This thread is great - as are all CF threads!
I too would love to hear more of crazy loft-annexing neighbour.
When I was at uni, three others and I shared a big flat above a shop. It had a bathroom for the four of us to share, but the shop below didn't have a toilet for the staff. There was room to install one and the landlady wasn't hard up at all, but she told us that staff would need to come up and use ours 'on the odd occasion' (she was one of the staff), but assured us they wouldn't be any trouble.
Naturally, the four of us had shower rotas which fitted with all of our timetables and checked between ourselves if anybody needed the loo before we went in, but we started finding the landlady and other staff waiting outside and complaining when they had had to wait to use OUR toilet. LL told us that she was paying staff and we were effectively costing her money and damaging her business by daring to use our bathroom when they needed it.
She would also send customers up to use the toilet, 'when they were desperate', even though there was a big supermarket three minutes' walk down the road. A man was once found wandering through the flat opening doors and going in rooms. When challenged, he said he couldn't find 'the' (our) toilet and was looking for it, even though it was completely obvious where it was and the first room you'd come to at the top of the stairs. She then tried to tell us that we needed to have showers before 8am or after 6pm, so that they had easy access to OUR bathroom. She also expected them to be able to use the toilet before we did in the daytime, if there was a queue, 'because they were working, you see'.
I was approaching my third year and I was spending it abroad (language degree), and the others I'd been sharing with had been in their final year and were leaving, so there would be four rooms available. I had checked with the LL and she was visibly relieved when I told her I had four close friends who would like to rent the flat for the following year - she confirmed that it was very much available, took their names and contact details and thanked me for saving her the worry of having to find new tenants.
A week before the start of term, my best friend (one of the tenants moving in) called the LL out of courtesy to advise when they were all coming, the following weekend, and she said "Oh, sorry, the flat isn't available now as my niece is coming to this uni and has decided she'd like to live here with her friends". My friend asked exactly when she had been planning on letting them know and she didn't have an answer. It seems that she was planning to let them all turn up with all their luggage, a couple of days before the start of term, and then find themselves homeless.
Panic stations and thankfully, they did all manage to find alternative accommodation, but not in together - and in somewhat grotty digs.
From when I had first moved in, very little furniture had been provided, so I'd had to spend quite a bit of money on furniture. I'd also taken a decent big sofa bed with me from home. I'd gladly agreed to leave it there (was paying a retainer) for my friends to use for the year. I had to do a couple of trips back to fetch my stuff and there was just the sofa bed left. I went up with my Dad on the Sunday to collect it and the LL was there in the shop, which didn't open on Sundays but she often went in to do a few admin tasks (which also impacted on our privacy and freedom, as she asked us not to have music on, because it made it hard for her to concentrate downstairs - when she wasn't meant to be there anyway).
She was most put out that we were taking MY sofa bed away and begged us to leave it. as she'd promised her niece that it would be available for her and her friends to use, they would 'need' it and I was extremely unkind to be taking 'the' furniture away and leaving them without sufficient seating as she had us right from the start - what was I expecting them to sit on?! Apparently, we were horrible to be leaving her in the lurch by vacating at such short notice....
