Ok, the kid officially lost our house key, and we found two balled up towels hidden in the corner of the bedroom closet where he slept. And I know with 100% certainty those were not there when we left. Ugh.
Oh, gross.
Yup, straight into the wash those went!
" Mom still refers to her 21, 20 and 16 year old sons’ bad behavior as being naughty.The boy goes to college but still lives at home and shares a bedroom with his two younger brothers."
It sounds like he probably hasn’t had the chance to “grow” up. I kind of feel sorry for him.
Burn the towels…they have DNA on them.
The “lost” key would worry me, given his lack of discretion. And I am not inclined to be fearful. If he really cannot produce the key, I would consider changing the locks. He might have “friends” with the same sense of humor as cobrat.
I would worry about whether they took decent care of the dog. Was he left holding it for hours, poor thing? At least he survived the experience with no apparent damage. 
Shares the room with 2 brothers - could be filled with towels!
From the title I thought this was going to be a “Mrs. Robinson” situation in reverse. Disappointed.
I’d have to point out to him that he was employed to care for your elderly dog. If he stayed intoxicated all weekend what was his plan if the dog had an emergency? What would he have done if the dog needed to go to the vet?
Is the dog unusually sleepy? Our elderly dog (avatar) would have made it her business to stay up and monitor the party. It would have exhausted her as it would any 84 year old (7x12).
our dog seems fine, thankfully, and actually I wouldn’t have expected any less. This kid is not a bad kid and would never do anything to harm our dog - he has known her himself since he was a little boy. Of that I am sure. My whole issue here was frankly just the shock that a kid we felt we knew and trusted could disrespect us so. Guess we just underestimated the youthful need to have some autonomy. Live and learn. I do think it ultimately comes from the parents “infantilizing” the kids. Other mutual friends have commented on it (unsolicited ) so I know it’s not just us who have noticed it.
It is time to get new locks for all doors which the lost key opened.
^^^I just had to replace all the Schlage locks on our beach house and they cost about $40 per door, knob and deadbolt, from Home Depot. There’s a code on the box that you match so you can have all locks match. A locksmith can come to your house to rekey all the locks but I think it would cost more. For me it was a chance to upgrade from fake brass to fake nickel finishes. Yes, now I have to change the hinges.
Yes, kid sounds very immature. I would have expected/accepted this kind of behavior from an 18 yr old, but 21? Kid needs to grow up. Sorry about the key - that is worrying.
Yes, I would replace all locks that go with the “lost” key. It seems like relatively inexpensive insurance to reduce the risk of a break in. Sorry you had to have this experience. A friend had a much worse experience when she had an adult child of a friend watch her house. I don’t want to hijack this thread, but it put a pall on the relationship with the family AND particular irresponsible young adult/child and there was A LOT of damage to the house.
I’ve never had a house or pet sitter, so no experience to compare. H doesn’t like people in our home, especially if we’re not in our home. I’m not a fan of people in our home when we’re not here either.
OP, I’m sympathetic to your situation, I would be upset too. HOWEVER, I think you should be thanking your lucky stars! Parties like that can get totally out of hand quickly, and do a LOT of damage. Sounds like they were relatively respectful of your home (if not of your wishes). Plus, you actually found out about it, which the kid could’ve hidden by simply removing the trash bag. So you have the added benefit of being aware of what happened.
I’m not kidding when I say you should be grateful to have dodged a bullet here.
Also just a personal preference, but I think “touchy” situations like this should be handled either face to face, or at least on the phone, as opposed to texting. Texting is more remote and easily misinterpreted. I think I would’ve gone to the young man directly and said something like you were disappointed he thought it was okay to have a lot of people over, you thought you were clear in your expectations, etc.
So a 21 yr old was asked to house sit, was invited to help himself to food/drink, and the OP is shocked to learn the house sitter accepted that offer by drinking beer in the frig and seems to have had people over that also drank beer?
Sounds like Captain Louis Renault investigated this.
“Anyways, looting fridges of food, drink, and spirits is what one should do to one’s opponents and not-so-good friends…not longtime family friends. If he wants to loot 70+ bottles of beer or eat/drink the fridge empty…he and his friends should plan a raid on a nearby fraternity house, wedding reception of someone they don’t know/don’t like, or a political fundraiser of a politician they don’t respect.”
Time to grow up. It’s not remotely funny to “plan a raid” of a wedding reception of someone you don’t know and eat and drink their food. It’s seriously off to find that amusing.
I would not have informed the parents, though. I would have called (not texted) the young man and expressed my displeasure. Leave his parents out of it; they’re not responsible for his behavior at this age.
" Leave his parents out of it; they’re not responsible for his behavior at this age."
It sounds like the mom treats him like a kid so in some way she is responsible…
Though the main reason I started this thread was to get others’ opinion on a house sitter going against a request to not bring others into our home and whether or not to tell his parents about it, am finding it most interesting to discover the number of posters who are of the opinion that by the offer of “help yourself” to certain items in one’s home translates into “eat/drink it all.” I just mentioned that extra little annoyance as a bit of humor. I have now learned something valuable and unexpected from this thread: that I should never say “help yourself” without fully meaning it, though I myself will still adhere to never taking the last of anything in someone else’s home even if offered! Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Some people will interpret “help yourself” to mean “this is for you.” If they think that, they might not have any qualms about consuming all of it. So clarity is needed if you don’t want them to do that.
To me, the real issue here is that he knew he wasn’t supposed to have other people there, but did anyway. That’s a violation of your trust. I’d say that you had a relatively cheap opportunity to learn not to trust him in the future. Well, it’s not so cheap if you have to change your locks, but it could have been more emotionally costly if he hadn’t cared for your dog properly, or burned down your house.
I pictured that you had a few 6-packs of beer in the fridge and he and his 21 or older friends brought the other 60 bottles. Or did you have 70 plus cans/bottles and they drank them all?
I wonder what your legal liability could be if you had 70 plus cans/bottles in your home and your 21 year old house sitter invited his under 21 friends over - they drank your beer/liquor and then left in cars and caused a fatal crash.