Living at home comes with rules, and he accepted that.

But after months of quietly handling one extra responsibility (caring for a house full of potted plants that weren’t even his), he finally asked for one small boundary in return.

When that request kept getting ignored, he decided to stop stepping in…and the plants started dying.

Read on for the story.

AITA For Not Watering The Plants

Long story short, I live with my parents, and we’ve been going through some issues. They set some rules for me, which I understand since it’s their house.

I’ve been working on improving myself (not perfectly, but I am genuinely trying). After a few months, I asked for one thing in return.

We have potted plants that needed to be brought inside for the winter (there was a ton).

Sounds fair.

They’re my mom’s plants that my dad bought her. Not mine at all.

Since they came inside, I’ve been the one taking care of them with opening the curtains every morning, watering them, cleaning up fallen leaves, and even putting plastic bags underneath when water started leaking out.

Because I work from home, the responsibility naturally fell on me. This sometimes interferes with my morning routine, but I still did it. I even got up early to take care of them before.

Plants are pets too.

Because of this, the one and only thing I asked was for my dad to take over caring for the plants. I didn’t want to be responsible for them anymore.

I have my own stuff to do and don’t want to have to water a bunch of different plants at different times.

Time passed, and he kept forgetting.

Naturally.

Almost every morning, he would ask me to “open the curtains and water the plants” before going to work. Since I was home, it slowly fell back on me again.

Eventually, I stopped doing it as I have my own stuff I have to do, and I have my work as well.

Now we’re down to one plant because the others have died when my dad was supposed to water them.

Woof.

My mom gets up very early, has her own routine, and works late, so she doesn’t want to deal with the plants either (she works the most in the house).

My dad still forgets, and my mom wants me to just take care of the plants again, especially now since my dad is about to have surgery (just to be clear he can do it, he hasn’t gotten the surgery yet) and because of everything they do for me.

She says it’s not a big deal to just take care of the plants since they’re right there and that I’d be acting like a child throwing a fit if I complained about it.

It’s not a big deal to her.

I understand if I come across as the jerk in the situation.

But it just seems unfair when they put all these rules, and I ask not to worry about one thing it doesn’t get listened to.

AITA?

While his parents see watering the plants as a minor favor in exchange for living at home, he feels frustrated that the one thing he asked for wasn’t taken seriously.

Redditors had mixed feelings.

Most people said NTA.

Not their stuff, not their problem.

But others called them a jerk.

It wasn’t really about the plants…it was about whether his one “no” would finally be watered too.

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.