Regret renting our room to very noisy mum and child

[Us1945]

Hello everyone

So I am actually quite understanding and so is my family about this situation. Il be honest it is getting me down though, I would like your opinions on who is being unreasonable.

My husband and I live with his family, they have rented a house for 15+ Years and we have a good relationship with our landlord. We all live together renting a room each. It is a 4 bedroom house. So it’s currently my husband and I, his cousin and wife. We then had another two empty rooms. We decided to stay living here as it has become our home and right now we can’t all afford to pay to live alone. So house sharing saves us a lot of money. If the spare rooms aren’t rented, we cover the cost of everything. So realistically we need to share a 2 bedroom house rather than a 4 bedroom but because we’ve been here so many years, we just keep staying. I suppose we feel comfortable here. It’s always been family here however the brother has now moved out with his wife and got his own mortgage. Our cousin then moved out, so we had 2 empty rooms and no extra rent contributions.

We rented one room to a lady who is okay. She keeps herself to herself and we rarely see her.

The second room we rented to a lovely lady, however she has a 10 year old son...
We talked about this before and decided that it would be fine with us if they live here, the lady is lovely and she is tidy. She doesn’t have people around and we trust her.

The issue is her child. He shouts, screams and has a massive meltdown about absolutely everything. I think she is scared of him, he is 10! She never disciplines him and his horrible behaviour is giving me a headache constantly. Day and night he shouts, threatens her and it can be quite disrespectful in my eyes. Not once have I heard her try to tell him off. I think she should be telling him that he needs to be quite because other people live here too. We all have work, I wake at 5.30am and everyone else is up by 6.30am.

The bad behaviour comes at certain times, whenever he doesn’t get what he wants. He cries and screams like a baby. I heard him say to her last week “if you don’t give me it I will slap you”!!! Can you believe this?? From a 10 year old.

The noise is one thing but listening to the way he treats her is worse. She is too soft on him and I feel sorry for her. They have lived here for 2 months and it’s clear that she has no respect for us.

She doesn’t apologise for the noise, or try to tell him off. I can’t deal with the noise. He is so loud shouting at her constantly im sure the neighbors can hear him.

So like I said, my husband and his cousin obviously hear him too. They aren’t saying anything though. It’s me who wants to go and speak to her about it. AIBU?? I just want a peaceful house... weve lived here 15 years. The landlord doesn’t care, he comes around once a month however he leaves the house to the family to rent themselves or rent a room etc. As long as the place is clean, rent is paid etc, he is okay.

I can’t go and say anything to her because it would be like “hey your son is a disrespectful brat who needs to be told”

“ can you tell him to shut up I’ve got work in the morning “ that kind of conversation

What would you recommend?

Let it continue...
Move out to our own flat & pay a fortune in rent...
Ask them to leave...

I don’t think the others are as bothered as I am, that’s why I am asking for advice? They hear his shouting and bratty behaviour but kind of ignore it... should I too? I just hate noise... nothing worse than having to listen to someone elses kid being a brat. If it’s my own child that’s different but I don’t see why his behaviour should be affecting all of us too. He’s not my child, I work hard and deserve to come home to a peaceful house and relax!

She is renting a room.. not a flat.. not a house. So im reluctant to say anything to her as I get the feeling maybe she’s struggling. Who moves into a room with their 10 year old son? Is this common? Surely she should be living in a house, im sure she would get help with money or rent if she’s struggling. It’s all confusing but other than that, she’s very nice maybe she has some problems and she babies him and doesn’t want to tell him off.. who knows. She can raise him how she wants but she should have respect for her other house mates. AIBU?

Thank you

Tory austerity policy is absolutely evil.

Others are right that in London in the 90s someone on a professional grad trainee salary would get a house share room in a nice house with people their own age.

Coupling up around age 27 or so, you'd then afford a two bed or one bed flat.

Stick with that til you're 31, stretch a bit and get a 2-3 bed house. Have a couple of kids. Property ladder sorted.

That was the last generation that could do that. Now, junior executives are all in couples in HMOs or living at home with parents and commuting in.

And that is the super well off end of the spectrum! The working professional middle classes. Accountants. Marketing people. Solicitors.

I can imagine families with children on medium to low wages and single parents can afford literally nothing in zone 1-4 now.

All very well to say move out of London, but people need the pay, and they might have always lived there.

Cleansing the poor from our cities is not a good policy. The barren areas of empty luxury flats owned by Russian Oligarchs, which currently make up most of Knightsbridge, will stretch from Hackney to Kew.

I remember a thread not long ago about whether it was ok for an OP's daughter to be sharing with her younger sister. People were appalled that she wouldn't move house or change arrangements because it was awful that the child should be sharing her private space.

Now we have an adult and child in one bedroom but that's fine and we should all empathise.

Op you can't win with these threads. I think the best thing you can do is move out. Your dh and his family don't own you, you can make choices for your own life.

Although if parents insist on living in Central London then I’m less sympathetic. Plenty of cheaper areas they could afford.

I live in a widely-regarded-as-cruddy area of (zone 3) London. I reckon around half of DS' (primary school) classmates are living in HMOs, and a number of others in otherwise poor quality accommodation. They live here mainly because it's a relatively affordable bit of London, and that's where the available jobs are. It's still not really affordable, which is why so many (working) families are living in arrangements like this. It's a scandal, and it's depressing that anyone miles away on the internet would rather look to blame the parents rather than be outraged about how this can be so widespread in a wealthy country.

Sorry the family have rented the house 15 years. I’ve lived here 3.5 years. We are recently married saving for a mortgage. I have nothing to do with the landlord or rent. I don’t have a contract. The only person with a contract is the main tenant. He has been given permission to rent the rooms eho whoever he wants. The landlord Doesn’t care. As long as the people are respectful and tidy etc. He comes around often and yes he is updated on whoever moves in or out. The tenant has a good relationship with the landlord. All rules or laws are followed and he is very health and safety focused including with fire hazards and the correct fittings around the home. I agree that our rent should be fixed but only the two tenants are fixed payments. The family payment goes up or down depending on changes. I don’t have a say in this. This is apparently how it’s been for 15 years. Long before I moved in. I’ve lived here 3.5 years however I feel it’s my home. I do like living here as it’s cheap. But clearly we are getting the mick taken and technically have no tenant rights. Im just doing as im told. The familys view is if I don’t like the rules I can move out. Believe me we’ve had our fare share of disagreements however my issue is this lady and son. Why does everyone assume she’s in a bad situation? I’ve been told it’s common for people from her country to share because all they want is more money. She seems happy. I highly doubt she’s in trouble. The child seems fine it’s when were not around he plays up. I genuinely think she’s too soft on him. It’s her choice to live in a room. Not mine what do people think im meant to do? Fix her life for her. She made the choice to rent a room here just like I did.

Yeah I’m sure you’re right and ‘those foreign people’ just love money more than their kids. After all you might have to think about your shit attitude otherwise.

it seems like all the progress re social housing has been swept away and we should be grateful to live in a hovel. Bringing children up in one room is disgraceful

I agree. The UK is still one of the very richest countries in the world, and people on well above the average income are having to live like students until well into their middle years. Meanwhile, private landlords receive £24bn a year of taxpayers' money and pay off their BTL mortgages at the expense of everyone else.

Something has to change.

Meanwhile, private landlords receive £24bn a year of taxpayers' money and pay off their BTL mortgages at the expense of everyone else.

It is an absolute scandal.

Op I don’t know what country she’s from but nobody would prefer to live in a shared house than have their own place. I very much doubt it was her choice.

Im hearing it different from people within the same community. You obviously don’t understand what im saying as you seem to twist everything. For some people ( a lot ) in London this is normal and living in much worse conditions. This is not bad conditions. Some people don’t think it’s normal. That’s up to the individual. She’s rented a room for her and her 10 year old. How am I suddenly a bad person because of this? I don’t even know her and there’s nothing that suggests to me she is running away from abuse or a bad life. Do you want me to ask her?

She is living like that with her son weather she has been forced to or chose to. All I know is it’s not me forcing her to do anything. Im a kind person who respects other people I live with. Im not a nasty person and unfortunately there’s not much more I can add to this conversation. I don’t see why people are so annoyed at me because a lady chose to live in a room rather than a flat or house... how is that anything to do with me?? I don’t know about her life... who knows but it’s not my place to randomly ask her.

Your landlord is allowing your husbands cousin to sublet and create an HMO. The house should therefore be set up as an HMO - fire doors on all the bedrooms etc.

This is only true of HMOs of three storeys or more. The law is about to change/has just changed (can't remember) and licensable HMOs won't be dependent upon the number of storeys - however the requirement in this case will only be to have a licence and follow certain other guidelines (eg room size minimums and total occupancy maximums), however fire doors, hard wired fire alarms and other things that are mandatory in the three storey HMOs will not be a requirement.

And the woman and her son are effectively lodgers of the tenants and so notice should be given by the tenants, not the landlord. And I think they should be given notice as no one wants to live with that sort of disruption.

Trust me plenty of people would live in a small place to save money. Haven’t you read through this thread! Do you live in London? I do and I see it every day. It’s not my cup of tea, I am not originally from London. I don’t mind sharing a house however if I had a child to think of, I would do my best to provide a house over their head. But thats my personal opinion that doesn’t mean other people have to do the same. We all live differently that’s the whole point. Im seeing both sides.

She’s polish, yes?
You’re in London

Completely and utterly normal for a mother and son to share as part of a flat share in London.

People who have no experience of London really struggle to grasp quite how expensive it is

I guess you have no idea if this foreign woman is here legally or not?

If you did a bit of detective work and found out she has no right to be here, then I would like to think it would be straightforward in getting her and her child out.

Her situation sounds a bit suspicious to me.

Why is everyone so bothered about the landlord and his house? It’s none of my business and none of yours. We live in a nice house, the space is plenty, the landlord is nice and no one would ever be asked to leave without notice. I wouldn’t be leaving without notice as im not a pushover. I highly doubt this landlord would turf any of is out without notice. If I thought that I wouldn’t be living there would I. Tenants have a choice, if they don’t like whats on offer there’s a million other houses out there. You all need to mind your own business and focus on the original point of the child who is disrupting the other tenants. If he lived in a different house it would be the same. If she’s choosing to share a house then she needs to understand it’s not just her living there, she should at least attempt to discipline him. Or apologise for any extremely noisy behaviour. Thats common curtesy. Im not expecting him to be silent but none of you have heard or whitenessed his behaviour towards his mum. Sounds to me like she’s let him get away with it for years. That’s my opinion. I’ve seen it you haven’t. It’s clear he always gets what he wants. She runs around after him doing absolutely everything to please him incase he kicks off. I just think he needs to calm down a bit. The renting of the room is irrelevant as I wasn’t asking for advice about that. But thank you for all the answers, I am sure you mean well

It’s not my place to do digging or get her out. She’s a nice person and im not the landlord. I just wanted some advice about her son... why would she need to leave... ?

Have I got confused? I thought the OP's family, the tenants, rented the room to this woman - not the LL? If that is the case then the woman is a lodger and isn't the LL's responsibility to evict. If her contract is direct with the LL then it is.

If you did a bit of detective work and found out she has no right to be here, then I would like to think it would be straightforward in getting her and her child out.

OP doesn't sound like she has any difficulty speaking for herself so I'm not sure why you're advocating she gets the Home Office to do it for her. Personally I think it'd be objectionable to try to get a child deported ffs regardless of the family's immigration status.

OP you've had a variety of responses and it's not clear to me what you wanted from this thread. Was it just to vent about an unpleasant child and his inept mother? There's nobody who knows better how to deal with children's behaviour than someone who doesn't even have children hey.

Tory Britain in action that you have families with children living like this.

This is all very confusing. So OP, it's okay for you and your husband to house share so you can save money, but not for this lady and her son? If she could afford more than one room, I'm sure she would have rented more than one room. From the sounds of it, she has the exact same right to live there as you do. You can ask her nicely to keep the noise down, or you can move. You can't kick her out, tell her to leave, interfere with her life. And you shouldn't be passing judgement. You have no idea what situation you may find yourself in in a few years time.

It's fine not to like the noise he makes but since you have no idea why he does it, commenting on her parenting is pointless.

Okay clearly you are all not seeing my replies??? I like her being here! She is no problem I don’t want her to leave. I’ve never said that. Im not renting her a room, I rent a room from someone myself. Im simply asking out of respect should she ask her son to keep the noise down a bit? Clearly the answer is no. So I won’t ask her. No problem.

You all need to get a life

But the woman has moved to the UK. If I turned up in Manhattan with the dcs I'd be rather surprised if I were able to rent a suitable self-contained flat for us without $$$$$. In fact if I moved to London from where I live now in the outer suburbs, I wouldn't be able to afford... anything.

Also in many European cities people are not so fixated on personal space. Many of my relatives live in one-bedroom flats and the dcs certainly don't have their own rooms, even when teenagers and (far) beyond. It's not a question of money in many cases, either - they just don't place the value British people do on square footage.

I’ve never known a bunch of people to come on a chat forum and completely twist what someone is saying. I never had an issue with her, other posters were asking why she is living in a room and that maybe she’d had a bad life previously. I was literally asking if there’s any way to try and get the child to be quieter seeing as I wake up for work early and he is very loud. So now we have to be afraid of telling of our kids off?. Im sorry but the behaviour I whitness everyday is unacceptable. She should also consider other people in the house. She is lovely however she is just seeming to ignore his bad behaviour and it’s giving me a headache every day. There’s no more to it than that. In the end it’s none of my business I suppose if I want to move out then I can... maybe I will. Im not renting anything to anyone im living in a room in a house along with this woman. So I have no say in if she stays or not.