AITA for not getting rid of my cats after a hurricane?

A Reddit user (25F) offered shelter to friends during Hurricane Beryl and allowed them to bring their pets, despite her own two cats being present. One of her friends, Joe (25M), is allergic to cats but chose to stay and insisted he was fine, even after being offered to have her cat locked away.

Later, at a BBQ, Joe’s girlfriend, Emily (mid-20s), became upset, accusing the host of being cruel for not locking her cats away and putting Joe at risk. Read on to find out how this situation escalated and how the host handled the situation.

‘ AITA for not getting rid of my cats after a hurricane?’

In July hurricane Beryl came through and I (f,25) miraculously never lost power. Because of this I kept my door open to my friends and their family who were less lucky. I had no issue until my friend who we‘ll call Joe (m, 25) came with his gf Emily (f, mid 20s).

I have two cats, an older cat who stayed under my bed the whole time and a 1 year old who loves people. My cat was out and about giving kisses and jumping from lap lap but if you pushed her off she was good about just moving on. This became an issue as Joe is allergic to cats, runny nose and red itchy eyes type of allergic.

He didn’t bring this up until I noticed him avoiding my cat and asked if he was ok which is when he told me but that he didn’t want to be a bother. That he ‘knew I had cats and still made the choice to take up my offer.‘ I told him it was no bother and offered meds and to lock my cat in my bedroom.

Joe insisted it would be fine just as long as she ‘wasn’t crawling all over him.’ The rest of the people over kept her occupied and Joe just has a few sniffles. I offered a few more times to lock up my cat but he insisted it was fine and I had already done enough.

Emily was quiet and made no effort to keep my cat away from Joe if she came near. Fast forward and I was at a BBQ with Emily and Joe. The topic of Beryl comes up and Joes makes a joke about how thanks to me the hardest part for him was ‘having a cute cat right in front of him that he wasn’t allowed to pet.‘ Emily is glaring a he says it.

Someone asks if she’s ok and she just goes off on me. That I was ‘cruel to force Joe into an allergic reaction when they were all already suffering‘ that ‘I didn’t even care about helping people since I was so willing to put someone between being out during a hurricane or anaphylactic.‘

Joe is standing there with a look I could only describe as gobsmacked. Another friend mentions that I offered to lock my cat in my bedroom multiple times and that Joe insisted it was fine.

At this Emily starts again that of course he did because ‘who would tell me to lock my cat up when I was already helping them and that I should never have even asked and put him that situation.

That the gracious thing would have been to just lock both my cats in my car while everyone was over.‘ At the idea of locking my cats in my car post hurricane my heart sinks and everyone gets more upset at Emily resulting in a huge back and forth.

One friend accuses Emily of ‘not doing anything to help Joe’ and that she could have asked me to lock the cat up if she felt that strongly. She shot back that shouldn’t have had to because she ‘wasn’t the host and I should have been more respectful and on top of things like that.’

After a few minutes Joe snaps out of his apparent shock and drags Emily away apologizing for her and insisting that he had no issue, it wasn’t that serious and is still grateful. Emily finally leaves but yells out again how ‘cruel I was for putting my cats above everyone else in need.’

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

Studious_Noodle −  Keep your cats in your house.. Keep Emily out of your house.. NTA

MyPath2Follow −  NTA. Your friend Emily sounds unhinged. You sure you guys are friends??

DustOne7437 −  NTA. I like your cats more than I like drama-queen Emily.

Affect-Hairy −  Dont worry. Youre NTA and I bet Emily wont be around much longer. Joe sounds like too good of a guy to put up with an insane gf anymore

GuyFromLI747 −  NTA .. throwing words around like anaphylactic proves how unhinged she is.. the word doesn’t think what she thinks it does..

Hello_JustSayin −  NTA. You were more than accommodating, even offering to put your cats in another room. Joe said it was unnecessary, and appears to be incredibly appreciative of you. Emily is the AH for spitting on your generosity, inserting herself where she doesn’t belong, and for even thinking that locking cats in a car is in any way acceptable.

RevolutionaryBuy5282 −  NTA. Emily’s embellishment of Joe’s allergic reaction and her solution don’t match up. If his symptoms were *that* severe (“anaphylactic shock”), you’d need to also have a HEPA filter set up and had meticulously vacuumed and washed the rugs, blankets, and pillows in the common area beforehand.

Removing the cat or limiting direct contact is usually a suitable solution for moderate allergies, but risk of anaphylactic shock would mean full decontamination is necessary and most allergic folks know to ask ahead of time, assess risk, and prepare if their allergy is that severe.

ZealousidealArt6216 −  Hello! Thank you for all your comments. Some great points have been made that I really appreciate the perspective of. I just want to clarify a few repeated questions I’ve seen. 1. Joe and Emily haven’t been staying with me since the hurricane.

They were here for probably half the day to clean up and charge their phones. They were able to find another fiend who had a generator and no cats and went to stay with them once the roads were clear enough for travel put of our part of town.

Both of their placed took minimal damage and once power was restored they were able to go back to their respective homes.
2. Looking back I realize now how obvious the issue with Emily is but what she said really affected me and I spent a night basically g**lighting myself over the situation that she was right lol

3. I don’t think Joe would talk badly about me behind my back to her, he seemed genuinely surprised by her outburst but I have asked to see him tomorrow and am planning to discuss if he felt uncomfortable asking me to remove my cat and if there are other issues at play with Emily.

milosmum25 −  So I would be Joe in this situation, and I have been in this situation multiple times, minus the hurricane. Honestly the cat isn’t the problem, the house is. This is not to say you are unclean but the cat lives there, the house is covered in cat.

Removing the cat would have made zero difference. His gf sounds unhinged. I will always live with my allergy, I never ask someone to remove their pet because of my allergy, and if I can remove myself from the situation I do as that’s the only way to address it. You did nothing wrong.

owls_and_cardinals −  NTA, you did nothing wrong. You were gracious and welcoming, you offered multiple times to take further action to provide Joe space from the cats.

IDK what Emily’s problem is but if Joe is this gracious and unbothered by it all, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Her perspective is extremely unreasonable, and her treatment of you rude and unnecessary.

Do you think the host was in the wrong for not locking her cats away despite Joe’s allergy, or was she reasonable in offering options and letting Joe make the call? How would you have handled this situation? Share your thoughts below!