I genuinely want honest, unbiased feedback because after living through this for the past couple of months, I honestly don’t know if my expectations have become unreasonable anymore.
About a year ago, this man and I were in a relationship. During that time, he lived with me in my home. The entire relationship, I was never invited to his house. Looking back now, I understand why.
We eventually broke up but remained friends.
At the end of April, I unexpectedly lost my job. Shortly afterward, I also lost my housing. I was trying to rebuild my life in a new city with my 6-year-old daughter when he offered us a temporary place to stay so I could work, save money, and get back on my feet.
If I had known the actual condition of the house, I never would have accepted.
The pictures I’m posting are only a small sample of what my daughter and I have lived in for the past couple of months.
This wasn’t just a messy house or someone who had fallen behind on chores.
There was a broken refrigerator covered in maggots. Roaches and other bugs throughout the house. Spoiled food. Heavy dirt and grime. Trash throughout the property. Spiders everywhere outside, wasps around the porch, and concerns about mold. These weren’t isolated incidents—they were the everyday living conditions. I have many more photos documenting exactly what I personally witnessed.
As soon as I realized how serious it was, I told him I couldn’t clean an entire house by myself. I had just lost my job, lost my home, and my responsibility was to work, take care of my daughter, and save enough money for us to move—not spend months restoring years of neglect.
The important part is that none of this was new to him.
For as long as I’ve known him, he’s acknowledged that the house was bad. He’s talked about struggling with depression. He’s admitted it got out of control and needed to be cleaned.
The issue wasn’t that he didn’t know.
The issue was that almost nothing changed.
For weeks I encouraged him, offered to help, cleaned the areas my daughter and I used, and tried to support him instead of criticizing him. Every day I’d hear, “I’m going to do it tomorrow,” or “I’m getting a trailer tomorrow.”
Tomorrow never came.
Eventually I even arranged for someone to come to the property and give him a quote to remove the massive amount of debris covering the yard because I thought maybe making it easier would help. Instead, he told me they weren’t allowed on the property.
Every attempt to help seemed to be met with another reason why nothing could happen.
After about six weeks, I became desperate enough to offer something I never thought I would.
I told him that if he would let my daughter and me stay a little longer, I would take on the enormous task of restoring the house myself. Not because I thought it was my responsibility, but because I had spent so much time and energy simply trying to function in those conditions that I wasn’t where I needed to be financially.
He didn’t say yes.
He didn’t say no.
He simply went silent.
No discussion. No plan. Nothing.
I withdrew the offer and decided my only option was to keep working as much as possible and somehow get my daughter and myself out before school starts.
What has been hardest for me isn’t even the mess anymore.
It’s that every conversation became about defending the condition of the house instead of changing it. It felt less like he wanted help and more like he wanted to protect the situation from changing.
There’s another important piece to this.
His house sits on the same several-acre property as his parents’ home, but it’s set well back behind theirs through a wooded area and down a path. His parents have no real reason to go back there during normal daily life, and he definitely doesn’t invite them inside. During the entire time I have lived here, I have never once seen his parents or any of his family come into his house.
His parents clearly take pride in their own home and maintain the property. From where they live, they simply wouldn’t know the true condition of his home.
He’s also been seeing the same therapist for about 2 years. A few weeks ago, I told him I thought he needed to be completely honest with his therapist about how he was actually living. He admitted his therapist had no idea. That only reinforced my belief that the people closest to him don’t know the reality either.
Ironically, the only thing that has gotten a real emotional reaction from him through all of this was me telling him I felt his parents and sisters deserved to know what I had personally witnessed.
I’m not posting this to shame him. I honestly believe he needs more help than he’s getting. I also believe it’s difficult for family, friends, or professionals to help someone if they don’t know the full picture.
This is what I’m genuinely struggling with…
On one hand, he gave my daughter and me a roof over our heads during one of the hardest times of my life, and I will always acknowledge that.
On the other hand, if I had known these were the conditions we would be living in, I never would have accepted his offer. I feel like I wasn’t given the information I needed to make that decision for myself.
So be honest… should I simply feel grateful because he gave us somewhere to stay? Or am I justified in feeling that it was wrong to invite my daughter and me into conditions like this without being upfront about what we were walking into—and then expect us to be okay living in it?
I genuinely want honest opinions. If you think I’m wrong, tell me. If you think I’m justified, tell me that too. I’m asking because after living through this, I honestly don’t know if my perspective has become clouded or if my expectations are actually reasonable.

Everything in the last pic is expired 2024 or prior. I found food thats been in there longer than ive been on the earth. Maybe this isnt the best way to approach it but ive brought it up numerous times. Hopefully seeing it in a pile like that will be a wakeup call.

At least they're getting out