Teenagers ... what happened?

[Finaddict]

I believe Spence ran a thred on this a while back, but I need to vent myself ... so we have two teenagers in the house - 16 year old girl and 19 year old boy ... kids from Julie's first marraige ...they're both pretty good with our two-year old daughter, but it pretty much stops there ...

... I don't where these kids were raised or what they are thinking or not thinking about ... they're messy, never pick anything up unless you ride them about it, leave crap all over the place, excessively wasteful ... here's another example, Julie and I got home from a vacation last week ... it had snowed while we were away, the 19 yr old boy, who moved in with us from his father's in Illinois last summer did not do any shoveling (he's lived in snow during the winter for his entire life), and he did not take the garbage down the curb so we missed the pickup for that week by one day ... the sidewalk became a sheet of ice over an inch thick ...

... so I say to him ... "Boy, I do me a favor and be a little proactive on projects around the house, especially when your mother and I are away ... for instance, if it snows, get the shovel and clear the sidewalk, etc., and on trash day, take the trash out if we are not here and if you see the garbage cans on the sidewalk after they are emptied, please bring them up"

... his response was ... "I didn't know we had a shovel, and what day is trash day?" first of all, what the heck is he thinking, who doesn't have a snow shovel, did he bother looking for one in the basement? No, and as for trash day, there have been about a dozen times when he helped me take the trash down to the curb ... and the funny thing is it is always on the same day of the week, funny huh?

So, I can't be too caustic and obnoxious about it as I don't want to hurt Julie's feelings, but her kids are lazy pieces of garbage ... I'm ready to kick the 19 year old out ... the things asked of him are easy and pretty mindless ...

... am I expecting too much? He lives here rent free and doesn't have to pay for food ... his life is pretty damn easy right now ... spent the entire summer living off of Julie and I, mostly me ... but I don't want to be too hard on him as he is only a kid ... is that too soft?