House-sitting job leaves friend livid

Dear Amy: My partner and I are currently house and dog sitting for my parents.

We asked our friend to watch our own house while we are gone.

We just moved into this house recently. We managed to clean the house up and make it presentable, except for the kitchen. We ran out of time and left clean dishes in the dishwasher and some dirty dishes in the sink.

Our trash can was also full (trash day was the day after we left), so there were two bags of non-food trash by the back door.

Obviously, we’ve come to realize that we are the jerks in this situation. We know we should have left a clean house.

Our friend is absolutely livid. She went off on my partner via text. I followed up with her a couple of days later with an apology and an offer to pay her for her time.

I said I was aware that paying her wasn’t going to fix the problem, and the offer of payment was to be in addition to the face-to-face conversation she requested when we return.

It was clear by her response that she was still super-angry.

Personally, I think that being this angry about some dirty dishes after a week might be overreacting, but I can’t be sure because I’m feeling so defensive about it.

I don’t know what this face-to-face conversation is going to look like. If she intends to chew us out, I might dissociate and look like I don’t care. How do I ask her to keep her temper down?

Dirty House Owner

Dear Owner: Tell her, “We appreciate what you are doing and we feel terrible about the condition of the house. Everything got away from us at the last minute and we’re so sorry. How are things going now? Do you have any questions?”

If you have already offered to pay her, follow through. A gift box of goodies sent to her attention and delivered to the house might go the rest of the way to respond to her disappointment.

After this effort, you should assume that you have cleaned up your mess from a distance. She will either accept this, forgive you, and move on — or she won’t. She doesn’t get to hold you hostage over this mistake.

“Dissociating” during a conversation should not be an option for you. Take this out of your playbook.

Ask Amy,

P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. e-mail: askamy@tribune.com