To say SDs have to share a room?

[Cachet88]

DP and I are buying a new, bigger house. It will have four bedrooms. One for us, one for DS6. We also have SD12 (twins) who are with us EOWE and half the holidays. Currently they share a room.

SDs mum moved and we moved to be closer about three years ago. Therefore my mum now lives too far to do day visits but stays here every month or two. DP’s family live abroad and stay a few times a year, and we have other friends and family to stay fairly often too (pretty location!).

As there are now two bedrooms unaccounted for, SDs want a bedroom each. I do not want this, because I want a spare room for guests, and because both SDs are absolutely disgusting in terms of hygiene.

YANBU: they don’t need a room each
YABU: they need a room each

It's very clear that you dislike your stepdaughters. A guest room is a luxury if you can afford it after immediate family is accommodated.

I would prioritise giving them a room each. Just put some rules in that they have to keep it tidy as it may be used for guests when they’re not there. They’re only 12 so their dad needs to be a father and help them get better at tidying and cleaning. You may find they have more pride in their room once it’s their own anyway. I did.

I would say that they will start off sharing, but IF they consistently work together to keep that room clean and tidy for three months, you will let them have a room each.

Make a list for the back of the door with explicit instructions- hang towel on hook on back of bed, make bed, ensure nothing left in floor, etc. Make your standards clear, then it’s up to them whether or not they choose to leet them, and get rewarded accordingly.

So your DH needs to go up and inspect the room after, or better yet, actually stand in there with them and direct them as they tidy up so that they are not able to get away with shoving things out of sight. From what you're said about their mum's house, perhaps they just don't know how to tidy properly, and actually need to be taught.

For those who dismiss needing to have a room for guests, these include OP's mum, her partner's family and other friends and family. OP and her mum (and DS's grandmother) already see each other less than they would have done in OP's previous home.

Yes it's a very good job. Be sure and keep it like that, it is a choice after all.

Exactly. Thats just parenting 12 year olds. Why is your husband trying to get out of actually parenting them?

I remember having a ‘floordrobe’ as my Dad called it growing up. I never put clean clothes away when he left the in a tidy pile on my bed, I would move the pile to the floor… then I would take clothes from the pile when I wanted to use the clothes, usually knocking the pile over and then carrying it all down mixed in with stuff that needed washing because I couldn’t remember what was clean…. My Dad must have had the patience of a saint!
Rubbish was always in the bin, I wasn’t filthy just untidy!
I would give them the biggest room you can with the en-suite so they have plenty of space.
If three of them share at their Mums having to share just two of them in a big space with their own bathroom would be fine.
Depending on the layout of your downstairs if you have a dining room but can fit a table in the kitchen, the other alternative is to give the girls a room each and convert the dining room into a guest bedroom.
It seems silly to provide them with a room each for every other weekend and half the holidays, especially when they are used to sharing at their Mums with the extra sibling in there as well.
If your DP desperately wants them to have their own rooms then he can pay for someone to go in and give it a good clean after each stay, and make sure they keep it tidy. If he can’t/wont then they don’t get the extra room there is no way I would be wiping bogies off all walls in 2 rooms let alone 1!

If only they had a less useless father to offer some guidance.

DH gets one room for his kids, you get one room for guests. You both get one room for your son and one room for you too. This is 100% fair.

If DH wants to pay extra and get a 5 bed house then that’s on him but he should fund the extra needed.

Can’t your DH do it with them a few times? Not in an “everyone shouting at each other” way but a “let’s put some tunes on and make this fun but let’s do it properly” way. Not forever but just so he shows that doing a shit job won’t wash?

And if he earns double what the OP does, does he get twice as much say? Double the space? Is that how your marriage works?

I would make a deal with them - tidy their rooms and they can have a room each. If they don't stick to the deal, they will have to share. They are old enough to understand that you want a decently clean room for when you have guests.

We have a spare room but I use it a lot for myself! DH is a heavy sleeper, I'm the opposite. He snores a lot and is so fidgety if he has a cold, or something on his mind or whatever. I'd go mad if I didn't have have somewhere else to sleep when he's keeping me up!

I get it's tricky if you always shared happily prior to the move, but could you say 'actually your dad snores like a train so I'm really excited to have a bolthole'? You would obvs have to sleep there quite often but in my book that's a big win....😀

It sounds as if they can't look after themselves let alone a room each.

I think they need to learn how to keep a shared room tidy first.

Seems like their dad has a lot of stepping up to do.

I don’t understand why you don’t either supervise them or check after they’re finished and go through it with them - “you” meaning you or their dad. If you know they are half arsing it it’s lazy parenting to not ensure they’re doing the job to your standards. Given you end up cleaning it anyway, it would be easier to just make sure they’re doing understand they can’t do half a job.

Couldn’t even make it past your first post without showing your dislike for the step children.

no idea why women like this marry or partner up and have further children when they dislike their step children.

anyway, they are kids, kids make a mess.

they should have their own rooms. There is literally no reason for them to share and leave a room empty other than they aren’t your biological children.

assume DH is also buying this house and has some kind of say?

No matter what you decide with rooms your DP needs to stop being so pathetic and neglectful and sort out the cleaning of the rooms. He needs to make sure they each have a laundry basket, adequate storage, a bin and actively monitor and deal with the mess. Cleaning should not just be happening at the end of the weekend - that’s just setting up for failure.

He needs to actively parent. Set some rules and enforce them. Rooms need to be clean at the end of each day. He needs to be going in there and telling them rubbish in bin, towels hanging up on a regular basis. Help them with it if necessary. At their age they should be doing the hoovering.

Why is her SD’s hygiene - or lack of it - OP’s responsibility. It’s a matter for their parents.

OP isn’t their parent. This is an issue for their mum and dad to sort. Until they learn to take responsibility there’s no way I would give them each their own room. They need to prove they can take care of a shared one first.

Ah I misread it but my point still stands, why keep one room empty for most of the year? Like keeping a lounge for best like people from the olden days?
we’re in a housing crisis, it seems wasteful and mean to me.

Step children are not OP’s immediate family. I don’t think she dislikes them at all. I think she’s pissed off that their hygiene standards suck and their dad doesn’t seem to want to take responsibility for that. This is not on OP, they’re not her kids. How many times on MN do we see step mums reminded that they don’t have parental rights ?

I’d make them share but tell them you’ll re-evaluate in the future. Nothing wrong with sharing a room.

Well, in that case, no. Fuck off to giving them a room each to destroy. And tell them why.

How long is it til you move?

Assuming it's more than a few weeks away, I feel like there's an easy answer to this - you explain that the rooms will need to be usable by guests in the next house and that can't happen if their room ends up super messy. So if they want separate rooms, they are both going to have to keep their room tidy until you move. And if not, they'll need to share a room so you do have space available for guests.

Then they'll fail and you can make them share a room.