Is my friend outrageously entitled in her expectations?

[MariadeiMiracoli]

I moved to my current town 18 years ago and got to know a woman renting a house on the cheap from a local who was off travelling. She was an interesting woman who'd given up her teaching job after a few years and gone travelling to SE Asia and South America, teaching English. Very laid back, getting by on benefits and subs from friends and family. Used to do a few hours at the local pub or shop for cash in hand and when she'd built up enough, buy an air ticket and take off to Hawaii or India for a month or two, picking up bar work or sleeping on the beach when she got there, always anticipating that someone would help her out.

About 12 years ago she met a man and moved in with him in Devon. It didn't work out and she ended up in a caravan and, when she turned 55, was housed in a flat in a 55+ development. But she's unhappy: there's noise, one of her neighbours drinks and plays music loud, another has serious MH issues. I visited her there a couple of years ago and thought it was actually rather nice: smart modern flat in a very desirable Devon town and no issues on the days I was there. I've said to her that even in the smartest private flats you can end up living next door to someone noisy but she says she's not prepared to put up with it.

She wants a bungalow with two bedrooms, so she can have a yoga/ meditation/ craft room. She wants a south-facing garden she can tend. It's got to be within walking distance of a decent town, but somewhere quiet and peaceful with a green outlook. And parking because she has a car. She's found a number of HAs (one here near me, where she used to live, one where she lives now and a third in the Bristol area) that have a tiny number of properties that fit her bill. All of them have been built for disabled people. She's been driving around inspecting them and knows precisely which ones she's after.

She's asked for my support to try and get one of her chosen properties in this area. I'm not sure what that will entail, but I suspect it'll involve spinning the truth to match the HA criteria. I've told her very clearly that I don't think there's any way she'll actually get one of these properties and she needs to compromise, but she says that if you don't ask firmly you don't get. Is this how it is now? I don't know what to make of it.

I’m only in touch with one still and he’s mid-50s and still single and living in poverty. He actually wants to become a father(!) now but has literally nothing to offer a younger woman so it’s looking unlikely.

If she wanted all of that, which sounds lovely, then she should have worked and saved the money to be able to afford it.

I'm not sure I really understand the problem.

She's welcome to ask, but she's not going to get, is she?! No one is going to give an able-bodied 50-something a 2 bed bungalow with a lovely garden because she wants one, she's chancing her arm.

But all the other stuff is irrelevant really - if she lived in her car mostly and (by your own examples) has been a good friend, even if she lives in a way you don't quite understand and are envious of, that's neither here nor there. It doesn't sound like she was taking the piss?

I don't think anyone is being entitled to want what you've described, which is really reasonable in a wealthy country - a two room bungalow with a garden near a town.

But yeah it's totally unreasonable to try and scam someone disabled out of an adapted property if she's not disabled.

There are lots of nice 55+ places though that don't have horrible neighbours, maybe she should just broaden her search beyond bungalows.

As a disabled person in an adapted property I can tell you now that they are gold dust. The ones she is looking at have probably been built to cut down a large waiting list - she is a CF with no chance

Oh come on, surely this is another "Look at the people who get what they want just because they claim to be disabled" thread

It sounds like she has no interest in the system. But she’s done charity work and helps her friends out when they need it. She doesn’t sound like a real CF to me. It doesn’t sound like she’s actually asked OP to say she’s disabled, she just naively assumes it’s all about asking for what you want.

She does sound politically unaware and naive as to how social housing is a massive mess these days. or how much hatred there is towards benefit claimants in the current times.

Bet the ruthless freeloader describes herself as spiritual.

Same

It grates when people like this get handed everything for nothing because they 'want' it, even trying to leap frog people who actually need it. That's our taxpayer money and support she feels entitled to!

Does she know you can do yoga and meditate in any room?

I'd back off from her and be leery. It sounds like she's always been something of a grifter, to be honest. I have a couple of old friends who sound like her and what they really did, for the most part, was live off men.

But that has a way of ending with age. So then, older, with no job skills or savings and health problems increasing, they'd look around for someone else to supplement their existence.

It sounds like she's laying the ground work to rope you into lying for her so she can get housing that's more than her fair share. And she's told you straight up that she tries for the most she can get, something for nothing. Yes, I see why you're having second thoughts about her!

She might do a little something for you here and there but she needs far more help from others than you do, so I wouldn't feel indebted based on that, though she'd probably like you to. My experience with people like her, or people who sound a lot like her anyway, is that they're very skilled in getting a free ride. In other words, manipulative.

I'd expect her trying to lean on sympathetic people to steadily increase, from here on out.

Here in the US, we don't have the same safety net that you all do. I've had a couple of friends who sound like her start making me uncomfortable when we all got older. After giving in on a couple of things, I decided to back off at their renewed attempts at getting closer, after years without much contact.

I figure it costs me at least $1,000 USD (750 pounds) per month to have someone stay at my house, aside from the intrusion on my family life, privacy, routines, etc. There are basics like groceries. And any problem they have, becomes my problem. Medical/dental requirements, transportation, etc. Also, my husband and I have achieved a level now where we can go out to dinner a couple of times a week etc. and it seemed rude to leave a houseguest at home, so.

I feel for them, to some extent. You can't always make up for many years of throwing caution to the wind.

Anyway, the short version is that I'd be careful with her. Good luck.

Whats's she doing?

This is what I would have thought. Which is why when she started talking about getting one I had to do a double-take.

My late DH was disabled - we have to provide a huge amount of medical evidence to get an accessible 2 bed HA home.

She’s in for a shock 😂

tbh I think as long as she's asking you to do something reasonable (ie. not lie) then it's fine -- wish her luck, she's been a good friend in the past, and it sounds as though her lifestyle was heavily based on bartering and not cheating.

Doesn't really work with the local authority but maybe she can find a way to swap her flat for somewhere she likes better.

Probably won't be the perfect house she's spotted but as long as she's not breaking any rules she's allowed to put in her application.

Because I was responding to your suggestion that she would easily be able to 'take' a flat from someone more deserving.

That's usually how a forum conversation goes, if you reply directly to someone's point you quote them ...

That's what I thought.

Well, she's right - you don't ask, you don't get. I also rather like her attitude of, "What's the problem with aiming for what you really want and what would bring you happiness, instead of just settling for what you're offered?"

I doubt she will get a 2 bedroom bungalow if she has no medical evidence supporting the need for it, but if she doesn't ask, she definitely won't. There's no reason you have to help (whatever that may entail), or remain friends, if you don't want to.

I don't understand your attitude towards someone who sounds like like a pretty decent human being - helping you when you needed it, volunteering etc...it does sound a bit like envy may be clouding your view. I don't think living hand to mouth, as she was, equates to a 'free and easy' lifestyle. I'd find it pretty stressful not knowing where I was going to sleep or where my next meal was coming from. But it worked for her, as your choices did for you. You make it sound like she's somehow gotten away with something by not having a mortgage or a 'normal' life.

I don't think she would agree with you that it worked for her. She seems to feel that being accommodated for free in a one-bedroom flat in a rather desirable town that others choose to move to is some kind of punishment.

DS lives in a MIND supported flat. It’s ring fenced for need and even with all the provided medical evidence there were another 70 people with a similar level of genuine need for the place. He now cannot move out due to the OH statement of physical need and housing stating his needs for a home are more than fully meet for his additional physical needs. Social Housing of any description is hard to come by and that developed specifically for disabilities is as rare as hens teeth to get. For the record I have no idea how DS was placed first even with his input of evidence from all supportive services.

Did you point out to her that without this flat that she is currently in ( which sounds fine) that she would be homeless and beggars can’t be choosers

Definitely entitled behaviour, but she has the mentality of someone who has been on long term benefits ( for no specific reason other than they don’t want to work) and that is to grab as much as you can

I had a lovely friend like this.
You'll find she's only your friend whilst you're useful to her. Take a step back, see what happens.

I have a relative with a personality disorder / mental health issues and I think this perspective is part and parcel of it. Similar life too, drifting around, but actually unable to commit to anything or stick with it. Grandiose, it seems entitled (and it is) but its more than that, its not grounded in reality. Probably the best thing you can do is try to kindly offer some realism. But to be honest I think the fantasies keep them going, and they crash quite hard when reality bangs up against it.

You were unreasonable to stay friends for so long with a scrounger who could have worked but chose not to, thereby expecting everyone else to subsidise her life from their tax payments.

I would not support this.

This above.

I wouldn't get involved if I was you. I very much doubt that she will get what she wants. There are others with much greater need.