I posted this in another thread but there’s a bit of a change to the ending as new things happened
So for background info, I moved out of my family’s house 2 years ago and lived on my own for a year, one of our cats has separation anxiety so I left my cat (it’s a family cat but because my sister randomly brought home our first cat I was told to go and get a second one to keep cat#1 company so my name is on cat #2’s papers) with her so she wouldn’t freak out. During that year I was working through my childhood and didn’t see my family very much and as a result didn’t see the cats a lot either.
When I moved back into my family home (just my sister and I and now our roommate) my sister said that she scooped litter for a year by herself and that I now had to do the litter for an entire year by myself to keep it “fair”. I disagreed but she refused to do the litter so I let it go.
The 2nd of February marked the one year of my solo scooping and I sent a text to my sister asking if we could work out a schedule for the litter scooping…I got no response. I sent her 3 more texts checking in about the litter over the course of 10 days and tried to talk to her about it in person. Each text was marked as read and in person she completely ignored me.
I’ve been working 4-5 overnight shifts a week on top of my weekend job and going to college for the past two weeks. Last night I had a shift, went straight from work to class this morning when I got home I asked my sister to scoop the litter as my dnd group was coming over for two hours and I really needed my 4 hour nap before my next three straight shifts in a row. She agreed and my group came and as they were leaving they asked what the paper bag outside of the front door was. I had no clue but thought it may be a DoorDash order that someone forgot to get so as my group was leaving we all take a peek (maybe it was something cool, who knows). It turned out to be a bag of cat poop….. mind you, as my group was here, my sister went out somewhere PASSING BY THE BAG OF POOP SHE LEFT THERE.
I check the litter box as it’s strange that there was only poop and maybe our cats are having urinary issues. It turns out that she took out the poop, left the pee and just dumped more litter on top of the peed on litter.
I leave the litter outside as I go on my 3 shifts, I leave at 9:30pm, I come home the next day at 6:15pm to grab some things before leaving to my next shift and the bag is still there. After coming home the next day from my last shift it was gone but the outside of our house smells awful.
I’m fuming because she has done this before (not scooping anything but just pouring new litter on the dirty stuff) and it was gross and embarrassing just having a bag of sh\*t in front of the door. WIBTAH if I confronted my sister about this over text?
Info: How old are you so I can make my judgement?
22😅
Yeah………. NTA
I’ll tell you what you do, turn off the water filling the cisterns on every toilet in the house.
Tell your sister she can shit in misery as long as this continues.
Bahahahahaha!! I’ll keep this in mind if I need to go to that extreme lol
NTA I’m honestly concerned about the cats. If this is how she takes the litter out now, how did she do it when you were moved out? Something tells me that it was very similar. I think it was a bit of an asshole move to push back at your sister when you first moved in with her, since her argument was very valid. I’d be annoyed if I had to scoop double the litter because my sibling moved out too. But, you did make it right by scooping it for the year.
I do have a few questions though. How many litter boxes are there? A two cat household should have at least 3 litter boxes. Did your sister agree to taking care of the cats when you moved out? I understand that the cat has separation anxiety, but it would be an asshole to just leave the cat there without communicating.
My advice is to sit down with your sister. In person would be ideal since it would be more difficult to ignore her. Maybe you can order dinner for the three of you as a kind of peace offering. Just be honest and open, suggest a compromise. My roommate owns 2 cats and although she usually scoops litter, I sometimes help her out by throwing the trash back outside in the trash when I go down before work. Maybe switch days/weeks so that it’s fair. If she still pushes back, I think it would be fair to get more stern with her. At the end of the day, you two are roommates, and any animosity will grow as you guys continue to live together. Do the best for yourselves, your living situation, and the cats
I agree, I also was wondering how it went when I wasn’t here.
We have two boxes, one inside and one on the cat patio which is where they spend a lot of time… I thought it was one box per cat though and will def look into this and get another if that’s what’s best for the kitties. Thank you for bringing that up!!
She didn’t exactly agree to it, our mum kept texting us telling us to find somewhere else to live and sending us apartments ect so I found somewhere else to live. I said that I was got to take my cat (cat#2) with me but both my mother and my sister said not to. I asked a few times but dropped it just before moving out. I thought my sister was dragging her feet on finding a place and would be moving as well but it turned out that she knew my mum was “just upset and wasn’t actually going to kick us out” and she never even started looking for a place.
I definitely didn’t just up and leave without trying to take him but I never thought that she would be the one having to deal with both cats until the lease had already been signed and everything.
I totally agree, I like the idea of it being the three of us to sit down and chat instead of it being just my sister and I, she usually is more cooperative if the 3 of us chat. And I’m definitely going to talk about/suggest the helping out by just tossing the litter as well. Here is my first text that I sent, I mentioned doing it daily as I sometimes have work and class schedules line up that doesn’t give me time to come home for up to a few days, maybe I can bring up the switching off days again.
“Hey hey, it’s past the 2nd of Feb now. I will be doing the litter tonight but we really have to be on it about doing it daily. Please let me know if there is a specific schedule that works for you. Id prefer if we can have specific days or go by week.”
If it makes you feel better, it’s a common misconception that cats need one litter box each. From what I understand, the “equation” is 2 boxes for one cat, and every cat after should have 1 additional box so that they have options. It would also be less work on your part since technically you don’t have to take the litter out as often (although I still recommend doing it every other day).
It sounds like your sister was kind of screwed over on the cat deal. If your mom was the one who made the decision, then she didn’t have much of a say, and had to take care of two cats instead of one. Granted, I still think she’s very immature for taking out on the cats instead of communicating. Stonewalling/ignoring the issue never solves anything.
But yeah your compromise sounds good. Come up with a few you’re comfortable with to give her options. Maybe try to empathize with her by saying “hey, I know you didn’t sign up for taking care of two cats, it must have been emotionally and financially draining to take care of them both for a year. I want the cats to be happy, so we should both come up with a suitable solution for both parties.” Also, this is just me, but I would definitely apologize to the other roommate for being in the middle of it lmao. It seems like you have a good head on your shoulders, and I hope everything goes well. Please leave an update when there are any developments!
NTA she’s plenty old enough to properly clean the cats litter sounds like laziness to me and unfortunately the cats are suffering because of it that’s just not right if she does want to properly care for a pet she should never have gotten one it’s low-key abuse imo
NTA. Def need a convo with sister. In person. Maybe a compromise can be that she pays for all the litter and trash bags and you scoop it. Only suggesting this because sounds like your sister sucks at scooping litter. So first you have to get her to do it, then second you have to get her to do a good job. May be easier to just get her to pay for everything.
Or tell her she’s responsible for 1 box and you’re responsible for the other and she has to keep her box in her bedroom until she’s proven that she will scoop it thoroughly once a day.
ESH get rid of the cats if neither of you can or are willing to take care of them.
YWNBTA. She needs to be confronted in text and face-to-face. Cats carry a lot of diseases, and they can pass leukemia on to humans, so the kitty litter maintenance is paramount.