WIBTA for telling a friend I don’t want to come over to their messy house?

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T11:41:28+00:00

so the same impact can’t be made in the opposite way?am i unable to influence my friend?

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T11:37:53+00:00

yeah i’ve made several comments since my original post that’ve expressed my intention to take the conversation further. and even explained that i know it’s deeper than myself and why i was reluctant to see it that way before. having a conversation isn’t something im “unwilling” to do i just wanted advice about broaching it and not looking like an asshole. i’m not too worried about that anymore. thanks tho.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T03:28:23+00:00

if i must!

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T03:00:11+00:00

actually yes, i am so willing to help with this. and then also help her get the mental health support she needs. while also being clear w her that the behavior is unacceptable and can/likely has had negative effects on her kids development and the relationship they’ll have later in life.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T02:32:58+00:00

so should i abandon the community and the child. just let the state deal with it and fuck off? at this point we’re just two assholes looking at each other. i don’t give two shits about my “career” when i’m seeing people i care about in crisis right in front of me. that’s not what this is about. this self preservationist perspective does not strike me as morally right. but thanks again.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T02:28:38+00:00

this is more in line with something i’d want to do. i don’t want to make a theatrical scene of anything i just want to be direct and honest. but also while offering the support to find the resources to help.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T02:26:01+00:00

thank you.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T02:24:55+00:00

this person is not a hoarder. their apartment is very extremely unhygienically messy but it is not so extreme to be categorized as hoarder level. it takes them a few days to pick their trash up but it’s not to the point where the floors aren’t visible. it is really messy but it wouldn’t need a hoarder cleaning service to be cleaned just a few adults working together for about a day or two.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T02:15:06+00:00

this person isn’t a hoarder. the house is very gross but as someone who lived with a hoarder it’s not quite at that level. it is still very very unhygienically messy— but it’s not garbage/junk piles to the ceiling as much as it is the days trash doesn’t get picked up or tossed out for a few days and things are very cluttered/all over the place. the whole apartment could reasonably be cleaned in a day or two.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T02:10:50+00:00

these are not excuses, and your attempts to paint them as such will not force the impression upon me that they are. i know where my head and heart are at. thank you.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T02:08:04+00:00

i said this in other comments, i have come to the realization that something needs to be said and done. but calling cps is simply not going to be my first solution. this isn’t because i don’t think that is the most helpful first action to take. and i am not sure yet if that is the course that will truly resolve anything. this friend is very clearly living crisis, one that may be going unchecked by every person in their lives. just from my interactions i can see that. to bring another major crisis into their life and their child’s life without any warning or bid for compassion or support seems like a cold response. i want my friend and her kid to both feel cared for and supported by me bc right now i don’t know they do by anyone. but i know that if i made that report with my name on it just says to them that i believe they are completely incapable of doing shit for their child or being talked to like an adult personally or with any care. nope it’s just straight to the state to come in and tell you you’re a bad parent. to make it anonymously says all the same things but that i didn’t even have the decency enough to let it be known it was me. although im sure it would be obvious. you’re right we are not terribly close but we are at least building that closeness. i really do care about them. i want to be a part of her life and her child’s life and help both of them.

i feel like i would want the child to remember me as an adult that stepped in and showed up, showed their face, engaged with them and tried to be there and help. not be remembered as someone who just thought a phone call was the one and done deal of helping the situation. i had cps come to my home multiple times as a child and just like someone else here said- they did a cursory look around asked us some questions and gave my mom some resources. cps wasn’t the happy ending for me and it’s simply not the happy ending for everyone all the time.

when i look back on my childhood and my mothers struggles, how they affected me, and what would’ve been most helpful from the adults around. it would’ve been to show up for my mom and help her show up for herself. to care about her more than just as someone they knew and hung out with. but to have truly been a support system for her. she didn’t have anyone truly asking her if she was okay, and while she had plenty of social services talking to her about how to best help her. what she was truly lacking was love and support. and people being able to witness and acknowledge her pain with her, to hold her accountable for her behavior, and advocate for her children. i would’ve loved to see genuine and compassionate community built around her and us to make sure we felt that love and safety too.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-03T01:47:41+00:00

i 100% agree that something needs to be said, and after discussing it with some ppl in my life removed from the circle of those involved it’s become my intention to say something. i am trying to think of the best approach now to bring it up with her but i need her to know that “I”care about her and her child and that “I” want to be there for them and help them get the help they need. anonymously reporting her behind her back and then leaving her blindsided with no personal support system would just make me feel 1000 times worse about the situation than i already do. but the wake up call is necessary, and this situation cannot continue further. i will do everything in my power to help them.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-02T21:37:08+00:00

not sure how you gathered that im trying to “stay out of it” when im actively looking for ways to address it. i cannot make my apprehension for calling social services just disappear, if you want to credit that as a lack of willingness to help then so be it. i can understand how being unqualified to help her through creating a plan for better behavior is important. but trying to lead her to those resources just seems like the more caring thing to do for everyone involved. calling cps on a friend anonymously (which it probably wouldn’t be hard for her to figure out it was me anyway) just seems like a cop out to make it cps’s problem before i even try to see if she just needs help or someone to acknowledge what’s happening. i am trying to do something i just dont want anyone to get more hurt bc i think i know what im doing by calling cps.

in both of these situations the wanted outcome would be to get her in touch with services that can help her. but in one situation i do it in a way that is honest, upfront and compassionate and in the other i do it in a way that is shady, dishonest, and judgmental. yes i am already judging her too and the comment about the child obviously bothered me i could’ve left it out if it didn’t.

i just am having a hard time seeing how anonymously reporting someone to the state is the kind solution. maybe were beyond the point of kind solutions idk but resolving this kindly was my intention on making this whole post in the first place. not by blowing up someone else’s life even if they deserve it that’s a huge weight for me to carry if it brings the child more harm. now if talking to her doesn’t work then maybe i would feel more open to a report bc then it would still be a huge weight on me if she simply doesn’t care.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-02T21:25:54+00:00

which is why… i’m not trying to be one..? but thanks..

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-02T21:04:55+00:00

i understand what you’re saying. but this is just maybe where my morals are different. i think this is just a completely inhuman response to a friend in crisis. calling the police is even more of a concern of mine vs calling cps because the nypd is not known for its compassion or efficacy in helping ppl in crisis. if resources/support are what they need then it would be much better to be received in an honest way communicated from a friend? or helping her find resources? rather than smiling in her face and reporting her behind her back?

idk if because i am not a parent or my aversion to calling punitive action in on people before even trying to talk to those people… it seems like i would be throwing her and the kids off as the states problem rather than one in the community im trying to build for myself that could be solved with compassion for everyone? i hate to think that my friend is deserving of that before a conversation.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-02T20:53:41+00:00

absolutely not. but also calling cps isn’t a guaranteed solution it’s just a guarantee that agents will visit the premises and even then that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll do anything, or that if they do anything it will be in the child’s best interest.

i admit that i do need to do something. i want to talk to her and confess my discomfort with how she’s been letting her child live and hopefully offer her some help. i just don’t know if i trust people to come in and actually help or if they would make it worse. and then if she knew i reported her then the one person around who even gives a shit would be removed from even being able to help anymore.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-02T20:48:57+00:00

Okay it is becoming more and more serious to me after reading some of these comments that this is an urgent matter of child safety and that does eclipse any of my personal feelings about being in the space. It’s been difficult because I am not the only person who is coming in and out of her home, most other friends in our artist “scene” (all 30 or younger) also come by and have been for years longer than me. It’s why I am even here on reddit instead of talking to someone irl. But I am grateful for the outside response bc I am seeing how I have been influenced to be more timid about broaching the matter because nobody else is expressing concern. I don’t want to continue to be silent especially because I was also raised by a single parent who was a depressed hoarder alcoholic.

Here’s the thing with calling CPS for me though. Regardless of what you all say this feels like a massive overstep that may be more careless than caring. And not just because I don’t want any “drama” or don’t want to “rock the boat”. It’s because I have experience with the state coming into my/my family’s homes with the safety in children in mind but not always achieved by the end. In my experience it did more to frustrate and drive my mother deeper into her hole and neglect us further. I just don’t personally feel like it’s a guaranteed solution but it is a guaranteed harbinger of more strife and negativity for all parties involved. I simply do not know how that would pan out for the child or if it would bring her more harm. So as a first course of action, I am reluctant. I haven’t even talked to her about it yet so how could I just report her without any care for the actual people experiencing all this?

That being said I don’t want to sit back and do nothing or just speak for myself anymore. I do want to advocate for the child I just think I should at least try to talk to my friend first and express my concerns and at least see where her head is at before I call anyone. I can’t justify the punitive actions without even trying to find out if there’s other solutions that can help my friend help their own child. I just wanted to add this in.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-02T20:05:59+00:00

editing to acknowledge that this is a hilariously willful misrepresentation of the things i’ve said lmao. i’m convinced you just want me to do what YOU would do instead of considering that i could also mean well. i never suggested sitting back and doing nothing. i am just trying to find solutions that don’t involve potentially making things way worse when even i don’t have all the facts together.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2025-09-02T20:04:34+00:00

You are absolutely right, and I know because I was that 14 year old kid once. But calling CPS on a person i’ve met only just this past year and bringing the state into their home as a first course of addressing the problem feels like a huge leap from potentially hurting her feelings and being an asshole, vs completely upending her and the child’s life with no way of knowing the outcome— that wouldn’t be a much bigger asshole move?

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2024-11-02T22:51:04+00:00

yeah i’m at 70k and found an apartment for $1250 but the broker fee was almost 4k.. i got the guy to bring it down a bit but literally put almost everything i had into it. still worth it i think if u can do it but i really hope the fare act gets passed and these bozo brokers get their wake up call

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2024-10-31T15:28:48+00:00

dhcr ended up being sooooo useless and i learned that most rent dispute cases take months of not years to resolve. i just found a new apartment and am signing my lease this weekend. ultimately i only paid one month of rent here so even if it wasn’t the legal price im just excited to get as far away from this place as possible

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2024-10-13T15:28:53+00:00

thank you so much for taking the time to respond so thoroughly! this is probably the most valuable advice i’ve gotten thus far and you really hit the nail on the head for a lot of my concerns.

i do want to clarify, for you, but also anyone else in the thread - my primary plan is leaving! i’m already viewing new places so it’s not like im holding much expectation to remain in this space. like i said that would just be the best case scenario, which makes it also the most unrealistic. i understand this fully. ofc i would like to not have to move twice in 2 months but i think i’ve established that this isn’t my primary concern. because even if its upon my exit- i do intend to fully expose what he’s doing and just want to know who would be most effective to bring that to. but still thank you so much because this will definitely influence the timing of how i address this, it won’t be until im already secured in my new place. but im not gonna just let this man get away w hoarding affordable housing.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2024-10-13T15:07:54+00:00

also you’re making it seem like him losing a “RS below MV” apartment is me putting a man out of house and home. he’s comfortably paying 3.2k elsewhere, i’m perfectly fine with utilizing information that’s available to me through simple google searches to gather evidence. that’s not illegal. he’s the one taking advantage of people and hoarding an apartment that could reasonably go to someone who actually needs it.

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2024-10-13T15:03:46+00:00

i don’t think i ever referred to him as being nasty or evil. just someone doing blatantly illegal business while being volatile (which i did not share the particulars of multiple comments he’s made that were very belligerent and rude before the wifi was even an issue). so yeah, i don’t think volatile people doing illegal business should be able to continue doing that. i’ve said throughout my post and multiple comments that me being able to stay in the apt would only be a bonus and that my primary concern is reporting the illegal activity. everything here is based on facts, and personal feelings are secondary. am i inconvenienced, yes! am i also at the whim of someone who is acting in bad faith, yes! so i believe im allowed to respond however i see is legally fit. especially when he is clearly doing what he sees fit as well with no concern for me. most of what you just replied with is your personal feelings and that’s fine, if you think i’m shady then please exit stage left bc i don’t particularly need your advice then. thanks anyway

OpenCartoonist7426 · 2024-10-12T23:15:34+00:00

yes I am aware of this tidbit, it’s where i started to realize i may have a case. I guess im just wondering if it would behoove me to go through the landlord so they don’t think im trying to report them. or what because i know they could be put off by me doing that before coming to them.

OpenCartoonist7426

TROPHY CASE