To confront my 20 year old daughter's bullies?

[Atreus]

Long story short, my 2nd year Uni student DD1 (20) moves out of her student house at the end of term tomorrow. I'm going to help her move her stuff. It's a house of 9 people and 4 of them (2 couples) have made her life completely miserable this last year, so much so that we've really worried for her mental health even though she is normally very resilient.

Too many instances of bullying to recount but includes calling house meetings to tell her how much they didn't like her, throwing her washing on the floor, leaving her locked out of the house when she forgot her keys etc etc. She has just tried to keep things polite and interact only when necessary, but they haven't let up and actively seek her out to be mean. Even this evening (her last night in the house) one of the boys knocked on her bedroom door at 11pm and when she answered, came into her room, told her he didn't like her and then ran away laughing. She's called me shaking and in tears.

I've bitten my tongue so far when I've seen them as DD1asked me not to say anything as she thought it could make things even worse. But after tomorrow she won't have to interact with them again. If I see them tomorrow AIBU to calmly tell them that their bullying behaviour has been toxic, caused extreme distress, is not OK and that in years to come they will look back and feel ashamed at how they've behaved?

@saltinesandcoffeecups

Hmmm… I’d tread lightly on this one. It’s unlikely you are getting the full story here. When living arrangements go bad it’s usually due to escalating bad behavior on all sides.

I’m not saying this was definitely the case but your daughter is unlikely to tell yo the reason her clean laundry was thrown on the floor is that she left it hanging for a week or the reason they wouldn’t open the door for her is that she had forgotten her keys 3 times already that week.

I would frame this up a life lesson about living with other people and tell her that now she has her own horror stories to share when others start talking about horrible flat mates.

She’s getting out and that’s the important thing.

I agree with this.

I lived with a girl who was a nightmare. She’d constantly leave her washing in the washing machine for days so no one could use it (which would be incredibly annoying in a house of 9). She was messy, unthoughtful, rude to our friends who visited. We’d invite her to things, she wouldn’t come but then sulk for days. Just generally an awful housemate. We tried to have house meetings where we’d try to address issues like this but she’d make it out as if we were having meetings to tell her why we hated her.

I can imagine her side of the story being similar to your daughter’s.

I’m not saying this is the case, just that it’s a possibility.

Snap also @Scaredycatmoo76 @Foxhasbigsocks. It wasn't fair to be bullied the way I was, but also didn't see how I was an annoying flatmate. I did grow up a lot, found a much nicer bunch of people to hang around with, and am still friends with people I've lived with ever since.

Hope your daughter feels better soon op, and also agree she should report to the uni, I think that @Crepescular obviously hasn't been around unis much recently, most would take this seriously.

I would just help your DD move out, say nothing and encourage her to get on with her life. If you do decide to say something, then prepare yourself for hearing their reasons which might not be particularly nice about your daughter. Remember she is an adult and may have done things you would rather not know and she hasn’t shared with you. There are two sides to every story and although you have heard and believe your daughters side, as we all would, the others may see it differently. DD experienced something similar in her 3rd year. She hated being in the house so in the end kept out of their way, got a good degree and moved on. It toughened her up and she has learned from that experience how to stand on her own two feet.

So this went on for a year and no-one said or did anything?
Why did your dd not move out? Why did you not go to the uni sooner if her mh suffered.

I’m sorry to say that I think the uni are unlikely to take you seriously given it’s been going on so long without mention.

I’d be wondering if there’s more to this, and as such I would do nothing. But I would tell dd that she needs to stand up for herself in future, either by going to authority, moving out or whatever.

The only way for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.

[quote DrNo007]@crepescular I don’t deny your experience but my DH is on a disciplinary committee at his uni and they take reports of bullying extremely seriously, whether on or off campus, in domestic setting or not. An example is that a student got severely disciplined for posting something on social media that another student was offended by. In my view this was massively less serious than what the OP is describing. But I accept that different unis can deal with things differently.[/quote]
Social media impacts on the university's brand and media image - that's why it was taken seriously.

This is just immature adult acting like dicks. Life's full of them.

@Changechangychange

Fish behind the radiators. Far more satisfying in the long run.

This. Prawns behind the toilet, in the lining of the curtains.

I imagine that it was probably okay to begin with, not great but all right.

Then lockdown happened again in November, then the Christmas holidays. Then January - April.

It’s probably not been a full year. It’s also probably made it harder to report it. And to be fair it is difficult to do that. I’ve sometimes felt that on here when I’ve felt particularly harangued or harassed by a poster but reporting to MNHQ feels a bit like a five year old saying ‘miss, she is picking on me.’

I wouldn't speak to them on emotional level, or try and say anything meaningful, just a "What the fuck are you looking at" type comment. Hard bitch.

Definitely take photos of her room, lock it and send the photos same day to the landlord. They settings immature enough to wreck her deposit.

@sandgrown

My daughter left before the other students in her accommodation and someone smashed her door after she left and she lost her deposit. Take lots of photos when you leave or I suppose you could try get the agent /landlord there.

@Atreus - please take note of the above! Date and time stamps on your photos! I hope it all goes well for the move out today, and good luck to your daughter for her year abroad, she'll have a much better year when she gets back as she'll likely be amongst a new set of people, who will hopefully behave more maturely than the bullies.

That's insane. They are 20 years old? I would just leave it to be honest. They are freaks and the biggest victory will be leaving them to their weird, nasty lives and moving on. Why didn't she move out sooner? Surely someone somewhere had a room available even if it meant public transport to get to and from class?

As tempting as it would be, I wouldn’t say anything. I would encourage your DD to put on a big fake smile as she’s leaving a cheerily say goodbye and have a nice summer. Then the pair of you leave laughing and having a wonderful time.

Agree with PPs though. Take lots of pictures of her room when you leave and send immediately to the landlord.

@porridgecake

The most important thing is to make sure there can be no financial abuse going forward. Is everything completely sorted regarding her rent, deposit etc? No chance they could not pay their rent and leave her liable? Hopefully you haven't signed any paperwork as joint guarantor? Take photos of her room and communal areas when she leaves. Don't be tempted to do any damage to the house or give them any excuse to continue bullying her. Are they on the same course?

Also make sure she has evidence of evreything being paid off. Previous housemates changed the gas bill into my name and then didn’t pay it. It was 5 years before the debt collect agencies caught up with me and there was I had no way to prove it wasn’t me. Cost me £££ to pay it off.

[quote Mummyoflittledragon]@Crepescular
It is disgusting if true that a university wouldn’t take such allegations seriously. A student should be covered under mental health grounds at the very least.

Back in the day, such bullying happened to me. I moved out after one term before it reached this point. My crime, having been out every evening for 7 nights straight with my ‘housemates’ was to say that I was tired and would sit that evening out. In what way did that make me immature? Ffs. Nowadays, students are expected to take annual leases and the only choice is to put up or leave their degree courses.

Universities these days have become big business. Landlords including universities act like big businesses and as such they should intervene in some way to help students in such situations and extricate them from their annual rental agreements.

As for your comment about the police. Due to the fact these adults aren’t related, it cannot be considered domestic abuse. Perhaps domestic abuse needs reclassification. Not just for students but also to reflect the changing nature of rental agreements. Were this bullying encompassed within domestic abuse, op’s dd absolutely could go to the police.

How long until someone at a university commits suicide due to sustained bullying?[/quote]
No it's not. When will you people get it into your heads that this situation has nothing at all to do with the university where these people study, any more that it would have anything to do with Burger King if they all worked there.

I'm so fed up of this current vogue for responsibility bleed - 'Someone else - anyone else - sort this out for me because I'm too sensitive - immature, really - to do anything for myself'. The person in question's twenty. Twenty, for fuck's sake! She need to start being an adult and dealing with real life and her mother needs to stop treating her as though she's a pre-pubescent.

I repeat, this has nothing to do with whether they're students or where they're studying. It has everything to do with the kind of stupid, immature behaviour that you find in today's so-called young adults.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond. We've been listening to her, supporting and offering to intervene throughout all of this but as many of you have rightly pointed out, she's a young adult, not 7, and so she wanted to try and resolve the situation herself without mummy and daddy jumping in. I wish I'd thought to look into the Uni anti-bullying policy closer. I think I just thought as they were 2nd years and out of Halls that the Uni would not get involved.

She liked the house and her other housemates and so didn't want to move out and thought just keeping a low profile with the others was the right way forward. I can see how this could have been perceived by the others though as being stand-offish/anti-social.

She did come home Dec-April for the second lockdown so hasn't been there all year. She has lots of other friends outside the house and so once lockdown restrictions lifted a bit and she could see more people things did get better. The unpleasant behaviour just seems to have ramped up again in the last couple of weeks. I'm just pleased she never has to see them again after today.

Just adding to the "don't do it" comments.

They've enjoyed themselves causing pain to your DD - you telling them how much will just add to their enjoyment, not have the desired effect at all. And it could backfire on any complaint you make.

I'm not sure whether the university will take any notice, especially as they're no longer going to be living in the same house, unless your DDs grades were badly affected (in which case they might consider it, but probably depends on the university).

The best thing to do is remind your DD that they are sad, immature pathetic little cuntweasels who have nothing better to do in their lives than pick on her. Hopefully once she's out of their sphere, they'll turn on each other - bullies need victims!

I'm sad that the other housemates didn't stand up for her, but not surprised really. They'd only have been putting themselves in the line of fire and not many people are game to do that.

I wouldn’t be able to hold my tongue, honestly they would get the cussing of a lifetime

This sounds horrendous tbh. My friends did suffered in a similar way but not quite as badly. Lots of whispering and going silent., that kind of thing. I personally would just help her pack up and just go .

Make sure she leaves her room clean and take photos when she leaves...and email them to the landlord. Just in case those staying behind decide to create more trouble for her once she's gone.

Yeh, it's tough, but they would spin it all around in their heads, on top of all the reasons they've decided she isn't worthy of being liked, they'd add abusive mother to the list.

People with a poor sense of themselves get their identity from what the group is not. So they might want to eject anybody authentic who will not follow the cool rules slavishly. It's happened to me a few times, as an adult.

I hope your daughter feels OK and stays on course and doesn't let them derail her.

Don’t do it, just help her get out of there. Take the room mates cake and be nice they will feel guilty! Take photos of the room to prove there is no damage. then unhook the filling tube thingy in the toilet/s when you leave they won’t know how to fix it but it’s not actual damage.

Hope everything goes well emptying her room. I expect the housemates will keep well out of your way as bullies are normally cowards. I would just ignore them completely. They sound vile but karmas a bitch and you don't go through life being that unpleasant without some repercussions. Take comfort in the fact your daughter is a more pleasant and mature person and she can move on from this. Sorry she had to go through it though.

It's horrible, but not uncommon. I've heard stories of such abuse going back to the 1970s.

Look after your daughter and cut the others out of your mind.
@prettyvisitor makes a good point about the photographs.

is she allowed to go abroad? the the restrictions?
i would tread carefully, as she is going away but will be back, and may well face these people again in future.

She can hold her head up high