Yana lived with her husband, Igor, in an apartment she had purchased herself long before she ever put on a wedding ring—no help from anyone, no guarantors, no dramatic declarations.
She’d bought the two-bedroom five years earlier. Back then she was a programmer at an IT company and earned good money. She saved for three years, then took a modest ten-year mortgage—and paid it off early, in just four.
Every single payment felt like a win she’d earned with her own hands.
The place was in a new building in Mitino. Not downtown, but close to the metro, a park nearby, everything convenient. Yana chose the floor plan herself, handled the renovation herself. Everything—her labor, her money, her decisions.
She met Igor two years ago at a developers’ conference. He was a systems administrator at a bank. They hit it off, started dating.
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 be clear 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?”
“Of course not. I respect that.”
Igor moved in. Their first year together was peaceful—no arguments, no chaos.
After the wedding, though, Igor insisted that his mother, Lyudmila Sergeyevna, should “stay for a little while” while she “sorted out some things.”
This happened a year into the marriage. Igor called Yana from work on a Wednesday afternoon.
“Yan, listen… Mom has a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“She got into it with a neighbor. A serious fight. They’re threatening court, the police were called. She needs to lay low for a bit. Can she move in with us for a week or two?”
Yana was sitting at her laptop, finishing a chunk of code.
“Igor, we never agreed to this.”
“Yan, she’s my mother. It’s really bad for her right now. Just a couple weeks. Maximum.”
“And after that?”
“She’ll find something. Or they’ll make up with the neighbor. I don’t know. But right now she needs help.”
Yana exhaled.
“Fine. Two weeks. No more.”
“Thank you, sweetheart!”
Lyudmila Sergeyevna arrived Friday evening—with two suitcases. And boxes.
That “little while” stretched into months, and slowly the apartment stopped feeling like Yana’s home.
Two weeks turned into a month. A month into 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 her husband every single week.
“Soon, soon. She’s looking.”
“It’s been two months.”
“Yan, you know how hard it is to rent a place quickly. Everything’s expensive right now.”
“We agreed on two weeks.”
“Just be patient a little longer, okay?”
Yana stayed patient.
But the apartment no longer felt like hers. Her mother-in-law’s belongings were everywhere. Her dishes appeared in the kitchen. Her cosmetics took over the bathroom. In the fridge—her food, marked with sticky notes that read: DON’T TOUCH.
Yana came home from work and felt like a visitor in her own place.
Her mother-in-law slept later than everyone else, commented on Yana’s every move, and loved repeating that “real work isn’t sitting at a computer.”
Lyudmila Sergeyevna didn’t work at all. Not even a little.
She’d wake up around eleven, when Yana and Igor had been at work for hours. She’d make herself breakfast, watch TV shows, stroll around the apartment like it belonged to her.
Yana worked from home three days a week. On those days, her mother-in-law made sure she had no peace.
“Yanochka, why are you sitting at that computer again?” she’d say, barging 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. You’re just tapping keys.”
“I write software. That’s my profession.”
“Software,” her mother-in-law snorted. “Sits at home in warmth, sipping tea, and calls it work. In my day, nobody worked like that.”
“I need to concentrate.”
“Sure, sure—‘concentrate.’ And who’s going to make lunch?”
“I’ll make something for myself.”
“Well then go on, cook. Since you’re so independent.”
Every workday at home turned into torture.
Igor preferred to pretend nothing was happening—either glued to his phone or finding excuses to be out of the apartment.
Yana tried to talk to him.
“Igor, your mother is driving me insane. She comments on everything. She walks into my room while I’m working. She keeps saying my job isn’t a real job.”
“Yan, she’s just from another generation. 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.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to her.”
But nothing changed.
Igor came home, ate dinner, disappeared into his phone or the TV. If a fight started between Yana and his mother, he would silently slip out of the apartment.
“Work’s calling,” he’d say—and vanish.
Yana was left alone with her mother-in-law.
Then came the day Yana returned from a long, exhausting meeting and found her mother-in-law in the kitchen with a neighbor.
It was Tuesday. Yana had gone to the office for a client meeting. It dragged on until seven in the evening. She came home tired and hungry.
She opened the door with her key. The apartment smelled like boiled potatoes, and voices carried through the hall.
Yana took off her shoes and walked in.
At the kitchen table sat Lyudmila Sergeyevna and their neighbor, Aunt Sveta from the fifth floor. They were drinking tea and eating cookies.
They were talking loudly, without the slightest embarrassment—as if the woman who owned the apartment didn’t exist.
“I’m telling you, Sveta,” Lyudmila Sergeyevna declared, “young people today don’t know how to work at all.”
“Oh really?” Aunt Sveta chimed in.
“My daughter-in-law, for example. Sits at home all day. At a computer. And she calls that work.”
“What does she even do?”
“Who knows! Types something. Writes ‘programs.’ I don’t even understand what those programs are. That’s not work!”
“But she gets paid, doesn’t she?”
“Sure, she gets paid. But it’s still not real labor. Real work is a factory, a hospital, a school—people, responsibility. Sitting at home staring at a screen is just fooling around.”
Yana stood in the kitchen doorway, listening.
With a smug little smile, Lyudmila Sergeyevna explained that her daughter-in-law was a “lazy nobody” because she was “home all day and there’s nothing to show for it.”
She hadn’t even noticed Yana. She kept going.
“My son works from morning till night. Bank job, huge responsibility. And she’s a slacker. Home all day, drinking tea, scrolling online. And she still acts 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? Home all day and nothing gets done. No proper lunch, no order in the house. Nobody even irons Igor’s shirts! I do it—because nobody else will!”
“No way!” Aunt Sveta gasped.
“I swear. She’s a lazy bum, not a wife.”
Yana stepped into the kitchen slowly.
She stopped in the doorway, took off her coat without rushing, and carefully placed her keys on the shelf.
No sudden movements. Coat off. Over the chair. Keys out of her pocket—set down by the refrigerator.
Then she looked straight at her mother-in-law.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna cut herself off mid-sentence. She saw Yana—and turned pale.
Aunt Sveta froze too, a teacup suspended in her hands.
“Yanochka…” Lyudmila Sergeyevna began weakly. “When did you come in?”
“Just now,” Yana said evenly.
“Oh… well… we’re having tea with the neighbor…”
“I heard you.”
Her face stayed calm, but her gaze turned icy and sharp.
Yana didn’t shout. Didn’t wave her arms. She simply stood there, looking at her mother-in-law.
But Lyudmila Sergeyevna flinched. Something in Yana’s eyes made her look away.
“Yan, I didn’t mean it like that…”
“I heard you perfectly,” Yana said quietly. “You called me a lazy bum. In my apartment. In front of strangers.”
Aunt Sveta jumped up immediately.
“I should go! I totally forgot—I’ve got soup on the stove!”
She slipped out of the apartment in less than ten seconds.
“I’m a lazy bum? Fine. 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 each word landed like a hammer blow.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna sprang to her feet.
“What?! Yana, what are you talking about?”
“Exactly what you just heard,” Yana said, folding her arms. “I’m the ‘lazy bum’ 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’s exactly what you meant. I heard every 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 shows. And you call me—me, the person who bought this place and pays every bill—a lazy bum. That’s an impressive kind of logic.”
“Yana, I didn’t want to hurt you…”
“But you did. And here’s the thing: if I’m such a worthless slacker, then I’ll rent out this apartment. Let normal people live here—people who actually pay. And you can pack up and leave. Today.”
Silence filled the room, making her words sound final—like a door being locked.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna stood there with her mouth open, as if her brain refused to accept what it heard.
“You… you’re throwing me out?”
“That’s right.”
“But… but I’m Igor’s mother!”
“And? Does that give you the right to insult me in my own home?”
“I didn’t insult you!”
“You called me a lazy bum. You said I’m useless. 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 throw me out like this! I’ve been living here three months!”
“Which is exactly why I’m putting an end to it. Enough.”
“But I have nowhere to go!”
“That’s your problem. You have your own apartment.”
“But the neighbor—”
“Make peace. Or rent something.”
Yana opened a closet, took out a blue folder: her ownership certificate, a registry extract, technical paperwork.
She laid it on the table in front of her mother-in-law.
“See? This is my apartment. Registered to me. Bought before marriage. I’m the owner. I decide who lives here. And you will not live here anymore.”
Then she 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 website and began filling out the form.
“What are you doing?!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna gasped.
“Posting an ad to rent out the apartment.”
“You’re joking!”
“No. I’m completely serious. Two-bedroom in Mitino, fifty square meters, good renovation, close to the metro. Thirty-five thousand rubles a month. Fair price.”
“Yana, stop!”
“Why? You just said I’m a lazy bum. So clearly I don’t need this apartment. Let it go to people who will appreciate it—and pay for it.”
“But Igor! Your husband!”
“Igor will figure it out. He can live with you, for example.”
Yana hit Publish.
Igor came home later, confused, staring from his mother to his wife.
He walked in around nine. He found his mother crying at the kitchen table and Yana in the room, her face cold and unreadable.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Ask your mother,” Yana replied without looking away from her laptop.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“Igoryok!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna sobbed. “She’s throwing me out! Your wife is putting me on the street!”
“What? Yan, is that true?”
“It is,” Yana nodded.
“But why?!”
“Go to the kitchen. Let your mother explain how she called me a lazy bum in front of the neighbor.”
Igor looked at his mother, stunned.
Yana didn’t argue. She simply showed him the rental listing—already online.
“Igor, look,” she said, turning the laptop toward him.
On the screen was the ad. Photos of their apartment. A full description. The price.
“Two-bedroom apartment for rent in Mitino. 50 sq. m. Good renovation. Built-in kitchen. Near the metro. 35,000 rubles per month. Available from the 1st.”
“You… you’re serious?” Igor whispered.
“Completely,” Yana answered. “Your mother said I’m a lazy bum and useless. In front of the neighbor. In my kitchen. In my apartment. I made a decision. I’m renting it out. We’re moving out. All of us.”
“But… but where?”
“I don’t care. You’ll rent something. Or stay with your mother. Decide.”
“Yan, you can’t do this!”
“I can. And I did. The listing is live. Tomorrow the calls will start.”
That evening, suitcases stood by the door, and for the first time in a long while, Lyudmila Sergeyevna spoke quietly.
She packed for two hours. She cried, complained, wailed. Igor helped in silence.
“Igoryok, say something to her!” she begged her son.
“Mom… did you really call Yana a lazy bum?”
“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 waited by the door—one large gray one and one small red one.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna looked pitiful, suddenly small. Her voice was soft for the first time in three months.
“Yana, forgive me. I truly didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Too late,” Yana said.
She closed the door behind them and, for the first time in months, felt the air in the apartment become light again—easy to breathe.
Igor left with his mother. He took her to a friend’s place where she had arranged to stay.
Yana remained alone.
She walked through the apartment. Entered the room where her mother-in-law had lived. Empty. Clean. Quiet.
The kitchen no longer smelled like someone else’s food. No чужие вещи scattered in the bathroom. The hallway closet was finally free again.
Yana opened a window. Fresh air rushed in.
She sat down on the couch, inhaled deeply, then exhaled.
Silence. Real, peaceful silence.
Her home. Her apartment. Her rules.
Her phone vibrated—first call from the listing.
“Hello, is this about the apartment in Mitino?”
“Yes,” Yana smiled. “It’s available from the first. Come by for a viewing.”
An hour later, she took the listing down.
Igor called, apologized, asked her to come back.
“Only without your mother,” Yana said.
“Only without my mother,” he agreed.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna never crossed that threshold again.
And Yana could finally breathe freely in her own home.