Urgent advice/rant
Hi everyone, I’m writing here out of spite and concern. To keep background information short, I live with my ex’s family temporarily and my ex-mother-in-law just came home from her beach vacation with a whopping SIXTEEN (16) hermit crabs (or another type of crab that uses these shells- I don’t know my specific animals like that), all crammed into a bucket, filled with water to where only 3 of them could be above the surface. I didn’t find out about this until over 24 hours after she got home with them.
She went on about her day today, keeping them in the bucket of water, but apparently bragging about them to the whole family and about how “she didn’t know what she’d do with them” in a silly way. She also tried to play it off as an accident, that she didn’t know any of the shells had crabs when she took them. Every single one of these shells has a crab in it. That is not an accident.
She went to an event tonight, still leaving the crabs in the bucket. I went to Petsmart and got what I could afford. A tank that is not big enough, some coconut soil, a salt water mixture, and some food. $50 I cannot afford right now. That’s a different story.
I have a friend that frequents the beach (same beach, or at least within like 20 miles) and she said they’d be going again this weekend and would be happy to take them all back there and release them. We live about 6 hours from where these crabs came from.
I’m wondering how I can go about making sure they live throughout this week, but also, I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how I can gently tell my ex-MIL that this is not okay. This is not the first time something like this has happened. They brought a bunny home one Easter and who knows what happened to that poor thing after a few months. I am also open to any comments that let me know I may be overreacting.
Pics attached of my setup for them at least for now. I’m not entirely sure that all of them are alive but I know at least half of them are. Each place has water and food in some form. I know it’s not adequate, not even close. It’s what I could manage for tonight. Every single shell has a crab in it. I am very upset. Thank you to anyone in advance for your thoughts.