Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Are these rules for my lodger too harsh?

512 replies

southatsea · 12/07/2018 07:34

I have a lodger but he has complained that my rules are too strict. So looking to canvas opinion on them!

No loud music or loud TV after 10pm
No smoking
Has to ask my permission before having friends to stay
Use of the bathroom, kitchen and living room but can't use the bathroom between 0645 and 0700 (when I need it to get ready for work)
Plates cutlery etc to be brought downstairs on the day they are used eg no hoarding in bedrooms.

Do these sound too harsh? His room is well furnished with a sofa, double bed, tv etc and I charge below market rent.

OP posts:
Pengggwn · 15/07/2018 06:55

SofiaAmes

Who do you think might be confused?

user1457017537 · 15/07/2018 07:46

If a tenant refuses to leave and you need a Court Order to remove them from your home, that makes them pretty protected in my opinion.

SofiaAmes · 15/07/2018 07:55

user1457017537 for example.

yearofthewoman · 15/07/2018 08:34

exclusionary bathroom rule
Sorry but PMSL. How very woke.

madcatladyforever · 15/07/2018 08:40

Me and my female lodger also have a toilet agreement, I don't use the main bathroom between 6 and 6.30 as she goes to work much earlier than I do and I please myself when I go to work. Obviously there is a downstairs toilet I can use if I need to.
These things have to be discussed or it is all just chaos as you end up arguing.

Original poster
southatsea · 15/07/2018 08:51

What if I point out that my lodger leaves for work far later than me, drives so isn't reliant on a specific train and occasionally works from home?!

Oh and also he doesn't have any disabilities that mean he cannot wait 15 minutes to use the toilet.

OP posts:
Pengggwn · 15/07/2018 08:53

yearofthewoman

What's woke?

Pengggwn · 15/07/2018 08:54

southatsea

I just keep coming back to 'it wouldn't work for me,' OP. Do what you want, but I wouldn't be your tenant for all the tea.

Risksrevealvalues · 15/07/2018 08:57

Tbh, I think as much as MN suggest getting a lodger as the cure all to all financial problems, unless you have a house where someone is sectioned off from you, it creates numerous problems. I’ve been a lodger and it’s shit, never felt like I was ‘home.’

user1457017537 · 15/07/2018 09:01

SofiaAmes I’m confused as to what you think I’m confused about Confused

ScienceIsTruth · 15/07/2018 09:04

Without reading what others have pout, my first feelings are that you don't have many rules, and that thru are all noire than reasonable and very fair(mostly common sense). Which rules is he complaining about?

Icanttakemuchmore · 15/07/2018 09:14

Very reasonable to me. It's your house, your rules. If he doesn't like them he can always find somewhere else to live.

Lweji · 15/07/2018 09:47

@southatsea

What if I point out that...

It doesn't matter because some people will still want you to be unreasonable.

So, arrive at work when your lodger allows you to.
Stay up all night listening to his TV shows and music.
Prepare yourself to have random strangers walking in and out of your home any time of the day and night.
Hunt for dirty crockery in his room when your cupboards get empty.

It sounds great.

RaininSummer · 15/07/2018 10:16

Not sure that you even need a court order to remove a lodger. Give agreed notice and if they don't go, bags on street.

Jux · 15/07/2018 11:33

In any household with more than one person occupying, there will be a bathroom agreement of some sort in existence. Often unwritten, just understood. It is only when one person won't cooperate that it becomes contentious.

Are you avoiding possible problems by specifying your time in the bathroom, or is your lodger already being a problem?

If it is the latter, have you spoken to him about it? Is he doing the 'marking territory' thing? I've found men are particularly prone to doing that, especially when they are not in charge overall; they look for small ways to say that they are the boss really. The small way works and they look for another - like toddlers pushing boundaries. It's very tiresome. (And yes, NAMALT.)

If he's doing that, then just get rid, there'll be no end to it.

There was a thread here some time ago where the male lodger had edged himself into a position where the female owner couldn't use her sitting room any more as he had taken it over. I can't remember how it came out, maybe she just stopped updating like op here probably has.

Maybe that one was a lazy journo thread and once they'd written up their few hundred words and screen-shotted a bit they forgot about it.

Amethystical · 15/07/2018 11:56

What if I point out that my lodger leaves for work far later than me

Then I think you are being even more reasonable than I originally thought. He sounds entitled and inconvenient. Get rid.

Jux · 15/07/2018 11:59

You could suggest he buys himself a chamber pot for those morning he simply can't wait.....

Amethystical · 15/07/2018 12:05

I’m confused as to what you think I’m confused about confused

OP wouldn't need a court order to evict her lodger, as he's an excluded occupier. You seem to think you have to.

SunShades · 15/07/2018 13:41

If I were the lodger, I think I'd make a deliberate point of using the bathroom at the times the OP says it's closed. Just to see her reaction as someone so precious and selfish to 'close' a bathroom to other people would get quite animated I think.

Lweji · 15/07/2018 13:45

@SunShades

Are you like that in real life? You must be great to live with.

SunShades · 15/07/2018 14:01

@Lweji

Fortunately I don't live with people who think they have the right to 'close' bathrooms at some ordained time lest anyone else dare to use it.

Original poster
southatsea · 15/07/2018 14:04

@SunShades but what if for example you knew that in the morning you had to be somewhere at a specific time? Would you just get up incredibly early to make sure that if the people you live with needed to use the bathroom they could all do so, even if they were there for hours? Or would you just ask if they could keep 15 minutes free for you?

OP posts:
SunShades · 15/07/2018 14:07

@southatsea

I'd be perfectly happy to co-operate if someone politely mentioned what time they leave for work and that they need to use the bathroom.

But if they tried to impose a 'rule' closing it at certain times, I'd go out of my way to be as uncooperative as possible. Even if that meant occupying the bathroom for several hours.

Mumminmum · 15/07/2018 14:10

@Sunshades you sound very immature and unpleasant to live with.

Jux · 15/07/2018 14:12

Sunshades, you sound like the sort of person for whom those sort of rules need to be made. I had a flatmate like you once - she knew what times people needed to use the shower and whether she needed it or not, she would make sure that she got in there just before them; she'd spend the week chuckl8ng about it too. There was a time when one of the other flatmates had been a witness to a serious offence. The police spent hours in our kitchen with her and asked us all if it was OK for 5hem to r8ng our flatmate at 4:30 the next day. So at 4:25 the bitch got on the phone and tied it up for an hour (days of landlines and no mobiles). She was triumphant about that too. One of the horridest people I've had to apend time with.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

Join Mumsnet Log In

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.