Three or four baths a week?

If you were struggling with utility bills etc then your complaint would be justified. You don’t state how old DSD is but the fact remains, if you truly want to nurture a good relationship with her then treat her as one of the family, let her use the bath but gently and reasonably explain how that cost is impacting on the household running costs, if she is of an age to understand that is.

Do you have children of your own OP?

I have a bath every day. Granted I don't fill it high, and am not in there for 2hours but they are so much nicer than showers and they really help my aches and pains. Plus, it won't be too long before I will be too old to have a bath so going to make the most of them.

Fair if you don't like your room being taken over for 2hrs, but not fine if it's down to cost and the frequency. The cost is a tenner a week, give her ten pounds less in treats if that worried! I fear that the cost isn't really the issue though.

I have a bath every day. I’ve been known to have two if my back is sore. I have no idea of the litre capacity of my tub but it is a very large spa bath with jets, mood lighting and a built in heater. Maybe you could draw a line around it showing the max depth of water she is allowed, like they did during the war? (that is a joke for the avoidance of doubt)

That’s a lot of words to say you don’t like your husbands daughter. Even if her water pressure is the best ever on the planet, it seems extremely controlling of you to be “challenging” her about using a shower.

Why can’t just just prefer a bath and be allowed to have a bath? You don’t give her age but if she’s a child I assume her dad and you are not too poor to afford to her fill for a bath or he’d not have made the choice to have a renovations and a very deep bath installed on the first place. If she’s an adult and earning and it bothers her parent that much, he can speak to her about contributing to the water bill?

It sounds though that you view having a bath as your own luxury treat, and are a bit put out to see someone you don’t like using it in a normal everyday way. If you husband chose to go against the 6 baths per year rule, would you challenge him too?

This is one of those threads that I really hope some plonker has made up because I can’t imagine what it must be like to have your baths counted, times and tallied up like this 🤦🏻‍♀️

No baths for you, Cinderella!

Don’t be daft. The bill payer gets the last say. When my kids were growing up, I’m sure they would have loved a nice, hot bath every day, but my finances didn’t stretch to that, so they made do with showers most of the time.

Oh well done! A very pleasing post 😁

Yes same here on the book

So you don't like your SD ? Jealousy orrr? Nothing entitled about using the family bath does her father also begrudge her a few quid for personal hygiene ?

Sorry but this sounds really mean and tight.

You installed a bath that you wanted people to use only a handful of times a year. Now you have gone to the grief of working out how much an individual bath costs?

If you didn’t feel you could afford for people to have baths you shouldn’t have had one put in.

And penny pinching over stuff like this with family never ends well. You sound like someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

That's not the fault of the child who is taking a perfectly normal amount of baths. It's the fault of the person who chose the ridiculously expensive to run bath, and it is that person who should suffer the consequences of increased bills, rather than the child being denied a bath every other day.

It can’t be £3.50 a bath.

We all like a bath in this house and some days 3 or 4 bath fulls can be run in a day. As a family, we probably have at least 12 baths a week. By your reconning we would be spending £2,184 just having baths. But that is almost double my entire annual gas cost.

Just let the girl wash in peace.

So this is a stunt bath, like the infamous MN stunt pineapple?

I did have to challenge ds on his two baths a day habit as he was using up all the hot water, but installing a bath that your family are only allowed to use a handful of times a year is frankly nuts.

I think it’s really odd to get a bath you either can’t afford to use or don’t want to pay for.
Of all the myriad of things teenagers can do I don’t think wanting a bath three times a week is outlandish behaviour.

Only £3.50? At 4 per week, that’s £728 per year. I certainly couldn’t afford that for one person’s washing habits.

Exactly what I thought 🤣 before kids I’d lay in my bath for up to 3 hours in an evening reading my kindle/listening to music and scrolling my phone, just kept topping up the hot.

I’m not a bath fan but see no issue in someone having a nice bath a few times per week. Or daily if that’s how they like to bathe and relax!! Honestly don’t understand the issue.

she’d probably use more water with an inefficient shower anyway.

let her chill. If she is a teen then I’d say there’s worse things she can be doing.

How old is she? What does her parent say?

From the small amount of googling I’ve done, £3.50 is nonsense.

It would take 1.12 cubic metres of gas to heat 300l of water from cold tap temp to bath hot temp. This would cost 70p approximately.

United Utilities would charge between 80p and £1.50 for 300l of water. Let’s take mid point of £1.15.

Thats £1.85.

Now let’s consider that she clearly doesn’t fill the bath to the absolute brim. And that baths are probably slightly wider on top that on the bottom. She likely fills it 2/3 full and then gets in and displaces some water for a nice deep bath.

So 2/3 of £1.85 = £1.23

Let your step daughter bathe and stop ringfencing your bath for special quarterly occasions - it’s bizarre!

I’d happily pay £3.50 multiple times a week for my DS to do an activity he loves for 2 hours, honestly I don’t see what the problem is?

Me too!

I shower approximately once a month or so, that’s all. I hate showers.

I'm assuming this girl is a teenager, possibly a young woman but lots of people seem to be assuming she's a young child. How old is she OP?

Goodness!!! Where to start here? You are being extremely unreasonable - she loves a bath, you have a lovely deep bathtub in your family bathroom - what's the problem. Why are you nitpicking over the cost?

We have a shower in our en-suite which my husband uses, and a bath and shower in the main bathroom. I only ever use the bath - it's wonderful after a hard day gardening to come in and have a long hot soak in the bath. I hate showers.

Be honest with yourself, you don't like her do you? I would be careful here - if you start articulating your thoughts you may well cause trouble in your marriage.
Lighten up - take a long bath!!!!!

No it isn't. What if someone had OCD and wanted four baths a day and the family were struggling financially? The bathroom belongs to the whole family, not just one person. And she doesn't pay the bills.

OP I think you are getting it in the neck here because you are the stepmother. If you were her birth mother I imagine people would be more sympathetic.

So you have a "show bath" i hope she also uses all your fancy bubble bath 😂