you’re throwing me out?”
“That’s right.”
“But… I’m Igor’s mother!”
“So what? Does that give you the right to insult me in my own home?”
“I didn’t insult you!”
“You called me a freeloader. You said I’m good for nothing. In front of the neighbor. How is that not an insult?”
“Well… I was just chatting…”
“Then go chat somewhere else. You’re not welcome here anymore.”
Her mother-in-law tried to protest, but Yana was already pulling out a folder of documents and unlocking her phone.
“Yana! You can’t just kick me out like this! I’ve been living here for three months!”
“And that’s exactly why you’re leaving. Enough.”
“But I have nowhere to go!”
“That’s your problem. You have your own apartment.”
“But there’s that neighbor!”
“Make peace. Or rent somewhere else.”
Yana opened the closet, took out a blue folder, and laid the papers on the table in front of her mother-in-law: the ownership certificate, the property registry extract, the technical passport.
“See?” Yana said evenly. “This is my apartment. Registered in my name. Bought before the marriage. I’m the owner, and I decide who lives here. And you won’t be living here anymore.”
Then she picked up her phone and opened her browser.
Calmly, she explained that the apartment was her personal property—and the decision had been made right now.
Yana went to a rental listings site and started filling out the form.
“What are you doing?!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna gasped.
“Posting an ad to rent the apartment.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. I’m dead serious. Two-bedroom in Mitino, fifty square meters, good renovation, near the metro. Thirty-five thousand a month. A fair price.”
“Yana, stop!”
“Why? You said it yourself—I’m a freeloader. So I guess I don’t need an apartment. Let people live here who will appreciate it and pay for it.”
“But Igor! Your husband!”
“Igor will find somewhere to live. With you, for example.”
Yana pressed the button: “Publish.”
Igor showed up later, looking confused, his eyes darting between his mother and his wife.
He came home at nine in the evening. He walked in and saw his mother crying in the kitchen and Yana in the other room with a cold, unreadable expression.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Ask your mother,” Yana answered without looking up from her laptop.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“Igor!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna wailed. “She’s throwing me out! Your wife is putting me out on the street!”
“What?! Yan, is that true?”
“It is,” Yana said, nodding.
“But why?!”
“Go to the kitchen. Let your mother tell you how she called me a freeloader in front of the neighbor.”
Igor stared at his mother, stunned.
Yana didn’t explain anything. She simply showed him the rental listing—already posted online.
“Igor, look,” Yana said, turning the laptop toward him.
On the screen was the ad, with photos of their apartment, a full description, and the price:
“Two-bedroom apartment for rent in Mitino. 50 sq.m. Renovated. Fitted kitchen. Metro nearby. 35,000 rubles per month. Available from the 1st.”
“You… you’re serious?” Igor whispered.
“Completely,” Yana replied. “Your mother said I’m a freeloader and that I’m useless. In front of the neighbor. In my kitchen. In my apartment. I made my decision. I’m renting the place out. We’re moving out. All of us.”
“But… where are we supposed to go?”
“I don’t care. Rent something. Go live with your mother. Figure it out.”
“Yan, you can’t do this!”
“I can. And I already did. The ad is up. Tomorrow people will start calling.”
That evening, suitcases were lined up by the door, and for the first time in a long while, the mother-in-law spoke quietly.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna packed for two hours. She cried, complained, and sighed dramatically. Igor helped in silence.
“Igor, say something to her!” she begged her son.
“Mom… did you really call Yana a freeloader?”
“Well… I just… I was talking to the neighbor…”
“Mom, it’s her apartment. She bought it herself. Before our wedding. And you insulted her.”
“But I didn’t mean to!”
“Doesn’t matter. You said it. She heard it.”
The suitcases stood by the door: one large gray one and a smaller red one.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna looked pathetic, speaking softly for the first time in three months.
“Yana, forgive me. I truly didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Too late,” Yana said.
Yana closed the door behind them and, for the first time in months, felt the apartment become easy to breathe in again.
Igor left with his mother. He took her to a friend’s place where she’d arranged to stay.
Yana stayed alone.
She walked through the apartment. Went into the room where her mother-in-law had lived. Empty. Clean. Quiet.
The kitchen no longer smelled like someone else’s food. The bathroom wasn’t cluttered with чужие things. The hallway closet was finally free.
Yana opened the window. Fresh air rushed in.
She sat down on the couch. Took a deep breath in. Let it out.
Silence—real, calm silence.
Her home. Her apartment. Her rules.
Her phone buzzed: the first call about the listing.
“Hello, is this about the apartment in Mitino?”
“Yes,” Yana smiled. “It’s available from the first. Come by for a viewing.”
She took the listing down an hour later. Igor called, apologized, and asked her to come back.
“Only without your mother,” Yana said.
“Only without my mother,” he agreed.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna never crossed that apartment’s threshold again.
And Yana could finally breathe freely in her own home.