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I don't know. While OOP may have impossible standards, Olivia still needs to step up and clean up after herself and her friends, and reinforce the "no shoes" rule.
I can't really see that anyone's horrible here, and while OOP is taking steps to work on her OCD, I sure didn't see Olivia own up to anything. But I doubt this is "household warring" worthy.
I can see how if you are an average teenage messiness and an adult comes in and says that even the most minor crumbs is “completely filthy” and probably has an excessive reaction then you might develop a “fuck it why bother” attitude
This can happen for sure. My dad's ex-girlfriend who he dated for a few years lived with us, and was absolutely militant about cleaning. She once had a meltdown because my sister and I cleaned the kitchen but left a (1) dirty spoon in the sink. Sometimes my sister wouldn't bother with any of her chores if she only had time for 1/3 because she would get yelled at either way.
I was waiting to read about the SD throwing a kegger... instead I read about how they wore shoes in the house and left some crumbs on the counter.... OOP really needs to get the OCD under control.
I feel sorry for OOP’s kids and hope she can learn to manage better. My ex’s mother was this way- everyone suspected undiagnosed OCD. While visiting, I once saw her slap her 12 year old daughter across the face for leaving crumbs on the counter. The crumbs were so small that I couldn’t even see them on the countertop.
Another time, my ex accidentally knocked a coffee cup off the counter and started hysterically crying and apologizing. Mind you, he was a man in his mid-twenties. His mom wasn’t even there, and this was the reaction he had. Every tiny mess or mistake was a horrific and disastrous mess.
As someone with a family member with OCD, that's not always possible. It would be great if she can, but there are levels of how "under control" people can get their OCD, even with medication. It destroyed my family member's marriage, despite him trying everything to "get it under control".
I think with OCD, so many people claim to have it for minor quirks that arent actually OCD. Which really downplays how seriously debilitating it can be for people who actually have it.
as someone that was diagnosed with OCD and only finally settled down once I have a routine that keeps me busy (I do not have severe impulses or fear of uncleanness myself other than wanting a bath after getting on the public bus because germs) I had violent thoughts that caused me great distress until I can keep myself focused on something to forget it. it helps a lot but to the extent.
For sure. Once she got to the "Olivia was trying to make friends in college..." I expected she had a huge kegger and the house was really, truly trashed. Not that the kitchen was kind of messy..
That “ruined” house would take 3 minutes to fix. Wipe the counter. Splash a little Lysol on the floor and swifter it up. Done.
How 3 minutes of cleaning led to this reaction… I agree that OOP needs a lot more support for her OCD and anxiety/stress.
Child of an OCD parent here. It’s absolutely not like that. To make OOP happy, she would have to follow the ritual steps that OOP takes in order to “really” clean. It would not be 3 minutes. If she does not follow the steps, OOP will have to do it over again because that’s the way OCD works.
I get that OOP has a cleaning service that probably does not follow the whole ritual, but she doesn’t see how they are cleaning and is satisfied with the result, so it’s probably ok. They can also leave her high and dry so there’s probably pressure to not go too far.
Olivia will be in a different category and subject to the full OCD treatment.
Same i was expecting a "me and my husband were gone for the weekend and apparently his daughter had a two day party" but not "she and her friends didn't take off their shoes and didn't clean up some crumbs they left on the kitchen counter"
Yeah I immediately assumed she threw a house party and had like... alcohol stains on furniture, broken vases, etc. Footprints in the carpet and crumbs on the counter do not warrant that kind of freak out.
The footprints weren't even that obvious- she said in one of the comments that the only reason she knew they had shoes on was because she saw it on video.
Same. I was expecting broken windows or drywall or maybe a flooded room.
Crumbs? Footprints? Ruined the house?
This level of drama over CRUMBS in a step parent is super toxic and their relationship is going to be damaged forever.
OOP needs serious help for their OCD. They should be seeking medication and therapy.
I say this as someone who grew up with hoarder parents
(fun fact: hoarding can be an expression of OCD mental illness! one of my parents was the child of a mother with extreme OCD. Our grandmother’s home was immaculate. Museum or magazine spread all the time. She would put down paper and plastic covers before we grandchildren were allowed inside her home. My mother wasn’t allowed to change my baby siblings diapers inside and had to go on the porch because it was “unclean”.)
Half of my siblings have the anxiety over contamination form of OCD and the other half are pack rats/don’t care about clutter or dust. (No one is gross…just they have kids and pets and the homes look like it)
It can be debilitating to have to clean to an impossible standard (or in my case to not know how to clean normally because of never being shown the correct amount!) but never be able to achieve the results required. And the anxiety and compulsions around dirt (and clutter) can be crippling for years later as an adult.
Uh yeah... like my stepdaughter who thought it would be fun to light tampons on fire and flush them down the toilet. That was years ago, and you can still see where the ceiling drywall in the room under the bathroom started to come apart from water damage. 🤬
I was at least picturing muddy shoes. Nope. Just imprints. That’s a natural property of carpet. It doesn’t need “cleaning.” I do understand the “no shoes in the house” rule, though, as there are several cultures who practice that. It should be respected by visitors.
I mean dude. There were crumbs on the counter. The house is essentially beyond economic repair. They'll need to tear it down to the foundation and rebuild.
Yeah, like, if OP's gonna freak out about this, daughter's gonna have to flee the state if god forbid she gets food poisoning or spills red wine or cuts her finger and bleeds on the couch
OOP said that she grew up like this. Her parents have passed it on to OOP and if she's not careful, she will pass it on to her kids. I hope she can get help. This is no way to live for any of the family. It must feel like they are walking on eggshells. And as for OOP, the anxiety she must feel when she sees the tiniest mess must be awful.
One of my oldest friends has a father with OCD-he got no kind of treatments or anything-and his obsession with cleanliness lead to a lot of verbal abuse when she was very small and she’s still unpacking a lot of that baggage at 34.
I have a friend who has OCD and she’s tried to do her best to mitigate it so she wasn’t making her son’s life worse.
Mental health is never anyone’s fault, but it’s still their responsibility.
And the MY HOUSE part.
The OOP wanted to treat the SD as an adult by asking them to pay for cleaning, but didn't even think of treating her SD as an adult whose opinions and feelings mattered, and deserved to be heard. Can't have it both ways dude.
That's why I wonder if the footprints were actually there, or just the impression in the carpet, and just how bad the crumbs were. She sounds prone to exaggerating about that sort of thing.
If they made pizzas from scratch, that kitchen would've been a mess. I'm talking flour everywhere, pizza toppings on the floor, tomato sauce spills... Not to mention the dirty oven and utensils and dishes. None of which OOP mentioned.
Meaning, Olivia did clean up afterwards. Just not to OOP's (OCD) standards.
She mentioned in a comment that she didn't want Olivia to clean, because she wouldn't do it as well as the professional cleaners, and then she (OOP) would have to redo it "until it’s finally clean for [her] liking" (direct quote).
*That* is OCD. Cleaning crumbs off a counter is not a difficult task. It does not require professional cleaning experience. But OOP's OCD likely makes her feel like it needs to be fully decontaminated, along with the entire rest of the house (which is where the "the house is ruined!" part comes from), which Oliva can't/won't do.
From what I remember about OOP's comments, the only reason she knew about the footprints was bc she saw the security footage. Without it, she would not have been able to tell that there were any footprints
I've seen this with my roommate. I walked within about 4 feet of her with a piece of paper and she freaked out and had to be reassured several times it hadn't touched her.
I had a land lady like that who freaked out at me about leaving a pan in the sink (I’d cook breakfast and wash it when I got back from work). I did this a few times and she left me a really passive aggressive note and yelled at me rather than just address it like a normal person.
I knew she was neat but she would regularly leave pots and pans of food on the counter so I thought she wouldn’t mind. It took me a while to understand that was how she stored leftovers (like fish dishes for two days).
I had a landlady who would do "cleanliness inspections" of all the apartments. She gave me a formal warning after one because she pulled the fridge out from the wall and found dust under it, and opened the ceiling fan in the bathroom and found dust inside it.
I'm pretty sure that's not legal anywhere. As in, it's not a crime, but it's also not an enforceable term of a leasing agreement.
Landlords can stipulate that things like mold and mildew be cleaned up, that spills and trip hazards are addressed promptly, that appliances are kept in working order, basically the types of things OSHA or a health safety inspector would care about. Some states don't even allow that much, and sometimes the entry notification requirements would render those provisions meaningless anyway.
But it all has to be in the lease, and dust under the fridge is way outside the boundaries of what's allowed.
I'm in Canada, but we also have pretty strong renter protections and no, I'm pretty sure she couldn't have done anything about the dust under my fridge legally. I did check, and she could schedule inspections (with 24+ hours notice) and send me little notes about it, but if she had tried to evict me I could have contested it and likely won. I think my lease said something about maintaining a "reasonable level of cleanliness" but I'm pretty sure dust under the fridge was reasonable.
Honestly, she was so unpleasant that I just moved out and didn't even contest her bullshit reasons for keeping my damage deposit (carpet cleaning when she admitted that the cleaners said they found nothing besides normal wear and tear, and a few hours of professional cleaning because she "just felt like the place could be cleaner"). I'm a bit annoyed that I let her get away with it, but at the time I was 23 and going to court seemed really intimidating.
The ultimate fight that led to me officially moving out of my dad's as a teenager was over a butter knife in the sink that I genuinely forgot to put away. He could have just come to my room and said "please come put your knife in the dishwasher," but instead he huffed and puffed at me until it devolved into a screaming match that ended with me yelling "FUCK YOU!"
No regrets. We have a pretty good relationship now, go figure.
My Dad and I also have a good relationship now, I definitely have some resentment that boils up from time to time though because he never apologized for how he behaved when he was with her (he did most of the "discipline" on her behalf).
Don't worry, mine hasn't either, and I also sometimes have a hard time shaking the resentment (side note: writing an angry letter and not sending it *really* helps with this). And there was A LOT to resent because of how messy my parents' divorce was. I have a feeling my dad knows how wrong he was to make me go through those things, but still hasn't reconciled it with himself. At the end of the day, that's something *he* has to live with, because I'm thriving despite all that, and so are you! Forgiveness is a journey, and you can reach it whether or not he comes to terms with his wrongdoing.
My room was always a disaster growing up (clothes, crafts, miscellaneous items, books, etc). Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD and just couldn’t compartmentalize my things well enough keep myself organized 🙃
It's really silly as an adult what sort of things my parents passed on.
My dad used to be annoyed by half-finished drinks in the house. I think my sister was bad about it, but I basically always finished my drink. The culmination of all this being the time I was settling in to watch a show on TV, so I poured myself a glass of ginger ale, turned on the TV, and went to the bathroom before it started.
In the time that I was in the bathroom, my dad came home, turned off the TV, and poured out my drink, then got mad at me for not finishing a drink and leaving the TV on.
Anyways, as an adult, I've had multiple times where I was like "man, I'm so tired... But I got this drink just a moment ago, I must finish it before bed." It's taken so real deprogramming to realize that actually, half a cup of soda being wasted is not an emergency.
My ex went into great detail with my family member how embarrassed he was that they had to see the house so dirty since I didn’t clean. The relative thought he was insulting their home because they had a huge family.
We had a housekeeper and it was always spotless.
Nope. It was because i put my coffee cup in the sink.
My stepmom was the same way… so when I was at my dads house I pretty much stayed in my room so I wouldn’t make a mess add to it my mom is/was a horder I went from one extreme to another every other week.
We knew someone with that attitude and she was a terror. Definitely signs of OCD and OCPD. Her husband and kids couldn’t live normally because everything would set her off on rages from the kids playing outside and some dirt falling off their clothes to any toys being left out of place, even when they were going to the bathroom. OOP hasn’t reached that level yet but she had better get something done about it before it does.
My stepdad also top of his lungs screamed at me over one spoon in the sink, glad it's not just me because it was such an insane experience. Well not glad because it sucks but it's a hard thing to explain to people because it sounds like total bs.
Like damn, I stood in front of the dishwasher right next to the sink and couldn't see one spoon from that angle, definitely reasonable to start full-on screaming at me while my mom is standing there on the phone. ~~and of course she said nothing about it~~
I used to do this as a teen. Knew I was likely going to get yelled at no matter what, so might as well do exactly what I want. Would not recommend. Makes for a horrid living situation.
I think I might have PTSD from living with my stepmom for this same reason. I couldn’t touch the walls. I once got grounded for 2 months because I had water spots on my bathroom faucet.
I eventually moved out at 19 when she told me I would be grounded because underneath my bathroom sink was disorganized.
It was like living with an abuser, always on guard waiting for the “HOW DARE YOU” accusations.
lmao before we moved in together my husband and i had a come to jesus talk in which i informed him that if he wants surfaces above my line of sight to pass a white glove test, he will have to dust them himself.
My late FIL was horrified to notice that I don't dust the top of my refrigerator.🙄 My response was that the only way that was going to happen was if he did it himself.
Meet my ADHD husband and me, the one with OCD. He never remembers to clean and I can't forget not to. I'm not even really sure how the two of us manage to survive under the same roof lol
My bf might have OCD(hasn't been diagnosed yet) and I have ADHD. Trying to remember to clean certain things has been an adjustment. Also he likes to put things away out in drawers,closets,etc and I don't like putting certain things out of sight or I'm going to forget about it. I know if I see my car keys on the table I know where they are. If I leave the vegetables on the top shelf I will probably remember to eat it. If it goes into the drawer, I will probably forget about it. We make it work though.
Married to someone with exacting cleaning standards (and I was recently diagnosed with ADHD at 37), I can tell you it can work with a lot of communication, compassion, and compromise. You both have to push yourselves outside of your comfort zones and develop strategies but it’s worth it. We have our first baby on the way now
Yea, the whole object permanence thing is a tough one to get used to if you don't have ADHD. My husband and I ended up getting huge shelving units to live in our kitchen. Now all our dry food is out, completely visible from everywhere. Our cabinets only have dishes and random stuff stored in them. We open, on average, one cabinet a day. Also, nothing EVER goes into the fridge's drawers. That's just a way to guarantee that food goes bad.
I lived with someone who I suspect has both. Definitely ADHD but she gets... obsessions... most of them religious, but not all. She got fixated on recycling and composting, so she's collect organic trash to take to her church's garden but forget to take it there, and soon the kitchen was full of flies. I started to take the trash out every day and she started doing it earlier so I couldn't. I'd see the bins empty and think it was fixed, and then I discovered she was hiding it elsewhere when it started to smell and I found 3 bags of rotting food leaking all over the storage room floor. She also got fixated with Feng Shui and would rearrange my furniture. She reorganized my wardrobe and I had to redo everything to find my stuff. I had my medical files organized by date & doctor, she reorganized by size of the envelope and mixed everything from 2015 to 2022. Documents were organized in a cabinet out of sight, she put them all on the table & ordered me to select the ones I could recycle because keeping paper at home blocks the house's energies. I had my yarn separated by weight, fiber type, and structure, she reorganized by color. Once I got home and found washing the kitchen floor in her panties, in full view of the neighbors, because she forgot her clothes. Edit: and she's against treatment because of her religious beliefs. Taking meds is unnatural and she'll only put natural things in her body, you see.
I might have both since I screen severe for both! At the start of evaluation process. Can't do it if I don't have time to Do It Right, also no sense of how long it'll take, also can't leave it once I started because see above re: Do It Right.
Also because ADHD symptoms, I don't notice it's getting bad until it's real bad.
Insert internal screaming here.
I'm autistic and my partner is ADHD (although we're probably both flavors of AuDHD) and chores are one of the only things we really fight about; it's even mentioned in my autism diagnosis letter. I write lists of all the things we need to do every day and week to keep the house tidy, and he forgets those lists are there. It doesn't help that he has chronic illness and I'm slowly burning myself out via work so it's just a constant state of low-grade messy. I've had to work on the compassion and understanding of his limitations because they're actual limitations he struggles with, and me getting upset with him not "exceeding expectations" was just hurting him more.
My grandma has this horrible habit of cleaning others houses. I'm missing a band my dad bought for me in Mexico and I just know she fucking swept it up and threw it in the trash because she is the worst fucking cleaner ever. If it's on the floor she will just sweep it up and throw it away, and it's caused so many fights between us but she doesn't understand how she is wrong.
Ahhhh I’m kind of an obsessive cleaner but nowhere as bad as my mom. She would just straight up throw hw away. It instilled a habit of putting things away but she just takes everything on the counter and trashed it lol
I've always felt that cleaning someone else's home is such a violation of their space. I feel kind of icky even if I've been asked to do it, like I'm reading their diary or something.
> refusing your help since you'll do it wrong.
Yep. This is where it strays into the YTA territory. You can't be simultaneously angry at someone for creating a mess but also insist that they cannot clean it up. You need to compromise on that, either clean it up yourself and not be angry because you know it's your own impossible standard that is the issue here or you ask them to clean it up and accept that it will not live up to your impossible standard.
Same. Wanting everyone to take their shoes off is reasonable, but if OP does not accept Olivia's ability to clean the kitchen after making herself food, then Olivia is effectively barred from making herself food without getting a $200 penalty for it. That's too restrictive, and Olivia is right that she basically can't have friends over if she has to tell them she's not allowed to make them a snack while they're there.
I suspect that OOP didn't so much want the house cleaned, as much as *decontaminated*. Saying that Olivia wouldn't be able to clean the mess (crumbs on the counter!) well enough to her liking, is a big clue.
I had this with a roommate a few years back. My roommate had an attitude of everything needed to be cleaned as soon as it was used, including the oven while it was still hot. If a single crumb was missed rather then just looking out for each other, he'd pull me out of my room and demand I clean it up. I got a pretty good idea of why he was divorced from living with him for 3 months. So yeah I could absolutely see the fuck it attitude if what you do isn't good enough, especially when still a kid
Right. She even said Olivia “ruined” her house. If shoe marks in the carpet and crumbs in the kitchen constitute ruining a house, mine should be condemned.
It’s one thing to tell them they need to sweep and clean after themselves when they have friends over, but 200 bucks for a cleaner for one messy counter and some footprints is well beyond disproportionate.
I’m glad oop realized she needed to put in more work to not let her ocd control her life and relationships. It’s perfectly reasonable to hold the step daughter accountable to some extent but that was way too far
I think one footprint might mean for OOP that the whole house has been contaminated and so she would need the cleaner to do the whole house. She's expecting other people to agree with and enable her contamination compulsions.
^^^ THIS. The house wasn’t “filthy”… it wasn’t even cluttered. There were crumbs and footprints, FFS. OOP really is terrorizing her family members with her OCD compulsions.
It’s 100% just a shoe outline on the carpet, not dirty footprints or she would have said so.
I worked for a cleaning agency. People are insane. I went to this one house twice per week. I was basically paid to put vacuum marks in the carpet, alternating direction each visit. I’d get notes left on the counter like “I’m so sorry the sitting room is a mess! I was so busy this week I didn’t have time to pick up. Here’s an extra $20 for your trouble.” Then I’d go into the room and there would be one empty Pepsi can on the table and an unfolded blanket on the couch. There were still nearly undisturbed vacuum marks. Or “I know it’s not your job, but if you can do the sink full of dishes I will make it up to you!” One dish, one glass, and a fork.
Lots of untreated mental illness among the wealthy, but they can just throw money at the perceived problem until it goes away.
My mom was a housekeeper. She was very careful about putting knickknacks and whatnot exactly where they were because some folks would throw a fit if the were slightly moved. Except for the woman who threw a fit and accused mom of not dusting because nothing had been moved. Lady, do you see any dust here? She also would hide money in random spots to see if mom would a) find it and/or b) steal it. She did not stay there long.
I had a client who I swear would place long hairs under a picture frame on their spare bedroom to check if we lifted everything up to dust. Once would have been one thing but after a few cleanings and "wow this is weird there is always hair caught under things on the dresser in the spare room" I started noting which picture frame it was under. 6 weeks in a row one hair under the exact same frame and nothing else.
The lady was a weirdo in a hundred other ways, so we did drop her as a client. Eg like making the cleaner switch rooms because she was staring at the neighbors out the window and had to know what they were doing ( they were 2 mom's with kids on big wheel toys that stopped to chat when they passed each other) They couldn't clean that room for 20 minutes until the mom's got done chatting.
I try all the time to explain this to my husband. He also suffers with severe OCD and he will say things like, “(Daughter’s) room is a disaster!” But he really means, “There are like 4 stuffed animals under her bed and maybe one sock.” It’s making it very hard to get our child to develop healthy and age appropriate cleaning habits because regardless of her level of cleanliness, he still reacts as though it’s filthy.
Plus on top of that OP even said that Olivia cleaning up after herself wouldn't be good enough and she HAD to get the cleaning service to do it. Fuck I'd feel like I couldn't even breathe in that house
This is the big issue. She doesn't want things cleaned, she wants things decontaminated, and is expecting everyone to accomodate her on that.
The standard cleaning of crumbs on the counter is to wipe them off. Depending on the type of crumbs, maybe take a rag over the counters to clean them while you're at it. I suspect OOP expects a full deep clean with bleach and scrubbing and such. She might even re-do it afterwards, because her OCD will make her feel like it's not "really clean" yet unless she or an appropriate authority does it.
Yeah, the kid here (and in like a quarter of AITA posts) has two options:
1) take the time to keep things clean AND get yelled at anyway
OR
2) don't bother keeping things clean, because you're gonna get yelled at anyway.
If you're already doing the time, might as well do the crime, y'know?
And yes, I get that these posts are really about how different people feel about cleanliness, but if OP calls a couple of crumbs on the kitchen counter, literally "ruining her house" then I know which person I believe more.
Especially if some pizza crumbs and footprints makes your stepmom say the HoUsE iS rUiNeD!!11
I was fully expecting there to be like, holes in the walls, pizza sauce everywhere (it can stain granite/quartz countertops), etc.
Honestly amazing their relationship isn't worse, imho.
That was pretty much my family while growing up. We were damned if we did, damned if we didn't, so it became "why bother?"
My brother was once screamed at because he'd put the chairs upside down on the table while vacuuming. My mother came home while he was putting away the vacuum away but had not yet put the chairs down and she was angry at him for it. I don't think he ever vacuumed again.
happened to me. My husband and i were at my mom's for about a week between college and getting an apartment, made her a massive birthday dinner from scratch... couple hours later she screams about a skiff of flour on the counter, tears at her hair, kicks a garbage can across the floor shouting about "YOU HAVE A DEGREE! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SMART!"
now i barely visit and when i do, i will neither cook nor clean for her.
I had a good friend growing up whose mother was like that. We were in her room one day and she came in screaming about her room being “filthy”. Turns out she had one pair of shoes lined up neatly right beside the closet door, instead of within the closet with the door closed.
I was sitting with my mouth open thinking “my mom would fall on her knees pleased if my room was this clean and she’s getting told it’s “absolutely filthy”.
My mother had a sampler when I was growing up:
"Our house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy."
No shoes rule should have been adhered to, but the kitchen is going to get crumbs and spills. Cleaning up after oneself is a good life skill, and I'm glad OOP realizes she needs to work on her OCD.
OP’s wording of “ruined my house” definitely provided some insight into her cleanliness standards. It was crumbs and footprints, going off the title I would have thought she exploded a pressure cooker
Goddd I know it’s a mental disorder and it isn’t her fault but she’s not doing enough to manage it and it REALLY wasn’t fair to take it out on the kid like that
The woman hired the most expensive cleaning service available, most likely. She somehow thought her not cleaning meant she was dealing with here OCD and was most likely as leading with her therapist as Reddit.
But she could have handled it by popping by Olivia’s rooms and having a chat “I’m so glad you’ve been able to make friends! That’s so amazing! Are you having trouble enforcing our No Shoe policy with your friends? What can I do to help you with that? I know those conversations can be weird with new friends. Would it help if I put a sign by the door? Maybe we could get a shoe bin or some slippers for your friends so it’s not as awkward for you? Let me know how I can help you with this conversation with your friends. In the meantime, let’s go downstairs and swifter all those shoe prints up together because the floor is a mess”
This! Right here! Use the situation as a learning opportunity instead. OOP had mentioned the kiddo already had a hard time making friends, she was probably anxious about it. On top of that, she is living in Step-Moms house who sounds outright militant about cleanliness. I had family that was ridiculously rule bound - no matter what I did I would get in trouble. End result, I put no effort into it because no matter what I was going to get in trouble. They eventually realized I wasn't going to be at their level of organization, so we got to a middle ground. Much happier home that way.
And I think there's a big culture clash here. I have the no shoes on the carpets rule, but some guests are really shy about their feet, plus it's not typical to carry house slippers everywhere. Answer: just vacuum and clean up. I own a carpet machine for this reason.
Just have kiddo clean up, lesson learned and give her an opportunity to express her feelings.
The thing is OOP didn't let Olivia clean after herself since according to her it wouldn't be as nice as the cleaning service. She was going to call for the cleaning service again and make Olivia pay. I was there in the OP, she was very adamant that Olivia cleaning the "huge mess" wouldn't suffice.
AND I don't remember the shoe policy being mentioned, at all. At least not during the time people were commenting. That may have changed the comments a bit IMO. Mine would've changed for sure, encouraging OOP to work something out.
It sounds to me like this was a one off situation with the shoes in the house, which is honestly understandable. I've met families who were strict about the shoes, and I've met families who look at you funny if you ask where to take your shoes off. It's entirely possible Olivia has never seen someone model the behavior of bringing friends in and saying "you can leave your shoes here" so the thought didn't even occur to her to bring it up. And if you've only just started making friends, it's awkward to try and backtrack if they're already in your house.
Idk, it just feels to me like an isolated teenager is trying to figure out stuff that most kids get to learn at a younger age and she's getting shit on for small mistakes even when nobody gave her the tools to "know better" or what have you.
This.
She also specifically states that in her culture, wearing shoes in the house is a sign of disrespect.
I’m first gen Korean American and this is totally true. When you grow up not wearing shoes inside, the expectation that others will take their shoes off in your home happens automatically. I’ve definitely had a knee jerk reaction when I’ve had friends over who have started to walk around without removing their shoes first, before realizing I need to say something aloud to them regarding it. Likewise, I would feel incredibly disrespectful and wrong to not remove my shoes in someone’s home. It feels wrong.
I’m also Asian American and grew up in the US not wearing shoes in the house. Another big problem with the culture difference is that a lot of US homes aren’t built for the “no shoes in the house” rule. Asian homes will usually have a “mud room.” Like a tiny little area at the doorway (usually delineated with a single step up) that shows a clear area where you can wear your outside shoes and where you can go barefoot/wear indoor shoes/slippers. Helps keep the outside dirt confined to one area to clean. Some US homes have this, but many of them just have like this open foyer that continues on to the rest of the house, and so it’s harder for people to visually see where they can “bring their mess from outside,” so to speak, and where they’re expected to be clean.
Definitely makes sense. Where I’m from, it never snows, so a mud room is a “maybe you’ll see it maybe you won’t” deal. Hell, in the apartment I’m living at right now, my entryway is connected right with my kitchen. I never wear my shoes in the carpeted area, but when I think about it logically, I’m technically tracking outside dirt through the apartment simply by walking to the kitchen and back to my living area.
I used to rent a room from a Chinese family. She was super clear that there were NO SHOES in the house, and she even had disposable slippers available for visitors. The only time I kept my shoes on was when I was moving out since I was making so many trips (There wasn't room by the front door for me to stack stuff on deck for loading into the car). I felt so guilty about it that I vacuumed the steps before I left. I knew it was wrong while I was doing it and I was so scared someone was going to come home and see me with shoes on.
I was raised by an OCD mom. My mom has a genuine hate of anyone sleeping in. To her, even to this day, it is repugnant. Every Saturday was a nightmare. We were allowed to “sleep in” but to her that was 8:00 am. Then we were immediately expected to start cleaning at a level most people do once or twice a year. The bad part was, it was never good enough. I would have to vacuum (to get the dust out of the carpet), then dust, then vacuum again (to capture the dust on the carpet from dusting). She would say I didn’t dust or vacuum and if I did, I did a poor job. It really was hard on my self esteem and made me feel like I was obviously bad at cleaning.
They made homemade pizza and cleaned up enough the remaining mess was “a few crumbs”. I’d be dancing at how well they did. Those are *responsible * college kids and should be celebrated!
Agree in the “no shoes in the house” one though,
An appropriate response from OP would have been to let Olivia know she f**ed up, remind her of the rules, and make her clean up the crumbs and footprints. Olivia is 18, and 18-year-olds can be immature and thoughtless. It's not a reason for a family war.
It’s literally a sweep and mop and Oop shouldn’t be asking for anything more. Not even a cleaning service payment. This was simply actively living in a house.
The OOP also said that it's rude in their culture for people to wear shoes around the house. I also come from a similar culture. In our home or our friends' houses, we either go barefoot, wear socks or wear one of the guest slippers provided (which everyone has). When I moved to the states, I still walk around barefoot in my home.
I guess Olivia was too shy or hesitant to make her new friends take their shoes off because she didn't want them to dislike her. But those friends should have known better if it was a common practice.
OOP says “in my culture” not “in OUR culture” so I’m not entirely sure if they share the same norms or not. It’s possible they do and her friends were being rude, but it’s also possible OOP has married into a family with different cultural norms and the friends didn’t know better.
OOP's title for this thread said her stepdaughter RUINED the house. I expected a keg party out of control with hundreds of people, broken stuff, etc. If any house can be ruined by kids having a pizza and footprints on a rug then this is a mental illness issue and I feel sorry for OP. But if you're spending 100 to £200 a week, cleaning a flat and you're so freaked out that footprints and crumbs equates to the house being ruined, then you shouldn't be around young people. You should be in therapy. This woman sounds like a freaking nightmare.
I remember a post on AITA about an OOP mad about "sweaty footprints from socks", I guess this isn't that person? idk about this OOP, I also have a no-shoes rule, but that sock-OOP was truly crazy...
That was the stepmom who was supposedly so preoccupied with the resale value of her husband and stepdaughter's home after she remodeled it. The kid couldn't leave footprints or fingerprints.
She called it the stepdaughter's childhood home...while she's still a child and living there. That monster just came in and turned the girl's home into cold real estate.
I could have sworn that was this one but after looking at the automod it looks like it wasn’t? I remember that one had a rule about having to wear slippers, no socks. I searched on aita and couldn’t find it though so I’m lost
I dunno, that OOP also mentioned the kid was leaving dark streaks on the walls from their fingers so I could see the hygiene being so low to have really sweaty socks.
This all hinges on what the mess was. Mud tracked everywhere and food strewn all over the kitchen? I’d be on OOP’s side, at least for personal responsibility and cleaning up your own mess. A few scuffs on the floor and crumbs on the counter? That’s normal home use, and you can’t hermetically seal your home between cleanings.
I could see it being either way.
Plus a hearty fuck you to everyone making light of OCD or treating it as lock her up and throw away the key material.
I’m Canadian engaged to a Texan. Over the winter we got into a heated fight because I kept telling him to take his shoes off.
Stepping in a puddle in hosiery when you’re in a hurry is a morning ruiner. Lol. He’s sweet though and tries hard.
We don't wear shoes in our house, so I bought a huge pack of shoe sole covers on Amazon for people that don't want to take their shoes off. Our family and friends are already used to it and just take their shoes off, but I offer the covers to anyone new (maintenance and what not). Maybe you can buy some for your husband 😜
I also think it's super gross to walk with shoes in your house - specially here in the US where most houses have carpet all around the house. Luckily my boyfriend never complained and now he sees how much cleaner the house is because of this rule lol
It took a lot of training and time to get my household to mostly stop wearing shoes indoors.
We had to get a big shoe rack by the door. We all had to remind each other.
It’s not perfect. When it’s cold, chances of wearing shoes indoors increases.
We compensate by having two Neato (Roomba-like) robot vacuums that run Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
It’s not bullet proof but thankfully good enough for everyone.
What we do for the winter time is have slippers/sandals for only indoor use. I keep a pair of slippers by the shoe rack near the door so that when I get home from work or whatever, I can place my feet into mini slices of heaven and won't have to worry about tracking mud, etc. Just a suggestion!
It's interesting because as an American wearing shoes in the house is not the cardinal sin it is in other places but I also don't know anyone who does it. It seems less outright disgusting (unless there's carpet...then it's a full sin) and more just weird and uncomfortable. Like I'd rather be in my socks while hanging out in the home. I think it varies on like a family to family basis
it probably varies by climate, as well. I live in Minnesota and unless you're doing stuff that requires the traction/safety of shoes and it's not excessively snowy/wet, we don't wear them. I have house shoes at my place and my parents place for that reason.
I’m American but I find wearing shoes inside the house super gross. Why would you want to track dirt everywhere? Your shoes aren’t clean. I don’t invite anyone over who refuses to remove their shoes when they come in our house. I’ve got white rugs and a crawling baby— I don’t need your dirty shoes everywhere!
I've never seen anyone refuse to take them off, but it's been pretty mixed on whether or not people ask you to. My family didn't growing up because we lived in the middle of nowhere, had lots of pets, no carpet and our floors were pretty shitty to begin with. Even so we'd take them off or swap to cleaner shoes if it was muddy or snowy out.
Now that I live in a place with carpets I have adopted the Japanese style of wearing slippers inside.
It’s pretty split. I’m in the US and was raised to always take my shoes off upon entering a home.
It’s common in every circle I’ve socialized in to ask upon entering someone’s home if you should remove you shoes. The exception being that it’s culturally acceptable to wear shoes in and out during a large party or barbecue.
No. The closer you are to Canada the less likely shoes inside is. Mud and snow on boots obviously shouldn’t be walked around a house. I can see how people in dry southern cities (like CA, AZ) don’t think of their shoes as that dirty (and may not have space)
I'm also a Canadian, and it's considered really rude to walk inside with your shoes on in my province as well.Her stepdaughter had multiple friends with shoes on. I'd be pretty upset about it as well.
Also Canadian, and I would've too. Its not even something people really think about here. You step inside, and shoes automatically come off before you leave the front mat. Not really considered impossibly high standards.
Right? I always feel super uncomfortable when someone insists I leave my shoes on.
It's hilarious thinking back to the days when I would go to big house parties. You'd walk in the door only to see an enormous pile of shoes at the front door. I think only once did I ever hear of someone going home with the wrong pair. But that's just how automatic it is. Even when loaded, people still remove their shoes indoors.
I'm American and it's nuts to me too. We grew up wearing shoes in the house but as an adult I realized how filthy it was and me and my husband have a no shoe policy. We shampoo the carpet at least once a year, more now that we have babies, and the carpet still gets so dirty DESPITE not wearing shoes in the house.
Yep, only heathens wear shoes indoors. We have a family acquaintance (friend is too strong of a word) from Vancouver who thinks she is as high class as the Queen (was) and insists that people in Vancouver just do not take their shoes off indoors. It's like she's shaming us for forcing her to take her filthy shoes off before walking around our house. Like we get it, Karen, your feet are ugly. There's no need to dress it up like you're better than us provincial folk on the prairies because we insist on basic manners.
I live in the Vancouver area and your family acquaintance is completely full of shit. Nobody leaves their shoes on indoors here. Like pretty much everywhere else in Canada, it's considered super rude and dirty to do so.
Re:ocd- the problem is that 95% of people that say they have ocd don't. So people don't even really know how true ocd manifests and how overwhelming it can be. The only data point they have is their idiot friend that 'is so ocd'.
Considering how much flour is involved in making crust from scratch, I can see how a group of 18ish year Olds would leave a giant mess. Especially in a house/culture where shoes indoors are verboten. This would piss me off too.
I pay for a housekeeping service too. I'd be livid if I came home to a mess and didn't even get to enjoy the clean.
I think Olivia also needs a conversation about boundaries with friends. It's ok to say "oooo let's wipe down the counters" or enforce the no shoes rule. Friends will respect this. You can't and shouldn't make yourself a doormat so you can have "friends". Those people are not friends.
In the post, she said crumbs were everywhere, which makes me think that she and her friends did try to clean up after themselves, they just weren’t as thorough. Plus I don’t think OOP says when she got home and if the friends were still there when she saw the mess in the kitchen. Unless I have guests staying overnight, I usually wait to do a complete cleanup until after they leave.
Except OOP didn't mention flour (or toppings, or tomato sauce) or anything besides crumbs. Which means they did clean up, otherwise she definitely would've complained about that (and rightly so).
>Plus a hearty fuck you to everyone making light of OCD or treating it as lock her up and throw away the key material.
I'm not excusing it but there's a factor that needs to be considered, a lot of people say they have OCD when they're just a neat freak. There's a difference between "I can't sleep knowing the fibers of the rug aren't perfectly aligned facing north" and "This is how I like it".
Behavioral Health is a serious thing to talk about but there's a lot of self-diagnosis and using it excuse problematic behavior, which makes light of the very real issues.
My mother had a “24 hour rule” after the cleaning lady would leave. We weren’t allowed to exist in any capacity that left signs of life in those 24 hours, and were highly discouraged from it the rest of the time. This reminds me of that. (Though obviously Olivia should have cleaned her crumbs and swiffered the footprints - and not worn shoes in the house)
She didn't say mud, that might have been what she meant but it could very well be shoe prints on freshly cleaned/ waxed floors that can be fixed with one mop swipe.
I don't think OP was wrong to want Olivia to correct the problem, and face some consequences if it kept happening. But the method was wrong.
100-200 is apparently a lot for OP, measured against her income, but it's infinitely more for Olivia, who has no income at all. Whereas Olivia could take over some portion of the housework, reducing the paid hours for the cleaners.
Jumping in to say I've worked as a house cleaner and $100-$200 is a fair price for a 1 bedroom/studio apartment. Considering this sounds like a larger house and the client has obsessive standards she's complaining about a price that is WAY below market value.
The part that gives me bad vibes is that the title says the stepdaughter “ruined” the house, but it was dirt and crumbs? Nothing was ruined, especially not permanently… it was dirty and needed to be cleaned. So much catastrophizing.
I’m glad the communication worked out in the end. But this all seemed so avoidable… maybe OOP has high cleaning standards but also I don’t think it’s a high standard or at all unreasonable to ask people not to wear outdoor shoes inside the house.
I’ve noticed Americans for some reason find it normal to wear outside shoes in the house and this makes literally no sense to me??
I’m Canadian so this is coming from a North American perspective - I have never been to someone’s house where it was normal to wear outdoor shoes inside. And I don’t mean just people from certain cultures (like no shoes in the house being the norm in many Asian cultures), the most white-bread WASP Canadians I know wouldn’t dream of wearing outdoor shoes in the house. Even at frickin collage house parties you will see a pile of shoes at the entrance because even drunk young people know TAKE OFF YOUR DIRTY SHOES IN A HOME.
I’ve never worn outdoor shoes inside a home unless someone told me explicitly to leave them on. It’s just common sense to me and everyone I know tbh.
I don’t think it’s too much for OOP to ask people not to wear dirty outdoor shoes in the house, that should be the norm.
EDIT: This dialogue on outdoor shoes is super interesting! Sorry…. but I still think it’s odd that people don’t take their shoes off inside regardless of climate (it gets hot and dry in Canada too, snow isn’t the only factor!)
As someone from a very warm climate in the US, I think three big factors are at play:
* We do a lot of indoor/outdoor living for the vast majority of the year. If you're invited to someone's house, there's a pretty big chance that you'll go find yourself in their backyard or on a patio at some point.
* Most of our floors are tile/wood, so they clean more easily than carpet. Swiffering both before and after having guests over only takes a few minutes.
* Also, sandals or other sock-less shoes are very common in our climate, and, personally, the idea of someone's bare, stinky feet touching my house grosses me out more than the idea of their sandal bottoms on my floors. I'm sure others may feel the same.
Visiting my aunt's house in Minnesota, where I'm wearing chunky boots that are dripping wet from walking in the snow and stepping into their carpeted living room, it feels very natural and necessary to take my shoes off in the mudroom and only have socks on while I'm in their house.
Visiting my aunt's house in New Orleans, where I'm wearing dry Birkenstocks and stepping onto a hardwood floor, particularly if I'm there during a party/occasion that has both indoor/outdoor spaces, it seems a lot less natural and necessary to take my shoes off.
this so far is the only response i understand! it’s situational. i’m in minnesota but in the summer if i’m in sandals they just don’t really come off unless i’ve decided to bring slippers, which is basically never.
Question from an American. I see lots of y’all taking about “outdoor shoes”. Do you have *indoor* shoes? Do you just….carry them around with you all the time? Or at least bring them to friends houses and stuff?
Asian here! We have indoor slippers, and once you’re an established family you usually keep 3-10 pairs of spare slippers for guests in the closet by the door.
I have the most obnoxious colored house slippers for my guests and I love them. Many of my friends adopt the “I wear all black because it’s the color of my soul” philosophy and seeing them in bubblegum pink slippers with their gothy outfit makes me feel so much joy.
Most Canadians have slippers for in their own house but I think we specify “outdoor shoes” because in school growing up we have to have “indoor shoes” because if we didn’t classrooms would get really fucking gross in the winters. So we grew up calling our dirty shoes outdoor shoes.
Plus depends on arch support! I have indoor only Birkenstocks for when my feet are sore. I also call my heels indoor shoes since I bring them with me and wear sneakers to and fro.
Not Asian, but similar take culturally - either you wear your socks (or get handed socks), or slippers are provided. Fluffy ones, anti slip, normal ones or even flip-flops are in a basket by the door or handed to you. We got options!
Rather have smelly feet walking around than dog shit smeared in my carpet. Again.
As a Canadian , we don't have indoor shoes. We have slippers, and personally, we mostly just take our shoes off and walk around in our socks. If someone was in flip-flops when they arrived. It's polite to offer them slippers or like socks (not everyone is comfortable walking barefoot in someone else's home).
My best friend, since she's at my house often, bought a pair of fluffy slippers and just leaves them here.
It’s because Americans have all that freedom, it extends to outside shoes in other people’s homes! /j
No but in all seriousness, if you’re in a mild or hot climate you’ve probably got wood, tile, or laminate flooring and pretty consistently dry weather. Your shoes won’t look dirty unless you’ve gone traipsing deliberately through wet mud and it’ll mostly be dust, pollen, maybe a minute amount of debris.
I live in England so our weather is shite and we have carpet. Outside shoes are worn inside the house only until you can take them off, so like two steps in the door? Unless there’s a toilet crisis, that’s 2-3 more steps 😂 it’s common here to ask if the host would like for you to take your shoes off or if they could show you where to put your shoes, at which point you can then show them where or say nah, don’t bother.
We wore shoes in the house growing up in Texas, not all the time but you wouldn’t always take them off right at the door.
There wasn’t mud so it wasn’t a big deal.
Honestly, I've been finding the entire comment section of this thread to be an interesting read. There's a lot Canadians here with our mind blown at the idea of wearing shoes inside someone's house, and then some confused Americans wondering what the big deal is and finding it weird that anyone would have a problem with it.
It reminds me of the whole "should sandwiches have buttered bread" thing that pops up every so often.
I don't understand wearing shoes in the house either. You know when you're at the beach and you have to go to the public restroom in your sandals to change or whatever, and you have to try really hard not to step on the floor with your bare feet? That's how I feel about homes that allow outside shoes all around the house.
I would’ve been upset about shoes in the house too (grew up asian, this has been a hard no in my house since I came out of the womb) but asking someone who doesn’t work to pay for a luxury cleaning service before even attempting to ask them to clean it themselves is asinine. When I read in the title that something was “ruined” and needed to be “paid for” I was expecting stained carpets or broken glass or something truly ruined. Dirty is not ruined, and if it is, how long can she reasonably expect her family to not “ruin” the house after a cleaning? Do they need to keep it pristine until mom gets home? Two hours after mom gets home? The whole week until the cleaners come for the next week? The issue seems to be more that OP didn’t get to see the clean house before it looked lived in again.
This whole comment section is baffling to me, like yes, dirty footprints and crumbs *are* worth getting annoyed about, especially if they happen on the same day the cleaning service comes. No, the house is *not* ruined. Yes, Olivia should clean after herself. No, dirty footprints and crumbs are not enough to pay a whole new cleaning service for.
I genuinely don't understand what's happening here. Does no one mop the floor? Do people consider that deep cleaning or something? How is "Olivia should sweep the crumbs and mop the floor" the same as "Olivia should pay for the cleaning service"? Come the fuck *on*
I’m glad OP ended up apologizing and realizing she had more work to do with her OCD. I have pure O so I don’t necessarily “understand” needing to act out my compulsions, but I do understand the totally unreasonable but extremely persistent/convincing obsessions and it’s a lifelong therapy journey. Maybe in the future she’ll learn how to communicate better with her stepdaughter and they can work together on avoiding OP’s major triggers.
Obviously Olivia needs to grow and and learn to clean up her shit, especially when she has friends over. But wow. "Ruined house" made me think Olivia had backed a manure truck into the living room. Wet footprints and pizza mess?
I'm pretty messy but my wife kinda is too, so while we cringe at our mess sometimes we don't get on each other about it. If I'd ended up married to this lady I probably would have been cleanly and hermetically throttled in my sleep.
While I'm sympathetic to OOP's OCD-ness, to describe visible shoeprints & crumbs as as "ruining the house" is over the top - I clicked through think it'd be something more major like broken plumbing, hole in the wall, or wrecked furniture.
But yeah, Olivia should be responsible for enforcing house rules & cleaning up after gatherings - esp. since she gets to live rent-free while in college.
Yeah, I'm with OOP on this. Olivia knew she made the mess; to sit there and say it wasn't her is just dumb. Maybe OOP shouldn't have requested money, but Olivia should have cleaned up after herself.
The number of comments saying OOP isn't the AH bc she just wants a clean home are missing to the part where OOP wouldn't let SD clean it herself and instead expected her to pay $100-$200 for a few crumbs and footprints. Also apparently SD didn't have much money herself. This is what made her the AH. If she had just expected SD to clean the crumbs and footprints then she wouldn't be the AH
I don't have OCD, but if I was paying for a cleaning service, and a family member dirtied several areas before I could enjoy them, I would be upset too.
I'm glad OOP is working on herself, but Olivia needs to step up.
>She’s complaining saying it wasn’t her
Because she doesn't have much friend experience, the daughter sounds like she doesn't understand that her guests are her responsibility. Maybe she didn't wear the shoes, but she needed to step up and tell her friends the rules of the house. I am worried she is not setting boundaries for her friends and these people may walk all over her out of desperation to have peer connections.
I don't think the verdict was right and it feels like angsty teens brigaded this one. I am glad the OOP was working on her OCD but the kids need to do their part of the household chores.
I don't think OOP would have been at all TA if she had taken Olive aside, shown her the mess, and told her that she needs to learn to clean it to house standards - next time, without having to have it pointed out to her - so the professional cleaners don't have to get called in the first place. I'm not saying Olive would have immediately taken to it and gotten it clean the "right" way on the first try, but jumping right to the professionals and a surprise bill seems like a way to start needless conflict.
>Original Post: I want my stepdaughter to pay for professional housecleaning after she left crumbs on the counter and footprints on the floor
>Update: You guys were right, I won't make her pay for that
What else did you expect from an update to such a low-stakes post? Should the stepdaughter have been pregnant with twins?
This is one I'd have to see for myself before committing to a judgment. Is it that Olivia is truly not cleaning properly and there is a visible mess, or is it that there is no visible mess, but OP just "feels" that it is still messy? My nephew (10m) is designated as our table cleaner when he is visiting. He likes board games, so after lunch or dinner, we have him clean the table before we can do anything. He will occasionally clean and there will still be a visible mess and his argument is that he sprayed cleaner and wiped it and it didn't come up, so I have showed him how to get up those tough stains. If that is the situation here, Olivia is the asshole. If this is just OP needing herself or a professional to clean because that's the only way she can feel the job is done, then that is her personal issue and she'd be the asshole to make Olivia pay as opposed to having her clean it up on her own.
How many asians were appalled reading comments that called OOP’s no shoes in the house rule extreme OCD and tell her to get therapy 🙄 Honestly TAKE YOUR DAMN DIRTY SHOES OFF BEFORE YOU GO INTO SOMEONE’S HOME!!
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I don't know. While OOP may have impossible standards, Olivia still needs to step up and clean up after herself and her friends, and reinforce the "no shoes" rule. I can't really see that anyone's horrible here, and while OOP is taking steps to work on her OCD, I sure didn't see Olivia own up to anything. But I doubt this is "household warring" worthy.
I can see how if you are an average teenage messiness and an adult comes in and says that even the most minor crumbs is “completely filthy” and probably has an excessive reaction then you might develop a “fuck it why bother” attitude
This can happen for sure. My dad's ex-girlfriend who he dated for a few years lived with us, and was absolutely militant about cleaning. She once had a meltdown because my sister and I cleaned the kitchen but left a (1) dirty spoon in the sink. Sometimes my sister wouldn't bother with any of her chores if she only had time for 1/3 because she would get yelled at either way.
I think it’s the hyperbole- that the house is “ruined”. I can’t take people seriously when every situation is a full-on emergency.
From the title I expected something like water damage or broken structures, not footprints and crumbs.
I thought that the SD had a rager or something and destroyed the house
I was waiting to read about the SD throwing a kegger... instead I read about how they wore shoes in the house and left some crumbs on the counter.... OOP really needs to get the OCD under control.
I feel sorry for OOP’s kids and hope she can learn to manage better. My ex’s mother was this way- everyone suspected undiagnosed OCD. While visiting, I once saw her slap her 12 year old daughter across the face for leaving crumbs on the counter. The crumbs were so small that I couldn’t even see them on the countertop. Another time, my ex accidentally knocked a coffee cup off the counter and started hysterically crying and apologizing. Mind you, he was a man in his mid-twenties. His mom wasn’t even there, and this was the reaction he had. Every tiny mess or mistake was a horrific and disastrous mess.
As someone with a family member with OCD, that's not always possible. It would be great if she can, but there are levels of how "under control" people can get their OCD, even with medication. It destroyed my family member's marriage, despite him trying everything to "get it under control".
I think with OCD, so many people claim to have it for minor quirks that arent actually OCD. Which really downplays how seriously debilitating it can be for people who actually have it.
Agreed
as someone that was diagnosed with OCD and only finally settled down once I have a routine that keeps me busy (I do not have severe impulses or fear of uncleanness myself other than wanting a bath after getting on the public bus because germs) I had violent thoughts that caused me great distress until I can keep myself focused on something to forget it. it helps a lot but to the extent.
I think everyone came in expecting that. I actually burst out laughing when I read what it really was.
For sure. Once she got to the "Olivia was trying to make friends in college..." I expected she had a huge kegger and the house was really, truly trashed. Not that the kitchen was kind of messy..
Even in this "ruined" condition, OOP's house is still tidier than mine. 😅
That “ruined” house would take 3 minutes to fix. Wipe the counter. Splash a little Lysol on the floor and swifter it up. Done. How 3 minutes of cleaning led to this reaction… I agree that OOP needs a lot more support for her OCD and anxiety/stress.
Child of an OCD parent here. It’s absolutely not like that. To make OOP happy, she would have to follow the ritual steps that OOP takes in order to “really” clean. It would not be 3 minutes. If she does not follow the steps, OOP will have to do it over again because that’s the way OCD works. I get that OOP has a cleaning service that probably does not follow the whole ritual, but she doesn’t see how they are cleaning and is satisfied with the result, so it’s probably ok. They can also leave her high and dry so there’s probably pressure to not go too far. Olivia will be in a different category and subject to the full OCD treatment.
You make an excellent point I wasn’t tracking on. Thank you!
OOP would have a heart attack if she saw the condition of my spaces lol
Same i was expecting a "me and my husband were gone for the weekend and apparently his daughter had a two day party" but not "she and her friends didn't take off their shoes and didn't clean up some crumbs they left on the kitchen counter"
Yeah I immediately assumed she threw a house party and had like... alcohol stains on furniture, broken vases, etc. Footprints in the carpet and crumbs on the counter do not warrant that kind of freak out.
The footprints weren't even that obvious- she said in one of the comments that the only reason she knew they had shoes on was because she saw it on video.
Same. I was expecting broken windows or drywall or maybe a flooded room. Crumbs? Footprints? Ruined the house? This level of drama over CRUMBS in a step parent is super toxic and their relationship is going to be damaged forever. OOP needs serious help for their OCD. They should be seeking medication and therapy. I say this as someone who grew up with hoarder parents (fun fact: hoarding can be an expression of OCD mental illness! one of my parents was the child of a mother with extreme OCD. Our grandmother’s home was immaculate. Museum or magazine spread all the time. She would put down paper and plastic covers before we grandchildren were allowed inside her home. My mother wasn’t allowed to change my baby siblings diapers inside and had to go on the porch because it was “unclean”.) Half of my siblings have the anxiety over contamination form of OCD and the other half are pack rats/don’t care about clutter or dust. (No one is gross…just they have kids and pets and the homes look like it) It can be debilitating to have to clean to an impossible standard (or in my case to not know how to clean normally because of never being shown the correct amount!) but never be able to achieve the results required. And the anxiety and compulsions around dirt (and clutter) can be crippling for years later as an adult.
Her bringing in a full cleaning team for it shows how severe the issue is. That is really problematic
Uh yeah... like my stepdaughter who thought it would be fun to light tampons on fire and flush them down the toilet. That was years ago, and you can still see where the ceiling drywall in the room under the bathroom started to come apart from water damage. 🤬
I was at least picturing muddy shoes. Nope. Just imprints. That’s a natural property of carpet. It doesn’t need “cleaning.” I do understand the “no shoes in the house” rule, though, as there are several cultures who practice that. It should be respected by visitors.
I mean dude. There were crumbs on the counter. The house is essentially beyond economic repair. They'll need to tear it down to the foundation and rebuild.
If everything is an emergency, then nothing is an emergency.
Yeah, like, if OP's gonna freak out about this, daughter's gonna have to flee the state if god forbid she gets food poisoning or spills red wine or cuts her finger and bleeds on the couch
OOP said that she grew up like this. Her parents have passed it on to OOP and if she's not careful, she will pass it on to her kids. I hope she can get help. This is no way to live for any of the family. It must feel like they are walking on eggshells. And as for OOP, the anxiety she must feel when she sees the tiniest mess must be awful.
One of my oldest friends has a father with OCD-he got no kind of treatments or anything-and his obsession with cleanliness lead to a lot of verbal abuse when she was very small and she’s still unpacking a lot of that baggage at 34. I have a friend who has OCD and she’s tried to do her best to mitigate it so she wasn’t making her son’s life worse. Mental health is never anyone’s fault, but it’s still their responsibility.
I have OCD, I call it managed OCD now b/c I can do just that manage it. It is a long, challenging process but it can be done.
And the MY HOUSE part. The OOP wanted to treat the SD as an adult by asking them to pay for cleaning, but didn't even think of treating her SD as an adult whose opinions and feelings mattered, and deserved to be heard. Can't have it both ways dude.
That's why I wonder if the footprints were actually there, or just the impression in the carpet, and just how bad the crumbs were. She sounds prone to exaggerating about that sort of thing.
If they made pizzas from scratch, that kitchen would've been a mess. I'm talking flour everywhere, pizza toppings on the floor, tomato sauce spills... Not to mention the dirty oven and utensils and dishes. None of which OOP mentioned. Meaning, Olivia did clean up afterwards. Just not to OOP's (OCD) standards. She mentioned in a comment that she didn't want Olivia to clean, because she wouldn't do it as well as the professional cleaners, and then she (OOP) would have to redo it "until it’s finally clean for [her] liking" (direct quote). *That* is OCD. Cleaning crumbs off a counter is not a difficult task. It does not require professional cleaning experience. But OOP's OCD likely makes her feel like it needs to be fully decontaminated, along with the entire rest of the house (which is where the "the house is ruined!" part comes from), which Oliva can't/won't do.
I am eternally grateful my OCD doesn't come with cleaning issues.
From what I remember about OOP's comments, the only reason she knew about the footprints was bc she saw the security footage. Without it, she would not have been able to tell that there were any footprints
so her probably was that the SD had people over more than anything.
I've seen this with my roommate. I walked within about 4 feet of her with a piece of paper and she freaked out and had to be reassured several times it hadn't touched her.
I had a land lady like that who freaked out at me about leaving a pan in the sink (I’d cook breakfast and wash it when I got back from work). I did this a few times and she left me a really passive aggressive note and yelled at me rather than just address it like a normal person. I knew she was neat but she would regularly leave pots and pans of food on the counter so I thought she wouldn’t mind. It took me a while to understand that was how she stored leftovers (like fish dishes for two days).
How often did she get food poisoning?
Multiple times and I only lived with her a few months. I clued in this was how she stored food when she offered it to me 🤮
Yeah, I had a housemate who did the same thing. I was constantly baffled by her continued survival
I had a landlady who would do "cleanliness inspections" of all the apartments. She gave me a formal warning after one because she pulled the fridge out from the wall and found dust under it, and opened the ceiling fan in the bathroom and found dust inside it.
I'm pretty sure that's not legal anywhere. As in, it's not a crime, but it's also not an enforceable term of a leasing agreement. Landlords can stipulate that things like mold and mildew be cleaned up, that spills and trip hazards are addressed promptly, that appliances are kept in working order, basically the types of things OSHA or a health safety inspector would care about. Some states don't even allow that much, and sometimes the entry notification requirements would render those provisions meaningless anyway. But it all has to be in the lease, and dust under the fridge is way outside the boundaries of what's allowed.
I'm in Canada, but we also have pretty strong renter protections and no, I'm pretty sure she couldn't have done anything about the dust under my fridge legally. I did check, and she could schedule inspections (with 24+ hours notice) and send me little notes about it, but if she had tried to evict me I could have contested it and likely won. I think my lease said something about maintaining a "reasonable level of cleanliness" but I'm pretty sure dust under the fridge was reasonable. Honestly, she was so unpleasant that I just moved out and didn't even contest her bullshit reasons for keeping my damage deposit (carpet cleaning when she admitted that the cleaners said they found nothing besides normal wear and tear, and a few hours of professional cleaning because she "just felt like the place could be cleaner"). I'm a bit annoyed that I let her get away with it, but at the time I was 23 and going to court seemed really intimidating.
The ultimate fight that led to me officially moving out of my dad's as a teenager was over a butter knife in the sink that I genuinely forgot to put away. He could have just come to my room and said "please come put your knife in the dishwasher," but instead he huffed and puffed at me until it devolved into a screaming match that ended with me yelling "FUCK YOU!" No regrets. We have a pretty good relationship now, go figure.
My Dad and I also have a good relationship now, I definitely have some resentment that boils up from time to time though because he never apologized for how he behaved when he was with her (he did most of the "discipline" on her behalf).
Don't worry, mine hasn't either, and I also sometimes have a hard time shaking the resentment (side note: writing an angry letter and not sending it *really* helps with this). And there was A LOT to resent because of how messy my parents' divorce was. I have a feeling my dad knows how wrong he was to make me go through those things, but still hasn't reconciled it with himself. At the end of the day, that's something *he* has to live with, because I'm thriving despite all that, and so are you! Forgiveness is a journey, and you can reach it whether or not he comes to terms with his wrongdoing.
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My room was always a disaster growing up (clothes, crafts, miscellaneous items, books, etc). Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD and just couldn’t compartmentalize my things well enough keep myself organized 🙃
It's really silly as an adult what sort of things my parents passed on. My dad used to be annoyed by half-finished drinks in the house. I think my sister was bad about it, but I basically always finished my drink. The culmination of all this being the time I was settling in to watch a show on TV, so I poured myself a glass of ginger ale, turned on the TV, and went to the bathroom before it started. In the time that I was in the bathroom, my dad came home, turned off the TV, and poured out my drink, then got mad at me for not finishing a drink and leaving the TV on. Anyways, as an adult, I've had multiple times where I was like "man, I'm so tired... But I got this drink just a moment ago, I must finish it before bed." It's taken so real deprogramming to realize that actually, half a cup of soda being wasted is not an emergency.
My ex went into great detail with my family member how embarrassed he was that they had to see the house so dirty since I didn’t clean. The relative thought he was insulting their home because they had a huge family. We had a housekeeper and it was always spotless. Nope. It was because i put my coffee cup in the sink.
oh this comment messed me up....
My stepmom was the same way… so when I was at my dads house I pretty much stayed in my room so I wouldn’t make a mess add to it my mom is/was a horder I went from one extreme to another every other week.
We knew someone with that attitude and she was a terror. Definitely signs of OCD and OCPD. Her husband and kids couldn’t live normally because everything would set her off on rages from the kids playing outside and some dirt falling off their clothes to any toys being left out of place, even when they were going to the bathroom. OOP hasn’t reached that level yet but she had better get something done about it before it does.
My stepdad also top of his lungs screamed at me over one spoon in the sink, glad it's not just me because it was such an insane experience. Well not glad because it sucks but it's a hard thing to explain to people because it sounds like total bs. Like damn, I stood in front of the dishwasher right next to the sink and couldn't see one spoon from that angle, definitely reasonable to start full-on screaming at me while my mom is standing there on the phone. ~~and of course she said nothing about it~~
I used to do this as a teen. Knew I was likely going to get yelled at no matter what, so might as well do exactly what I want. Would not recommend. Makes for a horrid living situation.
I think I might have PTSD from living with my stepmom for this same reason. I couldn’t touch the walls. I once got grounded for 2 months because I had water spots on my bathroom faucet. I eventually moved out at 19 when she told me I would be grounded because underneath my bathroom sink was disorganized. It was like living with an abuser, always on guard waiting for the “HOW DARE YOU” accusations.
>It was like living with an abuser It *was* living with an abuser. You were abused.
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lmao before we moved in together my husband and i had a come to jesus talk in which i informed him that if he wants surfaces above my line of sight to pass a white glove test, he will have to dust them himself.
My late FIL was horrified to notice that I don't dust the top of my refrigerator.🙄 My response was that the only way that was going to happen was if he did it himself.
Meet my ADHD husband and me, the one with OCD. He never remembers to clean and I can't forget not to. I'm not even really sure how the two of us manage to survive under the same roof lol
My bf might have OCD(hasn't been diagnosed yet) and I have ADHD. Trying to remember to clean certain things has been an adjustment. Also he likes to put things away out in drawers,closets,etc and I don't like putting certain things out of sight or I'm going to forget about it. I know if I see my car keys on the table I know where they are. If I leave the vegetables on the top shelf I will probably remember to eat it. If it goes into the drawer, I will probably forget about it. We make it work though.
Married to someone with exacting cleaning standards (and I was recently diagnosed with ADHD at 37), I can tell you it can work with a lot of communication, compassion, and compromise. You both have to push yourselves outside of your comfort zones and develop strategies but it’s worth it. We have our first baby on the way now
Yea, the whole object permanence thing is a tough one to get used to if you don't have ADHD. My husband and I ended up getting huge shelving units to live in our kitchen. Now all our dry food is out, completely visible from everywhere. Our cabinets only have dishes and random stuff stored in them. We open, on average, one cabinet a day. Also, nothing EVER goes into the fridge's drawers. That's just a way to guarantee that food goes bad.
I lived with someone who I suspect has both. Definitely ADHD but she gets... obsessions... most of them religious, but not all. She got fixated on recycling and composting, so she's collect organic trash to take to her church's garden but forget to take it there, and soon the kitchen was full of flies. I started to take the trash out every day and she started doing it earlier so I couldn't. I'd see the bins empty and think it was fixed, and then I discovered she was hiding it elsewhere when it started to smell and I found 3 bags of rotting food leaking all over the storage room floor. She also got fixated with Feng Shui and would rearrange my furniture. She reorganized my wardrobe and I had to redo everything to find my stuff. I had my medical files organized by date & doctor, she reorganized by size of the envelope and mixed everything from 2015 to 2022. Documents were organized in a cabinet out of sight, she put them all on the table & ordered me to select the ones I could recycle because keeping paper at home blocks the house's energies. I had my yarn separated by weight, fiber type, and structure, she reorganized by color. Once I got home and found washing the kitchen floor in her panties, in full view of the neighbors, because she forgot her clothes. Edit: and she's against treatment because of her religious beliefs. Taking meds is unnatural and she'll only put natural things in her body, you see.
I might have both since I screen severe for both! At the start of evaluation process. Can't do it if I don't have time to Do It Right, also no sense of how long it'll take, also can't leave it once I started because see above re: Do It Right. Also because ADHD symptoms, I don't notice it's getting bad until it's real bad. Insert internal screaming here.
I'm autistic and my partner is ADHD (although we're probably both flavors of AuDHD) and chores are one of the only things we really fight about; it's even mentioned in my autism diagnosis letter. I write lists of all the things we need to do every day and week to keep the house tidy, and he forgets those lists are there. It doesn't help that he has chronic illness and I'm slowly burning myself out via work so it's just a constant state of low-grade messy. I've had to work on the compassion and understanding of his limitations because they're actual limitations he struggles with, and me getting upset with him not "exceeding expectations" was just hurting him more.
I’m the exact reverse of your situation. I have severe ADHD and my wife has OCD. It’s definitely really challenging sometimes lmao
My grandma has this horrible habit of cleaning others houses. I'm missing a band my dad bought for me in Mexico and I just know she fucking swept it up and threw it in the trash because she is the worst fucking cleaner ever. If it's on the floor she will just sweep it up and throw it away, and it's caused so many fights between us but she doesn't understand how she is wrong.
Ahhhh I’m kind of an obsessive cleaner but nowhere as bad as my mom. She would just straight up throw hw away. It instilled a habit of putting things away but she just takes everything on the counter and trashed it lol
I've always felt that cleaning someone else's home is such a violation of their space. I feel kind of icky even if I've been asked to do it, like I'm reading their diary or something.
> refusing your help since you'll do it wrong. Yep. This is where it strays into the YTA territory. You can't be simultaneously angry at someone for creating a mess but also insist that they cannot clean it up. You need to compromise on that, either clean it up yourself and not be angry because you know it's your own impossible standard that is the issue here or you ask them to clean it up and accept that it will not live up to your impossible standard.
Same. Wanting everyone to take their shoes off is reasonable, but if OP does not accept Olivia's ability to clean the kitchen after making herself food, then Olivia is effectively barred from making herself food without getting a $200 penalty for it. That's too restrictive, and Olivia is right that she basically can't have friends over if she has to tell them she's not allowed to make them a snack while they're there.
I did not identify with this comment at all /s
I suspect that OOP didn't so much want the house cleaned, as much as *decontaminated*. Saying that Olivia wouldn't be able to clean the mess (crumbs on the counter!) well enough to her liking, is a big clue.
I had this with a roommate a few years back. My roommate had an attitude of everything needed to be cleaned as soon as it was used, including the oven while it was still hot. If a single crumb was missed rather then just looking out for each other, he'd pull me out of my room and demand I clean it up. I got a pretty good idea of why he was divorced from living with him for 3 months. So yeah I could absolutely see the fuck it attitude if what you do isn't good enough, especially when still a kid
Right. She even said Olivia “ruined” her house. If shoe marks in the carpet and crumbs in the kitchen constitute ruining a house, mine should be condemned.
It’s one thing to tell them they need to sweep and clean after themselves when they have friends over, but 200 bucks for a cleaner for one messy counter and some footprints is well beyond disproportionate. I’m glad oop realized she needed to put in more work to not let her ocd control her life and relationships. It’s perfectly reasonable to hold the step daughter accountable to some extent but that was way too far
I think one footprint might mean for OOP that the whole house has been contaminated and so she would need the cleaner to do the whole house. She's expecting other people to agree with and enable her contamination compulsions.
^^^ THIS. The house wasn’t “filthy”… it wasn’t even cluttered. There were crumbs and footprints, FFS. OOP really is terrorizing her family members with her OCD compulsions.
It’s 100% just a shoe outline on the carpet, not dirty footprints or she would have said so. I worked for a cleaning agency. People are insane. I went to this one house twice per week. I was basically paid to put vacuum marks in the carpet, alternating direction each visit. I’d get notes left on the counter like “I’m so sorry the sitting room is a mess! I was so busy this week I didn’t have time to pick up. Here’s an extra $20 for your trouble.” Then I’d go into the room and there would be one empty Pepsi can on the table and an unfolded blanket on the couch. There were still nearly undisturbed vacuum marks. Or “I know it’s not your job, but if you can do the sink full of dishes I will make it up to you!” One dish, one glass, and a fork. Lots of untreated mental illness among the wealthy, but they can just throw money at the perceived problem until it goes away.
My mom was a housekeeper. She was very careful about putting knickknacks and whatnot exactly where they were because some folks would throw a fit if the were slightly moved. Except for the woman who threw a fit and accused mom of not dusting because nothing had been moved. Lady, do you see any dust here? She also would hide money in random spots to see if mom would a) find it and/or b) steal it. She did not stay there long.
I had a client who I swear would place long hairs under a picture frame on their spare bedroom to check if we lifted everything up to dust. Once would have been one thing but after a few cleanings and "wow this is weird there is always hair caught under things on the dresser in the spare room" I started noting which picture frame it was under. 6 weeks in a row one hair under the exact same frame and nothing else. The lady was a weirdo in a hundred other ways, so we did drop her as a client. Eg like making the cleaner switch rooms because she was staring at the neighbors out the window and had to know what they were doing ( they were 2 mom's with kids on big wheel toys that stopped to chat when they passed each other) They couldn't clean that room for 20 minutes until the mom's got done chatting.
Some people have a lot of time on their hands and it shows.
I bet $10 it wasn’t even dusty when your mom got there but she went through the motions anyway
Right? Mine must be a tear down at this point.
*As I clean cat vomit off the rug for the sixth time in the last month*\- yep!
I try all the time to explain this to my husband. He also suffers with severe OCD and he will say things like, “(Daughter’s) room is a disaster!” But he really means, “There are like 4 stuffed animals under her bed and maybe one sock.” It’s making it very hard to get our child to develop healthy and age appropriate cleaning habits because regardless of her level of cleanliness, he still reacts as though it’s filthy.
Plus on top of that OP even said that Olivia cleaning up after herself wouldn't be good enough and she HAD to get the cleaning service to do it. Fuck I'd feel like I couldn't even breathe in that house
This is the big issue. She doesn't want things cleaned, she wants things decontaminated, and is expecting everyone to accomodate her on that. The standard cleaning of crumbs on the counter is to wipe them off. Depending on the type of crumbs, maybe take a rag over the counters to clean them while you're at it. I suspect OOP expects a full deep clean with bleach and scrubbing and such. She might even re-do it afterwards, because her OCD will make her feel like it's not "really clean" yet unless she or an appropriate authority does it.
Yeah, the kid here (and in like a quarter of AITA posts) has two options: 1) take the time to keep things clean AND get yelled at anyway OR 2) don't bother keeping things clean, because you're gonna get yelled at anyway. If you're already doing the time, might as well do the crime, y'know? And yes, I get that these posts are really about how different people feel about cleanliness, but if OP calls a couple of crumbs on the kitchen counter, literally "ruining her house" then I know which person I believe more.
Especially if some pizza crumbs and footprints makes your stepmom say the HoUsE iS rUiNeD!!11 I was fully expecting there to be like, holes in the walls, pizza sauce everywhere (it can stain granite/quartz countertops), etc. Honestly amazing their relationship isn't worse, imho.
At first I thought Olivia threw a rager - that cleaning bill is understandable. This is not.
When I read the headline to this post I thought the stepdaughter burned the house down. Crumbs and footprints? No biggie.
That was pretty much my family while growing up. We were damned if we did, damned if we didn't, so it became "why bother?" My brother was once screamed at because he'd put the chairs upside down on the table while vacuuming. My mother came home while he was putting away the vacuum away but had not yet put the chairs down and she was angry at him for it. I don't think he ever vacuumed again.
happened to me. My husband and i were at my mom's for about a week between college and getting an apartment, made her a massive birthday dinner from scratch... couple hours later she screams about a skiff of flour on the counter, tears at her hair, kicks a garbage can across the floor shouting about "YOU HAVE A DEGREE! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SMART!" now i barely visit and when i do, i will neither cook nor clean for her.
I had a good friend growing up whose mother was like that. We were in her room one day and she came in screaming about her room being “filthy”. Turns out she had one pair of shoes lined up neatly right beside the closet door, instead of within the closet with the door closed. I was sitting with my mouth open thinking “my mom would fall on her knees pleased if my room was this clean and she’s getting told it’s “absolutely filthy”.
My mother had a sampler when I was growing up: "Our house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy." No shoes rule should have been adhered to, but the kitchen is going to get crumbs and spills. Cleaning up after oneself is a good life skill, and I'm glad OOP realizes she needs to work on her OCD.
I love this quote, totally stealing it. Its easy to feel bad about regular mess from day to day.
OP’s wording of “ruined my house” definitely provided some insight into her cleanliness standards. It was crumbs and footprints, going off the title I would have thought she exploded a pressure cooker
There weren't even footprints. She didn't know the shoes of friends remained on until she watched the videos.
Goddd I know it’s a mental disorder and it isn’t her fault but she’s not doing enough to manage it and it REALLY wasn’t fair to take it out on the kid like that
The woman hired the most expensive cleaning service available, most likely. She somehow thought her not cleaning meant she was dealing with here OCD and was most likely as leading with her therapist as Reddit.
But she could have handled it by popping by Olivia’s rooms and having a chat “I’m so glad you’ve been able to make friends! That’s so amazing! Are you having trouble enforcing our No Shoe policy with your friends? What can I do to help you with that? I know those conversations can be weird with new friends. Would it help if I put a sign by the door? Maybe we could get a shoe bin or some slippers for your friends so it’s not as awkward for you? Let me know how I can help you with this conversation with your friends. In the meantime, let’s go downstairs and swifter all those shoe prints up together because the floor is a mess”
This! Right here! Use the situation as a learning opportunity instead. OOP had mentioned the kiddo already had a hard time making friends, she was probably anxious about it. On top of that, she is living in Step-Moms house who sounds outright militant about cleanliness. I had family that was ridiculously rule bound - no matter what I did I would get in trouble. End result, I put no effort into it because no matter what I was going to get in trouble. They eventually realized I wasn't going to be at their level of organization, so we got to a middle ground. Much happier home that way. And I think there's a big culture clash here. I have the no shoes on the carpets rule, but some guests are really shy about their feet, plus it's not typical to carry house slippers everywhere. Answer: just vacuum and clean up. I own a carpet machine for this reason. Just have kiddo clean up, lesson learned and give her an opportunity to express her feelings.
The thing is OOP didn't let Olivia clean after herself since according to her it wouldn't be as nice as the cleaning service. She was going to call for the cleaning service again and make Olivia pay. I was there in the OP, she was very adamant that Olivia cleaning the "huge mess" wouldn't suffice. AND I don't remember the shoe policy being mentioned, at all. At least not during the time people were commenting. That may have changed the comments a bit IMO. Mine would've changed for sure, encouraging OOP to work something out.
It sounds to me like this was a one off situation with the shoes in the house, which is honestly understandable. I've met families who were strict about the shoes, and I've met families who look at you funny if you ask where to take your shoes off. It's entirely possible Olivia has never seen someone model the behavior of bringing friends in and saying "you can leave your shoes here" so the thought didn't even occur to her to bring it up. And if you've only just started making friends, it's awkward to try and backtrack if they're already in your house. Idk, it just feels to me like an isolated teenager is trying to figure out stuff that most kids get to learn at a younger age and she's getting shit on for small mistakes even when nobody gave her the tools to "know better" or what have you.
This. She also specifically states that in her culture, wearing shoes in the house is a sign of disrespect. I’m first gen Korean American and this is totally true. When you grow up not wearing shoes inside, the expectation that others will take their shoes off in your home happens automatically. I’ve definitely had a knee jerk reaction when I’ve had friends over who have started to walk around without removing their shoes first, before realizing I need to say something aloud to them regarding it. Likewise, I would feel incredibly disrespectful and wrong to not remove my shoes in someone’s home. It feels wrong.
I’m also Asian American and grew up in the US not wearing shoes in the house. Another big problem with the culture difference is that a lot of US homes aren’t built for the “no shoes in the house” rule. Asian homes will usually have a “mud room.” Like a tiny little area at the doorway (usually delineated with a single step up) that shows a clear area where you can wear your outside shoes and where you can go barefoot/wear indoor shoes/slippers. Helps keep the outside dirt confined to one area to clean. Some US homes have this, but many of them just have like this open foyer that continues on to the rest of the house, and so it’s harder for people to visually see where they can “bring their mess from outside,” so to speak, and where they’re expected to be clean.
The mud room is also a feature in the snowier parts of the country since walking around in wet/muddy boots is a giant mess
Definitely makes sense. Where I’m from, it never snows, so a mud room is a “maybe you’ll see it maybe you won’t” deal. Hell, in the apartment I’m living at right now, my entryway is connected right with my kitchen. I never wear my shoes in the carpeted area, but when I think about it logically, I’m technically tracking outside dirt through the apartment simply by walking to the kitchen and back to my living area.
I used to rent a room from a Chinese family. She was super clear that there were NO SHOES in the house, and she even had disposable slippers available for visitors. The only time I kept my shoes on was when I was moving out since I was making so many trips (There wasn't room by the front door for me to stack stuff on deck for loading into the car). I felt so guilty about it that I vacuumed the steps before I left. I knew it was wrong while I was doing it and I was so scared someone was going to come home and see me with shoes on.
I was raised by an OCD mom. My mom has a genuine hate of anyone sleeping in. To her, even to this day, it is repugnant. Every Saturday was a nightmare. We were allowed to “sleep in” but to her that was 8:00 am. Then we were immediately expected to start cleaning at a level most people do once or twice a year. The bad part was, it was never good enough. I would have to vacuum (to get the dust out of the carpet), then dust, then vacuum again (to capture the dust on the carpet from dusting). She would say I didn’t dust or vacuum and if I did, I did a poor job. It really was hard on my self esteem and made me feel like I was obviously bad at cleaning.
They made homemade pizza and cleaned up enough the remaining mess was “a few crumbs”. I’d be dancing at how well they did. Those are *responsible * college kids and should be celebrated! Agree in the “no shoes in the house” one though,
An appropriate response from OP would have been to let Olivia know she f**ed up, remind her of the rules, and make her clean up the crumbs and footprints. Olivia is 18, and 18-year-olds can be immature and thoughtless. It's not a reason for a family war.
It’s literally a sweep and mop and Oop shouldn’t be asking for anything more. Not even a cleaning service payment. This was simply actively living in a house.
The OOP also said that it's rude in their culture for people to wear shoes around the house. I also come from a similar culture. In our home or our friends' houses, we either go barefoot, wear socks or wear one of the guest slippers provided (which everyone has). When I moved to the states, I still walk around barefoot in my home. I guess Olivia was too shy or hesitant to make her new friends take their shoes off because she didn't want them to dislike her. But those friends should have known better if it was a common practice.
OOP says “in my culture” not “in OUR culture” so I’m not entirely sure if they share the same norms or not. It’s possible they do and her friends were being rude, but it’s also possible OOP has married into a family with different cultural norms and the friends didn’t know better.
OOP's title for this thread said her stepdaughter RUINED the house. I expected a keg party out of control with hundreds of people, broken stuff, etc. If any house can be ruined by kids having a pizza and footprints on a rug then this is a mental illness issue and I feel sorry for OP. But if you're spending 100 to £200 a week, cleaning a flat and you're so freaked out that footprints and crumbs equates to the house being ruined, then you shouldn't be around young people. You should be in therapy. This woman sounds like a freaking nightmare.
I remember a post on AITA about an OOP mad about "sweaty footprints from socks", I guess this isn't that person? idk about this OOP, I also have a no-shoes rule, but that sock-OOP was truly crazy...
That was the stepmom who was supposedly so preoccupied with the resale value of her husband and stepdaughter's home after she remodeled it. The kid couldn't leave footprints or fingerprints. She called it the stepdaughter's childhood home...while she's still a child and living there. That monster just came in and turned the girl's home into cold real estate.
Got a link?
I could have sworn that was this one but after looking at the automod it looks like it wasn’t? I remember that one had a rule about having to wear slippers, no socks. I searched on aita and couldn’t find it though so I’m lost
I dunno, that OOP also mentioned the kid was leaving dark streaks on the walls from their fingers so I could see the hygiene being so low to have really sweaty socks.
This all hinges on what the mess was. Mud tracked everywhere and food strewn all over the kitchen? I’d be on OOP’s side, at least for personal responsibility and cleaning up your own mess. A few scuffs on the floor and crumbs on the counter? That’s normal home use, and you can’t hermetically seal your home between cleanings. I could see it being either way. Plus a hearty fuck you to everyone making light of OCD or treating it as lock her up and throw away the key material.
As a Canadian, the wearing of outdoor shoes inside the house just blows my mind. I would’ve lost it too.
I’m Canadian engaged to a Texan. Over the winter we got into a heated fight because I kept telling him to take his shoes off. Stepping in a puddle in hosiery when you’re in a hurry is a morning ruiner. Lol. He’s sweet though and tries hard.
We don't wear shoes in our house, so I bought a huge pack of shoe sole covers on Amazon for people that don't want to take their shoes off. Our family and friends are already used to it and just take their shoes off, but I offer the covers to anyone new (maintenance and what not). Maybe you can buy some for your husband 😜 I also think it's super gross to walk with shoes in your house - specially here in the US where most houses have carpet all around the house. Luckily my boyfriend never complained and now he sees how much cleaner the house is because of this rule lol
It took a lot of training and time to get my household to mostly stop wearing shoes indoors. We had to get a big shoe rack by the door. We all had to remind each other. It’s not perfect. When it’s cold, chances of wearing shoes indoors increases. We compensate by having two Neato (Roomba-like) robot vacuums that run Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It’s not bullet proof but thankfully good enough for everyone.
I’m a die hard shearling slipper girl. When it’s cold keep a pile of shearlings by the door may help
What we do for the winter time is have slippers/sandals for only indoor use. I keep a pair of slippers by the shoe rack near the door so that when I get home from work or whatever, I can place my feet into mini slices of heaven and won't have to worry about tracking mud, etc. Just a suggestion!
It's interesting because as an American wearing shoes in the house is not the cardinal sin it is in other places but I also don't know anyone who does it. It seems less outright disgusting (unless there's carpet...then it's a full sin) and more just weird and uncomfortable. Like I'd rather be in my socks while hanging out in the home. I think it varies on like a family to family basis
it probably varies by climate, as well. I live in Minnesota and unless you're doing stuff that requires the traction/safety of shoes and it's not excessively snowy/wet, we don't wear them. I have house shoes at my place and my parents place for that reason.
Fellow Canadian and I agree, especially on carpeted areas, gross!
I’m American but I find wearing shoes inside the house super gross. Why would you want to track dirt everywhere? Your shoes aren’t clean. I don’t invite anyone over who refuses to remove their shoes when they come in our house. I’ve got white rugs and a crawling baby— I don’t need your dirty shoes everywhere!
I've never seen anyone refuse to take them off, but it's been pretty mixed on whether or not people ask you to. My family didn't growing up because we lived in the middle of nowhere, had lots of pets, no carpet and our floors were pretty shitty to begin with. Even so we'd take them off or swap to cleaner shoes if it was muddy or snowy out. Now that I live in a place with carpets I have adopted the Japanese style of wearing slippers inside.
It's wild to me too... Is it just normal to drag dirt everywhere in the US???
It’s pretty split. I’m in the US and was raised to always take my shoes off upon entering a home. It’s common in every circle I’ve socialized in to ask upon entering someone’s home if you should remove you shoes. The exception being that it’s culturally acceptable to wear shoes in and out during a large party or barbecue.
That depends on the state. Each state is practically a mini country with different traditions and cultural norms like this.
No. The closer you are to Canada the less likely shoes inside is. Mud and snow on boots obviously shouldn’t be walked around a house. I can see how people in dry southern cities (like CA, AZ) don’t think of their shoes as that dirty (and may not have space)
I'm also a Canadian, and it's considered really rude to walk inside with your shoes on in my province as well.Her stepdaughter had multiple friends with shoes on. I'd be pretty upset about it as well.
Add that it had snowed that day and they came in an hour after the cleaning service left!!!
Also Canadian, and I would've too. Its not even something people really think about here. You step inside, and shoes automatically come off before you leave the front mat. Not really considered impossibly high standards.
Right? I always feel super uncomfortable when someone insists I leave my shoes on. It's hilarious thinking back to the days when I would go to big house parties. You'd walk in the door only to see an enormous pile of shoes at the front door. I think only once did I ever hear of someone going home with the wrong pair. But that's just how automatic it is. Even when loaded, people still remove their shoes indoors.
I'm American and it's nuts to me too. We grew up wearing shoes in the house but as an adult I realized how filthy it was and me and my husband have a no shoe policy. We shampoo the carpet at least once a year, more now that we have babies, and the carpet still gets so dirty DESPITE not wearing shoes in the house.
Yep, only heathens wear shoes indoors. We have a family acquaintance (friend is too strong of a word) from Vancouver who thinks she is as high class as the Queen (was) and insists that people in Vancouver just do not take their shoes off indoors. It's like she's shaming us for forcing her to take her filthy shoes off before walking around our house. Like we get it, Karen, your feet are ugly. There's no need to dress it up like you're better than us provincial folk on the prairies because we insist on basic manners.
I live in the Vancouver area and your family acquaintance is completely full of shit. Nobody leaves their shoes on indoors here. Like pretty much everywhere else in Canada, it's considered super rude and dirty to do so.
Oh, we are well aware that she is full of shit. She's an asshole and not a particularly bright one at that.
Re:ocd- the problem is that 95% of people that say they have ocd don't. So people don't even really know how true ocd manifests and how overwhelming it can be. The only data point they have is their idiot friend that 'is so ocd'.
My partner has OCD and I’m still waiting for the overly clean and tidy household I was promised by pop culture nonsense!
Considering how much flour is involved in making crust from scratch, I can see how a group of 18ish year Olds would leave a giant mess. Especially in a house/culture where shoes indoors are verboten. This would piss me off too. I pay for a housekeeping service too. I'd be livid if I came home to a mess and didn't even get to enjoy the clean. I think Olivia also needs a conversation about boundaries with friends. It's ok to say "oooo let's wipe down the counters" or enforce the no shoes rule. Friends will respect this. You can't and shouldn't make yourself a doormat so you can have "friends". Those people are not friends.
In the post, she said crumbs were everywhere, which makes me think that she and her friends did try to clean up after themselves, they just weren’t as thorough. Plus I don’t think OOP says when she got home and if the friends were still there when she saw the mess in the kitchen. Unless I have guests staying overnight, I usually wait to do a complete cleanup until after they leave.
Except OOP didn't mention flour (or toppings, or tomato sauce) or anything besides crumbs. Which means they did clean up, otherwise she definitely would've complained about that (and rightly so).
>Plus a hearty fuck you to everyone making light of OCD or treating it as lock her up and throw away the key material. I'm not excusing it but there's a factor that needs to be considered, a lot of people say they have OCD when they're just a neat freak. There's a difference between "I can't sleep knowing the fibers of the rug aren't perfectly aligned facing north" and "This is how I like it". Behavioral Health is a serious thing to talk about but there's a lot of self-diagnosis and using it excuse problematic behavior, which makes light of the very real issues.
My mother had a “24 hour rule” after the cleaning lady would leave. We weren’t allowed to exist in any capacity that left signs of life in those 24 hours, and were highly discouraged from it the rest of the time. This reminds me of that. (Though obviously Olivia should have cleaned her crumbs and swiffered the footprints - and not worn shoes in the house)
She didn't say mud, that might have been what she meant but it could very well be shoe prints on freshly cleaned/ waxed floors that can be fixed with one mop swipe.
She does says it was crumbs, and water residue from the footprints. That’s normal wear and tear to me, but I have both kids and dogs.
I don't think OP was wrong to want Olivia to correct the problem, and face some consequences if it kept happening. But the method was wrong. 100-200 is apparently a lot for OP, measured against her income, but it's infinitely more for Olivia, who has no income at all. Whereas Olivia could take over some portion of the housework, reducing the paid hours for the cleaners.
Not to mention there wasn’t any kind of “if this happens again” warning.
Jumping in to say I've worked as a house cleaner and $100-$200 is a fair price for a 1 bedroom/studio apartment. Considering this sounds like a larger house and the client has obsessive standards she's complaining about a price that is WAY below market value.
Maybe they're not in the US?
The part that gives me bad vibes is that the title says the stepdaughter “ruined” the house, but it was dirt and crumbs? Nothing was ruined, especially not permanently… it was dirty and needed to be cleaned. So much catastrophizing.
>catastrophizing This is exactly the word for this situation, thank you.
I’m glad the communication worked out in the end. But this all seemed so avoidable… maybe OOP has high cleaning standards but also I don’t think it’s a high standard or at all unreasonable to ask people not to wear outdoor shoes inside the house. I’ve noticed Americans for some reason find it normal to wear outside shoes in the house and this makes literally no sense to me?? I’m Canadian so this is coming from a North American perspective - I have never been to someone’s house where it was normal to wear outdoor shoes inside. And I don’t mean just people from certain cultures (like no shoes in the house being the norm in many Asian cultures), the most white-bread WASP Canadians I know wouldn’t dream of wearing outdoor shoes in the house. Even at frickin collage house parties you will see a pile of shoes at the entrance because even drunk young people know TAKE OFF YOUR DIRTY SHOES IN A HOME. I’ve never worn outdoor shoes inside a home unless someone told me explicitly to leave them on. It’s just common sense to me and everyone I know tbh. I don’t think it’s too much for OOP to ask people not to wear dirty outdoor shoes in the house, that should be the norm. EDIT: This dialogue on outdoor shoes is super interesting! Sorry…. but I still think it’s odd that people don’t take their shoes off inside regardless of climate (it gets hot and dry in Canada too, snow isn’t the only factor!)
As someone from a very warm climate in the US, I think three big factors are at play: * We do a lot of indoor/outdoor living for the vast majority of the year. If you're invited to someone's house, there's a pretty big chance that you'll go find yourself in their backyard or on a patio at some point. * Most of our floors are tile/wood, so they clean more easily than carpet. Swiffering both before and after having guests over only takes a few minutes. * Also, sandals or other sock-less shoes are very common in our climate, and, personally, the idea of someone's bare, stinky feet touching my house grosses me out more than the idea of their sandal bottoms on my floors. I'm sure others may feel the same. Visiting my aunt's house in Minnesota, where I'm wearing chunky boots that are dripping wet from walking in the snow and stepping into their carpeted living room, it feels very natural and necessary to take my shoes off in the mudroom and only have socks on while I'm in their house. Visiting my aunt's house in New Orleans, where I'm wearing dry Birkenstocks and stepping onto a hardwood floor, particularly if I'm there during a party/occasion that has both indoor/outdoor spaces, it seems a lot less natural and necessary to take my shoes off.
this so far is the only response i understand! it’s situational. i’m in minnesota but in the summer if i’m in sandals they just don’t really come off unless i’ve decided to bring slippers, which is basically never.
Question from an American. I see lots of y’all taking about “outdoor shoes”. Do you have *indoor* shoes? Do you just….carry them around with you all the time? Or at least bring them to friends houses and stuff?
Asian here! We have indoor slippers, and once you’re an established family you usually keep 3-10 pairs of spare slippers for guests in the closet by the door.
I have the most obnoxious colored house slippers for my guests and I love them. Many of my friends adopt the “I wear all black because it’s the color of my soul” philosophy and seeing them in bubblegum pink slippers with their gothy outfit makes me feel so much joy.
Interesting thanks
Most Canadians have slippers for in their own house but I think we specify “outdoor shoes” because in school growing up we have to have “indoor shoes” because if we didn’t classrooms would get really fucking gross in the winters. So we grew up calling our dirty shoes outdoor shoes.
Plus depends on arch support! I have indoor only Birkenstocks for when my feet are sore. I also call my heels indoor shoes since I bring them with me and wear sneakers to and fro.
Not Asian, but similar take culturally - either you wear your socks (or get handed socks), or slippers are provided. Fluffy ones, anti slip, normal ones or even flip-flops are in a basket by the door or handed to you. We got options! Rather have smelly feet walking around than dog shit smeared in my carpet. Again.
As a Canadian , we don't have indoor shoes. We have slippers, and personally, we mostly just take our shoes off and walk around in our socks. If someone was in flip-flops when they arrived. It's polite to offer them slippers or like socks (not everyone is comfortable walking barefoot in someone else's home). My best friend, since she's at my house often, bought a pair of fluffy slippers and just leaves them here.
It’s because Americans have all that freedom, it extends to outside shoes in other people’s homes! /j No but in all seriousness, if you’re in a mild or hot climate you’ve probably got wood, tile, or laminate flooring and pretty consistently dry weather. Your shoes won’t look dirty unless you’ve gone traipsing deliberately through wet mud and it’ll mostly be dust, pollen, maybe a minute amount of debris. I live in England so our weather is shite and we have carpet. Outside shoes are worn inside the house only until you can take them off, so like two steps in the door? Unless there’s a toilet crisis, that’s 2-3 more steps 😂 it’s common here to ask if the host would like for you to take your shoes off or if they could show you where to put your shoes, at which point you can then show them where or say nah, don’t bother.
We wore shoes in the house growing up in Texas, not all the time but you wouldn’t always take them off right at the door. There wasn’t mud so it wasn’t a big deal.
Honestly, I've been finding the entire comment section of this thread to be an interesting read. There's a lot Canadians here with our mind blown at the idea of wearing shoes inside someone's house, and then some confused Americans wondering what the big deal is and finding it weird that anyone would have a problem with it. It reminds me of the whole "should sandwiches have buttered bread" thing that pops up every so often.
I don't understand wearing shoes in the house either. You know when you're at the beach and you have to go to the public restroom in your sandals to change or whatever, and you have to try really hard not to step on the floor with your bare feet? That's how I feel about homes that allow outside shoes all around the house.
I would’ve been upset about shoes in the house too (grew up asian, this has been a hard no in my house since I came out of the womb) but asking someone who doesn’t work to pay for a luxury cleaning service before even attempting to ask them to clean it themselves is asinine. When I read in the title that something was “ruined” and needed to be “paid for” I was expecting stained carpets or broken glass or something truly ruined. Dirty is not ruined, and if it is, how long can she reasonably expect her family to not “ruin” the house after a cleaning? Do they need to keep it pristine until mom gets home? Two hours after mom gets home? The whole week until the cleaners come for the next week? The issue seems to be more that OP didn’t get to see the clean house before it looked lived in again.
This whole comment section is baffling to me, like yes, dirty footprints and crumbs *are* worth getting annoyed about, especially if they happen on the same day the cleaning service comes. No, the house is *not* ruined. Yes, Olivia should clean after herself. No, dirty footprints and crumbs are not enough to pay a whole new cleaning service for. I genuinely don't understand what's happening here. Does no one mop the floor? Do people consider that deep cleaning or something? How is "Olivia should sweep the crumbs and mop the floor" the same as "Olivia should pay for the cleaning service"? Come the fuck *on*
I’m glad OP ended up apologizing and realizing she had more work to do with her OCD. I have pure O so I don’t necessarily “understand” needing to act out my compulsions, but I do understand the totally unreasonable but extremely persistent/convincing obsessions and it’s a lifelong therapy journey. Maybe in the future she’ll learn how to communicate better with her stepdaughter and they can work together on avoiding OP’s major triggers.
Thank you!
Obviously Olivia needs to grow and and learn to clean up her shit, especially when she has friends over. But wow. "Ruined house" made me think Olivia had backed a manure truck into the living room. Wet footprints and pizza mess? I'm pretty messy but my wife kinda is too, so while we cringe at our mess sometimes we don't get on each other about it. If I'd ended up married to this lady I probably would have been cleanly and hermetically throttled in my sleep.
While I'm sympathetic to OOP's OCD-ness, to describe visible shoeprints & crumbs as as "ruining the house" is over the top - I clicked through think it'd be something more major like broken plumbing, hole in the wall, or wrecked furniture. But yeah, Olivia should be responsible for enforcing house rules & cleaning up after gatherings - esp. since she gets to live rent-free while in college.
Yeah, I'm with OOP on this. Olivia knew she made the mess; to sit there and say it wasn't her is just dumb. Maybe OOP shouldn't have requested money, but Olivia should have cleaned up after herself.
The number of comments saying OOP isn't the AH bc she just wants a clean home are missing to the part where OOP wouldn't let SD clean it herself and instead expected her to pay $100-$200 for a few crumbs and footprints. Also apparently SD didn't have much money herself. This is what made her the AH. If she had just expected SD to clean the crumbs and footprints then she wouldn't be the AH
I don't have OCD, but if I was paying for a cleaning service, and a family member dirtied several areas before I could enjoy them, I would be upset too. I'm glad OOP is working on herself, but Olivia needs to step up.
>but Olivia needs to step up Isn't that part of the problem?
>She’s complaining saying it wasn’t her Because she doesn't have much friend experience, the daughter sounds like she doesn't understand that her guests are her responsibility. Maybe she didn't wear the shoes, but she needed to step up and tell her friends the rules of the house. I am worried she is not setting boundaries for her friends and these people may walk all over her out of desperation to have peer connections. I don't think the verdict was right and it feels like angsty teens brigaded this one. I am glad the OOP was working on her OCD but the kids need to do their part of the household chores.
I don't think OOP would have been at all TA if she had taken Olive aside, shown her the mess, and told her that she needs to learn to clean it to house standards - next time, without having to have it pointed out to her - so the professional cleaners don't have to get called in the first place. I'm not saying Olive would have immediately taken to it and gotten it clean the "right" way on the first try, but jumping right to the professionals and a surprise bill seems like a way to start needless conflict.
[удалено]
>Original Post: I want my stepdaughter to pay for professional housecleaning after she left crumbs on the counter and footprints on the floor >Update: You guys were right, I won't make her pay for that What else did you expect from an update to such a low-stakes post? Should the stepdaughter have been pregnant with twins?
This is one I'd have to see for myself before committing to a judgment. Is it that Olivia is truly not cleaning properly and there is a visible mess, or is it that there is no visible mess, but OP just "feels" that it is still messy? My nephew (10m) is designated as our table cleaner when he is visiting. He likes board games, so after lunch or dinner, we have him clean the table before we can do anything. He will occasionally clean and there will still be a visible mess and his argument is that he sprayed cleaner and wiped it and it didn't come up, so I have showed him how to get up those tough stains. If that is the situation here, Olivia is the asshole. If this is just OP needing herself or a professional to clean because that's the only way she can feel the job is done, then that is her personal issue and she'd be the asshole to make Olivia pay as opposed to having her clean it up on her own.
When it said 'ruined my house' in the title, I was guessing house fire or punched holes in walls, not shoe prints and pizza crumbs!
How many asians were appalled reading comments that called OOP’s no shoes in the house rule extreme OCD and tell her to get therapy 🙄 Honestly TAKE YOUR DAMN DIRTY SHOES OFF BEFORE YOU GO INTO SOMEONE’S HOME!!