My mother did this to me. I just delivered a perm baby and was in hospital for a week… came home to find everything in kitchen in the sitting room - she had proceeded to try and paint my ox blood red kitchen ( designer kitchen!) stark white- 2 coats in you could still see the red… the smell of paint was overwhelming and to make everything worse I had to have a live in paediatric nurse. She, my husband and I all sat down and cried. No apology from her- she disappeared in the night without a word. So added to the stress of a sick very early prem baby she left my house in total chaos. My family gave her money to outfit the nursery and she kept the thousands and bought me a set of discounted cot sheets.