Homeownership is a dream for many, and undoubtedly comes with plenty of benefits.

But one of the drawbacks is having to leave your home unsupervised when you go away for vacation, or else having to pay someone to care for it in your absence.

So when the woman in this story received a request from her friends to housesit for them over Thanksgiving, she was understanding and happy to do so.

But then they dropped a huge bombshell.

Read on to find out why this made her revoke her agreement to housesit.

AITA for backing out of housesitting for someone because of their new cameras?

I am friends with a couple who live about two hours away from me.

They planned to travel for four days during Thanksgiving, and asked early in September if I could house-sit. Due to location they have difficulty finding someone (no family/friends close by), and randos are either unreliable or super expensive.

I have done this a few times, and since my partner would be away during those days and I will be working through Thanksgiving, I accepted.

They’re located around 20 minutes away from the nearest town, and have several security measures in place, including cameras in every room except the bathrooms. I know and don’t mind this at all.

Then, the parameters around her stay started to change.

A week later, they politely inquired if I would be open to stay longer, so they could extend their vacation from the 20th-30th and organize a family reunion.

I checked with my partner (who then also extended his away time) and confirmed I would be perfectly happy to do this.

Their house is amazing, with a pool, hot tub, home theater, and a massive kitchen, so overall it is a treat, despite the 2h drive to get there, and me working throughout my stay.

At their insistence they have always paid me a token amount, even though they fully stock up for house-sitters and I would do it for free.

But a meeting with the couple changed everything.

They are taking a mini-trip to our area, and we met yesterday for dinner, during which it came up that they upgraded their security system to cameras that also record sound.

I asked how can I turn that feature off and they said they don’t know if it’s possible outside the mobile app, which I won’t have access to.

They also told me that they just got them installed and they would rather I don’t turn it off/tamper with the cameras at all, like the other times I house-sat for them.

This is a problem, since I work in corporate, handle highly sensitive and classified information, and take many calls around tech and trade “secrets”.

Let’s see how this affected their arrangement.

I told them that won’t work. If their new cameras record sound, I would not be able to take any calls in the office or at all, unless I go in the bathrooms or outside, neither of which I am willing to do.

I told them these are my boundaries (happy to do it but I want total control of the camera sound while I’m there), and to think about it and let me know asap.

They are understandably upset because they extended their away time only after they confirmed I would be available, and now they can’t cancel and get refunds on tickets and bookings.

Finding someone so last minute (due to location) is a lot more difficult, let alone stressful, and it would cost a lot to find someone random to house-sit for the original four days during Thanksgiving, let alone ten.

Read on to find out how she’s feeling about the issue.

My partner later suggested I should reconsider working during Thanksgiving week, take a break, and treat this as a vacation for myself. That way I can both relax and not inconvenience our friends.

But I am swamped with work and can’t slow down right now, and were I to not work during Thanksgiving, I would rather join him and not house-sit alone in the boonies.

Am I wrong for backing out “last minute” over this detail?

AITA?

It’s really nice of her to agree to house-sit for her friends over the holidays, and it’s equally nice of them to offer to compensate her for the trouble.

But they have to understand that, with her job, it would be inappropriate for her to work in an environment with audio recording.

Not to mention, it’s a huge invasion of her privacy, and she should absolutely be permitted to turn the audio function off.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person pointed out that if they turned off the sound, there would be no issue at all.

While others thought they should have been clear about this at the outset.

Meanwhile, this Redditor called out her friends’ horrible behavior.

There’s an easy fix, right there.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.