Good intentions don’t always come across the way you think they will.

Imagine you were housesitting for a family friend, and decided to tidy up as a nice gesture, but instead of gratitude, you got accused of being “disrespectful.” How would you respond? Would you apologize and try to make things right? Or would you let the whole situation just kind of play out?

In the following story, one woman finds herself in this exact situation and is unsure how to feel. Here’s what happened.

AITA for cleaning the house I was housesitting?

For context, my husband (31M) and I (28F) have been together for 9 years in total, and since he was younger, he has been friends (family really) with this older woman named Sharron and her family. He played soccer with her son.

A couple of months ago, she asked us to house sit and dog sit for her while she was away on a business trip, and she paid for our flights from Pennsylvania to Arizona.

She said it would be less expensive to have us fly out than to pay for a sitter for her dog that needs extra care. It was also a little vacation for us, so I felt kind of bad she was paying for us as well, but I went anyway.

She felt like cleaning up was the least she could do.

While we were there, I had been cleaning the house. This house was not dirty at all, but I did mop, sweep, and clean up random stuff around the house as a gesture, as that was what I was taught was a nice practice.

Anyways, she came home and was super offended that I cleaned and that it was disrespectful to her.

I said I thought I was being nice, and it would be nice to come home and relax. My husband said that she was being unreasonable. Now my husband and her are not talking, and she is talking about me to the rest of the family, and I feel like it’s my fault.

AITA?

Yikes! That woman sounds too sensitive.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit think the right thing to do in this situation was.

This person has experience with people going through their belongings.

This reader would appreciate someone cleaning for them.

For this person, it would be embarrassing, but at least they’d be grateful.

According to this comment, it’s just a breakdown in communication.

There may be more to this. According to what she explained here, she did nothing wrong. However, it sounds like some info might be missing.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.