My roommate has a habit of taking off for a night or a few nights on a whim. Which is fine- it’s her life. The problem is that she has all these animals to look after.
The other problem is that she’s never once asked me to feed them or take care of them. I don’t really mind feeding the dog or letting her out and the cats are even less of an issue because I can easily see if they’ve got food, water, and clean litterboxes. But if I’m supposed to be the one doing it, I need to be told that because this isn’t my dog and this isn’t, by default, my responsibility. The even bigger problem is that, more than just sort of saying nothing and making this possibly just an error in communication and slight discourtesy, she will swear up and down that she’s going to do it or has done it or always does it, depending on the moment I bring this up. And then… she doesn’t. Or hasn’t. Which means if I go with what she says, her animals will go days and days without being fed or let out.
And THAT’S what drives me crazy. Because like tonight- I was out most of the day and got home around 9 and she was out. I had no idea how long it had been since she left, so I texted her to ask if I should feed the dog. She said no because she’ll be back. Aaaaand… she’s not. So my problem is not that it’s such an onerous task to feed the dog, but that the dog had to go without her dinner til 1 AM when I, having dozed on and off because it’s night time, woke up and realized my roommate still wasn’t home. And had that not happened, she would have gone without entirely.
Last week, she was pet-sitting and before she left, we discussed it. She said she’d be back to take care of her animals “like always.” and I told her that was fine and that I would likely not be home at all for the majority of the time, including overnights, so if she needed me to do anything, she would have to tell me. I’m trying to manage some pretty hairy family stuff and have been burning the candle at both ends
GAH OKAY we interrupt this rant for another small rant, which is that my fucking cat has developed a charming habit of going into his covered litterbox, starting to pee, and then turning so he starts by hitting the wall of the box and then ends by firehosing the whole very small room with urine (which he just did just now and I just cleaned up) and between that and the fact that he pukes like 30 times a day (I’m working on trying to help him with that, but in the meantime, it’s a fucking mess on top of being worrisome), often on my pillow and bed or under my bed, I am losing my damn mind trying to keep this space clean enough to be habitable for both them and me. And my mobility is limited, so getting down on the floor to clean this up, moving the bed to get under it, stripping my bedclothes practically every day and trying to get them up and down the stairs, and trying to move other furniture to make sure all the pee is cleaned up… all of that is painful and unsafe and complicated and some of it pretty much impossible for me and I simultaneously want to wring his little neck and feel like a complete piece of shit for not being able to keep their environment as nice as they deserve.
Anyway, back to my roommate. She acted a little perplexed and a little offended when I told her not to assume I would be there and to specifically ask me if she needed me to feed the dog. Because she keeps asserting that she’s always there to do it. Which I don’t understand because like… the people who 100% know that isn’t true are 1) me and 2) her, so why the charade?
She didn’t visit the house at all for four straight days at one point. Probably longer. I wasn’t there either and she still hadn’t asked me to check on them at all, but since I don’t trust her to do it and wasn’t going to let the animals suffer just to make a point, I still came and made sure they were cared for. But- I’m not usually one for games like this, but I started leaving things in a particular way that would be changed if she came through and sticking a card in the door that would drop to the floor if the door opened to see if she had been there. I was frustrated with not being able to get a straightforward answer and with the fact she was lying to me. And the thing at stake wasn’t just like… the dishes or the mail or just that I wanted to be controlling. It’s living animals. And also, I thought there was a possibility that maybe she WAS coming when I wasn’t there and I was overreacting and assuming the worst and making the issue up in my head and directing other stresses at her and being completely unfair overall. I wasn’t.
I don’t even think there’s any point in trying to address this. Possibly it’s just another thing like the bills- something that I just take care of because I know she’s not going to do it and if I expect her to, it will just be a constant fight and I would constantly be stressed out and irritated with her about it, so it’s a lot easier for both of us if I just pay them myself. But I just don’t need another thing to juggle right now.