We can’t house our friends belongings anymore

[cantseemyglasses]

We have some friends who through no fault of their own found themselves homeless.
The LL sold up and they couldn’t find anything else they could afford privately so the council put them in temporary accommodation.

They asked us if they could store some of their belongings in our garage which we agreed but there was so much it ended up going in the loft as well and then the remainder in the bottom of our wardrobe.

I have no space left, I’m trying to get Christmas shopping started for the kids and have nowhere to put anything, our bedroom is full of boxes of their stuff.

In recent weeks they’ve been offered a place and turned it down which in turn meant they had to leave emergency accommodation and were homeless all over again so now they’re staying in a hotel room and we are still storing their things.

I sympathised with their situation to begin with especially with 2 children but can’t help thinking they’ve brought this about themselves now as they were offered accommodation by the council and refused it and now I’d quite like my house back.
AIBU to say I’m sorry we’ve done our best, it’s been over a year and we just can’t have all your things here any longer? Or should I just be grateful we’re in a better situation than them and keep storing it for however long they need us to?

I was going to say you were unreasonable until I saw it has already been a year. I think you would not be unreasonable to tell them that you need your space back and if they want to keep the stuff, they will need to pay a self-storage place to keep it for them.

Id tell them they shouldnt of turned down the house, and they need to pay for a storage unit as you simply dont have the space to store it anymore and give them a date to get it gone by. They are taking the piss.

I'd just say I couldn't keep it any longer as I'd envisaged it being a short term solution. However, now a year has passed, I'd tell them a storage unit would be better and that I'd be happy to help them move it.

I would also give them a cut off date (a couple of weeks before your real cut off), and hold very firmly to that real cut off date.

Objectively, if they were paying rent before then they can afford storage as it will be cheaper and they have no housing costs.

Are you willing to still store some of the stuff? Perhaps the garage? Storage is incredibly expensive so it would be kind to let them down gently. However having boxes in your bedroom is madness. All that needs to go.

No, get it out, all of it now. Use the money you were spending on rent to store it. That would do my head in after so long. They are taking the piss.

They are taking the piss. You would be doing the right thing to say that you are struggling without the use of your property. You have done them a favour worth thousands of pounds of storage fees. Enough is enough.

Of course YANBU OP. You've done your friends a massive favour by storing all their stuff for over a year now. I hope they had a very good reason for turning down the accommodation offer made to them by the council, but I think they were incredibly foolish to do so. I would give them a month's notice (no more!) to organise the rental of a storage unit and to move it all. They will likely play on your sympathies - they may even be nasty about it - but just remind them how much money you've saved them by them not having to have rented a storage unit for the past 12+ months. Unfortunately, as the old adage goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

They're in an absolutely shit situation. Sometimes people do make their situations worse by making unwise choices.

When you say but can’t help thinking they’ve brought this about themselves now as they were offered accommodation by the council and refused it and now I’d quite like my house back you CAN help thinking this. What you've written shows no compassion for their messy situation. You can want to get your space back without being uncompassionate.

Start the conversation about them finding somewhere else for their things. But also, don't lose sight of the fact they are in a very shit situation, so go easy on the judgement.

A year is a piss take. That's plenty of time to have found somewhere sensible to store their stuff.

Give them a deadline.

I'd tell them after a year you can't do it any more.

Hopefully they make arrangments to come and pick it up - suggest a time line.

If not I'd get a case from a charity shop pack up their stuff in your bedroom and use their current hotel address and use a shipping service to send it to them. It will make point you are serious and get the daily irritant out the way and hopefully spur them into action.

Not at all unreasonable. I’ve been in a similar situation to your friends and was lucky I had someone to store mine and my kids stuff for us. But the deal was I had to go through it in the time it was being stored and get rid of things we didn’t really need or want. I was ruthless. I had to be because I didn’t know how long we’d be in refuge for. Have your friends ever even had a proper sort out so it’s at least all in one place, like the garage?

You’ve actually saved them a fair whack of money by storing at your house for an entire year already so there’s no reason they can’t now move to a storage locker. Might give them the kick up the arse they need to at least have a clear out.

Hi friend. How are things?
We are going to have a little sort out in a couple of weeks to make space for Xmas things. Would it be possible to look at putting the things of yours from our house into storage to give us the space to do that?

If you are busy I can help with finding somewhere suitable and helping to move the stuff across; just let me know.

What’s the reason they haven’t found a private rental in a year??

They have been looking but there’s nothing and when something does come up there’s loads of people after it.
They are looking for a 3 bed house on a low budget and it’s just so hard to find.
I do feel for them but they were offered accommodation which would have put an end to their situation.
Now they’ve been deemed as making themselves intentionally homeless for not accepting it so gone from a priority to rather low down the list so there’s no end in site.

Can you ask them to sort through/rearrange their things, so they take up less space? Maybe they can get rid of some things?

Do some research on local self storage places and offer to help them move the stuff.

More than a year is taking advantage.

Just tell them OP, they need to come and sort stuff and fit it in the garage space (if that’s the compromise you are comfortable with) or you tell them they need to put it in storage by XYZ

They must be stupid to turn down 3 bedroom accommodation. Rentals are really hard to find. Last 3 bedroom with a garden I advertised I got 26 people applying to EA in 48 hours before they took advantage down. Honestly almost all people who applied would have been suitable to rent it. Tell them you thought it was a temporary storage. You need space back for storing Xmas gifts so they must move it. I'd say by Oct half term.

They are going to have to lower their standards.
How can someone who has been storing their belongings for over a year have no compassion! Sometimes people need tough love.
I would check price of self storage and give them a time limit and stick to it. I would rather lose them as friends than be a mug.

Tell them to come collect it and rent a storage unit.

They've likely been kicked off the council list for making themselves voluntarily homeless by turning down what they were offered, if they've had to leave the temporary accommodation that'll be because the council no longer has a duty to help them.

They couldn't afford private rent before and they can't afford it now. This situation isn't going to fix itself and they aren't going to magic up somewhere to put their stuff. It's ultimatum time. They come and take it by the weekend or you're taking the whole lot to the dump.

If you're feeling generous, let them keep the stuff in the garage as per the original agreement and they remove the rest. But do so knowing you'll have it there forever basically and by the time they come to remove it (if they ever do) it'll be all mouldy and unusable and they'll leave anything they don't want behind for you to dispose of because they're piss taking twats.

The people on the lower rungs of the council list have realistically got zero chance of ever being permanently housed by them. Especially if they're being picky! Private landlords are never ever going to choose these people over people who are better able to afford the rent and also have a landlords reference. They're being totally unrealistic about their housing options. They need to be looking at 2 bedroom flats. There's no way they can afford to stay in a hotel long term so any minute now the shit is about to hit the fan. Issue the ultimatum whilst you still can, while you know where they are, while their phones haven't been cut off and while they can't drop "but I'm sleeping on the streets and don't need this hassle, you're so mean" on you.

We had a ten month period in between houses as ours was delayed during the build. We rented a container which held the entire contents of our house with room to spare for less than £100pm.

Storage unit about £200 a month for quite a big space it's affordable

Very difficult situation for you. Your friends may have made a real mistake in not accepting the offer of accommodation. Just to point out though that they won’t have been housed temporarily for free they will have been required to pay rent.

Do they really need all this stuff? If they haven’t used it for a year, perhaps they don’t need most of it. Perhaps they could reduce it by half? Yes they should have taken what was offered. You would be quite justified in telling them that you can no longer store it.