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.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

If she wants a place for her own fancy coffee machine, a study to herself, a bedroom and bathroom for herself, she can pay for those things.

Charge her market rent, tell her you will save it for her for a deposit on her own place. That way you can at least see a positive outcome from the situation.

However I'm willing to bet that if she has to pay you market rent etc, she will move out pretty sharpish.

I think it would be rather infantilising to effectively save the money for her. OP hasn't suggested that she is frittering away her money rather than saving.

OP also hasn't been back to say whether she views it as her home or their family home - because that's the big divide imo.

I have an unfashionable view it seems , my early 20s DS is living with us whilst he waits to take up a job he has been offered but not until next year & even then he can live with us whilst he saves up for a place of his own. We can afford not to charge him rent. He has less space as Sewing rooms etc unknown in this small house , but my view is as long as everyone lives respectfully together and chips in then it can work. DS is careful with money so - in my book - giving him somewhere to live rent free is a relatively easy way to let him save up . If I thought he was being disrespectful or taking the piss then opinions may change.

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.
This this this! I met my best friend moving into a big house share. They don’t have to be separate cartons of milk with marker-pen lines on to show how much you’ve used, or people hoarding the loo roll in their bedroom because no one else takes a turn. Most people I know had or still have lovely house shares that became proper homes, with plenty of scope for having a fancy coffee machine in the kitchen and dressing up a smart shared corner for work video calls. A lot more fun than living at home bickering with the parents.

@Woewoewoejoy

sure but they can at least talk about it as most parents and children would do. They have the space why would you begrudge your daughter this? There needs to be a bit of respect both ways. And yes maybe the ops daughter should show more but I still stand by my original post

Why are you assuming there won't be a talk? It sounds like OP wants to get other people's opinions before talking to her DD.

OP says she has a 'fractious' relationship with her DD who is MOVING op's things out of the study. The dd sounds like she needs to respect her mum more.

11:05JinglingHellsBells not jealous at all actually and we come from a culture where family is very tight knit so I am biased to that regards. But she gave her the office space as hers as she's not using it so the daughter put the ops things in the ops space.... Sure she should have asked first but it's hardly the end of the world. I hope mine go to higher education and if they don't that's fine too but they will always be welcome here as I said that's our culture. Always has been probably always will... I didn't say she was entitled because she has a big house. She is actin entitled because she gave her daughter use of a room yet complains about it.

Lol it is not hard for her at all OP she is living her very best life. Living off you. Wish you was my mum I'd moved out and was working full time at 17.

@BasiliskStare

I have an unfashionable view it seems , my early 20s DS is living with us whilst he waits to take up a job he has been offered but not until next year & even then he can live with us whilst he saves up for a place of his own. We can afford not to charge him rent. He has less space as Sewing rooms etc unknown in this small house , but my view is as long as everyone lives respectfully together and chips in then it can work. DS is careful with money so - in my book - giving him somewhere to live rent free is a relatively easy way to let him save up . If I thought he was being disrespectful or taking the piss then opinions may change.

Ditto.

Not many people look out for you in life, try to make things easy for you, make sacrifices etc.

But my parents did. Where they could help, they did. And that is my approach. What I can do, I will do.

The situation between OP and her daughter though would never happen here because both my children look out, love and care for me - and that means respect and consideration when in twenties.

@Woewoewoejoy

Only in the UK have I ever seen parenting where when the child reaches the age of an adult they are expected to upshop and leave and be silent if they stay home and must look like they don't live there because they've been bank rolled.... You chose to have children and they don't stop being your children when they turn 18 I have 4 children and even when and if they leave one day my home will always be there's. If they want to put something here that's fine. If I think it should go somewhere else I will say so but my home is their home and we will do whatever we can to help them as that's what a parent does. The fact you have a sewing room and office ling in London suggests you have the space! If op thinks her daughter is entitled then she must get it from her. What does your DH think? I find women always moan about this more than the men/father's. But maybe I'm in the minority?

I don’t think the op is saying that. The issue is that op is finding that she has less and less space, even in a large home.

My dd is like this (she is only 12 and I certainly don’t want her to move out at 18 or ever). I love her to bits but I find it infuriating. She has two bedrooms (ds has the biggest room which she felt was unfair), her own bathroom and a playroom. I shared her playroom a little over lockdown as I had nowhere quiet to work (and rather than use her own desk dd decamped to the kitchen), but now I have created a study which dh and I share so she has the playroom to herself again. In spite of all the space she has, she insists on getting ready for school (and leaving her laundry and general mess behind strewn all over the place) in mine and dh bedroom, using my dressing table (she has one in each of her rooms and fortunately I’m
not needing to make much effort now with wfh) and has also taken to doing her homework at my desk and moving all of my work, pinching my mouse etc. This bothers me the most. I have asked if she would like to swap and I will move back to her playroom but she says no, then still insists on using my desk.

I probably seem very petty and I have found this difficult to articulate but this is my work and one of my only spaces in this house. Dd has so much room, I share a bedroom, study and bathroom with dh, and I don’t even get a desk to myself. Dh has said that I am being unreasonable but she never encroaches on his space, only mine, which makes it worse to be honest. It’s as though I have no value and my needs are totally unimportant.

I am aware that none of this is intentional, she is just a bit of a whirlwind, and I’m glad that she feels comfortable and wants to be around me. We have a big house with plenty of space, I would just love to have a little bit of it that is only mine. That doesn’t mean that I am desperate to get rid of her, want her to be silent or want it to seem as though she doesn’t live here.

@Hellotheresweet

@LuaDipa

** In spite of all the space she has, she insists on getting ready for school (and leaving her laundry and general mess behind strewn all over the place) in mine and dh bedroom, using my dressing table (she has one in each of her rooms and fortunately I’m
not needing to make much effort now with wfh) and has also taken to doing her homework at my desk and moving all of my work, pinching my mouse etc. This bothers me the most. I have asked if she would like to swap and I will move back to her playroom but she says no, then still insists on using my desk. **

What??! Your 12 year old “insists”and “refuses”

Woman the hell up and parent her FGS.