This is what I would do:
1. Buy a water filter jug for the fridge. Then there will be no more bottle of water lying around the house.
2. Let your husband deal with sd and her hiding things. Kids get things out of proportion and perhaps at her mom’s house she would get into trouble for making a mess. If she makes a mess in front of you then help her to work out how to clear it up herself. If you discover her hiding things or covering up messes then get your husband to talk her through how she should have handled it. If it continues then encourage him to give her some consequences for covering things up and praise when she cleans things up herself or lets an adult know about a mess at an appropriate time.

You need to invest in a tap filter, or a filtered water pitcher. Plus... all that plastic. Don’t get me wrong, I think bottled waters have their place, but not in everyday home life.

Put an end to Waterbottlegate. It will make life a whole lot less stressful.

Unless your DH is on board there's no way to solve this.

Personally, in your situation I would end the purchase of individual bottles for everyone. Buy gallons or the 3-gallon containers if you must, then everyone can use regular glasses or re-usable containers and less waste. Then, if all the glasses disappear into SDs room (and they likely will) make sure your DH retrieves them every time.

I've stopped buying some things for the household that disappeared. I just don't do it any longer. If DH wants it he can buy it.

She knows she's breaking the rules that's why she hides the stuff, she never gets called out on it, so that's why it continues.

Personally I would do away with all the plastic and invest in either a filtering jug or just out of the tap if the water doesn't taste too horrible or is toxic. If they want a "water bottle" you can buy the refillable kind and let then pick out the one they want...now you will always know whose is whose.

I agree with the advice to buy larger bottles or even maybe get a water service that delivers 5 gallon jugs.

I am puzzled too regarding the "hidden bottles".. I mean, how difficult would it be for her to just dump out the half empty bottles. That's what I would do if I knew I would get crap for not finishing them...lol.

On a side note, this must be typical skid behavior. i always had to go on drink patrol after my SD's left. I also had to check the back of my car for half drank drinks or even unopened ones. (had a coke explode in the back seat and had to have upholstery cleaned).

Even the SD's realize they are bad with this.. even as adults to this day when it is their own dime paying for drinks. We were on a trip with YSD a while back and she actually finished the whole thing. She proudly pointed it out and I said... dryly.. "Ohh must be a Christmas Miracle in July".. she laughed. Honestly, it was an aggravation, but I never took it as a real personal thing. Their dad would just put the drinks in the fridge and drink them himself.. yuck for me.. but whatever if he wanted to do that.. mkay. They weren't doing it to hurt me.. just was a mental block..lol.

I am just chuckling at this because I thought my house was where water bottles go do die. Every time I look under any of the kids (bio's and steps) there are dozens. They are all over the house and it drives us crazy. I don't have an answer but I can totally relate!!

I think the buy the large bottles is a good idea. Cuts down on plastic waste too. Plus then you don't have to deal with that pesky bottle return.

Anyway, and this is just a thought, I recently started taking online parenting classes to try to help my BD with her behavior at home. I have actually learned a LOT.

One of the things I learned is that all behavior has a purpose. What stood out to me in your blog is that you perceive that SD is competing with your BS. I'm not going to pretend to be a expert in anything in the parenting realm, but I want to share this tid bit of information I inadvertently found helpful. Because like your SD my SS has a tendency to put down my BD.

They suggest something called "Mind Body and Soul Time" which sounds totally, hippy dippy wonky-ness. But what it is, is 10 minutes per day where you give the child 10 minutes of your undivided attention doing whatever they want to do, and focus fully on them. Now the STalk Disengage Tribe will probably have an aneurism over this but it's worked for me, is that I started doing Hippy Dippy time with both my BD and my SS. I'll be damned 2 weeks into this and their competitive/attention seeking/ problematic behavior has seriously reduced. It's not eliminated but in the evening when it's just them to me, is much more calm and enjoyable and I'm starting to notice more changes in their behavior that wasn't even a targeted concern for me.

I know SD isn't your kid, and all signs will point to disengagement on the grounds of the sneaky behavior, BUT perhaps these issues are paradoxical in nature and instead of withdrawing attention, we provide positive attention, in little doses and see what happens. I mean it's just 10 minutes-maybe try it with her and see if her behavior in regard to making herself seem better than your BS stops.

I think her hiding them was just her being lazy more than her being sneaky. If she were being sneaky about it she'd just dump out the rest before getting another. I think your son leaving half of a bottle behind is lazy also.

I'm not attacking either. I'm lazy too. I'll have 3 bottles on my night stand because I'll bring one to bed and after a day I'll forget it's there and bring another. Then another.

SO's kids are the same way. They will have a drink at dinner and leave it half finished. Then before bed they will want something and will grab one out of the fridge till Sunday before they leave I'm looking around and realize there's at least 8 half drank drinks between the living room and bedroom.

If your worried about waste I'd look into a water filter either on the sink or in the fridge instead of bottles. Bottles make it easier to waste because you just grab one from the fridge whenever. You can get each person a refillable water bottle. If a filter wont work look into gallons of water or the water dispenser that you can get the BIG jugs for.

Go to him with facts.

Count the water bottles left out when it's just your BS there, as compared to when SD is there.

My kids would do this too when they were that age. I stopped buying the bottles... then they just do it with cups. So... they all had a cup that was theirs and that was THAT.

I don't have that issue anymore though, it's been a few years.

When my skids did the leave the half empty water bottle somewhere and then grab a new one only to leave that half full somewhere else, I just stopped buying it.

Problem solved!!

LOL. The hiding of things. I remember, and it wasnt THAT long ago when this was happening to us as well. Winona was then around 16 ish when it started happening. She would take food and dishes into her room, and get yelled at when there were like 5 coffee mugs and 3 water glasses and 2 bowls all gathering mold. So, she took to hiding the dishes, figuring we wouldnt miss them. It was weird to find old food bowls in her room, and my SO was rather crestfallen that she had gone so feral.

The last thing we found while I was cleaning with Munchkin that she had hidden, was an empty whiskey bottle and highball glass.

The lies and sneaky behavior WOULD and SHOULD alarm you. It does not get better. It gets worse as they get older. She is still young enough to teach. To correct. I am no child psychologist, so I do not know how to proceed. But I saw how things went down - no accountability will lead to an increase in this negative behavior.

Did you ever find your credit card?

I stopped reading when I came to..... DH is all over my son for doing this.....

WTFH.... DH can teach your son and you allow it, while DH can't teach his own daughter and you are not allowed to do so?

No way in hell would that happen in my house, I told SO allot of times, stop trying to parent my son, start parenting your own effing kid..
no way in hell will my son be in trouble while it's the Princess doing it, oh dear... I need to go and smoke now to calm down

My skids used to be terrible about taking a couple sips of a drink, walking away from it still 2/3 full....and then opening something new 30 minutes later.

I remember my first vacation with them...before we were even married. It was DH's aunt's beach condo, so he provided lodging and gas, I offered to be responsible for groceries...meals, drinks, snacks. When we got there, I went to the store and bought everything I'd need for the entire week...because I didn't want to go back again...who wants to spend their vacation grocery shopping? That was in the late afternoon the day we got there.

By the end of the next day, about half of the drinks I'd bought for the entire week were gone. Or, to be more specific...half of the sodas. There was still plenty of water. I brought it to DH's attention and he just got upset and frustrated with me. They're just KIDS having a good time!

Um...OK. But they're drinking two sips and throwing the rest away. That's rude and wasteful.

I just told him (and them) that I'd already spent what I had budgeted for food and drinks, so once the soda was gone, it was gone. I didn't care if they drank 2 a day, like I'd calculated...or drank 2 sips out of 5 or 6 a day and threw the rest away. I wasn't buying any more.

DH thought that was just so, so mean. They were on VACATION and they were just little KIDS!!!!

Oh well. My money, my rules.