to be angry at my mum/family's silent treatment?

[californiadreamer]

I'll try and keep this brief.

I asked my brother if he could house/pet sit while we were away on holiday for a week. I have quite a few house sitters I could call on but I asked him first because a) he's currently living with my mum and sometimes he needs a bit of his own space and some peace and quiet; b) he is also stuck in the sticks and we are in town so thought he would appreciate being more in the thick of things and c) I knew he could use some money so I was going to pay him the same as my house sitter.

Because he has no money I paid for his train ticket here and back, bought him a week's worth of groceries and added him to my car insurance so he could get about town.

To put it in context - he is in his 40s, living with my mum and her husband, jobless but looking, recovering alcoholic - he's had his issues.

Anyway - my brother arrived after we left and left the morning of the day we got home.

When we got home:

1. my 11 year old daughter's fish were dead in an aquarium of murky green water. She discovered them herself and was hysterical!

2. the cats had peed all over my son's bed and daughter's bedroom (I'd asked my brother not to let the cats upstairs)

3. he'd got me a parking ticket - left it for me on the kitchen counter offering to pay

4. plants were dead

5. food was off and rotting in the fridge.

So...

1. • parking ticket - ok, so this can happen to anyone, especially if you don't know about parking restrictions. (i paid the charge as he has no money)

2. patio plants dead - we had an unexpected heat wave that week so I hasn't asked him to water them - but still, common sense?

3. cats peeing upstairs - no excuse here really as I had asked him not to let them upstairs - and he should have noticed it and perhaps cleared it up rather than leaving it for me to find?

4. fish - this is the one I am most angry about. Ok so fish can die - these things happen but what I find really hard about this is he could have warned me so I would have broken the news to my daughter gently rather than let her run upstairs excitedly to look at her fish and discover them dead.

So - how did I handle it? Well - badly. I didn't cover myself in glory let's say - but then again i wasn't unreasonable.

I called my mum's house to speak to him and he claims he didn't know the fish were dead. It was a short conversation because my daughter was upset. I find this really hard to believe - as my daughter said "how could they have been alive" what with the state of the tank. It turns out also he had been sleeping on my sofa all week like a hobo instead of using the bed - find that a bit disgusting really but then maybe I'm a bit particular about my things? But what that means is I think he rarely went upstairs at all.

So I called back the next day again to speak to my mum and try and explain what had happened. Point here - she didn't call me to check my daughter/her granddaughter was ok - no concern about her being upset at all. I had to call them. But I just needed her to hear so that she could understand why I was a bit upset.
Turns out my brother was in the room - everything i said she then repeated out loud for him to hear - and in the end she started shouting at me saying "well, it's not his fault, he doesn't know how to look after fish"... I started getting cross and accused her of never taking my side or trying to understand my position (I know, childish right?)

and then she hung up on me and we haven't spoken since.

So - is it me? Am I being the unreasonable one? Let's just say there's a lot of back story here about my family and my brothers - but won't bore you with it.

Just feel like I'm being blamed for being angry? Any ideas what I do next?

My brother is an alcoholic. Feckless before that. He used to house sit for us, mainly as a way to give him a "treat", like you. Nothing seriously bad happened but one time he just failed to turn up as arranged and we had to run around finding alternatives. He had no idea of the date and forgot!

I would never ask him now. It would just give him the freedom for unsupervised drinking. Which sounds like what happened to you.

Another one here struggling to fathom how a fish tank gets into such a state as to kill the fish in a week. Our last fish would quite happily swim around in a filthy tank - in fact, it was just after the last clean it finally gave up the ghost.

Yabu about the fish and the plants.

No way did a fish tank become 'murky and green' in a week, certainly not enough to kill them. So it must have been pretty filthy before you went.

If I were house sitting, that's what I'd do. Watering the outside patio plants probably wouldn't occur to me.

You don't feed fish once a week they need feeding daily! But YES A FUSHTANK SHOULD NOT BE GREEN AND TACKY IN A WEEK . It must have been filthy before you left ! Why don't you have a filter for the tank ? It's far better for the fish ! Sounds like they weren't being taken care of properly in first place

I don't the OP is saying he killed the fish? But rather one of both died and that's what turned it manky? That can happen quite quickly.

Of course you're not the unreasonable one. I bet he didn't venture upstairs at all. What room was he meant to have slept in? Did it look like it had been used?

You're not being unreasonable - any normal person would be easily able to do the jobs you left him with.

But he's an alcoholic and you basically left him alone for a week - perfect opportunity to drink all week with no one to see what he's up to.

I think your Mum's reaction is unreasonable but I also think you're expecting too much of an alcoholic.

I was expecting him to be a young teen, not 40!
Well I guess you have learnt your lesson, no?
Not really great to whinge to your Mum, but I suppose you now know whose side she is on.
Frankly, I would be pretty happy with the silent treatment from them all. Do you get anything out of this relationship with your mum or bro except grief?

What food did you buy that rotted in the fridge in a week? Are you sure it's working properly?

If a small fish tank is kept in direct sunlight it can become green and murky in a week.

good to get all viewpoints - gentle and harsh - that's what I asked for. I haven't told the full story - so there are reasons I spoke to my mum, reasons I asked my brother to help in the first place and I don't feel I need to go into those or justify my actions.

If you've had a friend or family member who is an alcoholic you learn from a young age how to deal with it - I know what an enabler is and I'm not one.

tiddleywinks - yes, I was also thinking it would give my mum a break for a week - spot on there!

You love your family - you try to help everyone.

I think he simply overfed the fish and then left the light on 24 hours - so yes, algae bloom. But yes, they would have died one by one and he really should have called me to ask what to do about it.

Things like this happen - pets can get sick while the housesitter is there - that's why you have a housesitter - to keep an eye on things and contact you when things go wrong. It's the fact he ran away and didn't have the conversation with me that bugs me the most. I don't get bothered by much - but I was very bothered by the sound of my daughter crying hysterically and I'm going to find it hard to forgive him for being a coward and not facing up to this.

Yes, lessons learned. I won't have him house sit again. I will wait to hear from my mum - agree ZoeWashburne - she hung up on me, not the other way round. (and no I didn't pay him in the end!)

Thanks for everyone's feedback - it helps to see it from different points of view.

Some people on here are fucking ridiculous. What food did you buy that rotted in a week - erm, any sort of fresh fruit or vegetables?!

Sorry your brother is shit. I wouldn't have expected anything from him in the first place though. Hope DD isn't too upset.

Cold water Fish can and do quite happily survive being fed only once a week, especially if there are live plants in the tank. Feeding daily can actually add to a rise in nitrates in the water caused by rotting food at the bottom of the tank, which affects the water quality and kill the fish.

Sorry for your DD, OP. She'll survive, as you know, but it could've been avoided and that sucks.

*My brother has house sat for us twice before - no problem. So, no - "he doesn't always let everyone down";

** strawberries, fish and milk do go off once they're past their sell-by date, even in the fridge.

•• that's what we couldn't understand about the tank. We have never seen it in that condition ever. It was perfectly fine when we left and a complete mess when we got back. I can't understand how it got so bad and not what we were expecting at all to happen. I called the pet shop and was told that it must have been overfeeding together with leaving the light on the tank. Plus it was a very hot week.

So, no, it wasn't "pretty manky" before we left - we do look after our pets thanks.

I'm not blaming my brother for the dead fish - as I said a couple of times before - these things can happen. I'm angry about the lack of communication about it. It clearly wasn't the same tank that we left a week before and even a quick text saying "the tank doesn't look right, what do I do?" would have been the right thing to do.

the irony is my mum's husband - who my brother currently lives with - keeps fish and so he could have even spoken to him if he didn't want to bother us or ruin our holiday.