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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

The most annoying habit your Uni refugee has ...

230 replies

Besswess88 · 01/02/2021 22:38

I’ll start.

So he’s been pretty good bless him, shit situation etc not knowing when he’ll be going back.

Using bowls that we don’t normally use because the rest are fermenting in his room.

Blocking the washing machine got 3 days with his washing, then handing it out over mine which is drying making my clothes and the room he has hung it in absolutely stink.

😭😭

OP posts:
Thatwentbadly · 02/02/2021 09:23

@Twistered

Oh my god! I'm sooooo sorry! I thought you were a uni student sharing with a refugee and being racist! Grin

I'm actually so bloody stupid . Wtf was I thinking Grin

I thought the same.
babbaloushka · 02/02/2021 09:26

Mine is letting fake tan marinate into the carpet. She's not even got anywhere to be!

Gliblet · 02/02/2021 09:27

@Bronzegate

DS has a part-time job in a local supermarket, and at the end of every shift he buys chocolate / brownies / ice cream and then brings it home and insists on sharing it with me. If I decline, he looks all disappointed. He stays a healthy weight. I continue to be fat. If he doesn't go back to university soon, I will have to start exercising.
This is extremely reassuring for those of us who have sons who aren't yet at student/part time job age though - at the moment I have the wet towels, lack of laundry-doing, and all the ice cream getting eaten before I get near it Grin

I can't sympathise, but I can remember what a useless toerag I was when I was at home from Uni so I definitely empathise!

OohThatCat · 02/02/2021 09:30

I lived with a uni housemate whose habits included putting frozen fish fingers in the cupboard, leaving the iron on all night and never shutting the front door. Living with him was a death wish.

I had to teach him where frozen food was supposed to go!

MissJeanLouise · 02/02/2021 09:31

I love mine to death and am always glad to see them come home - but oh, the sigh of relief and the guilt for feeling that way when they went back after Christmas! They’re not hugely messy, but the house occupation doubles from 3 to 6, so the cups/plates/jumpers/blankets/headphones /laptops etc left lying around drive me mad, and there’s always someone there!
My 16 year old thinks he’s a student, he’s become nocturnal and has the 2am snack thing going; he gets up for his live lessons in the day and goes back to bed after!

Indecisive12 · 02/02/2021 09:32

Good thread, keep going all of you with your wonderful hospitality to your refugees. Fun fact to help with the nocturnal behaviour, it’s actually because they’re going through an important stage of brain development.

I laughed at the Prosecco evenings, so different from my uni days. Very refined uni students now.

babbaloushka · 02/02/2021 09:34

The hovering around the kitchen offering me 'advice' on meals I've been making since before she was born, also eating ravenously as though her loan has left her emaciated from lack of sustenance. I think she just likes the free food.

Does anyone find them unusually social when they come back? As much as I love her hanging round for a chat, sometimes I wish she would hole up in her room and let me do my work, like she would've at 16.

InMySpareTime · 02/02/2021 10:03

Mine is nocturnal (despite 9am remote lectures which he now knows he can just access later when he gets up).

Leaves the microwave open all night "so it doesn't get damp"

Writes jobs on the household jobs list but doesn't actually offer to do any of the jobs.

Has a rubbish pile by the bed because the bin is too far away (4ft). Never tidies either the pile or the bin.

Always puts the light on rather than opening the curtains.

Eats only beige freezer food, and wants to eat dinner with us so we have to eat it too. I've pushed back on this one, he needs to eat at least one kind of vegetable and not pull faces when we have plates piled with veg compared to his tiny beige dinner.

I'm now actually worried that they won't let Uni students back until September. He may not survive that long!

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 02/02/2021 10:10

Oh, happy memories from one whose dcs left home and uni long ago - bowls with Ready Brek dried on like cement, apple cores, mugs with mouldy dregs of tea, not to mention the ‘floordrobe’....

Plus of course the voice from amid all the squalor and chaos, ‘Mum, have you seen my....?’ 😂

BillThePony · 02/02/2021 10:22

I have one of these, opposite problem.

DD is so neat and tidy she keeps putting our stuff away and we can't bloody find anything, we aren't exactly messy so if something is out it's for a reason. It drives me bonkers. It's like living with my mother.

The other thing is she gets to the tv before we do, I never realised there was so much reality tv out there.

She had also kidnapped the cat he used to spend his days asleep at my feet while I was working, he practically lives in her room now.

MadisonAvenue · 02/02/2021 10:23

I don’t have a uni refugee as such, mine graduated in 2018 and has been home ever since but I can sympathise as he’s never really adapted to being back.

He’d actually gone to stay with his girlfriend and her family when we went into tier 4, thinking it’d be temporary, but with lockdown being indefinite he’s had to come back as he needed things for his job (he’s a secondary school teacher) so came home at the weekend.

The mess now he’s back from his girlfriend’s. I could weep. It’s like a whirlwind has ripped through the house. He even went into the very tidy garage on Sunday (his Dad’s pride and joy as to how tidy it was) and started sorting out things he doesn’t want which can go to the charity shops - which aren’t open. There was no need to do that!! He’s left open storage boxes all over the floor and there’s a pile of stuff which I assume is to be donated and is now just stacked by the garage door.

Toilet rolls. I assume he’s eating it judging by how much he uses.

Mugs left everywhere. Everyfuckingwhere.

Wet towels. As above.

And yesterday morning there were 9 individual Twirl fingers in the fridge. By evening there were 3.

He’s here until he and his girlfriend have saved a house deposit.

Hueandcry · 02/02/2021 10:46

Mine uses the last of things, eg. Toilet roll, butter, whatever & doesn't tell me so when I go to get it there's none. Infuriating when I'm trying to only shop once a week if I can.

Hueandcry · 02/02/2021 10:49

Oh & in the last week has phoned me at 12.30am & 5am because he forgot his key Angry

HOkieCOkie · 02/02/2021 11:04

@Twistered lol you win the internet today hahaha 🤣

CharlieParley · 02/02/2021 11:18

@Indecisive12

Good thread, keep going all of you with your wonderful hospitality to your refugees. Fun fact to help with the nocturnal behaviour, it’s actually because they’re going through an important stage of brain development.

I laughed at the Prosecco evenings, so different from my uni days. Very refined uni students now.

Could you explain that? Which stage of brain development? And why does it make them nocturnal?
longtompot · 02/02/2021 11:46

@Crampon

Not as bad as the misunderstanding on the cat thread a couple of days ago ...
Oh I loved that thread and how it developed 🤣 Its almost a shame it's in the litter box now.

OP, I completely understood what your post meant, even by just reading the title. It was so funny some didn't get it, but glad they have now and have apologised.
Sadly my uni refugee is living at his gf parents house. They live together at uni, and as her mum needs to be extra careful due to illness, they thought it was best he stayed there. He did come home for Christmas though, which was nice, even though he got a bit drunk and argumentative with my ed and dh. But, they all admit none will back down in an argument so my yd and I hung out in the kitchen and had a much calmer time.

strawberriesontheNeva · 02/02/2021 11:48

@Besswess88

I’ll start.

So he’s been pretty good bless him, shit situation etc not knowing when he’ll be going back.

Using bowls that we don’t normally use because the rest are fermenting in his room.

Blocking the washing machine got 3 days with his washing, then handing it out over mine which is drying making my clothes and the room he has hung it in absolutely stink.

😭😭

What are you on about? Uni refugee?
Helenluvsrob · 02/02/2021 12:06

😂😂😂

Mine is stuck here for the foreseeable.

It’s compromising her course a lot. Performance elements are usually her thing and it’s just not “ what I expected “. Final year. Loads of great stuff being missed especially extracurricular abs semi pro music.

I get she’s fed up but I’m trying to tread a delicate line between sympathy and just do the effin work to the best of your ability then do something more interesting. This is how it is for everyone 😂.

She also spend eons on line gaming/ d&d/ watching films with her boyf. Which is nice but compromises my internet 😂

MistressoftheDarkSide · 02/02/2021 12:16

Read this thread last night and the cat one.....silently laughed so hard it made the bed shake and had to tell DP why. So thanks for that, needed it badly.

My 26 y/o DS and fiancee moved in last October as she worked in hospitality and lived on site with him in one room and was always on call so had no work life balance, and we had the room after all our house sharers moved on.

We all have become nocturnal / insomniacs, and they keep themselves to themselves with occasional family meals and socials, but it is amazing that they also fit the same profile.

Have been trying to deep clean and sort the kitchen with vague ideas of making it a creative space because it's big enough, but every time I get half of it sorted, the functional half up to scratch, I come down to find my DS has cooked a snack. How the hell does an instant pasta require so many pans and utensils? And why is there a complete aversion to washing up cutlery? This extends to my DP.

They have brought their cat who is adorable but scatty so there us an ongoing battle for its affections, plus she's a house cat so doesn't go out so plenty of paranoia that she hasn't ninja-ed her way out if the door gets opened, and policing of things left out in the kitchen which may be harmful.

One upside is occasional evenings of games like Unstable Unicorns and the Shame of life.....

They're here for the long haul as my sons work dried up - he worked festivals and gigs doing rigging and fencing, but has a gardening gig from time to time, and she is obviously furloughed for the forseeable, but the future is so hard to plan for we'd rather have them here as this is stable for the time being.

Strange times we live in but I'm enjoying it mostly, another few weeks of light domestic nudging and we might end up with domestic bliss !!

Janegrey333 · 02/02/2021 13:01

I read Post 1 and knew the OP was referring to a student offspring who is working at home these days.

Is it the word “refugee” people take issue with? Why would it be offensive when it has connotations of literally seeking refuge / shelter?

Some people don’t understand or seek to find offence all over the place.

SoupDragon · 02/02/2021 13:18

Some people don’t understand or seek to find offence all over the place.

How can you have failed to understand the explanations and apologies offered by the two posters who made the original mistakes?

ErrolTheDragon · 02/02/2021 13:32

What are you on about? Uni refugee?

If you'd managed to get to the third post, combined with a small amount of general awareness of the situation re students at the moment, it should have been clear enough.Hmm

Janegrey333 · 02/02/2021 13:44

@SoupDragon

Some people don’t understand or seek to find offence all over the place.

How can you have failed to understand the explanations and apologies offered by the two posters who made the original mistakes?

Mea culpa. I didn’t read far. Oops.
Madhairday · 02/02/2021 14:28

I laughed at the Prosecco evenings, so different from my uni days. Very refined uni students now

In my day it was Lambrusco, Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun. With the occasional Babycham and 20/20 Grin

ConspiracyOfOne · 02/02/2021 15:08

@Twistered

Oh my god! I'm sooooo sorry! I thought you were a uni student sharing with a refugee and being racist! Grin

I'm actually so bloody stupid . Wtf was I thinking Grin

Out of curiosity, which part did you think was racist?