Whether you live with family or roommates, it’s important to decide who is responsible for what chores so that the household runs smoothly with little drama.

What would you do if you were recovering from surgery?

Would you still keep up on your household chores, or would slacking off a little bit be justified?

In this story, one young man is in this situation, and his family is divided about whether or not he’s doing enough chores.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for leaving dried dishes on a drying rack?

AITA for leaving dried dishes on the rack?

I, 18M live with my two sisters 25 and 26.

One of them is married and her husband, 25 also lives with us. They also have a two month old baby together.

We’ve had this living arrangement for a while with parents working abroad most of the time, coming back for the occasional holiday.

During the time they’re away, we’ve all been expected to pull our weight with laundry, dishes, gardening as well as dog walking.

He tries to stay on top of his chores.

Most of the time, I’m on top of all my share of chores however there has been the odd occasion where I’ve fallen short.

This is usually periods where I’m poorly or have been studying for exams.

While this is the case, I’ve also done other people’s chores for them if I have the time and they’re busy or if I see they haven’t been done to schedule.

I don’t complain.

When it comes to me falling short however, my brother in law is first to make remarks and sometimes even resort to tiny little actions he knows will inconvenience me like unplugging the router when he sees me working in the office, moving my things around etc.

He has a really good reason for being behind on his chores!

Recently, I have gone through one of those phases again but not by choice. I had emergency surgery and then shorty after suffered post-op sepsis.

I am now on strong medication that restricts my diet and makes me drowsy but in spite of this, I have still tried to do the bare minimum like at least get my dishes washed and onto a drying rack so someone else can use them if needed.

However today, I had just finished making food and hadn’t even sat down to eat, let alone clean what I used to make my food before brother in law began complaining.

I cleaned up as soon as I’d eaten but later on, he took everything off the drying rack that I put there (some of which hadn’t even dried) and went so far as to just leaving some of it out on the counter while still wet.

His brother in law told him off.

I went to go make dinner when I noticed this and asked why the counter was wet and why something I had washed was left still wet on the counter and brother in law threw a fit.

He said some of it had been there for days and it was mine (some of it was but most of it wasn’t actually mine like he said).

My sister then began texting me saying I do this to myself as I always leave things last minute and don’t take initiative.

This seems like a valid argument.

I argued that given my medical situation they should be happy I’m doing anything at all and at least doing the minimum of washing things.

I don’t have the time to put away things and mow lawns and walk dogs when I have to catch up on studies while keeping up with the new curriculum all while still recovering from surgery and sepsis.

My other sister however thinks that I am making an effort considering my medical situation and even before I had surgery, believes that I did a lot of things similarly to her and she sees no issue in how I do most things.

AITA?

His brother-in-law needs to chill out! Let the man recover.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is a good suggestion.

What does his brother-in-law think the drying rack is for?

The married couple really does need to move out.

But if they won’t move out, here’s another suggestion.

His brother-in-law is really being unreasonable.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.