To ask 23 year old to give his bedroom to step son?

[whitebutterfly3]

I have 2 dc with dh 10(boy) and 12(girl) and he has a son from a previous relationship (23) who always lived with his mum but we have always taken him out at the weekend.
His mum has a 2 bed house which he had a bedroom at and then she had a daughter with her current partner who slept in their room until dss moved out and rented with a partner, then they moved their dd into his old room, by this time she was 7.
The relationship didn't work out and was over in about 18 months but when he split from his girlfriend neither could afford to stay in the flat so dss asked if he could stay with us as his mum had given his old room to his sister now.

We agreed thinking it would be temporary but we didn't have a bedroom for him so put our ds and dd in together for the time being freeing the small room for dss.
Now dd is getting older and going through puberty she's resenting sharing with her brother, he also has SEN and they are constantly bickering and she clearly needs her own room as they don't get on at all.
dss has been back just over a year and is working so could afford to move out, dh thinks it's not fair as it's his room and not his fault the younger ones fight.
He also hasn't had the opportunity to live with his son before as his relationship with his mum broke shortly after Dss was born so is enjoying having him around.
I don't have any issues with Dss I have known him since he was small and love him to bits but I don't think there's room for him here and it's not working for me or our children.

They never had a room for him in the first place, not even when he was a child. The OP and her husband just took him out at weekends, they never truly provided him with a home. They have a lot of making up to do. The DH should not have had 3 kids when he couldn't house them all.

This

I solved this problem a good few years back by getting a decent sofa bed and sleeping downstairs in a similarly small house when a 25yr old wanted to return home (galley kitchen and lounge diner). I could never ask/tell any child to leave home if thats where they wanted to be for whatever reason......probably why I've got two 30+ Yr olds living with me now 🤣 hasten to add I have moved since and we all have a bedroom (and more importantly I have an ensuite😌).

I agree. It’s a moot point but both his parents have gone on to have further children they can’t accommodate. Your dh is an absolute prince among men. Not.

And? I think it’s practically impossible for young people to move out unless they’re in a really well paid job. Rentals are through the roof, and hard to get, and getting a mortgage is out of the question unless you have a sizeable deposit. I’m betting most 23 year olds on an average salary can’t afford to move out.

OP, is there any chance of extending into the loft? When your dss eventually moves out in the future, the attic space would still be useable for the rest of you.

Yeah my mental health was on the rocks for some of my 20s and early 30s due to living in shared houses. It’s great for some people but it can be horrendous. I was sleep deprived in one as they had their boyfriend stay every night and leave at the crack of dawn and I’d hear him leave as I was so close to the front door. I had one girl threaten me physically, I lived with 2 boys once who would smoke weed in the house and also leave the back door open in a high crime area and I had to deal with various other unsavoury and highly inconsiderate behaviour.

He can game and watch films somewhere else then. Someone besides your 12 year old daughter should be the one making sacrifices here.

Just a bit of lateral thinking here - have you got a medium sized garden?
Can you get one of those ‘garden rooms’ that people use as an office but you could set it up as a bed sit? It would be easy to get power to it - we did that with our garden summerhouse.
The only issue would be water & toilet but temporarily you could buy a portaloo and could have some sort of water storage like people do when they camp/caravan. You could even think about getting a caravan if you could get it into the garden.
He could come into the house for bath/shower.
Would probably cost £5000 -£10,000 for a garden room but it could be a pretty permanent solution, especially if you could put a shower in.
And would add value to your house long term.

I was a working professional who lived in flatshares my 20s, while my unemployed childhood friend who was a single parent of 3 was eventually provided accommodation by the council and given housing benefit for private rent before that .

You won’t get that a single child free person working person .

You’re actually more likely to be able to afford to live on your own if you have kids than otherwise Due to benefit top ups.

I had a colleague who always lived in flatshares until she had a kid and was then rehoused by Hounslow Council. She was actually working less when she had a kid as well.

I was nicely asked to leave at 18. It was time!
I know it's harder now but I didn't think badly of my parents and have a fabulous relationship with them.

He and his brother can share - get/build one of those room/bed dividers - or think you can board off bunk beds.

Loads of ideas like this attached online

DSS would need to adjust to having his younger brother as a roommate. You can do as you please in your own home but when you are part of a family you need to jog along together.

This would be the same whether he was your DS or DSS with a big age gap between him and his little brother. Your husband really needs to understand that.

I do agree that your daughter is reaching an age where she’s going to be increasingly aware of her body changing and will want some privacy. That trumps late night gaming.

Depends where you live.

My son and his gf were paying £1,000 pm to share one room in a shared flat in London. Former local authority Estate full of flats being run as dodgy HMOs. They had to pay a year's rent in advance and had been turned down for loads of other flats before this one came up. Drug user in the room next door turned the flat into a landfill site and landlord told the other tenants that they were jointly responsible for the mess and would lose their deposits.

They left when sewage from the dodgy macerator came up through the plughole in the bathroom.

DSS can surely watch his films with headphones on a laptop so shouldn’t disturb his brother than much especially if you get bunk beds so younger can’t even see the screen? Husband often watches stuff on his iPad if he can’t sleep whilst I am fast asleep and we share a bed.

It's absolutely telling here with all the shouts of "throw him out, he's an adult, let him rent his own place, I did it, i had ot worse, he can

Have you looked at rental prices of houses recently. A single adult male won't get benefits like a parent with kids.

The lad is basically unwanted at both parents houses, mental health problems abound depending on his outlook.

Poor guy. Get the room split, as suggested earlier, do something so he doesn't feel abandoned by both households.

If it is only down to watching tv /adult films then headphones would work

I do feel for the step son. Neither parent has room for him

When younger and stayed where did your children sleep

Either way girl needs own room

Options

Dss and ds share
Dss sleeps on sofa so no room /privacy

You share with dd and dh/dss share
Dss in a caravan
Dss office /cabin in the garden

23 is young , yes he moves out with gf but that was as a couple

He can't afford it now

Then DSS needs to hang out downstairs in the evenings with the other adults, while the children sleep in their bedrooms, or go out with friends, until he is ready to go to bed.

If he can't afford a place of his own, and doesn't want to share a room with a younger brother then a house share could be a way? It's not easy financially, but the family dynamic is what it is, at some point you might want to downsize and there won't necessarily be a room for him forever, what age is the cut off?

I don’t know many 23 year olds who have moved out of their family home. Rent and mortgage prices are ridiculously high and young adults are staying at home for longer.

however you don’t have enough room for all those people in the house so something is going to have to give. Dss needs to move out or you use the living room as a bedroom or you move. They are the only options available.

Makes me laugh when people say things like this^^
Kids leave school at 18, perhaps go on to college or uni and then are expected to earn enough on minimum wage to rent or get a mortgage?

We live in Hertfordshire, rent is astronomical where we live, neither of my kids in their early 20s can afford to move out, although save what they can.

Then he has to stop using his computer and tv late at night. End of.

Kind of tough! It's more of "an option" than your 12 year old daughter having to share with her brother.

DSS would need to stop playing inappropriate video games and watching inappropriate films in the shared bedroom.

The alternative is he chooses to move out, but that way at least you're not forcing him to move out.

I imagine both DH and DSS will feel compelled to change the situation when It actually impacts them.

Oh indeed!

There's nothing wrong with multigenerational living. This notion that every young person is better off throwing away money on rent is so pernicious.

Surely he can game and watch outside of the bedroom.

Within half a mile of where I live there are three studio apartments for rent for £550 pcm or less. I haven't checked HMOs but these are probably similar. Someone working full time on minimum wage should easily be able to afford this. Especially if young, single, and maybe also doing overtime/second job for spends. This is what people do.

Otherwise become someone's lodger.

Or rent with a friend.

My parents had three spare bedrooms but there was no way I would have been welcomed back once I'd left home. He's 23 and able to work, OP and her DH need to prioritise their minor DC if there isn't much they can do about their housing situation.

I'd let him know and give him a month or two to sort himself out, possibly help with a rental deposit and of course with moving.