How do we get my BIL to leave our house

[Queenofheart]

My DH brother came to live with us 4 months ago after the breakdown of his marriage.

He registered with the council as homeless as it was his wife’s house and she kicked him out.

It was only meant to be temporary, he’s applying for council rentals due to them being a lot cheaper than private, but even though he’s been offered a couple he has turned them down due to them being out of our area, 10/15 mins away, which is why me and DH now think he’s not getting anything offered, they don’t see him as an urgent case.

He can afford private rent, he just doesn’t want to pay it, so he’s plodding along here with no urgency to go anywhere.

He’s made a few comments to my DH recently about him being a bit of a stress head, that we are a loud house and he likes his peace, yes, we like music on, we have friends round at weekend. It’s our house!

The final straw for me was when we had friends round for the England match and we were all mega excited and shouting, he was putting his hands over his ears, rolling his eyes, my friend tried to chat to him, he pretty much ignored her, at half time I did food, he waited until I’d served up, grabbed his food and took himself off to his room.

I feel he’s rude commenting on how we live when he’s a bloody guest in our home.

also he’s mentioned he’ll still be here at Christmas at this rate as he can’t find anywhere, which is not happening. He’s in our guest room so we can’t have people stay either now.

me and DH are on same page, we want to give him 2 months max to leave. He has a daughter with a spare room , tho she’s not in our area, but we want him gone now, he’s making me uncomfortable in my own home sometimes.

how do we sort this without falling out or him feeling we are kicking him out?

I don't do his washing, I just mentioned that he gets all those facilities for the money he pays, along with all the utilities too. I'm not getting him to do cooking and a rota to do anything, if I ask and he starts helping he will see that as him being able to stay.

Cheeky, cheeky bugger.

All he is thinking about is himself. He’s not thinking about how he’s impacting on you.

Be as loud as humanly possible in your own home. Send him some nice looking private rentals - 1 or 2 bed flat with parking, say from Rightmove or Zoopla. So he gets the message he needs to move on and has outstayed his welcome. No wonder his relationship ended!

I’m afraid though, with cheeky fuckers you have to be direct and clear and just say Derek it’s been nice having you these past X months but we want our lives and our space back. Don’t be too polite - because he isn’t.

“I'm not getting him to do cooking and a rota to do anything, if I ask and he starts helping he will see that as him being able to stay”

You are bang on here. Don’t even go there. He just needs to take responsibility for himself and show you some respect for having put him up by finding himself new accommodation.

Omg. A YEAR?! This is a cautionary tale!

I'm just shocked you haven' ttold him to get stuffed. When he complains about th emusic, "well, you could have moved out anytime."

I'm also really shocked he isn't taking a house that's been offered. What a wanker.

This makes me really angry. exBIL landed up staying with SIL off and on for 2 years because he refused to get his shit together. It was unbearable to watch.

He’s a grown man. You sit him down and tell him the situation as it is has gone on for too long and he has two weeks to get himself a new place. It may be a case that he can’t move into the new place straight away but you can any to see a signed contract stating that he has a moving date.

I think in some areas if you turn down too many offered properties, they drop you off the list completely! I'd definitely make sure he's still actually on the list.

I agree with others - give him a deadline. Or, up the rent to more than he'd be paying at the council property. My friend's dad was desperate for him to move out of home and he could easily afford to - life was just too easy at home. His dad put his rent up to £1,000 a month and he was out within 2!

He contributes £200 a month!. That equates to around £50 per week, so that is dead cheap for him.

Your H should serve him two weeks notice to leave, not two months. The longer he stays the harder it will be to actually get him out. He's already taken you for fools.

I’d be turning the music and noise up louder tbh

Let him sleep in dirty sheets, then. If he doesn't change his own sheets, it's not your role to do it for him. If he wants to fester he can bloody well fester.

At the very least, you should be saying 'I'm about to put a wash on, can you go up and strip your bed please? There's clean sheets in the cupboard.' You should absolutely not be changing this dickhead's bed for him. You're not a hotel!

yes - this. When I was in my early 20s, my flatmate asked if we could let a family friend stay for a few weeks. I said yes. Worst decision of my life - she was awful, made a huge mess, totally inconsiderate and landed up staying for 2 months and it destroyed my relationship with my flatmate.

But I learnt a really important lesson. And now, if people stay with me, I'm very clear about my expectations. "You can stay for this long. I need you to do these chores and pay this much money" etc. We had DH's nephew for a few months a few years ago. He'd spent a few months with SIl then came to us. We had far fewer issues than she did - because we were very clear p front. I told him what food I expected to ALWAYS be available in the fridge when I came down to make our DC's breakfasts and lunchboxes. If I wanted him to buy bread and milk, I sent him a message and asked hm to do it. We told him he could stay rent free for x amount of time and if he wanted to stay a bit longer, he could , but would have to start paying rent at Y and could do so for no more than an additional 2 months. I regularly called him downstairs to help me with setting tables/loading dishwashers etc. If he'd put washing on and it was in the machine, I called him downstairs to take it out.

I am completely gobsmacked that you are treating him like a guest who is there for a few days when he is such an entitled and lazy motherF**er.

He's a CF for sure! I wouldn't be changing his bedding - let him sleep in dirty sheets 🤷🏻‍♀️
Has your DH spoken to him yet?

Fair enough @Queenofheart but I think you & your DH could probably give him a leaving date AND ask him to do his fair share of chores, plus ask him to pay more than £50 a week. None of those things is mutually exclusive!

Good luck - it's really hard living with a person who takes advantage, when you're an ordinarily nice, kind polite person. No wonder his wife kicked him out.

He registered with the council as homeless as it was his wife’s house and she kicked him out.

Seems unlikely that he's entitled to nothing, unless it was a short marriage and he never contributed financially? He probably shouldn't have vacated the marital home, but perhaps he could move back in there now?

He's an idiot for turning down council accommodation though, 10 miles away is trivial, and he was lucky to be offered anything at all. Sounds like he'd rather be freeloading off of you. Just tell him you need him out, and give him a short but firm deadline to sort somewhere else out (a month if you're generous, a week if your patience is running out).

Yeah I would definitely say there are friends coming to stay in September and you need the room or you will never be rid of him!!!

Did you have The Chat?

i agree, don’t talk about rent payment as that signals he can stay.

Did you have The Chat?

i agree, don’t talk about rent payment as that signals he can stay.

I’d make every conversation about him finding somewhere to live. Print off flats to rent, house shares, everything that’s going. Drop in your plans to decorate
“his” room as your friend/ cousin/ long lost relative is coming to stay for a month and will bring their loud child/ large dog/ Siamese cat ( whichever he’d hate most) Run out of anything he likes to eat or drink. Develop a sudden love for Tibetan throat singing. Make him so uncomfortable he’d rather sleep in a hedge than stay.

Or.... just be an adult and tell him this is not sustainable. He has had options, he can afford options and you are disappointed that not only has he not felt that he should prioritise taking up any of these options, he has made little contribution - financial or practical - and has regularly been judgemental and unpleasant about the way you live your life, your friends and so on. You had not expected this to be a long term thing, and you certainly had not expected his contribution to be so low over the long term, nor that he would feel it acceptable to pass judgement. You would therefore absolutely like him to be gone within a month and would appreciate a larger financial and practical contribution in the meantime, as well as fewer comments on your lifestyle.

I just don't understand how your DH hasn't told him any of this already.

Actually, I want to double down on my comment above. If this was my brother, I'd be totally fuming at the entitled, obnoxious behaviour. And there's no wy that words wouldn't already have been said. You know, something semi jokey but with an edge like, "I'll tell you what DBrother - when you start paying actual rent and contributing, THEN you can have a say into how much noise is being made at this party" or, after the first house was given up becuase it wasn't suitable, "Right, clearly you're not totally desperate to move so I think let's talk about a proper rent and split in chores here as obviously we can't just keep funding you because you don't feel like moving."

I am not a particularly confrontational person, but I would not find any of this difficult in the moment.

Of course, I concede that no one said anything of the sort to BIL when he moved in with SIL.... except me. So perhaps I am more willing to be confrontational than I thought.

Wish I'd had this advice before we let him stay! Good for you.

UPDATE ...

So last night the discussion was had. I ended up doing it because another of their brother's had come round to pick something up and he and my DH were in the garden, BIL was in the kitchen eating, whilst I was cooking.

We got chatting about the match the other night and our friends being round and he said something like oh glad I was out ... noise etc ... so I ended up telling him me and DH were really dissapointed that he was rude when we were watching the match with him the week before, that he was rolling his eyes at me, putting his hands over his ears etc, well then it all came out.

Told him exactly what a lot of you have said, you need to be applying for rentals daily, phoning daily etc, then told him it was only ever meant to be temporary, and that there was a comment about him being here at Christmas and that wasn't happening, my boys come home for Christmas and this is one of their rooms, the fact he complains about us being noisy, everything.

He had a face like thunder, said he was struggling and thinking of sleeping in his car, I told him he didn't need to do that but needs to be out tops in the next 2 months.

Then in the evening the 3 brothers were playing cards and he was rude again to my DH, probably in a bad mood because of our conversation, so my DH said, bro, other bro will show you out, I'm going to bed and left them to it. So he knew DH was anoyed about him being rude to him, again.

Anyway, this morning I've gone in his room (looking for our kitty) and he's packed everything up, literally left a case on the bed, maybe stuff he doesn't need yet, but everything else of his has gone, god knows what his plan is 🙄

How convenient for him that he can leave in high dudgeon and doesn’t have to say thank you or apologise for the inconvenience. Pop the case in the garage/under the stairs. Open all the windows and give the room a good clean out.

Well done OP. Let's hope he doesn't try to guilt you by sleeping in his car and telling everyone. Does/did your DH know about the conversation you had with his brother?

Good for you op!

I guess I've become quite blunt over the years due to, I don't know, age, life factors, fed up of being walked over, for me I would literally be telling him "what the eff are you on about, "nowhere to go?" The council have LITERALLY offered you TWO PLACES. Don't give me that crap, you DO have places to go, you just want to live off of us.