Evening,
I bought a house in September and decided getting a lodger for around 1 year in could be a good idea to help me save for some home improvements. A friend from work stated her friend was looking for somewhere to live, so literally not long after I moved in, she followed.
We are both single and 30. We work full time normal hours. At first, we got on extremely well; I couldn't believe my luck. We began socialising after work sometimes too. She is very neat and tidy.
Sadly, things went downhill quickly and, naively, she paid me no deposit and I didn't set many ground rules to start with which probably hasn't helped.
A few months ago I couldn't help but notice she had COVERED her walls with paintings and pictures one weekend! I was really upset and told her to ask me to ask permission before putting things up in future. I started noticing little comments such as her "contemplating" painting the kitchen..! To which I said no. She has replaced one or two things in the house which really she should have told me and asked me to do, such as light bulbs and light fixtures all around the house. she has also assembled furniture I've bought for the house before I've had the chance. To some it may seem crazy I'm complaining but I feel she is treading on my toes.
More recently, she has been having 3-4 family members at a time to stay for weekends without asking me first. When I come home from work most evenings, she is already home and running between cooking her dinner and watching her favourite tv programmes and films. she never asks me what I want to watch or if I mind, and so most nights I find myself going up to my room to watch things on my iPad. She has made comments about her going away for an upcoming weekend and about how relieved I must be to be able to "watch what I want" all weekend!? This would be a strange comment (although a lot less stranger) even if I, as her landlady, had made that comment to her.
She has also opened a lot of mail addressed to "the occupier" or "homeowner" when she has come in from work, and she always parks on my drive, leaving me to park on the road.
I could go on, and on, and on. She refers to my house as "ours" and even in front of mutual friends I've heard her call the house hers (as in "mine")!!! She, unsurprisingly, has not lived with a live in landlady before. She seems very deluded and is almost in the mindset she owns the house? Having said that, even as the home owner id never dream of binge watching things on tv, seemingly oblivious to her needs and wants.
This whole issue is causing a lot of tension. I'm enjoying the money and feel kind of pressured into keeping her since we now have a lot of mutual friends (one of whom is my work colleague), however when I tell her/ask her not to do something, she absolutely cannot take it and either goes off in a strop or ignores me. I asked if she could stop wearing her muddy boots in the house last week and she never responded to my request and went and shut herself in her room all night. I also once asked if she wouldn't mind asking before putting the heating on (it's on a timer but she puts it on "on" if she gets cold), as she just pays me a set amount of rent each month whilst I pay the bills, and she just said "yep" and again took herself off to her room.
As her responses to me are quite dramatic, mumsnet - am I being unreasonable here? Any pearls of wisdom?