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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

New lodger taking over my house!!!

496 replies

scrabbled · 26/02/2019 20:08

Ahhh not sure if I'm being unreasonable as my last lodger kept himself very to himself and I know I was lucky.

New lodger moved in Saturday, but I was away.

He is taking over my house!!

  • has installed a doorbell with alarms all over the house without asking me
  • keeps his bedroom door open whilst blaring out rubbish heavy metal music
  • has filled all available work spaces with protein and supplements and squeezed my stuff onto a tiny shelf
  • stays up until the early hours watching tv in he living room and refusing to turn it down.
  • kept his keys in the door so that when I got home from work I was locked out, as he was in the shower.

I've just been sitting quietly eating dinner and he has come in and turned on the TV and started watching something.

AIBU here? And if I'm not how do I tell him where the boundaries are?

OP posts:
hickerydickerydockmouse · 26/02/2019 21:48

Sit him and spell out the ground rules with him. It's your house and what you says goes. He is trying to be an alpha male here. Tell him that if he continues like this you will have to give him a notice to leave. If he stubborn about it then you will call the police. Tell him that he can keep his things in his room only and not to install anything without your prior approval. Make it clear that if he install things without your consent then you will confiscate them. If he can't follow the rules of YOUR house then he can leave right now. The end.

BreconBeBuggered · 26/02/2019 21:48

Who moved in with you, Feathers McGraw? You'll be sleeping out the back in a kennel if you're not careful, OP.

Takethebuscuitandthesink · 26/02/2019 21:51

You need to establish boundaries and if he doesn’t like that ,well, he knows where the door is.

kateandme · 26/02/2019 21:54

genuine question.do you not use the lounge if you are loging?

Original poster
scrabbled · 26/02/2019 21:58

@kateandme generally lodging is cheaper than a share due to the fact you have limited or no access to the living room. I charge £400 pcm when a share would be closer to £500 - £550 to reflect this.

OP posts:
hoodathunkit · 26/02/2019 22:00

I have only read the first two pages but this is how it looks to me

OP

I think there is a very high likelihood that you are being "cuckooed".

He has installed alarms throughout your home?

He has significant quantities of "protein shakes" stored in your home?

If your posts accurately reflect reality then you may be at risk of harm.

You seem like a vulnerable person and I am concerned for your welfare

Yabbers · 26/02/2019 22:01

Tell him that if he continues like this you will have to give him a notice to leave.

Tell him? Really?

OP, he isn’t going to change, that’s pretty clear. Looks like you will have to just tell him to go. Living with him isn’t going to work.

ReanimatedSGB · 26/02/2019 22:03

I think it might be advisable to have a couple of tough-minded pals round when you tell him to leave. Because I think it's quite possible this dickhead picked you deliberately - as someone who is a softy not very assertive. While he may just have wanted to live with someone who he can safely ignore in terms of using the kitchen/bathroom whenever he likes, who he doesn't need to show any consideration to (because you're only a silly little woman, not a person), he might also be thinking that he's entitled to your body as well as your home...

NotANotMan · 26/02/2019 22:04

My lodgers have never used the lounge. I have never banned them but it just doesn't happen. I'm rarely in here myself after 9pm so they could happily do so but they just don't. Every lodger I've ever had (apart from the awful one) has kept to their bedroom. A couple have used the living room to eat (at the table) but most eat in their room too.
I'm not an unfriendly person but I don't chit chat and hang out with them, I project boundaries I guess and they respond to that. Nobody has ever left earlier than they planned to so it can't be making them unhappy.

PotteryLady · 26/02/2019 22:07

I would tell him tonight so that it's out in the open. I would worry overnight and not sleep

ilikemethewayiam · 26/02/2019 22:11

Am I the only one concerned as to why he’s almost immediately installed alarms? Why? Something not right here!

Samind · 26/02/2019 22:13

Yeah I thought that too then locking the door an leaving key in for a shower?

MumUnderTheMoon · 26/02/2019 22:14

You aren't being precious how dare he make adaptions to your home by adding the doorbell etc. He is absolutely overstepping his boundaries. Make stricter rules in the first instance if that doesn't work or there's a bad feeling in your home evict him.

Original poster
scrabbled · 26/02/2019 22:17

My boyfriend is working away until Friday but he will come over whilst I tell him he needs to leave.

OP posts:
AlpacaLypse · 26/02/2019 22:24

I'm glad you're using the sense of 'when' not 'if' you tell him to leave! hugs xx

EnglishRose13 · 26/02/2019 22:25

We had a lodger. The very first day he went into our study and used the house phone to call a gambling line and ran up a massive phone bill. We hadn't shown him the study, or that the phone was in there. He must have gone looking in the non-communal areas.

That should have been a red flag. He lived with us for 9 more months and honestly it was hell.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 26/02/2019 22:25

People saying he thinks it's a house-share, his behaviour would be outrageous even if it were. It would be fine if he were living alone, but he most definitely isn't.

Odious, arrogant creature - he sounds like Father Stack, or at the least Feathers McGraw.

SpanielEars070 · 26/02/2019 22:30

Can you disconnect the doorbell/alarms that he's rigged up?

In all seriousness OP I'd get someone to stay with you until your BF gets back. It does sound like he's paranoid about someone getting in..... is he using steroids or drugs possibly?

TheClaifeCrier · 26/02/2019 22:32

He's trying to assert dominance over you. Get rid.

Eatmycheese · 26/02/2019 22:34

Pack his stuff when he goes out
Change the locks
Leave his doorbell and protein shit outside with the rest of his stuff.

Lodger from hell solved

IHateUncleJamie · 26/02/2019 22:35

I genuinely am not sure if I'm being precious about my house.

You are most definitely NOT being precious. No WAY should he have installed doorbells and alarms, let alone everything else!

azulmariposa · 26/02/2019 22:37

Change the locks! How dare he lock you out! How long till he takes over house completely?

TheInvestigator · 26/02/2019 22:38

You are not being precious. It's your house. He is treating it like a house share. Maybe he doesn't understand the difference, but he is treating your house like a house share and not paying for that.

And by the sounds of it, he isn't going to listen.

Tomorrow, sit him down and explain the difference between lodging and house sharing. Tell him it's time to get his stuff out of the kitchen; he can of course have a cupboard for his food and a shelf in the fridge but that's it. He cannot use the living room because he is only paying for a bedroom and use of kitchen/bathroom facilities.

Then tell him that if he doesn't like it, then you are giving notice.

It's your house. He isn't paying for what he is using. You don't need to take this.

FermatsTheorem · 26/02/2019 22:39

In the circumstances, very good call about having your boyfriend around when you give him his notice.

He sounds a nightmare. I used to take in lodgers so I know how it works - sounds like you did your best to vet him beforehand and he just managed to evade your twat-dar (my experience is vetting removes the obvious oddballs, but no-one's spidey senses are ever 100%, and you've just got unlucky).

AnyName1 · 26/02/2019 22:41

Make life easier for yourself, lie and say you need the room for your mother or something. Do you suspect steroid use?

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