Sharing a bathroom with my neighbour is slowly breaking me

[beefthief]

Thread title: Sharing a bathroom with my neighbour is slowly breaking me
OP — Posted by: WallTooThin
I need to vent and also check if I’m losing my mind.
I share a bathroom with my neighbour (old building, “temporary” setup that has now lasted 3 years 🙃). On paper it sounded fine. In reality? Absolute chaos.

They will occupy the bathroom for 45 minutes minimum. Shower, music blasting, mirror monologues, the works. Meanwhile I’m doing the pee-dance in my hallway like an idiot. Knocking does nothing. Texting does nothing. It’s like once they cross the bathroom threshold, the outside world ceases to exist.

Hair. Everywhere. Sink, floor, shower walls. I don’t even know how one person produces this much hair. The toilet seat is also constantly left up, which would be annoying but fine—except they also don’t wipe it. I shouldn’t have to mentally prepare myself every time I need to sit down.

I’ve tried being polite. I’ve tried hints. I’ve tried schedules. Nothing sticks longer than a week.

Has anyone survived a shared-bathroom situation like this? Do I confront them directly, or do I just accept that this is my villain origin story?

I don’t see lots of people using them. Ever.

the double dash is also commonly referred to as “The Chatgp dash”

I'm not sure.

But the OP's second post is a quote of TheHedgehogCannotBeBotheredAtAll which the OP has managed to pin?

This is another reason I hate it. Anything that's a bit more complex gets scrutinised or accused of being AI.
Sometimes it's just a person.
It makes it harder to sift out the dross and the internet more unusable.

It uses huge amounts of power and water, even a simple request like asking it to rewrite a passage uses loads more than you would think.

Also, because AI requires lots of memory chips the cost of memory used in computers and phones is going through the roof. When the next phone you get costs several hundred pounds more than the last one then it’s because of AI.

But most of the AI search results are wrong.

Yes, it pulls from a variety of sources and so half the time is utter nonsense

Why do you think that?

So it’s a hmo basically, a room with communal facilities though in this case only these two units share a bathroom and one person isn’t thoughtful to the other’s needs.

to those querying if it’s legal, my DD’s set up is like this sharing a bathroom and a kitchen with another woman, but she’s thankful because the lads share 6-8 to a communal down the hall bathroom (military)

So it’s a hmo basically, a room with communal facilities though in this case only these two units share a bathroom and one person isn’t thoughtful to the other’s needs.

to those querying if it’s legal, my DD’s set up is like this sharing a bathroom and a kitchen with another woman, but she’s thankful because the lads share 6-8 to a communal down the hall bathroom (military)

If it is an HMO the OP must have known the living arrangements when she signed the tenancy agreement. Unless she is held prisoner or agreed a 5 year contract none of it makes sense.

Despite an AI post I am sure OP has basic common sense.

I once had a one bedroomed flat with a large kitchen with dining table and sofa and an enormous living room. It wasn't a bed-sit but the bathroom was shared and situated in a lower landing. There was a bed sit with its own kitchen and another flat sharing it. It was the 1970s and was quite normal then. Probably not as common now but not unimaginable.

funny as I read your message my partner said to me for 4 years when he was married to his ex, the first place they had was a flat with bedroom/ lounge and a kitchen, with shared bathroom with downstairs flat. i stand corrected ha ha

PIL’s first flat (London, late 1960s) as a married couple was sharing a bathroom with the downstairs flat, occupied by an old lady who had lived there donkey’s years. If MIL left anything in the bathroom at all the old lady would throw it up the stairs in anger, even the toilet roll.
i would have to move in your situation, even if I had to compromise on actual living space, so long as I didn’t need to share bath or kitchen facilities.

Is it a HMO? I lived in a few back in the 80s when they were known as bedsits. They were for working people, no pets or children etc.
Usually shared bathroom facilities, sometimes shared kitchen, or a kitchenette in the bedroom. The tenants generally kept themselves to themselves, sometimes meeting on the stairs, but nobody ever monopolised the bathroom for long periods

Nope, I couldn't live like that unless it was literally my only option. Sharing a bathroom is hard enough with family, but with a neighbour who ignores knocking and leaves it a mess? Misery.

I'd be putting everything into finding another place, since I assume there are no real, trustworthy plans to fix the situation any time soon. Save up and start looking for somewhere new. The camp toilet is a good idea for the meantime, but escape should be your focus.

And on a tangent, no, a long dash/em-dash doesn't automatically mean something is composed by AI. I use them frequently and have done so for more than 3 decades. They're not the tell-tale sign some people think they are.

2 separate houses/apartments sharing one bathroom? This would be allowed in HOMO or flat share…but original poster made the post out to be 2 separate dwellings.

Except OP acknowledged it.

It wasn't the emdash- it was the blithering nonsensicality.

When did it become illegal? It was still legal for two separate flats to share a bathroom up until the 80s. Not HMOs, separate flats. Undesirable certainly but it wasn't illegal at that time. If that has changed when did it happen?

I can't work out why OP ever agreed to a tenancy like this in the first place.

Perhaps it was the best she could afford and believed it would be fixed quickly

Cat litter as a pp suggested or move!

Id set my alarm and get up before them

They actually are a tell tale sign, despite some people using them irl. In my job as an NHS educator we are actually trained professionally on how to spot AI and this is the first thing that comes up.
other signs include American spellings in a British presentation/paper, gobbledegook, leaving headers and footers insitu
and signposting guidance or information that might be relevant in other parts of the country, but not necessarily applicable in the region we are based.
the Emdash/chatgpt dash is number one on the list of clues

And oxford commas. Chatgpt loves them. Most people below the age of 70 in the UK don't use them.