TL;DR: my dad abandoned me in our contaminated, structurally unsafe house and made me pay to live there

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My father and I have always been pretty close. I grew up with both of my parents and all my siblings under one roof, a big and loving family–not perfect, but functioning. When I went away to school, my dad would call and text often and make sure I was okay. He’d drive the 2 and a half hours to pick me up if I needed to come home (I didn’t have a car), and he would support me financially until I had a job. In 2018, my mother passed away. The circumstances of her death was jarring. She was very ill, but refused any kind of medical treatment even though we had the best doctors available to her. I think in a lot of ways, my family processes her passing as her choice, which made it even harder. It took a toll on all of us, but especially my dad of course. I was 20 at the time, my two sisters at home were 22 and 27. We began supporting the home in the way my mom did–buying groceries, cooking, cleaning, while my dad still played his part of awesome dad. Then, he got in another relationship… rather quickly. Two weeks after her death, he was on a date. He complained about the woman a lot, we figured he was just biding his time to curb the loneliness. But, they continued to see each other. He came home less and less, and as months went on, he became less present with us. I graduated and came home in 2020 and went right to grad school. my sisters had moved out by this point, so it was just me and dad. He was never home. ever. he would go to his girlfriend’s house immediately after work and stay there until midnight on weekdays. he began bringing her around to closeknit family gatherings where sometimes my in-laws who’d been in the family for years wouldn’t even come. my family split in half after my mother died, i don’t have a relationship with my eldest siblings anymore, but even they expressed hurt in not knowing my dad was with anyone. he asked us to not tell anyone he was seeing her.
i graduated grad school in 2022. began working a poor paying daycare job while i worked on the final steps to my licensure, but the environment was terrible, so i quit after 3 months and began teaching. less than a month after i began working, my father told me he was moving out with his “wife” (quotes used because they’re not legally married, but call each other husband and wife), and i could stay in the family home if i agreed to pay half the rent. it was a shock. all of my siblings had come home before and none of them ever had to pay a dime. my parents always prided themselves on allowing their children a chance to save up before they leave home, and i felt like i was being robbed of that opportunity. but, i had no place else to go, and paying $650 for a whole home wasn’t a terrible deal, so i agreed to it. he told my sister that it was the only way he could pay his wife’s “full rent,” and that things just work better when the man does everything for the woman. i hated knowing he put me in this predicament just to provide more for her, but whatever. i was 25 at the time, and knew it was time for adult responsibility. but then, the glaring issues with my home became apparent.
with my dad gone, there was no one to maintain the home outside of cosmetic means. i deep cleaned and decluttered, but i couldn’t do anything about the structural issues. when winter came, i found out the furnace was out by waking up to the house on 51 degrees farenheit. i was shivering and could see my breath in the front of the house. he got my brother in law to look at it, who said the furnace has been dead for years, and that my dad just relit it every day. i never knew this. i wanted to take a look, but my dad barred me from going into the attic because there were “weak points in the floor” and i could fall through if i didn’t know where to step. i made it through the whole winter, even through the snow storms and power outages that rendered my heated blanket and space heaters useless. then, all of the outlets in my room sparked out and started smoking. i asked my dad to come look at it, it took him 2 days, even though i told him it was a fire hazard. i offered to get someone to look at it and pay for it out of my rent money, he said it’d be too expensive. Then, the oven stopped working. The roof began leaking. The animal scratches in the attic worsened. The dishwasher and fridge began pouring water. The house had deteriorated so quickly over just a few months, as if only upheld by my dad’s constant maintenance. I also dealt with spider and cockroach infestations due to the wood at the back door rotting away, causing a huge gap to the outside. Every time i offered to pay to get someone to fix these things, he would tell me he would do it for free. I trusted him because he is my dad and has always been trustworthy.
Fastfoward to recently, I begin hearing scratches near the washing machine. At first it sounds like it’s running on its own, I later identify it as animal scratches. I figure just like in the attic, it’ll go away. Then after a few days, I start smelling a putrid smell. I recognize immediately that whatever was stuck has died. The smell takes over the entire house. I ask my dad to see about it, he says he’ll come the next day (even though he was already at the house). The smell begins to make me physically ill, every time I’m home I have a headache and am nauseous. I tell him I’m calling an exterminator and paying for the service out of my rent money. He says he’ll come. He comes, can’t find the animal, but tells me I’m exaggerating and it doesn’t smell that bad. I wake up the next morning to maggots all over the floor. The exterminators come, unfortunately they can’t find the animal either but suggest it could be in the walls. Then, they give me the rundown of the house. I’m mortified to find out that there is a literal ecosystem existing in my attic. They found mice, rat, squirrel, and raccoon droppings. They found active bird nests and wasp nests. They also showed me pictures of multiple gaping holes big enough for anything to come through. They then tell me, off the record, that it’s dire that I get the wood replaced because it’s turned soft, and that they fear the house could collapse in an event of extreme weather (which has been more frequent lately). As if this wasn’t horrifying news enough, I had my father on the phone the entire time, in which he states he was aware of all of this, and had “someone” he was going to send out to come see about the issues. I shut down. He knew about all of this and not only refused to discuss it with me, but still required me to pay to live there knowing the house was garbage. Meanwhile, things he told me about his new wife started to creep back up, like how the house wasn’t good enough for her, and how wonderful her house was… how was this house not good enough for her but good enough for his own daughter? if not daughter, then paying tenant? My savings is basically depleted after purchasing items for my classroom (I’m a teacher), and it’ll take me five months to build it back up to $10k if I stop paying rent and live on a tight budget. Then I’m gone, leaving this house and no longer dealing with my dad in this way.
My issue is, right now, I can hardly look at him. The anger and frustration i feel is overwhelming. I can’t eat anything because i feel like all the food from my house tastes like the raid I used on the maggots. My mother would’ve never let me live like this. I feel like he has completely abandoned this side of the family completely. I’ve been praying for compassion for him, but it’s so hard. What should i do? How do I heal from this? i don’t want to hate my dad.

2 comments
  1. Sounds pretty messed up but sounds like you’re being forced a harsh lesson to undertake new responsibilities which will make you less co-dependent (or ideally, completely independent) from your father. At least you have a house to yourself that you can learn to fix. Some people don’t even have that!

  2. I have no words, I am sorry for what you are going through. Sorry ti say, but your dad doesn’t care what happens to you he just care for his new gf. I would have a sit down with your dad and get everything out of your chest, tell him how you feel. If he keeps telling you that you are exaggerating, you are selfish and some other bs, it’s time to start looking somewhere else to live and cut your dad out of your life. Whoever start to say that you are too codependent or you need to be independent and do things by yourself they are sort of right, but parents that truly care about love their children would never do what your dad did. Even my alcoholic dad cared for me and helped me when I needed. My ex-father in-law stills calls me to see if I need help with things around the house or my car. You deserve better.

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