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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be livid about the way my brother left my house?

180 replies

TaraS1979 · 16/09/2014 21:47

I have NC for this.
Earlier this year DP and I found our dream house at a rock bottom price. However our house hadn't yet sold, so his parents gave us the money to buy this home, and were due to pay them back when our first house sells.
Round about the time we were moving in, my brother, his wife and their toddler son moved back to the uk after being abroad for a year. They had no home to move into, having sold their house, so had the idea of living in our first house until we sold it or until they found a house themselves. This suited us as we otherwise would have had to find £700 per month for the mortgage payment (we charge DB £500 a month which is just below market rate).

They've been in there for about 5 months and agreed to show any potential buyers around. Which they have done, and have always had a tidy house when doing this. We decided to change estate agents a few weeks ago, and they were coming to take pictures of the house while DB and SIL were on holiday. So I text them a few days before their hols to ask them to make sure the garden was weeded, grass cut, tidy inside with DNs toys put away etc, so it was photo ready.

The day the estate agent went round i went to the house also, although everything was as I asked, the laminate floor was sticky in places, the grass hadn't been cut very well and inside the oven was disgusting. There was also food marks on the walls by DNs highchair, although SIL did tell me about that a few weeks ago and offered to re-paint it, but I told her not to bother as me and DP would do it at some point. The agent took pictures of the whole house (except for the grass, I told him I'd cut it and he can come back tomorrow to take the pic) however I was furious about the floor and oven and spent hours cleaning both and also marks on the walls. My DP, DDs and DDs dad came over when I was cleaning and agreed the floor and oven were a state.

I admit I did get very cross and put a status on Facebook about being disappointed and needing a drink. Not the most mature thing I know but that's how angry I was! The oven is only 2 years old! They didn't pay a deposit and we don't have a tenancy agreement in place, but if we did I'd be knocking money of their deposit for a deep clean!
The day DB and SIL came back from holiday I sent them a text telling them I wasn't impressed with the house, that I'd cleaned and cut the grass better and can they please keep the house to this standard from now on. I sent pictures that I took to prove I wasn't exaggerating.

TBH I was expecting an apology and a thank you for cleaning the oven and floor. However they have gone absolutely spare, have said that I had no right to clean the oven and floor, or bring people (my family) into the house when they were away. They'd have preferred it if I'd have told them when they got back so they could have cleaned it themselves. They also figured out the Facebook status was about them, which I apologised for and removed. They have called me a 'terrible person' and claim that a lot of the marks on the wall were there when they moved in.

They are now not speaking to me and are moving out as a result, which puts us up shit creek as we now need to find £500 a month plus 50% council tax! I'm fuming, and I honestly don't think I'm in the wrong.

Who IBU - me or them? DP says it's them but my mum thinks I was out of order and shouldn't have done it without their permission.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 18/09/2014 17:12

I wonder what the record is for the length of thread a single post has generated?

Normally a controversial OP will come back to argue their case (or goad) and keep the thread going.

But this OP was so comprehensive in its description of the situation, and so convinced of its own reasonableness, that surely this is a record number of open-mouthed YABVU's generated?

VeryLittleGravitasIndeed · 18/09/2014 17:58

Grin Boulevard

What form do you think the medal / trophy should take? A very very very long chain of loom bands perhaps?

ILoveTurnips · 18/09/2014 18:01

Can it be a reverse thread and a troll thread at the same time. Hmm

ILoveTurnips · 18/09/2014 18:07

.

MandarinCheesecake · 18/09/2014 18:07

She aint coming back is she?????

pictish · 18/09/2014 18:15

us

To be livid about the way my brother left my house?
TheSkiingGardener · 18/09/2014 18:24

I really hope it's true. Just because!

FoxSticks · 18/09/2014 18:32

I think when it comes to threads like this MNHQ should track the OP down and darn well make them give us a update.

RabidFairy · 18/09/2014 18:34

Come back OP and graciously accept you were wrong.

Viviennemary · 18/09/2014 18:35

I'd be the one not speaking to you. Charging them rent and expecting them to do your garden as well. Especially as you were being lent the money in the first place to enable you to move. YABU. And cheeky as well.

honeybunny14 · 18/09/2014 18:35

Yabu and the fb status was ridiculous

JesusInTheCabbageVan · 18/09/2014 20:54

Marking place for the brilliant gifs Grin

"Your tits... calm them you must"

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 18/09/2014 21:03

I think the OP might actually have done better as a reverse...

"I am renting my DSis' house at a reduced rate. AIBU not to clean the oven for the estate agents' photos?" would have brought the housework police out of the woodwork.
Y'know, the ones who clean their oven every day. It only takes 5 minutes. Everything takes 5 minutes... Hmm

kirsten123 · 18/09/2014 22:09

OP is BU.

However - if they had left a dirty house at the end of the tenancy that is NOT acceptable wear and tear as PP said.

kirsten123 · 18/09/2014 22:11

PP was Pictish.

:-)

ProcessYellowC · 18/09/2014 22:13

So, I'm still puzzling over why one would NC to a name and number that doesn't look entirely random.

PrettyPictures92 · 19/09/2014 11:14

It's likely she's not nc and just said she had so she wouldn't get outed as a 'newbie'? Or she doesn't care so much about being recognised in rl as not wanting her normal mn name trashed?

StillSquirrelling · 19/09/2014 12:31

I'm totally intrigued about the bath salts and glue incident! Anyone care to provide a link to that please?

OP - YABVU. I'd go completely mental if that happened to me whilst I was paying rent to live somewhere. Going into someone's home and inspecting their oven is outrageously rude! Who looks in ovens when they are looking to buy a house???

Actually, this sort of thing happened to me years ago. DH (DP at the time) and I had just moved into our first (non-house share) place together and it was really nice but needed a damn good clean, and a total garden overhaul as it was over run with weeds, grass gone crazy, pond stagnant and foul etc. We lived there for about 5 months and then the landlord suddenly decided he wanted to sell up so we had to leave. Our letting agents found us somewhere else quite quickly and we moved. We then heard back from the agents to say that the landlord had inspected the house (for the first time since he first let it out many years before) and wasn't happy with its condition. We were forced to scrub lightshades, clean blutac off walls (which was nothing to do with us) and more galling (considering the amount of time and money we'd spent on the garden) we were made to go and weed the front garden and mow the lawn. We'd done both just before leaving but about 6 weeks had passed since then, and you know what...plants/grass grows!! We were so angry but we basically bore the brunt of years of tenants wear and tear. We went through the new place with a fine tooth comb and sent the letting agents a 23 page document, providing in excruciating detail every single nail hole, carpet snag, worktop scratch etc. We bought a house after that so it never happened to us again.

Sorry for the ramble!

chicaguapa · 19/09/2014 13:00

I'm going to go against the grain and think the OP was NBU to be disappointed in the condition the house was left in when the estate agents came round to take photos to be able to sell the property.

I'd be livid too as it seems to suggest that the DB and SIL aren't looking after the house they are renting for below market rent and don't care that OP is trying to sell it.

There's nothing in the OP to say that DB and SIL didn't know that the estate agents were going round, in fact she says that she texted SIL to ask her to leave the house in a condition that would look good in the photos. Nor does it say that DB and SIL didn't know that OP was going round too. Maybe she was letting the EA in?

It seems that DB and SIL are angry at the judgements made about how they were living and that the house was dirty and that's why they left. I agree OP will have made things worse by the way she reacted to it, but I'm sure I'd have been the same in her situation so I'm sympathetic. I have no tolerance for people who seem incapable of respecting other people's property. Especially when it's family.

Now DB and SIL have to pay a higher rent somewhere else and OP has to find the mortgage each month. But at least she can spruce up the house and hopefully sell it more quickly now.

I am an accidental landlord and a tenant.

helpmekeepstrong · 19/09/2014 13:59

chicaguapa are you the OP?

PrettyPictures92 · 19/09/2014 14:10

Helpkeepmestrong I was wondering that too

Coumarin · 19/09/2014 14:11

OP, please come and clean my oven. I have cake.

Cake

Thank you in advance.

Coumarin · 19/09/2014 14:12

Offers Chica cake...

Wantsunshine · 19/09/2014 14:19

Why do I do this to myself. I was so excited that there might be an update from the Op when I clicked. Damn you OP and your dirty oven.

Lurleene · 19/09/2014 14:39

This just inspired me to clean my oven. It didn't take as long as I thought it would. Which was nice.

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