My step daughter (SD) is 8 years old and me and her dad have been together 3 years, married 1 and now have a 4 month old. She lives with us 4 days a week and her mother 3.
I have recently been to her mother's house to pick something up and was completely appalled at the state of her kitchen (which is all I saw). This is a new build house that is only 18 months old. The windows are so badly dirty, you can see the marks at the bottom of the driveway. She has dirty dishes lying all over the place, the units are grimey and covered in crumbs, there's bits of rubbish all over the place and the back wall is just a mountain of laundry (not sure if it's clean, dirty or both!) During the summer my SD won't go in the kitchen due to all the flies everywhere. Her lunch is put loose in her lunch box, which would be fine, if it was cleaned out, but it never is, same with her water bottle. She often is left to drink things that are days old. She tells us she can't even make cereal for herself because she doesn't know where anything is kept (Inc milk) as nothing is put away.
I have been told (by both my husband, SD and other family that have been there) that the rest of the house is the same and in places even worse, with the bath water being left in so long it's gotten slimey and there is a perminent pinkish line around the bath from the dirty water. There is often no toilet roll or soap. When she is bathed at our house there is always a layer of dirt left in the bath afterwards.
Her clothes have never come back clean and she has marks in her collar from the dirty coming off her neck. When her mother has washed things, they often come back the wrong colour. There are no coat hangers and I doubt she even has a wardrobe. Several times my SD has fallen due to clothes and other things strewn all over the house. My SD doesn't know where her underwear is to change it herself so often has to wear dirty for days on end and frequently returns with stains both front and back of her undies. Her socks are always brown on the bottom from walking across the floors. When my SD was 6 she came back in knickers aged 2-3 and often other items of clothing too small for her (she is above her age for clothes). This week she has this week returned in a skirt 4 inches to small in the waist, which was bought from a charity shop and not washed before she wore it.
They have a house cat. Shortly after moving into the house the cat was locked away in my SD's bedroom and has used her bed and teddies as a litter tray, so my SD sleeps in with her half naked mother. The cat's actual litter tray is overflowing and barely changed.
We don't let her take any toys to her mothers as everything gets lost, including her school books.
Add into this that her mother smokes and she comes back stinking of cigarettes.
She also keeps her off school sometimes because she can't be bothered to wake her up. She has no bedtime and quite often leaves to visits her Aunty at 9pm.
My SD has undiagnosed tichrochillamania (compulsive hair pulling out) which is not helped by the two polar opposite lives she lives.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Is this enough to report to the authorities, and which authorities do we call? I have had enough of trying to battle my step daughter into a routine and we feel it's 1 step forwards with us and 2 back with her mother.
Please help!