Adult daughter colonising house

[Windingmeuptothemax]

I need some perspective on this as I have a very fractious relationship with this 26 yo DD. I love her very much and I'm proud of her but she and I are very similar and often rub each other up the wrong way.

She lived away from home for 4 years at uni. She had her own flats most of this time. She chose to study overseas so all her fees, rents and living costs were funded by DH and I. When she came home 4 years ago she moved back into our family home. The first year she was temping and working PT while she looked for a 'proper job" so she lived with us rent free. Once she got a FT job she continued to live with us because we are in London and rents are very high. We agreed she'd pay a nominal rent of £235 a month so she could save for a home of her own one day. For that she gets a double bedroom, sole use of a bathroom, all bills, can add food to the weekly food shop and free run of our wine rack and drinks cabinet.

When lockdown started she started to work from home in what was once my study. I no longer work so didn't need it. So she now has sole use of that room. My cupboards and papers are stored there out of sight and she's decorated it her way so it looks smart and formal for video meetings.

She wanted to buy a very posh coffee maker. I didn't want it kept in the kitchen as it would have been cluttered (and because there is already a perfectly good coffee machine there) so we cleared a counter/cupboard in the utility room, storing the stuff that was kept there elsewhere so she has a dedicated coffee area. It has expanded fr0m the coffee maker to a grinder and steamer too. She could open a branch of Costa.

This is all fine. We have plenty of space and money isn't a problem. But it seems the more space she gets, the more she wants. I've just gone into my previously neglected sewing room which I have spent lockdown cleaning and renovating into a cosy den for myself and discovered she has moved several things I keep in 'her' study into my sewing room because she felt they didn't go with her Christmas Zoom call aesthetic

AIBU to be so pissed off by this? I know it's hard for her as a grown woman to have to live in someone else's house but sometimes I feel like the lodger whose life is interfering with her Instagram perfection.

Set some boundaries. But it sounds like you aren't using the space so it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

If she wants to clutter a house up with various gadgets and gizmos she can get her own, she’s more than old enough.

@IsFinnRogersDead

How much would her own flat cost? Vs how much she is costing you in bills, food, alcohol. Add in your hourly rates for being annoyed, cleaning up after her. Plus how much rent she's paying you. What's the difference between her cost(s) and market rent?

Depends where in London but where I am a one bed flat would cost around £1,600 -£1,800 pcm. Not really do-able for most.

There is no right answer. One of my daughters came back for 5 weeks over the summer when she was between flats and worked from home. I did feel slightly taken over too but it had an end date . My older children have moved back after university but with a kind of short shelf life to it - the girls to do post grad law with a clear plan and now my son(s). I would not want it forever and I suspect one reason I have helped each of them buy a first property is to ensure they have somewhere to go.

I don'[t mind that my son is using the dining room as his study room as it has a big table and is otherwise not often used for meetings etc and his sisters used it for 4 consecutive years in their post grad days too. If there were no time limit nor plan however I would not have agreed.

Why isn't she allowed not treat your house as her home? My kids have stuff in annoying places, so does dh but we all live here.

And I'd be scared that if we gave her any sort of ultimatum or deadline she might leave and not bother with us again

That is not a healthy dynamic at all. This is the actual issue that needs addressing as it is open to being exploited.

It’s a bit odd that you have ‘her’ rooms and ‘your’ rooms in a shared home with your daughter. Like a weird cross between a lodger and a family member.

If you mind having there, whether you can afford it or not, tell her to move out. If not, does it really matter if she puts some stuff in the ‘sewing room’?

When I was 26 I was living in a flat share in London - that’s what most people do. It isn’t a binary case of living at home or paying £1,800 for a 1 bedroom flat of one’s own. Pretty much every single one of my friends at 26 was living in a flatshare arrangement. We all coped fine and were able to save for our own places.

If she lived in a house share like a normal 20-something in London she wouldn't get away with this. I've lived with people like her before and they are a spoiled nightmare, even if they don't mean to be. You're not doing her any favours - unless she's living with you until she can afford a London sized deposit, at some point she's going to have a cold hard shock at the realities of living with someone else (even if that's her boyfriend) and the level of space and luxury she'll have.

I'm all for letting your adult children live at home if they need it, but they need to live as if they were in a house share - not still with the parent/child dynamic where she does what she wants and you're like 'oh but she's my child'. If you wouldn't let a lodger move your stuff about and monopolise space, don't let her. You don't have to be militant about it, but don't let her take over your spaces because you're scared to have a conversation with her: it sounds like you're full of guilt over not prioritising her and as a result, treating her with kid gloves. That isn't healthy and it won't make her a well rounded or prepared for adult life. Let yourself off - you dealt with something difficult and your daughter is now an adult, you do not need to repeatedly make amends in obtuse ways.

I'm with @flaviaritt here, either you like having her around or you don't; if you need the space tell her, if you don't who cares if she uses it? Do you want her to save up and move out, if so have a chat, if you have enough money offer her a nest egg like a few thousand doesn't have to be enormous to kick start her savings.

We are still in a period when nothing is "normal" and not likely to be, as you say you were stuck in lockdown for a while so of course you will be forced together more than normal.

I hate these threads with a passion and thank god how well I get on with my daughters. We dont have any money at all and the sewing room is a bag of materials and a padded sewing box shoved under the coffee table, but if they want to stay here into adulthood and are happy to do so/need to do so due to finances etc then of course they can we are a bloody family FFS.

Is she actually saving to get her own place - does she have a timeline or plans for this? Otherwise, even if you don't need the money, you're not helping her learn to realistically budget and manage on her own earnings, just subsidising an arrangement that doesn't sound like it works well for you. I lived with my parents after uni at the end of the 90s for about a year and I paid more than your daughter currently does, for London she's getting an incredibly good deal. I also think there's valuable lessons learnt in living in house share situations where you have to negotiate and compromise - this doesn't always happen within a family dynamic.

One of my colleagues has her adult son living with her saving for a deposit - she charges a reasonable but below market value rent, and is saving it to give him when he moves out. Could you do this if you feel bad about asking for more money?

I own 8 sewing machines. You move stuff into my sewing room over my dead body!!

OP, I think she’s gone too far this time and you need to tell her firmly ‘NO’.

Hi OP in your update post just one line made me think you are worried about parity in parenting and whether DD feels neglected from her teenage years. Hopefully as a grown up your DD can see that you had to give more attention to a child with a life threatening illness but you love both children the same. Maybe have a gentle discussion about space in the house and how the saving is going. It might be easier to take a higher rent payment from your DD with a view to giving her a portion back later to help with the saving.

I think your being a bit mean. She is using an office you no longer use because she has to work from home - of course she is going to want to make it more her own if she is spending so much time in there. And I think it is petty that you moved stuff back into the study she is using. She wants coffee machine and u moaned about it taking up room? Did she ask you to buy the coffee machine for her? It's her home too and it sounds like you resent her being there. If those petty things are the only things she has done then yabu

Sewing room

I know you're trying to make up for her adolescence, but you but you are damaging her adulthood. You are making her spoilt, entitled and helpless. Don't you want an independent, kind, considerate daughter?

Even if you can afford to subsidise her it's not healthy for any of you. Has she managed to save any money for her own place? Could you consider charging going rate for board and lodgings, you could put her rent into savings and give it to her when she moves out?

You need to set a timeline for when she is intending to move out.

How much has she got saved up and how far is that from her goal? Does she even have an idea of what she needs to have saved? Do you?

This was surely meant to be a temporary arrangement ie she is not meant to still be living at home when she is 50. So there needs to be an end date.

Could you maybe up her rent and put the difference in a savings account? At least then, you'll know she actually has some savings?

Honestly, it sounds like the lines are blurred on both sides. She left the family home your daughter (e.g. a child who can pretty much use the whole house within reason) and returned as your lodger. I'm not disagreeing with your setup, I'm just saying with an actual lodger they probably never would have been this comfortable hijacking random rooms of their landlord.

It would be in everyone's best interests if you reminded her that she's now effectively a tenant, and therefore is paying for her own space, no one else's. That means no personal bits in the snug and any large bits being brought into communal areas has to be passed by you first. If she needs more space, then she can pay more rent. Or face paying 4x plus the amount you charge for her own accommodation. She already has far more space than most people in a houseshare does, so it's not like she's hard done by.

It's difficult, isn't it ? Myself, Dsis and Dbro all left for uni and that was that. Helped by our parents living in an inaccessible part of the county with no job prospects. You're too geographically favoured .

I couldn't live in the same house as my parents (who I get on really well with) for more than a week...I need my own space! Similarly, my DM would also start losing her rag. So you've done well to get this far with everyone still alive.

Tbh, I think there's a "best before" date on this arrangement of yours and it's expired. Time to suggest gently to DD that she slings her hook.

OP if I was in your shoes I would just say

“Darling, when you move stuff out of MY study into MY SEWING room then I expect you to ask me first whether it suits me. I do live here you know”

I think it’s basic curtesy abd no need to make her feel she doesn’t belong. She is doing this because she is comfortable around u whixh shows a lovely relationship you have but she probably got used to neglecting the fact you have your own desires and opinions too and they do trump hers in areas which are not hers

Ask her how her saving for her own place is going

Increase her rent, you can always save it and give it back to her if you don’t need the money

Set more ground rules, she now has use of three rooms, no more, and what’s in those rooms stays in those rooms

Did she ask to use your study? It's unclear whether she asked and you agreed or she just started to use it and decorated it without asking it was ok. You say she's taking over but then you say "I didn't want her coffee machine in the kitchen so WE cleared a space in the utility" indicating that you said it was ok for her to be in there.

I'm not sure which way I am leaning with this. I couldn't imagine begrudging my child, even an adult, use of a study that isn't used and a space for a coffee maker, it's not like she is leaving her stuff all over communal areas and taking over the living room on a weekend to game or watch movies, but if you're uncomfortable with her using spaces in her / your house then that's boundaries you have established and you need to discuss them with her.

I think this probably boils down to communication. Sit her down, tell her exactly what you want. She might leave and not come back, she might be upset she feels like a lodger in her parents house, she might apologise for overstepping your boundaries. But just talk to her.

she wanted a separate room for her wfh when I'd guess she could have set her laptop up in her bedroom. So thats already a nice bonus for her. To then move things out because it didn't meet her 'christmas zoom aesthetic' is clearly tripping over into CF territory.

You moved that stuff back, I'd use that opporutnity to draw a line. Sounded like you were fine with the study, and to a lesser extent the 'break room' in the utility. She pretty much has a granny annex at this point!

* She's taking the piss and needs to move out*

Wtf? This is her daughter.

Talk to her FGS