July 27, 2026 at 9:55 am

He Was Watching His Mom’s Dogs While She Was on Vacation — Then Discovered Her Apartment Was Infested With Ants and Had to Call Her Back

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There’s nothing quite like pet sitting or house sitting for someone…

And finding out that they live in squalor!

And it’s even worse when that person happens to your mom!

That’s what the guy who wrote this story is dealing with and he wants to know if he took things too far when he looked after his mom’s pooches.

Get all the details below and see what you think about his situation.

AITA for “forcing” my mother to come back from vacation?

“I am a 25 year old guy, living about 10 minutes from my childhood home where my mom now lives alone.

She has two dogs with her. One is an old family dog that’s turning 15, the other is a puppy that’s about 8 months old. They are in an apartment (these are small dogs and there’s plenty of space for both).

I moved out 3 years ago to live with my partner. We live in a pretty small apartment that’s just a bedroom and a kitchen pretty much. So, sometimes if my mom had to go somewhere or whatever, I would drop by there to babysit them after my shift (I work only nightshifts).

This month, she was supposed to go on vacation, to a beach abroad. I agreed to come a few times a day to feed and walk the dogs, no problem. She told me they’ve been having a bit of an ant issue recently, but that it’s not too bad and I said that was okay.

So first day of her being abroad, I come to walk them and everything is fine. I pour them some food and water and leave.

Hmmm, this is odd…

I come back later in the day, I notice that they haven’t been eating or drinking at all.

We live in Europe and there’s a huge heat wave going on right now, so I’m thinking this is not good. I pick up the food containers from which they eat and pour the stuff down the toilet so I can replace it.

Along with the food, fell something that I thought was dirt – just this huge black mass of speckles. And then I notice that it was moving.

Ugh!

It was ants, like more ants than I’ve even seen in my life, had to be in the hundreds. It’s no wonder they weren’t eating! I try to get them to eat and drink but they just do not want to.

I come back the next day and try pouring them some water and food before we take a walk, hoping they would eat it quickly. They don’t want to. I pour them some food and we go out for about 30 minutes, we come back and the little one starts eating.

These poor dogs…

And as soon as she does, a bunch of ants just disperse from under the food. She then pees herself, and the older one starts licking it (mind you he hasn’t been or wanted to drink water for two days now).

I lose my mind, I call my mother yelling, asking her how the hell did she think it was a good idea to leave two dogs in an INFESTED house, how she did not plan this at all, and if it was like this, she could have went to vacation and we could have had them at one of those dog sitting places, while an exterminator could have taken care of the ants – three birds one stone.

Of course, she’s blaming it on him…

So she came back after being away for two days (the whole vacation was supposed to be a week) and now she is mad at me for not being able to “do her this one solid” and how she is so tired all the time and deserved a vacation.

I told her she did deserve a vacation, but we should have organized accordingly, and not have ants crawling around in their food. I am worried that the ants maybe bit their mouths or something like that, I have no idea, I am just mad.

My MIL says I was out of line.

AITA?”

Here’s what folks had to say about this on Reddit.

This person said he’s NTA.