Housesitting or petsitting means making another person responsible for property of beloved pets.
But what if something goes wrong while the sitter is on duty?
Should they handle it themselves or defer to the owner?
A son who decided to defer turned to the "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Adorable_Ad1615 asked:
"AITA for 'forcing' my mother to come back from vacation?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"I am a 25-year-old guy, living about 10 minutes from my childhood home where my mom now lives alone. She has two dogs with her, one is an old family dog that's turning 15, the other is a puppy that's about 8 months old. For context, they are in an apartment on the 10th floor (these are small dogs and there's plenty of space for both)."
"Regardless, I moved out 3 years ago to live with my partner. We live in a pretty small apartment that's just a bedroom and a kitchen pretty much. So, sometimes if my mom had to go somewhere or whatever, I would drop by there to babysit them after my shift (I work only nightshifts)."
"This month, she was supposed to go on vacation, to a beach abroad. I agreed to come a few times a day to feed and walk the dogs, no problem."
"She didn't want to take them to a boarding house because she says it would have been too stressful for them to be in a different environment. I would have loved to have them full-time for the week, but both my partner and I work very rough hours (10 PM - 8 AM), so it would have been hard to work with. Plus, our apartment is very small."
"She told me they've been having a bit of an ant issue recently, but that it's not too bad and I said that was okay."
"So, on the first day of her being abroad, I come to walk them, and everything is fine. I pour them some food and water and leave. I come back later in the day, I notice that they haven't been eating or drinking at all. We live in Europe and there's a huge heatwave going on right now, so I'm thinking this is not good."
"I pick up the food containers from which they eat and pour the stuff down the toilet so I can replace it. Along with the food, fell something that I thought was dirt - just this huge black mass of speckles. And then I notice that it was moving."
"It was ants, like more ants than I've even seen together in my life, had to be in the hundreds. It's no wonder they weren't eating! I try to get them to eat and drink but they just do not want to."
"I come back the next day and try pouring them some water and food before we take a walk, hoping they would eat it quickly. They don't want to. I pour them some food and we go out for about 30 minutes, we come back and the little one starts eating. And as soon as she does, a bunch of ants just disperse from under the food. She then pees herself, and the older one starts licking it (mind you he hasn't been or wanted to drink water for two days now)."
"I lose my sh*t. I call my mother yelling, asking her how the f*ck did she think it was a good idea to leave two dogs in an INFESTED house, how she did not plan this at all, and if it was like this, she could have went to vacation and we could have had them at one of those dogsitting places, while an exterminator could have taken care of the ants—three birds one stone."
"So she came back after being away for two days (the whole vacation was supposed to be a week) and now she is pissed at me for not being able to 'do her this one solid' and how she is so tired all the time and deserved a vacation."
"She came back home on day three, and they finally ate. She said that 'after a while, they would have ate' and 'nothing's going to happen to them if they don't eat for two days, stray dogs survive just fine', so yeah. Just this morning, she told me that when she came back (day 3), they ate their food and that I was just supposed to wait a couple of days, and once they were 'hungry enough,' they would eat..."
"I told her she did deserve a vacation, but we should have organized accordingly, and not have ants crawling around in their food. I am worried that the ants maybe bit their mouths or something like that, I have no idea, I am just mad. My MIL says I was out of line, but I don’t know."
"AITA?"
The OP summed up why they might be the a**hole in their situation.
"Maybe I could have tried more and had the pups in the apartment with me, even though it's much smaller."
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
"NTA. Selfish, selfish person. In the middle of a heatwave, to ensure those babies can eat or drink comfortably. Or sleep probably. Those ants would be crawling all over at night. What's wrong with her?" ~ Qwarla888
"NTA. Boo hoo, she ignored a problem before vacation that then interrupted her vacation, she clearly wasn't ready to take... How dare you .... Not let her neglect her home and pets? Like wut?" ~ JacOfAllTrades
"NTA, at all. So, we live on a massive ant hill and have to deal with this 24/7 (the ant hill is too big for professionals to deal with). How we handle the pet food is we have a wide pan (or bowl) that's at least an inch deep and fill that with water."
"Then put a bowl with the pet food in the water. The ants will eventually get past the water, but it usually takes a couple of days and only if you don't change the water out."
"The ants definitely bit their mouths/nose if they tried to eat it." ~ Previous_Objective83
"NTA - mother knew there was an issue, and ignored it! She should have put the dogs in kennels. Refuse point-blank to do it again. Her dogs, her responsibility." ~ Jonathan-Welford
"This is bizarre. Leaving dogs alone all night and day with just a visit to put out food and water? I have genuinely never heard of anyone doing this before - dogs either stay with someone else or go to kennels. This should never have happened. Those poor animals." ~ chocklityclair
"Sorry, but why was it the son’s responsibility to take care of a clearly existing problem in his mother's home regarding her dogs? Sure, he agreed to pet sit, but should he be the one to call for a dog sitting service to take them in?"
"Should he also call for pest removal services? Is she going to pay him back if he does these things or just expect that he’ll take the hit? Nah, this woman is miserable, selfish and lazy, and completely undeserving of having loving pets under her care."
"OP is clearly NTA, and it wasn’t their job to be doing what his mother should’ve done before taking what would’ve been a week-long vacation while her poor dogs would’ve suffered in a heatwave and an ant-infested home." ~ Kregain
"To be fair, she went on holiday. She must have known this was a problem, and she just left anyway. That is where the problem lies. Who does that? An infestation takes time to grow. To grow to that level must have taken weeks. The time to problem solve was before she went on holiday." ~ United_Mango_9541
"NTA. Those dogs deserve so much better and good for you for calling her out." ~ This_Region5449
"Sounds like Mom is definitely the biggest AH here. She didn’t arrange appropriate care could be provided in the first place. Then instead of looking for solutions she decided to cut her own trip short and play the blame game. That wasn’t your fault." ~ pluvio_fille
"NTA. She knew it was an issue and left anyway. It wasn't your problem to solve and she either didn't care about the outcome or expected you to take care of it without even talking to you about it, and that's a bullsh*t thing to do no matter if you're related or not." ~ nixredux
"When you take on the responsibility for dogs, you make sure they are looked after first. she has two dogs who are both at stages of their life that need extra supervision and attention. OP absolutely should call her out on her inexcusable behavior here. OP's mother is old enough to know better."
"Those dogs rely 100% on their carers to provide adequate care for them. OPs mother is TA and probably shouldn't have a puppy if she thinks this is adequate care." ~ ajjablue
OP was unprepared and quickly overwhelmed by the situation.
At the end of the day, the dogs are his mother's responsibility. She sabotaged her own vacation by failing to properly prepare her home before leaving.
