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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think she is so bloody ungrateful!!

239 replies

hickorychicken · 27/03/2014 11:17

And lives in a different world....
Someone I know got offered a gorgeous 3 bedroom house with a massive garden etc and all sje has done is whinge! She was given a £200 decorating grant but all she keeps saying is "Oh well its not like im getting any help, i mean i need help with carpets, i cant live like this im not having it!"
Shock Shock Shock

I pointed out that i lived witg one room done for 2 YEARS. Its gotten me irrationally angry! I think im going to get a flaming but meh, some people want everything handed to them on a plate.

OP posts:
normalishdude · 27/03/2014 13:14

I wasn't trying to start a 'bun fight'. I am genuinely surprised that decorating grants exist.

hickorychicken · 27/03/2014 13:16

OK...to put this plainly for Artex to read....

I DO NOT RESENT HER BECAUSE SHE HAS A COUNCIL HOUSE, I DON'T EVEN RESENT HER, ITS THE UNGRATEFULNESS I CAN'T STAND.
Is that clear enough?

OP posts:
ArtexMonkey · 27/03/2014 13:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

hickorychicken · 27/03/2014 13:16

Sorry normal, I wasn't referring to your post.

OP posts:
TillyTellTale · 27/03/2014 13:18

normalishdude
Sometimes. Depending on their previous situation. Before you get excited, take into account that council housing comes totally unfurnished. My one, to which I moved after having lived in a homelessness hostel for a year (and I lived in the hostel because my mother was so violent, that the next door neighbours called the police after witnessing it), did not have curtain poles. I didn't just have to buy curtains, I had to buy curtain poles and curtain rings!

I was quite happy to hang a spare sheet (not that I had many) over a curtain pole to be going on with, while I saved up for curtains, but in order to do that, I did need money for poles. And saving money for curtains, carpets, an actual bed is rather slow on £45 a week. These days, I believe the rate is £51 a week. Therefore, the council gave me a grant.

If you resent that grant, offset it against the cost of mental health support over twenty years that my mother didn't get, which helped make her the way she became. Offset it against the cost of the young carers' support I didn't get throughout my childhood, as she became worse and worse.

To be quite honest, I earned that grant, when I was being an emotional and physical punching bag for my mother, and acting as her carer and emotional bedrock. Social Services and the NHS have had to take on the work I did for free as a child. Good luck with that. I've retired from it.

ArtexMonkey · 27/03/2014 13:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

formerbabe · 27/03/2014 13:19

It is ungrateful. I bought my house and wake up everyday feeling so lucky to have it. I can't imagine how happy I would be if someone gave me £200 quid to spend on it!

ArtexMonkey · 27/03/2014 13:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TillyTellTale · 27/03/2014 13:21

Evie2014 Rankled, did it? Well, I find the fact that you got to go to university when you were 18/19 rather rankling... So there.

hickorychicken · 27/03/2014 13:26

She shouldn't be any more grateful that is social housing, but that she has a roof over her head, and help to decorate the home she has.
Not be whinging that they won't floor her whole house too.
Artex if you are looking for a row you have come to the wrong thread.

OP posts:
MoominsYonisAreScary · 27/03/2014 13:29

I was incredably greatful when the council rehoused me years ago.

No it didnt have curtains, curtain poles or furniture but it didnt have a boiler that had been broken for a year and I didnt have to worry about the LL selling it or putting the rent up loads like when you rent privately

TillyTellTale · 27/03/2014 13:29

Nearly ten years ago, it cost me £100 to carpet a small one-bed flat, with the cheapest carpets in the warehouse and no underlay.

When I gave up the tenancy, I then had to pay again to get them removed for the next tenant's benefit.

whatwhatinthewhatnow · 27/03/2014 13:30

Why should council house tenants be any more grateful for a roof over their head than any other tenants, or owner occupiers?

Because they have done nothing to achieve it.

whatwhatinthewhatnow · 27/03/2014 13:31

When I moved into my own flat, I didn't have money for curtain poles either. I just got on with having no curtains for a year. Plus I have a similar back story to you, TillyTellTale.

hickorychicken · 27/03/2014 13:35

Why would it rankle that somebody went to university?

OP posts:
PartialFancy · 27/03/2014 13:35

It's amazing. People can be whinging on one thread how much they'd love to be given £200 pounds towards their house (carefully ignoring it's for works that are the landlord's duty anyway). And on another thread be saying how they themselves inherited 10s of thousands of pounds towards buying a house.

Like JeanSeberg says, there are some people who will complain whatever the circumstances.

TillyTellTale · 27/03/2014 13:37

Because they have done nothing to achieve it.

Actually i did do something to achieve it. I saved the country huge amounts of money. Then I got put in a hostel. Getting a council flat from there was not automatic. You had to prove you could cope on your own and wouldn't be an anti-social neighbour.

I had to do loads of things each week, in order to earn points. If a girl beat everyone else's score one month, and it was a decent score in itself, the hostel would officially put her forward. Otherwise, you stayed in the hostel. But you could only live in a hostel for two years. Some women had been moved from hostel to hostel because of that.

So, yes, I fucking did do something to achieve it. Back here, people are amazed to hear I was in there for such a short time.

normalishdude · 27/03/2014 13:38

My first shared house (privately rented) didn’t have a bed. I made do with a blow up mattress designed for camping for about 2 years until I could afford one. If I’d have known there was 200 quid going spare I may have traipsed down the council. Damn it.

Dwerf · 27/03/2014 13:39

Tillytelltale I've lived in my house for over a decade and a few of the windows still don't have curtain poles. Because curtain poles are just not a priority.

This house had really horrible decor when we moved in and no carpets (which is normal for housing assoc). But over the years they've done so much "modernisation" that I've had to repaint several rooms over and over again. To be fair they wallpapered the kitchen and bathroom after "modernising" them (whole different rant there about these modernisations), but after all my ceilings were damaged during the reroofing , they didn't even buy so much a can of paint to cover the damage. So it's not all HA tenants who get decorating grants. Oh the amount of paint I could buy with £200! (and curtain poles)

TillyTellTale · 27/03/2014 13:46

hickorychicken

Why the fuck wouldn't it? I desperately wanted to go to university. However, unlike other 18 year olds, who get taken to Open Days, supported with their homework (I was making sure my mother didn't tear it up in a drunken rage), and have their term-time and holiday housing organised for them, I couldn't even afford to call up UCAS when there was a computer error.

My friends went to university, knowing that they would have somewhere to stay during the holidays. I had no stability at all. As far as I could see, if I left the hostel and went to university, I would become homeless all over again during the holidays. Even if that wasn't true, I didn't have anyone helping me work out what support I could get. I had a key worker who organised my application for housing benefit and checked I could clean the bath out. And told me not to stress out about getting A's.

And despite that, during the first six months of my stay, I still got AS-level results of AABB.

Feminine · 27/03/2014 13:46

I live in a HA home.

I've been given about £350 worth of decorating vouchers!

Yay me Hmm

do some posters really not understand what bad condition some council/HA homes are in?

TillyTellTale · 27/03/2014 13:52

I have found my documents from years ago. I got a social fund grant for the following:
saucepans,
bedding set and duvet
removal expenses
cooker
bed
table and chairs
crockery
cutlery
towels
curtains
curtain rails.

From the council, I got a grant for about ten tins of paint.

And you know, I was actually grateful for all that. I was desperate to have somewhere safe of my own. But I don't think anyone with two brain cells should have envied me for being in that position. I've worked my way up from there, and it's not the position I want my children to be in when they're 18.

hickorychicken · 27/03/2014 13:57

I AM NOT ADVERSE TO DECORATING GRANTS!!
I fully understand having lived in SH before.
Its not the point of the grant. Its that she doesn't think they have done enough and should carpet it too....
And my story isn't as different from yours as you may think Tilly, but It didn't piss me off because my friends were doing well, as I knew I would in time also.

OP posts:
whatwhatinthewhatnow · 27/03/2014 13:59

I understand your frustration about the university education Tilly. I also wanted that and felt the same anger that a 'normal' family would have aided me with those things.

But I have since done a P/T degree as an adult. If you want it, get it. But not every teenager in the position you were, gets given those grants. At 18, I would have envied you.

TillyTellTale · 27/03/2014 14:00

hickory It doesn't piss me off that my friends or anyone else went to university. It pisses me off that Evie2014 had and has no gratitude for the fact that she was in a position to go to university, and was being jealous of other people being given "freebies" in the form of council housing.