issues with lodger

[lodger]

Hi

Hoping for a bit of clarity and in need of a chat about my lodger. He's only been
here for a few weeks but ive found it challenging having someone in my home space. Tonight he bought back a friend with no prior warning and occupied the kitchen space and cooked for friend and they both ate at the table, chatting away. I found it quite rude to not give me the heads up that he was bringing a guest back and cooking dinner. I had to make my dinner then leave the kitchen as they were clearly chatting and eating and I felt like a third wheel. He is my lodger and I find this quite rude. Am I being unreasonable in expecting him to tell me that he's bringing a friend home? He also makes very loud phone calls alot of the time and hooks his calls up to an external speaker so that I can hear his conversations very clearly. his room is above mine. Again I find this quite disrespectful. Some viewpoints would be handy. Im not used to having people in my home and I lost my husband last year to cancer so its a big deal to have someone living in my space. Its an adjustment

OP, give him notice to go. You cannot be expected to school a grown adult in how to behave. If he's pushing boundaries in other ways this is going to get old very quickly. His friend felt comfortable talking down to you in your own home!! Just say that on reflection you don't think you're a good fit and tell him he has a week to find somewhere new. It's given you a chance to think about what rules you would like a new lodger to observe. Good luck, I hope you find someone suitable.

It takes time; this is very new to OP!

Maybe this is a 'starter lodger', and you'll go your separate ways and then choose somebody who is a better match, and agree clear ground rules right from the beginning. It has certainly been a learning experience so far!
My guess is that the ideal lodger would be a woman around your own age, someone with a reasonably busy working and social life, not WFH. She would either be single but not expecting to bring dates back to your place, or in a relationship with a partner who has their own space and who she can spend the night with. Spending the night at your place sometimes would have to be negotiated and you'd need to know and be comfortable with the partner first.
I think it would be quite reasonable to say that when they have visitors, the deal is that while the friends are in the communal spaces they make a bit of pleasant conversation with you, rather than only having intense conversations between themselves. They can take their food to eat in their own room if they want to be alone, and I think you need to fit a small table in their sitting room for this purpose, perhaps replacing the desk? And vice versa with your friends. You could also offer to let them know when you will be out for the evening so that they can have sole use of the kitchen then if they want, and vice versa.
I used to have lodgers years ago but I was much younger then and found it easier than I would now. It's quite a challenge; good luck with it.

You’re excused.

Thanks that's really helpful advice. I'm 45 and in hindsight a woman would have definitely been better. I like your positive way of regrading the experience with 'starter lodger' that's really supportive so Thank-you x

Lodging is really a short term stop gap sort of thing, or week days only for those who live too far to commute to work.

It isn't the way many people live for years on end - except for those who genuinely are happy to go to work, come home, sit in their room with a microwaved meal all night and repeat day in, day out (they do exist, but they're not very common)

Very normal to have just your own bedroom with bed, desk, chair in it - use of the kitchen is normally a quick in and out, timed so as not to interfer with the home-owner.

It is not normal to assume, as a lodger, that you can sit around in the kitchen, taking your time or making complicated meals if the home-owner is also home/due home.

It is an easy deal for someone who doesn't mind their own company in the evenings, has plenty to do out of the house during the day, possibly isn't around at all at weekends, and wants a very cheap place to live.

Its not at all suitable for someone who wants communal living in a shared house/flat, where shared rooms are on a 'first come wins use of the room for as long as they want it' basis.

Does sound like OP's lodger has told, or allowed his girlfriend to think this is a house share and he is an equal house-mate.

To be fair the girlfriend coming in at will and lecturing the OP came out quite late until the thread!

And to be fair to the girlfriend and the lodger if the kitchen is the biggest room in the house and the lodger doesn't have his own kitchen then it would be generally reasonable to expect that he could sit and eat with a guest there. Not for him to have sole use, and not to be having an intimate conversation and not expecting the OP to not also be making use of the kitchen to prepare and eat food, and not to be making her feel uncomfortable for doing so.

Agreed - it’s “board and lodgings” if you want the benefit of being an equal resident then you pay equal bills and share a house.

People make it up as they go along on here. Board and lodgings means food and accommodation.

Bullshit.

I was a lodger before and we all sat around the kitchen. The owner had another lodger aswell. We all sat in the kitchen and living room. She didn't expect us to stay in our bedrooms

No place expects you to scuttle in and out of your bedroom quietly.

I agree with all of your points here and I think he must have told his friend that we were both renting the place on an equal tenancy or something. She didn't seem aware at all that it's my house judging by the way she spoke to me

What did she say to you?

She walked into my living room and said what a huge place it was but not in a tone like it was mine. It was as if she was asking me to agree that whoever owned the house was lucky type thing

He has his own floor with separate living room, eb suit bathroom and bedroom. So he gets to relax completely in his own space for a small cost. I pay twice what he pays in costs

I don’t know why people are being so dogmatic in either direction really. There are as many different lodger living arrangements as there are households. I have known people live in lodger set ups that didn’t look that different from house shares and others that absolutely were ‘you can have the kitchen for 20 minutes then you must creep soundlessly to your room and not come out, and definitely no guests.’
It’s why the interview and lodger agreement are so important, you have to make sure both sides know what they’re getting into and are on the same page about everything.
I have learnt from experience that people’s assumptions can be wildly off in both directions and you have to spell things out. My first lodger assumed she wouldn’t be allowed guests at all, ever, and asked me very tentatively after about 6 months, as if it was a massive favour, if it was ok if she brought a friend round for a quick coffee 😮

”Yes, it’s much more spacious on the inside than it looks from the outside—one of the main reasons I fell in love with it and bought the house.”

Twice the bills, like water, council tax, gas, and electricity?

Or twice the mortgage, which is actually your asset, and he walks away with 0 asset?

Or twice of both?

Is it that he's young, first time living away from home and just doesn't know how these arrangements work? Has he got the wrong end of the stick and thinks he's in a house share or some kind of tenancy? Really odd his GF walking into your personal space and commenting like that. I'd be making it clear next time she's round that you're the owner & landlady and he's the lodger.

Just because that's your experience doesn't mean it's the same for everyone despite what you seem to think 🙄

DH was a lodger in a house for a while. He had his own room, a shared bathroom and access to the kitchen. No overnight guests and no access to the living room but no one was expected to 'scuttle' anywhere.

Are the figures relevant?

Of course he walks away with none of the asset. He's a lodger.

@lodger I mean this kindly, but I'm not sure you are cut out for having a lodger - at least not at the moment, when you have just moved home to a brand new area and your DH only passed last year?

You have referred to Boundaries being pushed, several times, but the thing is, that from your posts, it appears that most of the boundaries when this man moved in were in your head rather than being communicated to him. Neither of you are wrong, just not singing from the same hymn sheet.

I'm glad that you have spoken to him, but you need to think carefully about what your boundaries are and what you can live with. You need to think it all through and not drip-feed to your lodger, more and more things that you don't like, as time goes on, that irritate you. That's par for the course when you have someone else living in the house - they are not children. It's not a fully contained area that you have to rent out. Any lodger is going to need to use the kitchen. Some more minor irritations will need to be lived with. If you can't do that ( and yes it is your house, and it's not at all unreasonable for you to feel that way), then maybe taking a lodger isn't for you at all? Not fair to you and not fair to any potential lodger?

You need to be very clear in your own mind, as to what the actual boundaries are, and agree them with any potential lodger. Thus far and no further type boundaries. Little irritations WILL happen with any lodger

The GF shouldn't have come into the living room without at least knocking, but you are possibly reading too much into her tone of voice? Curious to know what you said to her when she said that? I would have said something like 'Yes, it is a big house, which is why I thought I would take in a lodger as I have all that space upstairs'. Only need to share the Kitchen and it is a big room!

Hope you can sort things out with the current lodger, but as I say, decide what the ground rules that really matter to you are, write them down into a contract and go over them with any future lodger.

You could also tell your current lodger that you haven't taken in lodgers before and you are sorry that you didn't communicate properly at the beginning about the boundaries and let him see what the contract will be going forward?

Of course the lodger isn’t entitled to the asset—which is why he shouldn’t be paying half of the mortgage. Which is why it matters that OP keeps saying that she pays more than him.

The lodger should be paying less than the equivalent house share. I don’t know how old he is, but he sounds pretty young not to understand how it works. Doesn’t sound like a good fit at all. When I had one lodger, I would charge a third of all the bills.

Both

You got pretty lucky then.

I have had lodgers - most of whom expected to stay in their rooms. I didn't allow guests, no one had an issue with that. My last lodger stayed nearly 3 years, and we did relax rules, share cooking sometimes, hang out in the living room together, but he was absolutely the exception, not the rule.

I have been a lodger multiple times - again the norm was as I describe with some people being more relaxed on occasion.

Our family have had loads of lodgers, again the norm as I describe is what they expected.

Of course you can have pretty much any set up you like regarding household rules, who eats where, guests etc - thats the great thing about having lodgers, it is or it can be, very flexible.

But it does make sense to have rules and make them clear from the start, which I think the OP is realising she hasn't really done, because people seem to have very different understandings (And it seems her lodger doesn't really want to be seen as a lodger, at least by his girlfriend!).