AIBU for not wanting to pay rent?

[freebirdblue]

I currently live with my older sister and her family and contribute £100 weekly toward rent and bills. I pay for takeaways, contribute toward their date nights, and ubers (apparently they can’t work the app). I relocated and she offered me her spare bedroom for a year so I can save and have more money to put towards a nice one bedroom apartment. On top of that, I also take care of my nephews and walk the dogs daily.

However, my BIL’s parents asked me to house and dog sit while they’re away travelling for two months. I’m a 10 minute drive away but already my expenses have gone up as I’m now doing a food shop (yes, I was spoilt that they included me in their evening dinners) and I have to bring the dogs to the vet (out of my own pocket to later be reimbursed when they return, which is another awkward issue).

However, my sister still wants me to still contribute while I’m not there, she insisted not the full £100 but wasn’t overly pleased when I suggested £50 either. The thing is, I don’t think it’s fair I have to contribute because if I wasn’t in the spare bedroom, no one else would be, and one of her friends is coming and going to stay while I’m away (recently single). I’m not calling to their house for dinner either, but I am still helping out with my nephews and working from home (which I hate doing as I only have my laptop and no other monitors) on certain days for them.

My mum is trying to reason I’d still pay a landlord if I was on holiday, but I’m house sitting for my BIL’s family as a favor (for free) and it’s not exactly a holiday either! However, my friends are arguing it is unreasonable and strange of my sister to expect me to pay. Is it? I’m so conflicted and don’t want to seem ungrateful but I also have to admit I am annoyed.

I made the mistake of telling her my salary and now she holds that against me and tells almost everyone we know I earn more than her and her partner combined. For starters, she works part time and he is an apprentice, they have a mortgage and kids, whereas I’m single and free of responsibility’s in my twenties. My salary isn’t overly great for my position and includes 10% of my pension so it seems like I’m earning more than I am.

AIBU? I feel £50 is more than fair but also feel like I shouldn’t have to contribute either while I’m not there.

Why ? She’s renting a room in a private house. The going rate here for that is £300-£350 a month, and that includes utility bills. OP is paying more and contributing towards other things, as well as dog walking and child care. Her BiL has volunteered her for the house sitting, which is costing her more, and to top it off her sister has a friend coming to stay in the room OP is paying rent for. They wanted this arrangement and are exploiting it. She wouldn’t be paying much more for what’s basically a bedroom in a private house with a live in landlord. At least she’d get some peace.

I don't think you owe them anything. It's your sister, not a professional landlord. But on the other hand, she's helping you out and it sounds like money is tight for them, so maybe just suck it up and pay them the £50 for now?

ETA: You're actually paying market rate for a room in a shared house anyway, once the extra things you do are factored in, though, so she's not being massively generous really.

Ah well, 100 is cheap imho.
She could move somewhere else if she's not happy.

Ok, having read your updates - your sister is taking the absolute piss. Move out!

Get the money upfront for the dog (and what they already owe you) or you don’t take the dog to the vet again. Suck up the £100 for now but arrange to move out immediately the current house sitting ends.
Basically finish your current commitments, that you agreed to (even though you shouldn’t have) but have new accommodation ready to move into asap.

Stop the babysitting and any other favours. They are clearly taking the piss. They managed before you moved there so they can manage again.

If you can maintain a decent relationship based on mutual respect and on an equal footing (perhaps if you are invited for a meal a week etc with no expectations , then you can reintroduce the odd evening babysitting as a favour. Don’t put yourself out too much though. If it’s easier to have the kids at yours, get them to drop them round. You should be inconvenienced as little as possible.
If you can’t get to a fair, equal relationship, I’d cut them out if my life. Their jealousy is making them really unreasonable.
Dont be a mug. Stand up for yourself. Say no.

Enjoy your new job, in your new home. Get some experience in that job then decide where you want to live and work permanently.

Your sister should be a positive addition to your life, not a drain!

They are using you. It’s appalling. I think you need to find a house share asap. Let the BIL sort out his parents dogs.

It’s not £100 though is it ? It’s everything else on top, plus babysitting, plus dog walking. That’s saving her sister a bundle on its own. Now they want her to dog/house sit unpaid and pay vet bills out of her own pocket until they get back. You couldn’t make this shit up.

Treat this "housesitting" as a breather to allow you to arrange somewhere else to live. It's neither your fault nor your responsibility to bolster their income for them by paying over the odds for a room AND providing childcare when they want or need it.

Good luck.

Use the time you're spending living and looking after the dogs to move your stuff to the parent's house (at least in the immediate term). Then take one of the offers you've seen and move your stuff from the parent's house to that place.

Never return to DSis & Bil's place.

I'm just wondering if there was a reason why you needed to emigrate or was it to 'help' Sister and BiL out? If you could find a job in your native country, would you? Could you afford to live there and have an enjoyable life there?

It seems as though Sister has you under her thumb and as for looking for more money - they are jealous that you're earning more than the two of them combined. Tell them how to earn more money (study, do well at school/college and then get a better job) rather than pay them more money. Definitely stop subsidising their social lives.

Edited to add - Under NO circumstances are you to book BiL's family pet into a vet for an injection or for any medical treatment. The dog is not yours. Get BiL to do it and he pays.

I would pay your sister 75 while you are house sitting for BIL parents - but if you are anywhere else - say - on a holiday, you should be paying 100 to your sister.

Do not complain but do be more definite in not accepting any more dog sitting jobs and also keep your personal house hunting and income earning details to yourself. You don't need to share so much private information.

Your sister can always ask another lodger to move in after you have left so don't feel bad when you move to your own place.

OP doesn't have to do these things.
She can accept it as it is, or find somewhere else.

This is too bad OP and shows how jealousy can create resentment.

Yes, YABU to not pay the £100 weekly rent you agreed on with your sister.

However, you are all in a tough situation. There is good and had here

• sister is charging you VERY cheap rent so that you can save which is a huge help to you from relatives who earn less than you and have much higher living costs
• you are pitching in and helping with child care and so on, which is also good of you

the bad is that

• your sister seems to have become dependent on the extra £400/mo and so doesn’t want you to leave early and is outraged you’d skip any payments due to housesitting as there has been no chance for her to rework her budget to prepare for the drop in income
• you do seem a bit unsympathetic in terms of your sisters struggles, she is helping you save, but it seems no one is helping her save? Your sister seems to be taking responsibility for helping you get back on your feet…this is something a parent might do and most adults are not given this opportunity.

Moving forward, I think you need to stick to the agreed £100/weekly rent until you move out and make sure you give plenty of advance warning, I would not include sister in decision of a place to rent/buy. I would also be willing to help sister in future if she needs assistance in future.

A whole year accommodation for £1,200 plus a few sundries, I’d just pay up.

Families can be highly manipulative - she's emigrated to whereever her sister lives, and is on her own and being pressurised by sister and BIL and his entire family.

No other lodger would pay £150 a week and also do babysitting and pay for ubers and takeaways for the entire family and also vet's bills for a dog that isn't hers. Even paying London rates, that would be OTT! She's paying waaaaay over the market rate, and they are taking the absolute piss. It's tantamount to bullying tbh.

Actually the dog/house sitting gives you the perfect way to ease out of your sister’s house. Stay there, sleep overnights, take everything you need (monitors, clothes etc) there so that you are set up properly to work. Reduce the times you go back to sister’s to babysit.

Re BIL’s parents, just matter of factly tell them that the vet wants £x for the next injection so they’ll need to pay over the phone/online with their credit card.

No paying for takeaways apart from the ones you’re eating, or Ubers you aren’t a passenger in. I’d recommend not answering your phone every time - “I must have been out walking the dogs” is a great excuse for that, see also “taken on some extra work in the evenings”.

Get a room in a shared house, don’t return to live with your sister.

The going rate here for that is £300-£350 a month, and that includes utility bills.

The going rate here is £800/mo with a shared bathroom.

It's £150 a week (according to what SIL now wants her to pay). That's £7,800 a year - probably twice that given she's also a free babysitter and paying for their ubers, takeaways and date night.

I think you are forgetting that OP isn’t a random lodger off the street, family makes it more complicated and for here she is paying half the market rate for the cheapest room (where you have no en-suite, but share a bathroom)

She needs to put herself first.

She's not where you are though!

Right, this is where you start putting your foot down, absolutely do not do this. You tell them they need to pay upfront of the dog won't be going, you don't need the hassle of trying to get the money back from these cheeky sods on their return.

I think you need to snap up one of these places to rent ASAP too, your sister is helping herself more than helping you.

Strongly agree.

The problem with this whole situation is that it's so informal.

People seem to think that financial arrangements with family can be less defined, less clear, less explicitly agreed than a business agreement because 'it's family'.

As this post shows, exactly the opposite is true. There's so much more going on than just a commercial arrangement that it's absolutely vital that everything's written down, agreed, strictly adhered to and made completely separate to anything else in your lives. Otherwise the money stuff gets mixed up with the sibling stuff and the domestic stuff and the personal stuff and next thing you know everyone's splattered with resentment and people start not showing up for Christmas.

I'm not forgetting that, seeing as I literally pointed out that she's being manipulated.

She isn't paying less than the market rate. Her sister has upped it to £150 a week and the going rate for a room in a shared house where she is is £300-350 a month. So she's losing money by staying with her sister (hand over fist once the other stuff she's paying for is factored in).

True, but she did say that market rate is
I can find a decent one bed nearby for £500 per week/or a bedroom for £300 both inc bills so moving out is the right choice.

So she is paying 20% of the market rate for a 1 bed flat or 33% of the market rate for a room as a lodger.