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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be shocked that someone could be so mean-spirited?

50 replies

LoseLooseLucy · 11/09/2015 11:07

I know a woman (more my sister's friend) who has two children, one 15, the other just turned 1.

She has lived in the same house (council property) for the last 7 years.

She has been off and on again with the father of her youngest for the last 2 years, and moved him in with her.
She was then reported for benefit fraud as he worked full time. She hasn't worked since having her first child at 18.

After blaming the neighbours, and falling out with them, she has decided she can't live there anymore.
She is moving in with her boyfriend and the baby at his mother's house. Her eldest is going to stay with her grandparents.

My sister agreed to help her move, and went around last night. My sister told me that the woman has ripped a big piece from the wallpaper, in every single room, because ''why should she pay for wallpaper for someone else to move in and it all to be done for them?''

Even her daughter's room, which had been done recently?! My sister said she just told her it was very mean to do, to which the woman just laughed.

I'd have told her she was a spiteful little bitch I'm afraid, and refused to help. What makes some people so utterly fucking selfish & mean?

OP posts:

Mermaidhair · 11/09/2015 12:06

What an awful sounding woman. Be glad you aren't like her.

confusedandemployed · 11/09/2015 12:08

Seriously? People on this thread seem to be saying that sort of action is OK.
Fucking beggars belief.
Of course YANBU OP, she sounds like a twat.

Original poster

LoseLooseLucy · 11/09/2015 12:14

FriendofBill

Benefit fraud. Yes, she was reported. No, not by me. The benefit fraud was not was this was about, so I'm not trying to 'smear benefit claimants'.
Council house. Yes? I grew up in the same one my parents still live in. And clearly pertinent to the story.
Unemployed. Yes, as are most of the people who live in this shitty town, my parents included.

You missed out teenage parents. Again, just as my own parents were. No judgement from me there, either.

Gossipy and shit stirring. Ok.... .

Oh yes, and you are certainly better than her OP. [yawn]

OP posts:

OneDay103 · 11/09/2015 12:17

Yanbu, but again look at her life and you wonder if you can expect any better. Hope the dd now has a chance as she won't be living with this spiteful thing anymore.

DaddyPigIsMyParentingGuru · 11/09/2015 12:21

It is a pointless, twattish and destructive thing to do - she gained nothing from doing it.
What a bitch.

SaucyJack · 11/09/2015 12:29

"Seriously? People on this thread seem to be saying that sort of action is OK."

It's not something I'd personally feel the need to do, but I can see that no one is ever under any obligation to give their own things away to others for free. And it will be something that's she's spent her own time and money to put up.

Moving into a council property is not like buying a house where you've personally paid the previous occupant a couple of hundred thousand for the house inc. contents.

It's nice to take over a council place in a decent condition, but absolutely not to be expected in my experience. It's just the way things are.

I wouldn't do it myself tho as I say, but I wouldn't be outraged enough to start this thread either.

DaddyPigIsMyParentingGuru · 11/09/2015 12:33

I would start this thread!
If she spent £40 on wall paper and a day putting up she spent that time and money if it stays there for a month or a decade or if she vandalises it so she might as well leave it up. Maybe the next person moving in hasn't got a tenner for paint to paint over it or isn't able to decorate.

confusedandemployed · 11/09/2015 12:42

But she just trashed the wallpaper. For no reason other than spite. Yes so she bought it and put it up. So what? It's like saying little Johnny is perfectly within his rights to break the scooter he's grown out of simply to stop his younger brother playing with it. Technically she is within her rights. Doesn't stop the action being reprehensible and, well, twattish.

MaddyinaPaddy · 11/09/2015 12:46

meh people normally redecorate a new house anyway don't they?

Lagoonablue · 11/09/2015 12:46

Yes it's horrible. Some people are like that. She sounds a charmer.

Nataleejah · 11/09/2015 12:48

I have a confession to make. I had an arsey landlord in my younger days and when i moved out, i left the key to my next door neighbour who ripped out all the lightbulbs, doorknobs, locks -- every bit and bob he could unscrew. He's a hoarder for building supplies. I bet he enjoyed himself.

Branleuse · 11/09/2015 12:53

I think its completely a non issue and none of your business.

WorktoLive · 11/09/2015 12:57

Not necessarily maddy. People who are exceptionally fussy, or who have more time and/or money than they know what to do with might, but plenty of people would be happy to live with perfectly serviceable decorating until it actually needs doing.

And seeing as people who are allocated HA properties are generally of below average means, it is especially mean spirited to trash perfectly serviceable wallpaper for the sole purpose of preventing someone else from having something nice without having to go to the time and effort of doing it themselves. And what if they can't physically do it or afford to pay a decorator?

DisconcertedAndRetired · 11/09/2015 13:20

It's not something I'd personally feel the need to do, but I can see that no one is ever under any obligation to give their own things away to others for free.

She's someone who for no benefit to herself chose to make a complete stranger's life that much worse.

The fact that the incomer had no right to expect wallpaper they could keep is neither here nor there. The fact is that they would have had it, but for a spiteful act by someone who didn't know them.

caelacoo · 11/09/2015 13:27

My mum rented out her house whilst she was a landlady at a pub.

She then wanted her house back, so served an eviction notice when the contract ran out. They refused to move with the councils back up for 6 months...during that time they:-
Stripped all the wall paper off the dining room walls leaving just the plaster
Hand printed paint on the walls in one bedroom
Destroyed the laminate flooring in same room
Smashed huge holes in the wall in another room
Stripped the wall paper from the third
Removed the light bulbs from the rooms
Turned the back yard into a scrap heap.

Worst of all my mum nearly got charged with an extortionate gas bills with huge fines as the tenants had bypass the meter with an illegal clamp and was stealing the gas.

I think they may have been a bit bitter

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 11/09/2015 13:31

Sorry but I can see where she's coming from.

5Foot5 · 11/09/2015 13:36

Yes but it's not like she can take it with her is it? Whether she left the paper intact or damaged it it makes no difference to her own pocket.

I think it is a despicable thing to do and just makes her look like a spiteful, selfish, immature twat!

wickedlazy · 11/09/2015 13:39

Petty in the extreme.

SheGotAllDaMoves · 11/09/2015 13:39

Isn't it just common decency to leave a home you're moving out of, in the best state for incoming people?

To deliberately ruin something, is surely the action of someone without basic decency?

So why then are posters defending it? Or saying it's no one's business?

Society requires us all to do things we don't necessarily have to. If we only all refrain from actions that will have us arrested, we'll all be ina fine old mess.

WorktoLive · 11/09/2015 13:40

Sorry but I can see where she's coming from.

How??? going out of her way to deliberately destroy something that is useless to her, for the sole purpose of preventing someone else from benefitting from it.

It's behaviour like this that karma was made for and I really hope that what goes around comes around and her next rented property is a damp, flea infested dump, because 'why should someone else pay for wallpaper so she can move in with it all being done for her'.

CalmYourselfTubbs · 11/09/2015 13:46

YANBU.
but this kind of thing happens all the time. people have no respect for property, most especially when it doesn't belong to them.
i know a man in a council property who chopped up his wooden stairs and used it for firewood for heating. he then used a rope to get up and down the between the ground and first floor.
scumbags like this are the reason why we pay so much tax

Blu · 11/09/2015 13:51

So, she did actually commit benefit fraud, and then instead of staying in the house and her DP moving in and supporting the family, she relinquished a secure tenancy, turfed her 15yo out of her home, and has taken up an insecure home where she still can't get any benefits because she is living with her DP.

She isn't a great strategist, is she? But I daresay she felt bitter and a victim so made a pointless lashing out gesture.

Poor 15 year old. Poor baby when the relationship goes tits up and they are homeless and living in a B&B.

RandomSocks · 11/09/2015 13:53

CalmYourselfTubbs really?

CalmYourselfTubbs · 11/09/2015 14:03

Random it is, unfortunately, true.
DF told me and he still mentions it with disgust, from time to time.

LurkingHusband · 11/09/2015 14:28

people have no respect for property, most especially when it doesn't belong to them

This, a thousand times.

For some reason the OPs story reminded me of the fairy story about the evil queen who is tricked into devising a cruel punishment for an offence, only to suffer it herself.

One wonders what the woman in the OP would have done had they had top move into a property where the previous tenant had deliberately ruined the decor ?

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