For some, houseplants are just a decoration to liven up a room, but for others, they replace pets and are valued possessions like rare items in a collection as some plants have not only high emotional value, but monetary too.
So you can imagine how upset a plant lover who doesn’t shy away from spending some money to buy a rarer plant reacted when they came home to find their plants totally destroyed. Not only that, but it was done by a person who they trusted.
It happened to Reddit user plantmomaita who shared her frustration on the internet and asked people if she overreacted by banning the people who clipped her plants from entering her home and for not wanting to see them ever again.
More info: Reddit
This woman entrusted her plants to her niece and SIL while she was away and when she returned, she regretted ever doing that
Image credits: F. D. Richards (not the actual photo)
The Original Poster (OP) got into plants a long time ago and now has a collection of 35 plants that she really loves. She shares this interest with her 14-year-old niece Jenny, who helps with taking care of them.
So when plantmomaita had to go on a 2-week-long work trip, she didn’t have to search far to find a plantsitter and asked Jenny and her mom, the OP’s sister-in law. The plant owner promised not only money for this job, but also a few cuttings, which is also a valuable payment as some of the OP’s plants are not just common flowers which you can buy at every plant shop.
The OP really loves plants and has a collection of 35 that are quite rare and some of them are expensive
Image credits: plantmomaita
When she had to go on a work trip, she turned to her niece to ask her to take care of her plants as they both shared an interest in this hobby
Image credits: plantmomaita
SIL and niece agreed, so plantmomaita gave them some instructions that they had to follow and answered some questions about the value of some of those plants. At this point the OP didn't think that was a weird question, but knowing what happened next, it should have alerted her.
Two weeks pass by and plantmomaita returned to her plants well watered and getting the right amount of light, so they were not dying, but had quite drastic haircuts that could be helped with generous watering the following week.
Image credits: plantmomaita
The OP didn't expect to return to her houseplants having some drastic 'haircuts' with only a few leaves left on some of them
Image credits: plantmomaita
The OP names some of the plants that she felt heartbroken for, like her Cebu blue pothos mother plant, manjula pothos, string of pearls, hard-to-find string Of hearts, and one of the rarest succulent plants on the planet, ruby necklace. She was probably taking care of these plants for quite a while to reach the desired shape and size and it's quite upsetting that someone thought they could just ruin all that hard work and love that was put in.
But the one that really threw her over the edge was her pink princess philodendron that was reduced to only two leaves and her albo monstera, which now had three leaves. These two plants are considered to be rare and are expensive.
The plant lover later added more information in the comments and said that the niece knew how precious these plants were for her as she saw how she took the albo monstera from a node with no leaves to a flourishing beauty. She also found out that it was initially Jenny’s idea to take some cuttings, but SIL joined later and that her first target was the pink princess, which the niece was aware she was not going to get.
Image credits: plantmomaita
So when the niece and SIL came to return the keys, she gave them a piece of her mind and demanded they return all the clippings
Image credits: plantmomaita
The woman broke down and lashed out at her niece and SIL when they came to give her back the apartment keys. Apparently, Jenny didn’t think her aunt would make such a big deal of it as she had already promised some cuttings. But the aunt was convinced that the teenager knew how to tell apart just a cutting and the destruction of a plant.
The plant owner demanded that Jenny return the plants she stole, but when she heard the answer, she realized that the SIL and Jenny thought this through and didn’t violate her plants by accident. Turns out, they couldn’t return the plants as they had already sold them.
Turns out, they couldn't as they'd sold most of them, which indicated to the OP that they were aware of what they were doing
Image credits: plantmomaita
What is more, they told her brother, the SIL’s husband, that she gave them permission to take the plants. In one of the comments she mentioned that her brother noticed that they were bringing quite a lot of plants, but he didn’t think much of it as they said that they were allowed to do that.
The brother felt kind of bad, because he brought what was left unsold and apologized for his wife’s and daughter’s behavior, but he didn’t understand how plantmomaita could tell family members to rot in hell.
SIL's husband, OP's brother, was more compassionate but thought that the woman should have let it go as they all are family
Image credits: plantmomaita
The woman doesn't want to see her SIL or niece in her house or be in the same room with them and is asking if she's being too dramatic
Image credits: plantmomaita
As she was the only one feeling that this was totally wrong to do and had the right to be angry, she brought the matter to the Reddit court. So the judges decided that the niece and SIL maliciously destroyed the plants and knew what they were doing as they were aware of the value of the plants and, as the OP later revealed, had been sneakily cutting the plants even prior to this incident.
What is your verdict? Do you think the OP overreacted as it was just plants and family is more important? Or do you agree with other redditors who think that this was malicious behavior from her SIL and her niece who didn’t consider the plant lover’s feelings and wanted to take advantage of her plants to earn money? Let us know in the comments!
People in the comments believe that the OP has the right to be angry and she was taken advantage of
