My daughter vs her flatmate

[edierichards19]

I was wondering if someone could be of some assistance and give me some well needed advice on what to do about my daughter's horrendous living situation with what sounds like the flatmate from hell.

My daughter is a university student who is living with a girl who is the same age as her. All originally seemed well until her flatmate (we'll call her Emily) started to become a nightmare to live with.
My daughter regularly sends me messages and pictures of the disgusting mess Emily often leaves lying around the flat. Most images include dirty pots and pans left our for days, opened meat on the kitchen counter left out, multiple bowls of rotting food, rotting food in the cupboards, hair in the sink/shower, waste not being flushed down the loo, waste on the toilet seat. I could go on...

My daughter has told her multiple times to stop these disgusting habits and to clean up her mess. In fairness, my daughter also said that leaving the odd plate on the counter and not washing it up straight after using it is ok because she understands that she may be in a rush sometimes or tired. Though it seems like Emily has taken this and assumed that she can leave her dirty things out everyday for days and days at a time.

My daughter has had numerous conversations with Emily about this and I have run out of advice to give her. My daughter has said that now every time she brings up the mess Emily leaves around, Emily cries and throws a tantrum, thus making my daughter feel uncomfortable in bringing this up again as she doesn't want to upset her.

Please could someone give me some advice on how to help my daughter. Anything would be appreciated.

Thank you!

I lived with and Emily at uni.
after a while I got so pissed off I started to pile up her shite in her room. (Ie meat and all)

and then after one of these occasions her parents turned up from
Solihul.

“Emily” had been awol from the flat for 3 days at this point, turned out she was in hospital with an ectopic pregnancy.

and I looked like totall c*nt, having made her room look like a festering stinking mess.

and the fact that she consistently left the flat looking like that was lost .

To be fair, flatmate disputes are not the purview of the landlord. They really cannot get involved w dealing w the growing pains of young adults living together. When is the lease up? Can you daughter look for other loving arrangements or ask the flatmate to do so? While in uni, I moved on a few times to a new living arrangement at the moment and of a lease and the interpersonal dynamics were not good (I think the s is true for most people who have done the flatmate/housemate thing).

Yes, unless there is actual damage to the property the landlord will not intervene,

Maybe it is time for your daughter to find somewhere else to live or, if the place is rented in her name, to give the other girl notice and find someone else to share.

Dirty pots and pans and dust may be par for the course, but rotten meat left around and shit on the toilet seat - that really isn’t. It’s very disturbing (and hazardous) is there no way pastoral services can be involved?

I would carefully read the tenancy agreement and see if Emily is breaking the conditions.

My friend had this at Uni. She got a bin bag and put everything the girl left out and rotting into the bin bag. If it wasn’t moved by bin day she put it out. Soon resolved it. She then had her own plate, cutlery etc so was never losing out by throwing out ‘plates n all’.

Your daughter is not Emily’s mother, but if Emily expects your daughter to live with an A-hole, then that’s exactly what your daughter needs to bring to the table.

As for the bathroom - I’d consider publicly shaming that on the WhatsApp. Sounds like your daughter has tried to resolve this amicably, time to meet Emily at her own level.

I would get the big box but would rinse things before putting them in to reduce the smell of rotting food.

Did they find the flat together and sign a joint lease or individual agreements with the landlord? If individual this might be a get out if the other tenant behaves like this.

Kiss your/her deposit goodbye.

Start making arrangements for a fresh start as soon as the lease expires.

Tell Emily she is impacting on mental health and involve student support.

I can't believe people are saying this is a rite of passage and just live with it. This is way beyond just an untidy flatmate. Living in squalor when it's unavoidable is depressing but when it's easily fixed is intolerable. Emily needs to improve her behaviour and I agree with the PP who says to contact Student Services. This will impact on your daughter's mental health and ability to study and work in the flat, and socialise with friends. It also suggests Emily may have problems too. I've no idea how much SS can do, but it's worth a try. Does Emily have friends who come to the house who your daughter could ask for help ?
I really hope next year's accommodation is sorted and it isn't with Emily.

Roommates are not trained to support another person’s MH, and not their responsibility.
If OP daughter has MH concerns, she should speak up and report it at Uni. She needs to be clear about “typical student” carelessness vs feces, rotting meat, etc.

OP biggest concerns after health … will be financial. She should not suffer financially due to other person’s problems. But also, being a flatmate is not supposed to be a cleaning job.

I had situation with flatmate who I knew was bipolar.. She said, all good I’m on medication. I didn’t ask enough questions.

She was also bulemic, so in reality, wasn’t fully medicated. And would vomit/use laxatives and be in the shared bathroom for hours - sometimes 2-3 hours. Sitting on toilet, smoking cigarettes & talking on the phone.
Sometimes, at bedtime, I had walk to leisure centre to get ready for bed & use toilet.

She would leave the toilet bowl and seat splattered with diarhea and reeking (she explained the cigarette smoke eliminated the smell for me)

Another time, I returned from 8 days away, and the flat smelled awful. Curry take ways on the floor, writhing with maggots food rotted thru plastic bags & staining the floors. She was lying on her bare mattress, naked & wearing an adult diaper, completely still looking & smelling as if dead. Thankfully, She stirred, saying … oh, you’re home.

I was not equipped to understand the situation. I left the flat and called a friend for help. When I returned hours later, she had cleaned self, and taken out trash. Told me it only happened because I was away, and she wasn’t coping because expected me to be home because we were flatmates … which I interpreted as her saying it was my fault.

I organised to move in with my very new boyfriend, only way out she could probably cope with. He understood & I only lived w him a month so could tell her “it didn’t work out”. That was I could pay a month rent to her while she found someone else.
She did complain to ALL mutual friends that I was bad person leaving her. I never told them about the adult nappy, the maggots, because I’m not a bad person.

I think this is something that comes with student life / shared accommodation. You can’t control what the other flatmates are like. I lived with somebody like this and we just put her bits into a plastic tub and moved on with life. Chose somebody else to live with next year. It’s character building and learning that everybody is different! They are adults so need to learn how to cope with difficult situations etc