AIBU re lodger

[springymater]

Friend of a friend, moved in nearly 3 months ago. In all that time he has bought 4 rolls of toilet paper and used up all my sugar...

Asked him to mow the lawn - he took off for the entire w/e after saying he would - he uses the garden more than me at the mo. I was there when I friend asked him if he was at home mowing the lawn - heard him say 'you must be joking!'

So, what, am I his fucking mother then??

He's pissing me right off. yy I should've made it clear when he arrived but he's lived in his own flat and I didn't think some things needed spelling out.

We had a lodger for 2 years. If she used the kitchen/bathroom/whatever and made a mess, she wiped up after herself. It wasn't like she had to clean the house but she had to ensure communal areas after her use were vaguely clean. A quick spray of the bath isn't too much to ask. That's just good manners, surely?

I've never had (or been) a lodger but I've heard some horror stories about lodgers - everything from loud music, unwanted house guests, huge phone bills to some rather unsavoury bathroom habits (far beyond not buying any bog roll). If you don't need the money, maybe having a lodger isn't for you. If you do, you could probably do worse.

I think most people are missing the OP's point.
She specifically said to him that he had to look after the garden in exchange for her doing his washing.
She is doing his washing, he's not doing his side of the bargain. You're all being a bit strange, expecting HER to mow the lawn when HE'S using it. He's a lodger, not a hotel guest. He should be taking care of and tidying up the places he uses in the house.
she's not expecting him to do big things round the house that he hasn't been told about, she's complaining that he's not doing what he agreed to do, and not only that but actively avoiding it..

Oh and basics like toilet paper, handsoap, sugar, tea and milk were provided by my aunt. She had no time for faffing about who bought what. She had a lockable cupboard in the kitchen and bathroom for stuff she wanted to keep for herself. No worries about running out of stuff she likes or her fancy lotions being used :o
Lodgers were encouraged to cook a meal occasionally and to do the washing up after. It made dealing with the pernickity things a bit easier if it wasn't all take take take.

She says the last person to bed should change the bin bag (not sure about that one tbh), check windows, doors etc and shove bleach down the loo.

She's sat next to me in her element that her wisdom is being shared.

When he cooks for himself, he washes his pots (not always straight away, which I'm not keen on but there we go) but NEVER wipes the surfaces, cleans the cooker etc. That's my job, apparently. Lacky here.

He does the bare minimum, counting it out like scrooge (and helps himself to my stuff on the odd occasion). He's not lodger material, more to the point. I also think the word 'lodger' is a misnomer.

Look, I don't want to be spelling out to a 'lodger' what is and isn't required. It's bloody obvious, up to a point, what is and isn't required. I would cringe to have to list a long list of what is and isn't acceptable. I know of one woman who drew a line around the inside of the bath to indicate how far it should be filled. I DON'T WANT TO LIVE LIKE THAT.

She had a lockable cupboard in the kitchen and bathroom for stuff she wanted to keep for herself

I just cringe at that because, as I said, I DON'T WANT TO LIVE LIKE THAT. I don't want to be locking doors like I'm running a hostel. If someone can't be adult and civilised, I don't want to live with them. I'm not running a boarding house.

She says the last person to bed should change the bin bag (not sure about that one tbh), check windows, doors etc and shove bleach down the loo

see, not that shows some element of taking responsibility. Which is a basic prerequisite imo.

I have a lockable cupboard and I don't have lodgers. If I want to eat a bar of choc, some pringles or some nice biccies to myself then I have to hide them in my cupboard. :o I love my cupboard... the cupboard of dreams...

see, now...

Sounds like you're living with my housemate/fellow lodger. The weekend was the final straw for us and we found somewhere new to live yesterday. Our landlords can deal with him now!

Doesn't lift a finger. He's been here over a year and only cleaned our shared bathroom (as in, the lodgers only using it!) once, he got a wet wipe, wiped the floor with it in a circle and binned it, that was clean he has a phobia of the dishwasher so washes by hand. Fine if he actually washed it but his idea of clean is to rinse off the food and stick it in the drying rack

My landlords clean up after him all of the time, he never cleaned the cooker, etc and until yesterday never said a word to him about anything. they did yesterday because he'd been really fucking rude to me on Sunday and he ended up ruining my birthday yesterday.

You need to get it straight with him now or get him out, otherwise you'll just get more annoyed about it.

I get what you mean about wanting a houseshare even though you own the place, we prefer to live in those kinds of places and in the past actively turned down lodgings that were not like that. We're very lucky that this current house was very much like that (minus the cocklodger we live with) and the one we're moving into seems very much like it too which is lucky as we were at the point of accepting anything! Difficult to find though, we have struggled a lot to find it.

And yes, we do clean communal areas. We use them, so we clean them! It's only polite whether you ae a lodger or not surely?! Once a month or more frequently if we have time we have a big group dinner and play board games together.

He's also blocked the drains because he puts cack down the sink

RAAAAHHHH.

Pixie, I lubs you come and live with me

I agree that if someone uses the communal areas, it's only decent to help out cleaning them. It seems a bit childish to use a living room/bathroom on a regular basis and let someone else clean up after you. It's about pulling your weight. I'd honestly be embarrassed to live in someone's house and let them do all the cleaning. However much rent I paid.

OP, I have a lodger, have sent you a pm. It's amazing how irritating they can be, and also how crap some are. But thankfully it can work really well too, I love mine at present. I thank my lucky stars every day that I do have a nice one at present though because I think there's nothing more irritating in life than a lazy arsed one. But yes, I have a cleaner, experience has taught me lodgers just do not clean, they just don't care enough about the property. It's not worth the stress.

Years ago we did have a lodger ( 2 actually, one after the other). Never again. I'm not a lodger person. It takes a truly tolerant person to share their personal space. The first was a disgusting pig who never ever cleaned up after himself. I had to raid his room for cups and plates regularly. I also had to tell him to air his room more often. I can't ever remember him using the washing machine and he rarely showered. When he moved out I found snapped off toenails in his mattress.
I only let him move in because he was a colleague about to be made homeless and had nowhere to go. He himself was a nice-ish bloke but he really was a slob. He saw it as a houseshare whereas we saw it as him renting a room. He would bring groups of people back from the pub during the week and the final straw came when a random girl burst into our room and flicked the light on looking for the loo. He was very tight and would try to deduct the price of a box of teabags from his rent if he'd bought some.
After two months I had enough and gave him a weeks notice. The good thing about our first lodger is that it gave us a massive learning curve and our next lodger (also an emergency stay) was a dream. He cooked, cleaned, shared etc. He only ever had visitors that were previously announced or at weekends when we were hardly around. He shared in most of our meals and would make a huge fry up on days he wasn't working. He would also drive me to antenatal appointments if dh couldn't and he'd wait. He only moved out AFTER I gave birth to our first baby and we needed his room eventually.
I was sad to see him go. He was lovely with our ds. My aunt has made a career out of being a professional landlady type person. She knows her limits. It also helps that she's the most patient person in the world and it takes a bloody riot to rile her up. She also knows some people are oddbods and can't help their little quirks. However she's no nonsense, forthright and doesn't let anyone take the mick. I'm one of those people who apologises for pulling people up on their inconsiderate behaviour. :o

Ergh, blocked drains! I remember my boss sticking his arm down the drain when it got cold towards the end of last year as the fat had solidified. It was disgusting.

In the place before this one we had a guy who, instead of binning leftover rice, would try to shove it through the mesh that stopped food going down the sink hole. He was an oddball too. That house was horrid though, tiny box room that we were expected not to leave and communal areas were off limits really.

Oh the good old days

& sure, live in Brighton? I was actually at a point where I wrote a post at 2am on Monday begging somebody on Mumsnet to give me and DP a room, though it didn't get posted in the end. I am very very thankful that the first place to get back to me out of the many I contacted yesterday asked us to check out the room so quickly as it's perfect and has two gorgeous dogs.

(Sorry haven't read beyond the first page of the thread because it's bedtime!)
Springy, I have lodgers and this is how I do it:
Make it clear before they move in that they're renting a room, not sharing my house. They have access to kitchen and bathroom, of course, but not my living room, etc. They can use the washing machine twice a week. They are expected to clear up after they cook and wash their own plates etc. They are also expected to flush the toilet after themselves (yes, it has been necessary to spell this out in the past) and clean the bath/shower after they use it.
I do all the cleaning in the hall, bathroom, kitchen, stairs etc. - everywhere except their room. This works because I have never had a lodger who so much as washed a teaspoon that wasn't theirs. If the expectations are clear on all sides, you don't get pissed off when they don't do 'their share'.

I don't expect them to buy loo rolls, contribute to bills, etc., but neither do I expect them to nick my toiletries. If they did, I would say something to them.
I have found, over the 10 years or so that I've had lodgers, that you have to have very clear guidelines from the outset, eg. 'this is what you get/this is what you don't get.'
For the most part, we live quite harmoniously.
By the way, you should tell your insurance company that you have a lodger. Your premium will probably go up/your cover go down, but if you didn't tell them and there was a theft, for example, the insurance probably wouldn't pay.

I was a lodger for a while and did my fair share of cleaning, bought things like loo roll when I saw it running out, basically behaved like a house sharer but the difference was I never had to deal with any bills/maintenance etc.

I'd get rid.

Our first lodger died a couple of years ago. He drank himself to death in a little bedsit. I was sad when I heard but not surprised. He lived very much in the now and didn't fear the consequences of anything. He'd think nothing of being aggressive to strangers or saying something mean for the sheer hell of it. I was told I was the only person he was actually fairly decent to. Maybe because I hauled him out of the shit when no one else would?! Who knows.

They have access to kitchen and bathroom, of course, but not my living room Do you have another living room?

ah, Moisturiser, I see you did post

No, YourMaNo. They are renting a room. Not half a house. A large room. A bedsitting room. And they have access to the bathroom and kitchen whenever they want.
We are both happy with this arrangement.

We don't want to share living space and watch television together every night.

If I wanted a different type f arrangement, I would advertise for a house share. And then I would expect to share chores, etc.

Gideon thanks for posting. I can see there are different ways to do this thing and, tbf, there is no way I would share a house with someone who didn't flush the toilet.

I have hosted foreign students for 10 years and, if you want a situation that sometimes produces absolutely bizarre behaviour, and the usual lazy git behaviour, you get it all with foreign students. The majority are lovely, a real joy, but I have not hesitated about 'asking' someone to leave if their behaviour is unacceptable. I know how to tackle an issue quickly and clearly, with minimum fuss, no anger. For some reason I've felt held back with this guy because he's a friend of a friend

We don't want to share living space and watch television together every night. Not saying you should. Don't fear I'm not getting at you. I'd hate it myself tbh. At the moment I'm in the living room and dh is watching tv in the dining room :o I enjoy having the room to myself and watching what I like, sat there with my boobs swinging freely, holey pj's and bare feet up on the couch etc etc but I'd be screwed if we still lived in our old two up two down terrace with dining/living room.

I've also hosted foreign students, springy. They're a mixed blessing!

I do think it's harder if you're renting to a friend. You don't have them coming around and 'viewing' the room formally, where you get to chat about expectations. Some people have been clear to me that they're looking for a 'flatmate' to socialise with, and I've had to say they've come to the wrong place. It's better they know in advance that I'm not looking for a 'mate'. Others are relieved to be liberated from the landlady/landlord who wants to know everything about them. In fact, my most successful lodgers have come from households where they weren't 'left alone'.

Different strokes, etc...

YourMaNo Woman after my own heart then. My 'after work' routine: Go home, remove bra, make dinner, be cordial (but no more ) to lodger before bidding him a good evening and closing the door.

I have quite a few friends who do the lodging/students thing and they all do it differently. I have one friend who does it with military precision and has no relationship at all with her lodgers/students, save as the 'landlady'. She is strict and tough and has a lock on her bedroom door.

Struth - I don't want that! I don't want locks and lines drawn (on baths, drinks, butter). that is not what I want and, as I paid for this fucking house and have toiled over it for decades (and even if I didn't), I have the right to choose how I do it and what I want.