Reddit Has Thoughts About Stepmom Who Sent Stepdaughter Venmo Request For Making Mess

There is no denying that it is very, very annoying to come home to a messy house when you were expecting it to be clean. Even more annoying when you paid someone specifically to clean it for you only to find it a mess. I think we all understand that frustration. But what some on Reddit are finding more difficult to understand is a stepmother who sent her stepdaughter a Venmo request to cover cleaning fees because she had friends over and left pizza crumbs on the counter.

The stepmom in question took to the popular “Am I The A**hole” sub-Reddit forum to ask if she was in the wrong in a recent situation with her 18-year-old stepdaughter who she refers to as “O.” The Redditor, who is herself a mom to two sons aged 10 and 12 years old, admitted that she and O got off to “a bit of a rocky start” when she and her husband blended their families two years earlier.

“I told O from day one that I wasn’t her mom but if there was anything she wants to talk about or need, she can come to me,” she explained on Reddit. “After a few months, we became quite close and she talked to me about anything she was too embarrassed to talk about with her dad.” O lives with her dad and stepmom full time while attending a nearby college. “That’s not a problem,” the stepmom explained, “the problem is that O keeps bringing her friends over to hangout but [leaving] it a mess.”

The stepmom, who said in the post that she has “OCD,” noted that her stepdaughter generally picks up after herself, but she had recently hired a housecleaner to come once a week. “I’ve been working overtime more often and me and my husband just don’t have time,” she explained. “It is expensive but I cannot stand it when it becomes too messy for me so I think it’s worth it.” And this was where things apparently fell apart.

“This time she brought her friends over after the house was cleaned and I guess they decided not take their shoes off and walked all around the house leaving footprints,” the stepmom explained. “They also made pizza from scratch and left the crumbles on the counters among other things. They pretty much made the entire house filthy before I could even come home.”

Instead of talking to her stepdaughter or asking her to clean up her mess, the stepmom decided on a more extreme route. “My husband is trying to make me let it go because O has always struggled making friends but I can’t let it go because of how much it cost,” she wrote. “I requested the exact amount I paid for the cleaning service to her Venmo and she acted all confused on why she had to pay for it. I explained that her and her friends ruined my house that was just cleaned but she insisted it wasn’t her.” She added that she gave her stepdaughter two choices: “pay for the damages or I stop paying for her phone.”

That’s right, pizza crumbs and footprints “ruined” her house and seemingly no one can agree with this solution. Many thought the stepmom was in the wrong and was being “unreasonable.”

“Yeah, this is outrageously unreasonable,” one Reddit user responded. “I have OCD, I’m genuinely baffled that OP felt it was anything other than manipulative to refer to footprints and CRUMBS as DAMAGE.”

“Yeah I was waiting for the horrible mess that’s worth a falling out,” another commented. “This is cleaned in 15 minutes. I hope the worst my kids will do is making pizza from scratch when I'm not home.”

“Footprints in your house and pizza crumbs do not make a house ‘filthy,’” one more commented. “You had plenty of options other than charging your stepdaughter — you could’ve cleaned it, your husband could’ve, you could have asked her to clean it, etc. YTA. Telling your stepdaughter she ruined your house is a sure fire way to ruin your relationship with her.”

Others, however, weren’t so quick to make a judgment. “Sorry, but why should OP pick up after their mess? That misses the point entirely,” another reader commented. “OP literally pays a professional to clean because she does not have the time to clean herself. But now she’s being expected to pay AND re clean. If there was a big group of them, I bet they did leave it in a bit of a state.”

“Why should she clean it up? Stepdaughter made a mess,” one more said. “I think charging her is unreasonable, but she should’ve made her clean it.”

Being a stepparent can be complicated for everyone involved. But overreacting to a situation like this coupled with a lack of communication doesn’t really help anyone.