I think for a long time he just wasn't getting what I was saying. So basically I had to get after him to get after her. But once we were finally able to get to the point where the room was clean, he seemed to be on board with making her keep it that way. This summer, I've given her one chore to do each day that she's here. Well, actually, I tell him what the chore is and he tells her, because I'm gone all day at work. Until last week, he worked all night shifts and he was off work on the days she was here. Unfortunately, his employer just changed his schedule, so we haven't worked it all out yet. Today was a day she was SUPPOSED to leave here and go to mom's house. But she was told she had to get this stuff done before she left. Last week, we were both at work and she left the house without doing it. This week, I just happened to be off (summer job ended and school hasn't started yet), so she couldn't just slink out the door so easily. Instead, she created a huge, ugly drama to get out of doing basic chores.

He will usually back up what I say, but he isn't much of an enforcer. And I know there are times when he wishes I would just let things go to keep the peace. I've told him that everybody backed down every time his son threw a tantrum, so the kid thinks that's the way to get out of anything they find unpleasant. I do have a rule about her only eating and drinking in the dining room, which she hates. The rule has only applied to the kids and not to the adults. But there is good reason for that. Neither of these kids will use a damn napkin and they think it's okay to wipe their greasy hands on the furniture!!! I told her she can eat in the living room when she learns how to use a napkin and clean up after herself. So far, that hasn't happened and it's been a rule for about three years. Also, no food or drink upstairs. The stuff I found up there was appalling! And I found some of my silverware in her bedroom garbage can! Unbelievable!

Honestly, I would be thrilled if she went to live with her mom. This split custody thing doesn't work well because the mom is unwilling to have any meaningful communication and she's told my fiance when they divorced years ago that she doesn't want to co-parent with him. So the girl basically lives in two very different households with very different rules and expectations. How is that supposed to work? I think it would devastate him if she moved out. And unless something has changed, I don't think her mother wants her to be at her house full time.

By the way, when the ss moved in full time with his mom and step dad last year, I really wondered how that would go. Well, a few months ago, he threw one of his tantrums and it turned into something physical between him and the step dad. Nobody was hurt, but apparently, that was the last straw. The step dad moved out and they are divorcing. I have a sneaking suspicion that the sd was trying to bait me today to make it turn physical, in hopes that she might get the same result here and I would move out. There is no way I would put a hand on her. She was also screaming at me that I kicked her brother out and now I was kicking her out. Neither of those things are true, but I will admit that I was very happy and relieved when her brother moved out.

I know he thinks I don't try hard enough to get along with her and it makes him sad that she knows I don't like her. I try very hard to be tolerant of her, but I cannot fake love and affection. I have asked him at times if me being here has made his relationship with her more difficult and if my presence is causing him too much stress. He says no and that he would have lost his mind trying to deal with her if I wasn't here. So, I don't know. Here we are in teenage hell.

I love the idea of depositing the sheets at her mother's doorstep! That's beautiful! LOL! I'm definitely getting a waterproof pad to put on her mattress. Those sheets are still in my washer. Since I have to do my laundry today, I have to decide what to do with them. She won't be back here until Wednesday.

Tog, I see what you're saying about me creating the drama. I know if I had just let her walk out the door and let her dad figure out the consequences later, all of her screaming, name calling, and throwing of things could have been avoided. I would not have spent my evening feeling completely drained with a pounding head. My fiance and I talked about this late last night and again this morning, and I told him that I wondered if that would have been a better decision on my part. But we both agreed that she gets away with this stuff over and over again because she goes to her mother's house. He had a big argument with her a week or two ago (I'm losing track of time with all this stuff) because she wouldn't clean up after herself. While he's trying to get her to do what she's supposed to do, mom shows up to pick her up to take her to dinner and a concert. So, she was free to argue with her dad and not clean up her mess, and she was rewarded with dinner and a concert with mom. And since it was mom's time to have her (they have a set schedule) there wasn't much he could do about it at the time. However, when she got back here days later, everything she'd left laying on her bedroom floor was gone. That's the consequence she's been warned of over and over. If the room isn't picked up before she leaves for mom's house, anything left on the floor will be gone when she returns. That's what she was so flipped out about yesterday. She realized that the stuff she hadn't taken care of was gone.

This morning, he suggested that when she gets back here, he's going to take her phone (not fully confident that will happen) and shut down the wifi until her room is put back together. From now on, when she goes back to mom's house, we aren't going to say anything about her room, since she already knows the rule and the consequences. Once she's gone, we will disappear anything she hasn't cleaned up. And we will do this every time until she finally gets it. No more arguing with her, at least about that.

In addition, he sent an email to her mother, asking for a face-to-face meeting to discuss what is going on with this girl. He told her he thinks it's really important that we try to get on the same page with this stuff. Her therapist said we should at least try to get agreement in both households that she will have reasonable chores to do on a regular basis. So far, that's only happening in this house. It's unlikely that she will even respond to his email, let alone meet with him. But miracles sometimes happen.

For the foreseeable future, I'm going to try to make the transition day (when she comes from mom's house to our house) a day that I'm not here. That can be time when she and her father are here together without me. Then I can also miss the homework war, at least for one night. I don't think there should be any more days coming up where she and I are here alone. If that should randomly happen, I will just head over to my daughter's house for a visit.

Thanks, everyone! This is so helpful!

Yeah, but I'm living in the house with this problem. As adults, my kids are now thanking me for the things I made them do when they were younger. And believe me, we had our share of battles. This new situation is so weird to me because my kids never had the option of running away to the other parent's house. My ex and I didn't split until they were nearly grown. And I was the child of MULTIPLE divorces. I had three different step-dads, although I was out of the house by the time my mom married her current husband. Still, there was no running to the other parent's house for me.

I'm baffled by this woman's unwillingness to communicate for the good of her kids. It seems to me that for shared custody to really work, there has to be communication. You are probably right that SD will stop coming around at some point, at least until mom gets a new man in her life.

Oh, I'm already the evil step mother who stole her father away from her. He and I were friends for some years before we became a couple and I got along well with his kids. Everything changed as soon as we were under one roof. I immediately became the enemy. I wouldn't have been so blindsided by this if I hadn't had a good relationship with them beforehand.

Also, it quickly became clear that although my fiance and I had been close friends and we had a lot in common, our children were raised very differently. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that when he was married to their mother, he worked three jobs so she could be home with the kids. These kids had zero boundaries. They thought nothing of going through my stuff and messing with whatever they wanted. They left their crap everywhere and couldn't even manage to put their dishes in the dishwasher. At first, I became indignant. But then I realized that they'd clearly never been given any reasonable boundaries and no one had really taught them to clean up after themselves. So, I started trying to do that as nicely as I could manage. We did reach a point where dishes went into the dishwasher, book bags usually went to bedrooms, and shoes went on the shoe rack. My mantra was that they should never leave work for others that they could do for themselves. It helped that I have a dog who will eat anything that's not put away. Leave your book bag out and he will go through it and eat all your paper. Leave something on the table and he will take care of it for you. But that's a whole other story. LOL. Also, they learned to stop touching what was mine. Like, do not touch my laptop or my kindle, do not go into my jewelry box, and do not use my towel that's hanging in the bathroom. They seemed to deeply resent the fact that everything that was in this house wasn't theirs for the taking. Even these simple things were not easy, but we got there with much grumbling.

Now the big issues are her poor hygiene and the state of her room. We have a very small house. She is quite challenged in the areas of organization and time management. She needs a clear space to study in. Since we got the room under control this summer, we are trying to get her to keep it that way for the school year. Since she's supposed to pick it up weekly, it's really a very small task. And nobody is expecting perfection.

We've at least reached an enforceable agreement about how to handle the room situation. The hygiene thing is something else entirely. And it's just too gross for me to ignore. Let me tell you, the day the dirty tampon was left on the side of the tub, I walked into the bathroom without my glasses on. I was about to get in the shower, when I saw something sitting there. I reached over and picked it up before I realized what it was. Can you imagine how I felt when I realized what it was?? I wanted to walk into her room and throw it in her face, but I didn't.

I don't expect that she's going to turn into a nice, easy-going person. That's not her personality. I also don't expect that we will ever have any kind of close relationship. My best hope is that it will become what it is with her brother, now that he no longer lives here. We are cordial when we see each other. That's as good as it gets and I'm fine with that. I worry about what it will do to her dad if she does end up going to her mom's full-time and she stops talking to him. He is aware of that possibility. It's very distressing. I have days that I'm fine and days that I want to run screaming out the door. I've stopped hiding in my room because I realized if I don't hide in mine, she will hide in hers. That works for me!

You're right. She's never going to listen to me. Here's how I silently fixed the towel thieving situation. I simply removed our towels from the bathroom. The kids would get out of the shower, dripping wet, reach for a towel and get nothing. Eventually, they learned to bring their own damn towel into the bathroom. My hope is that we can work out the bedroom situation in a similar manner. I'm not saying another word. If she leaves her stuff on the floor, it will be gone when she returns. Hopefully, she will learn to quit leaving her stuff all over the floor. If not, her room will eventually be empty and that will also solve the problem. I'm done with arguing with her about it.

I agree that an EOWE situation would be better for all of us. I don't think DH is able to see that, at least not yet. And I'm definitely not going to promote that idea. He needs to get there on his own. For now, I'm going to enjoy the half time that she's not here and try to stay clear of her when she is.

DH spoke with her mother last night. I didn't think that would actually happen. According to her, she IS making sd clean her room before she leaves her house to come here, and she's giving her additional chores. She made it sound like we are on the same page and, if sd is telling us otherwise, she's lying. She said she's completely on board with getting rid of anything she leaves on her bedroom floor when she goes from one house to the other. I'm not sure I totally believe her, but I suppose it's more likely that she is telling the truth than sd.

I know what you mean about just throwing the stuff in her room and closing the door. That's what I did with ss when he was here and it's what I've tried to do with her. It was not a good scene when we had to go into her brother's room after he moved out. UGH! And when her room got so out of control and stinky that I went in there, I was completely disgusted by the amount of rotten food, old pads, bloody and shitty underwear,etc., that I became determined to not let that happen again. I cannot live with that much disgusting stuff under my roof. Plus, she was throwing away my silverware and bowls! The only way I can be sure that's not all buried under everything else she leaves laying around is to make sure there's nothing laying around. This way, she has an uncluttered space to study in and I won't be seething with anger and resentment over the filth. Either she puts it away or she doesn't have it. End of story. My kids had messy rooms. I don't normally think of a messy teenager's room as a big deal. But there's a difference between messy and disgusting.

I'm not sure if I said this before or not. I'm going to try to start spending my Wednesday evenings at my daughter's house. That is sd's transition day from her mom's house to ours. She can spend that evening alone with her dad and I will have the evening with my daughter. If my daughter is unavailable, I will go to the library or something. I think that will work better for everyone involved. I really hate being here on Wednesdays.

One thing I know for sure, once the school year starts I'll be way too busy and exhausted to give much time or energy to this situation.

I'm missing a few things, but I'm not yet ready to accuse her. I remember another step mom telling me to hide anything I care about, in order to avoid a bad situation.

She's supposed to be back at our place this evening until Monday. I am filled with dread. Her dad asked her if she wanted to go visit with her grandfather for a night. She asked if she could take her friend along. He told her he's not inclined to allow any sleepovers after her last outburst. She got nasty and said she's not coming back to our house. He contacted her mother, who promised to explain the custody situation to her. Then the mother offered for him to come to her house to have a talk with sd. That's way out of character for her. Not sure if it's good or bad, but it's supposed to happen later today. Meanwhile, I will be spending the evening at my daughter's house.