Man fires nanny for sneaking into his bedroom and 'trying to play wife.' AITA?
Mary Poppins got a little too comfortable.
One man wrote to Reddit about his nanny secretly using his bathroom and finding things moved around in his bedroom. He confronted her about it and fired her. His friends say he overreacted but Reddit says she was definitely trying to 'play wife.'
"AITAH for firing the nanny because she keeps using my bathroom?"
I (31M) have a daughter (1). I’m a single dad so I hired a live in nanny (Emma, 27) to help take care of my daughter when I’m at work. When Emma moved in, I told her to please not enter my room and bathroom unless it was necessary. I didn’t want to look like a douche by locking my doors so I just asked her to not enter my room.
I started realizing that Emma would shower in my bathroom. I would come home and the floor of the shower would be wet and some stuff would be out of place. I’m a neat guy so I know I didn’t leave my sink like that, and water from my morning shower usually dries by the time I get home.
About 2 months ago, I get home and there’s lady toiletries in my toilet. I mean I knew that Emma had been using my bathroom but it hadn’t hit me till then. I left my room and asked her if her bathroom works ok, if the shower is fine and all. She said yeah it’s fine.
I asked why she had been using mine then. She looked at me without answering for a few seconds then said “sorry, I won’t do it again”. I accepted that and told her to let me know if there’s something she wants changed or fixed in her bathroom and we’ll get to it.
2 days later, there were again lady toiletries in my toilet, and a wet shower floor, again. At this point I got very agitated. She had gone to bed by the time I noticed so I asked her about it the next morning before I left for work.
I asked her why she had used my bathroom again if there’s nothing wrong with her bathroom. She said the same thing she said before “sorry, I won’t do it again”. I told her frankly if she enters my room or bathroom without a good reason again, I’m not going to be willing to have her in my home anymore and we can cancel the contract.
Things were fine for a while after that. I thought of just locking my door but I wanted to see if she’d actually keep her word and not enter my room or bathroom again. She didn’t go back in (from what I could tell) so it was fine.
On Saturday, I took my daughter to the park and the plan was to run my errands after that but my daughter got really fussy so we just came back home. When we walked through the door, I heard a door shut upstairs, footsteps, then another door opening and closing.
I thought maybe she had gone to my daughter's room for something but when I entered my room, there was an empty coffee mug on my bedside table. It wasn’t mine.
Nothing else was out of place or weird but that was evidence enough that she had been in my room again. I asked her why she had been in my room this time. She didn’t say anything and just stared at me.
I said I’ve had enough of her not following a very simple rule and I don’t want to be uncomfortable in my own home because of her. I said we will cancel the contract and I will pay her the fee for that.
She didn’t argue with me or defend herself. I told my two friends what happened because I asked them to help me find a new nanny. They laughed and asked if I’m seriously firing her over something like that.
They said she didn’t steal anything or do anything terrible so it’s stupid for me to have fired her. I thought I was totally justified but they’ve made me rethink it a bit now. AITAH?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
It sounds like she’s convinced herself that there’s more to this than a live-in job. Sounds a bit unhinged tbh.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking this. It's like the nanny wants to pretend to be the wife. Damn romance novels giving people the permission to be creepy.
I would have fired her the 2nd time though lol. One warning, then you're out. She is almost 30 years old, she knows she is doing wrong.
Yeah, she seems to have caught an unhealthy obsession with OP, and used his rooms to feel close to him and pretend she is more than the nanny. I hope OP is in the clear now, and she'll stop stalking him now that she is out.
My wild brain tells me she’s pretending to be your wife in her little fantasy world.
Check your bedroom or bathroom for cameras.
NTA; this isn't ' oh the Nanny let the kid watch TV for 4 hours instead of 2' or ' oh Nanny gave the kid a piece of chocolate when the kid isn't allowed any candy' sort of rule break; you set a part of the house as off limits for privacy reasons and she invaded your privacy multiple times.
This is a straight up breach of trust and privacy on her part and super weird tbh; any time I've watched a kid I avoid the parents' room like it has cooties unless I'm forced to chase a shit gremlin in there for a game or because children are awful, there's no reason she should be using your personal shower or be in your bed??