Dogsitter Bashed for Ruining Duvet, Not Walking Dog, but Demanding Full Pay

A dogsitter is being bashed for ruining a duvet and not actually walking the dog, yet still demanding she get the full amount of money she was promised.

The owner of the dog, u/housesitterdrama, shared her story to the popular Reddit forum r/AmITheA**hole, earning 6,200 upvotes and 800 comments for her post, "[Would I Be the A**hole] if I deducted the cost of an expensive item my friend ruined from her pay?"

The original poster (OP) says that she's known "Bex" for three years and asked her to dogsit while she was away for a week, offering to pay $50 per day. She was meant to take care of her "low-maintenance" dog "Dana," and stay in the guest room.

But when the OP returned, Bex "hurried out," and told her to send her the money online once she'd settled in. But when OP came into the master bedroom to unpack, she discovered that Bex had instead chosen that room to sleep in. When she started to take the sheets off the bed, she noticed a red stain on the duvet that turned out to be nail polish.

When she asked, Bex said that she'd fallen asleep on the duvet but didn't realize that her nails weren't dry and left a stain—but it wasn't a big deal, as the duvet cover was double-sided and could be flipped over.

"It is true the duvet has two 'good' sides, but now my duvet has a bunch of red nail polish on it on one side. My duvet was around $250, and I have a receipt for it," u/housesitterdrama wrote, adding that her plan was to take the cost of the duvet out of Bex's pay, and send along a copy of the receipt.

But when she told Bex she was going to take the duvet cost out of the $350 payment—especially since not only had she ruined the duvet cover, it was in a room she wasn't supposed to be in. Bex said, however, that this was a "risk" the OP took by having someone stay in her home, and that "she really can't afford to have me underpay her." Not just that, but she'd tell their mutual friends that the OP had "stiffed" her unless she paid the full $350.

After calling three places to get the duvet cleaned, the OP was told that none of them would handle red nail polish stains.

"I told her I felt I was only obligated to pay her $100 ($350 minus the $250 duvet), and she told me to f**k right off and to think carefully about my choices and hung up on me," u/housesitterdrama wrote, adding that if it had been the duvet in the guest room—which only cost $75—she would have been fine eating the cost as that was where Bex was supposed to be.

However, the OP also discovered that Bex smoked marijuana inside, despite there being a covered patio with a sofa and it being nice out that week, and her doorbell camera showed that Bex had never taken Dana for a walk. OP did point out that Dana is "very lazy," and probably was fine with not taking any walks, even if Dana did need the exercise.

The OP says that she's unlikely to want to be Bex's friend following this, and is worried that this decision is biasing her decision to cut Bex's pay to cover the duvet damage.

When someone dog or housesits, sometimes property can get damaged. One housesitter asked EffectiveCoverage.com if renters' insurance would cover the damage they accidentally made to the porcelain of a toilet tank, which ended up flooding the apartment they were watching. Since it was an accident, and the apartment-renter was acting responsibly by asking someone to watch the home, the renters' insurance would likely cover the damage, EffectiveCoverage said.

Newsweek has run other stories about nightmare dogsitters and housesitters, including a woman who tried to poison a neighbor's dog to stop it from barking while housesitting. Another dogsitter was caught on camera allegedly punching a puppy, and two dogsitters let their charges get loose and get killed.

Reddit took u/housesitterdrama's side.

"[Not the A**hole]," u/ceziate wrote in the top-rated comment with 10,000 upvotes. "You hired her to take care of your home and dog and she did neither, damaging one and neglecting the other. Why would you pay for a service she didn't provide?"

However, u/housesitterdrama provided her own update to the story on the post. It turned out that Bex already went to their friends' group chat while the OP was sleeping. She asked on the chat if OP was going to "screw" her on the housesitting money, and told their group friends that she had "'accidentally' spilled 'a little bit' of nail polish" on the duvet cover—and when their friends assumed it was the cover in the guest room, Bex did not correct them.

"Bex then went on to elaborate that I have more money than her, this is a clear case of me using my power and privilege to discriminate against someone with less than me," u/housesitterdrama wrote. "At this point, Bex hasn't described what has gone on at all, but she is talking about how much this missing money will 'screw her'."

When the OP wakes up, though, she shared photos and clarified that the duvet was in the master bedroom where Bex wasn't supposed to go—and detailed her other transgressions. With the full story, the rest of the friend group takes the OP's side, with one friend saying she should only pay the $100, while the others say she shouldn't pay anything.

"At this point, Bex goes nuclear and says 'F**K YOU, YOU F**KING F-----S' (unacceptable gay slur) and leaves the group chat, and blocks EVERYONE," she wrote.

The friend group was left confused and spent the rest of the day telling the rest of their mutual friends the story, in case Bex tries to share her version of events. OP added that at this point, Bex is not even getting the $100.

Newsweek reached out to u/housesitterdrama for comment.