AIBU to tell my daughter to report a flatmate's mother?

[Boxingshibes]

Dd went to university a couple of weeks ago. She is setting in well and likes her flatmates.
Unfortunately there seems to be a problem with one of them. She is an international student and her mum came over to help settle her in, all fine.
BUT
The mum is still there, sleeping in the same room as the daughter.
The rest of them are getting increasingly annoyed as she's just there and as she doesn't speak any English it's difficult to ask what her plans are.
When dd moved in her contract said that she wasn't allowed any overnight guests to stay more than 2 consecutive nights.
Its been 2 weeks!
I've told them to go to student housing/ welfare and say something. Maybe they can do something?
Surely at the very least it's a safety issue if there was a fire or something as this woman isn't supposed to be there?
The rest of them dont want to get this girl and her mum into trouble but if the mums visa runs out surely that's worse?
I know I can't do anything but how do I get through to dd?

If it's halls in Scotland, it will be an inclusive rate in my experience. Students don't pay bills separately.

they cost a fortune (8.5k a year) you can't just move in and stay for as long as you want.

This is exactly it! While I accept that the “mum” issue is tricky for the other students, the point is simply that it’s another person staying for longer than the rules allow. Take @aCatCalledFawkes and her current example - if her daughter decided to share a room with another student from the get go, they’d be over £4k better off. And if everyone in that flat did the same…there’d be 12 people in there. In a flat designed for six. And if every flat did that, the operator of the halls would likely be in breach of all sorts of legal regulations. I know some of the London halls of residence have a blanket “no overnight visitors” rule - presumably to stop exactly this sort of thing. This woman is freeloading and doing so with no apology. The other students owe her nothing - why should they sit meekly by and put up with it when they are deeply uncomfortable with the situation?

I dont mean to be 'wimpy' but I also dont want to be 'that'' mum.
I'll see what happens today. I can call housing this week if needed.
My few weeks comment is when I'm physically in the uni town.

Exactly, and on top of that, the OP is paying the top rate for her daughter to be able to come and go as she pleases or use the oven when needed.

I'm pretty sure if I turned up to my daughters halls and started to cook a meal for the pair of us whilst blocking the others from using the oven or taking up a load of work surface space DD would be mortified. It might only be student halls but it's meant to be there home for the year, it's not a youth hostel.

I’d be unimpressed and tell dd to report to student housing. I certainly wouldn’t give her another week to leave! Dd went to uni and just had freshers week - your dd had to do that with a mum there? Fuck that! Let the uni deal with it.

I can confirm that I'm a Scot - I was there with 5 other British students. Some of the best parties I've attended were with smiling Russians.

There was a also a group of American undergrads who arrived with a PhD student as their interpreter...They came from New York State, I recall.

They were put up in the University Hotel instead of the obschezhitie...and complained that they wanted to be in hostel with the rest of us: "The Scottish students are there!"

"Ah, but the conditions in a Scottish student hostel are akin to the conditions in a Soviet hostel. " [No, they weren't...]

Anyway, the Americans were moved in with the rest of us. Then they complained about the conditions.

I would also wager if it is one of the Scottish unis with a large international student cohort, this is something the housing office will have come across before.

I think they are being very nice giving her to the weekend. Especially with the bat shit behaviour of switching the oven off , etc.

Yes . It needs reporting. It raises so many issues. Controlling and coercive behaviour, insurance issues ( knowingly allowing a person not registered to the accommodation to stay) not to mention how it’s impacting what should be a new and exciting time in your daughters life.

Only advice is not to "make a scene with housing" because it sounds like they are not aware and you would definitely be "that parent"then.

Your DD should tell her flatmate kindly but firmly it's not normal to have guests staying this long and her mother will need to leave. If she isnt from the UK she may not really be aware and they didn't plan ahead. If no change, speak to the university team and escalate. You just have to encourage her that handling odd flatmate behaviour is par for the course of moving out and she has to tackle it sooner or later in this scenario or something else.

F that.

Your daughter / one of the other / with the other flatmates should report it if they're not comfortable with the Mum being there. I'd be ridiculously peeved. Best to speak to someone with the power to do something rather than try to resolve it themselves. The university will handle it and it'll save so much awkwardness in the flat itself.

I would encourage DD to sort it as you are but I would also call the housing department myself but just wouldn't mention that to my daughter.

Although actually they may not discuss with you unless authorised by your daughter - we had some issues last year when paying the fees at university in that the money wasn't showing on my son's account and I had to get his authorisation to discuss the issue with the finance department.

Why can't she just tell the halls what is going on? Today. Why on earth would you need to make a scene.

Exactly this. They are adults and its far better to support them to sort this out than to barge in and take over. Besides which, university housing will probably refuse to deal with you as you are not a tenant of theirs.

It's a weird situation but not an overtly dangerous one so it will be good for your dd to practice her assertiveness to get it sorted.

This happened to ds. A student’s mother was living with a boy in his room and hogging the (tiny) kitchen. It was a catered hall so the kitchen was for microwaving purposes and storing a pint of milk, not for preparing full meals. The Halls manager came with security and ordered her out.

Wow that is interesting and potentially explains the situation in this thread!

(& before anyone jumps on this as a few posters have done earlier to say I’m justifying what this mum is doing ‘culturally’ - I’m not excusing her… I’m just saying that cultural difference is interesting to know about! I do get that people coming here do need to adapt to what we do here.)

It will have been made very clear to the international student that the accommodation is for them and not them and family

When my daughter started Uni in Halls there was definitely nothing which said "this room is for you and you only, you can't move other people in for weeks at a time". Probably used terms such as single room, or single occupancy. Because for UK/European students it does not need spelled out that parents cannot move into Halls with their DC - it would never occur to them to do so.

Some unis have very strict rules about guests in halls.

This. Why are we jumping from 0 to 100 with a “scene”? It doesn’t cause a scene to contact student housing and say, “Since we moved in on x date, x flatmate has had a guest, her mum, living in the flat alongside us all. We have asked x when her mum is planning on leaving, and x won’t give us a date. Could we please figure out a resolution to the 7th person living in our flat?” No scene required.

Agree. I think in DD's first year it was that overnight guests were fine but any longer than 1 night had to be run past the accommodation office. This student would probably say though that mum is not a guest, she's her mum. It's clear from what the OP says that neither the student or her mother can understand why mum moving in is even an issue at all.

How pathetic, could you get the racist card out any quicker? Would you want someones mother staying with you without being asked ?

My thoughts would be the mum is getting things set up to live illegally in the uk

The uni wouldn't care if it's a mum or not. They are allowed overnight guests twice a week and the rules are being broken. Its a fire safety issue.