Friend took advantage of house sitting?

[Champgal]

I recently went away for a few weeks and a friend of mine and her partner stayed at the house to give my cat his daily medication he needs. Friend always likes to stay over as she lives in a small single bed flat with her partner and I live in a 3 bed house with garden so she says it’s like staying in a nice air bnb for a while. While it’s a nice favour that she looks after the cat, I returned to find that my car keys weren’t where I left them. I asked her about this and she said she used the car for a friend to give her some driving lessons in. This was never discusses and I also found the tank to be almost empty considering I left it with half a tank. I also found out from another friend that she hosted small get together a with friends. Though nothing was broken or got out of hand, I can’t help feel that it’s taking the piss a little. All my bath bombs I got in a set for my birthday were used and she had also forgot to take the recycling out for three weeks and the bin was overflowing, resulting in an awful smell when we came home. Should I say something? Or do I just ask someone else next time and not mention it? Or am I just being fussy and should I just be thankful for the help.

If this was a friendship worth saving, she'd have ASKED YOU before driving illegally in your car.

You MUST see this, surely? The other stuff is borderline but takign your car out illegally without your permission is unforgivable.

I don't see how you can possibly let it go and keep being her friend when she treats you so poorly? Have you got very low self-esteem?

All seems fair and part of letting someone use the house except for the car.

Using the car is different and especially teaching someone to drive as your insurance is very unlikely to cover her driving and especially teaching someone else.

If you ask her again, hide the car keys or take them with you and leave her a note with the recycling days.

The OP didn't allow it though.

Put bluntly, they stole her car.

Op set your boundaries. I suspect you don't want to loose the friendship because she saves you a lot of money on cat sitting fees. So you're trying to work out if what she did outweighs the cost of paying for a professional cat sitter.

I didn't say she had allowed it, @FictionalCharacter used the expression and said it wasn't illegal in the bit I quoted.

This. It would also save you the angst of wondering what your friend was up to, while you were away.

I think you need to talk to her about the car. She needs to be educated about insurance and car ownership responsibilities, and I realise it’s not really your role but if she doesn’t know and does it again, the consequences could be very serious next time. She needs to understand instead of brushing it off.

The car thing is bang out of order.
The other stuff is fine.

One solution would be to take all the car keys with you if you are still comfortable with leaving her looking after your cat.

Unless your friend has some sort of intellectual disability, you are being extremely naive.

I can't believe what I'm reading. None of this is acceptable.

Is your ‘friend’ a relative, OP, or a child of one of your friends? I can’t see any other reasons why you’d tolerate this. She also sounds very immature.

I’ve done that with a hire car in the States ☹️.

Quite . I’d lose all respect for anyone that behaved that way and then lied to cover it up.

Theres not even a hint of an apology or any acknowledgment she did anything wrong.

No one’s this thick - she’s a taker.

Maybe she has a chip on her shoulder because you’re more wealthy than her and so feels entitled to help herself.

Have you given/ loaned her money in the past?

Bin annoying, bath bombs very annoying. Car wtaf. A big no, no. Lessons as well total CF.

Was your car insured to be driven by a random and a learner?

I can't believe the bare-faced cheek!

I'd have been furious and she would have known about it

What 'friend'?

Friends don't behave like that. Users do

For me it comes down to trust.
You had a mutually convenient arrangement which suited you both and she has massively overstepped. She has taken your car without consent, and driven without insurance, just think what might have happened if she had injured someone!? I don't think I could forgive that regardless of how much she has saved me in cat sitting fees.
She could have so easily checked with you about using the car or having friends over, but you found all this out afterwards, which makes me think she knew what she was doing was wrong.
Plus she hasnt even apologised, instead she has minimised what she has done. All this would make me step right back from the friendship as I just wouldnt be able to trust her again.

There's 2 points here I think. I think you are both being unreasonable.
Your friend is extremely unreasonable to use the car and the bath bombs. That would instantly end all house sitting arrangements for me. I'd be more cross about the car than anything else. The recycling wouldn't bother me too much.

I do think you're unreasonable to see this is doing her a favour just because she lives in a flat. You're saving hundreds of pounds on a cat sitter, so I would have probably extended the couple of bottles of wine to a fridge full of food and a bit of money or something. It's a bit tight to not offer anything more than 2 bottles of wine (no more that £20) for 3 weeks free cat sitting. If you have pizza ovens, a big house and facilities you're not hard up!

i feel like some posters haven't read all of OP posts.

I would probably tell the police about the car.

If they have been using it they could have have got speeding tickets etc and you won’t know for a while yet. You would be the one to get the letter about a fine and then you’d have to say it wasn’t you, but your uninsured friend! They were also completely uninsured if they have been caught on a road camera anywhere for any reason - you don’t know where they have been in it or how often.

I would want it logging somewhere offically that you were away and your car was being used without your permission - it’s important they know you didn’t “permit” an uninsured driver to drive your car. This covers you if anything untoward comes up later.

The driving lessons in your car is wild as i’m guessing the insurance wasn’t sorted, I’d expect toiletries to be used over 3 weeks including bath bombs and would put them away next time if you don’t want them used.
On your return id want to make sure everything was left as it was found.

I feel your pain, I went away in august and through lack of other options got my daughter’s 18 year old friend to house/puppy/cat sit, he generally comes over to see dd quite a bit and the animals know him, and he’s usually pretty good at tidying up after himself. I did pay him (quite generously) for his services.

I made a point of tidying/cleaning before I left thinking that would encourage him to keep it like that, but no, the kitchen sides and all floors were grim, and there was shit splattered all over my toilet.

He also obviously didn’t bring enough/any socks for his stay, so he used mine! My socks are all arranged neatly in my drawer kondo-style, and there were several pairs of my white trainer socks just chucked on top of all the other socks when I came home, except they weren’t really white anymore and they were all crusty.

But most annoyingly, and this is a weird one - I sell books online and have about 3000 books in my loft, a lot of which are worth a fair bit of money. They are in boxes, arranged neatly so as not to damage them, and there is a system for where they are, although it might not look like it to the untrained eye. I didn’t go in the loft for a couple of weeks after I got back but when I did, I saw that many of the boxes of books were not as I left them, they’d been rummaged through and left in a right old mess, with paperbacks bent in half etc. I was freaked right out and thought I had some material for a woo thread, but then I thought I would message DD’s friend to see if it was him. He replied hours later saying “yes I did go up there, hope you don’t mind, I’d never been in a loft before and wanted to see what it was like” 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

I agree that your 'friend' cannot possibly be this thick. So she's adding insult to CF injury. Get rid!

Also agree that they basically used your car the whole time.

Oh, come on OP. Of course she understands the basics of insurance. She knew full well that neither of them would have been covered but they chanced their arm anyway.

Don’t go putting the blame at his door. They’re both as cheeky as each other. They’ve used your car all the time they’ve been there and no doubt did every other time she’s stayed too.

She’s no friend. She’s playing you for a fool.

No you should be more pissed off with your ‘friend’.

She was the one who was responsible for your cat and you kindly allowed her and her partner to stay in your home whilst you were away.

It was her to decided to take your car without asking you.

The insurance part is irrelevant because even if she was insured she still took the car without asking.

She also invited other people over.

Stop trying to pass the blame because you don’t want to believe that your friend is a piss taker who doesn’t respect you or your belongings.