Expectations and other hard lessons

hat can you do when your expectations don't match up with the reality?

ANSWER=complain, learn, and move on lol...

I have learned a very valuable lesson! Sometimes I'm naive to the point of being ridiculous.  All I've done since my arrival back home after a 2 and1/2 month wonderful trip is clean, clean, clean! And as soon as the rain stops I have a huge yard clean up to do as well...

Why you say?....OH.... glad you asked...especially since I did have a house sitter, that was my first mistake!

I have been a house sitter in the past sitting at my sister's house and I never left anything for her to do in the house, or outside either, on her return...until they hired a yard service so I no longer had to do the yard clean up...but if limbs fell in the yard between the weekly yard service visits I would always have that picked up by the day my sis would arrive home...Nothing feels better to come home and all is "right"!  Well nothing could be farther from the truth with my experience when I came home on Halloween day. 

Sure it was trick or treat week...but really? And this person is was a friend!

 I totally expected way more for 2 and 1/2  months of room and; board (leave it better than you found it right?)...I had to mop the kitchen floor twice before we could walk on it barefoot  here is the RINSE water!

...my recliner was broken on one side and the foot pedal would not extend...it was fine when I left it.   It took me 2 days to get it fixed!  

 The wood floors felt sticky as the sitter has used "wet swiffers" on the floor...I told her I only use Murphy's Soap on the wood floors.  There was long grey hair all over the bedroom rugs, the bathroom floor, tub...no dusting has been done...she moved things around from where we keep it like our glasses, silverware, she left half eaten containers of food in the fridge, cabinets and on the counters...and SHE LEFT MEAT IN MY FRIDGE AND FREEZER! omg--she totally knows we do not eat meat SO WHY leave it FOR me to throw out? She brought in different cutting boards and left them on the counters as if to say "these are my choice and should be yours"...I ended up cleaning up behind her, tossing all that out! She put my dish cloths in the drawer without laundering them I think she rinsed, hung them up to dry, and then put them back in the drawer...

The recycle bin in the kitchen was heaped to overflowing with dozens of 2 liter soda bottles, milk bottles, processed food packaging...and yet I had instructed that recycles must be taken to the center weekly! And there was another large garbage BAG FULL of the same type stuff on the back screen porch laying in one of our porch chairs.  I have bins in place for this with lids because in the South you can't leave stuff such as that out..it draws vermin and bugs!

None of the 3 porches had been swept up. I left my important plants in the screen porch for easy watering and I asked her to move them inside if it turned frosty She moved them in (it was not frosty) and she stopped watering them all were dry and droopy...

She was to fill the bird feeders, and make sure the bird bath was filled.  Okay when it rains bird feeders need to be cleaned & dried out cause rain gets in and it gets all funky and moldy...I don't think she fed the birds period she allowed the seed I had put in to get low,  then it rained and the last remains got all soaked and moldy and then the day before I arrived she dumped fresh seed on top of that NOT one bird was at the feeders cause there was no way for them to get seeds out thru that gunky mess...the bird bath was green with algae and slime as well as all my yard fountains...the hummingbird feeder was left out to mold and mildew instead of being brought in washed and put away...she told me around Oct 1st that the hummers had left so I said Okay no need to fill that anymore...I guess she is the type that you have to explain every minuscule detail to but to me... an adult knows better!

The front and back yards are littered with limbs, sticks, pine cones...like a trailer load!!  I pick up sticks daily and I showed her the bins I use to do that with...and that was to be part of her chores...because I know how it can collect if  you don't do it daily...if you do it daily it takes about 15 mins a day! One wheel barrow had been half filled with sticks then left sitting on the lawn to collect rain water it was infested with mosquitoes...the firepit was full of standing water cause the drain hole was clogged...all the yard benches were 4" deep with wet leaves...

She left burnt scented candles in jars in the living room? WHY? I should have said NO candle burning... she had put in one of those plug in Glade scent thing...we don't use those type things it uses electric unnecessarily...and smells like perfume..yuk.  

She made several long distance phone calls to some man she knows...yet when I tried to call and let her know our itinerary for returning home she never bothered to return my call. She finally contacted me via an email 6 days later! I never saw it until I returned home.

So never again! In the future I will close the house down, ask my neighbors to keep a watchful eye out and hire a yard service to keep the  yard up that way I would have had nothing to do but relax when I returned and I'm sure it would be cheaper than 2 months of utilities we paid for her to be in the house including satellite TV we had planned to have put in vacation mode.

my yard birds appeared immediately after hanging the cleaned feeders.

But since I chose to have her come here I have the house cleaning and yard work to do.  I was trying to help someone by giving them a cozy place to stay for 2 months since she has no permanent residence.  On the positive side she took the household garbage away, she swept the floors, she changed the linens in the bedroom but left her used towel on the rack in the bathroom, the kitchen was straight and counter tops and dishes all clean but the floors have to be mopped weekly WE live in the country where no paved walks exist so just coming and going makes dirt..the electric bill was about what it normally is and the water bill was lower than average...so I guess in her mind she helped us... in my mind it was a bad idea to have her here.  I guess I expected more in return I didn't think I'd have to come home and clean up behind her. 

My expectations were way out of proportion to the reality. I think Im about as picky as the average bear.... I thought I may be able to save someone else from having the same experience, so fair warning and beware!!