Sons Girlfriend Staying Over / Hysteria Over Nonexistent Rats

[jimjam2313w]

Our 20 year old son's girlfriend stays over a lot. Recently my wife and I went on holiday. We had to break our holiday halfway because son and his girlfriend said we had a "rat infestation". We live in countryside and rodents are common. I've put down bait since 2008. Periodically mice / rats take the bait, disappear, and die. The situation now is no different. However, son and girlfriend became hysterical claiming they could hear "rats tearing apart the house". I asked my son to take apart a panel where he said they were "gnawing away at the wood" and place a new bait station. He would not do it and instead continued to call us hysterically begging for help. Eventually we drove home and I dismantled the panel to find NO EVIDENCE of rodent infestation. I placed bait, poison and a wifi cctv camera. We came back to our holiday home. Since then CCTV has picked up nothing.

Son seemed to agree that he had behaved hysterically. Girlfriend remains sure that she is hearung things and that house is under attack, etc etc.

We are going away again in March and I think it would be best to just tell son not to have his girlfriend over at all during this time. Additionally, I would like to reclaim a little serenity by asking son to have his girlfriend stay away one or two nights a week.

I dont want to cramp my sons style and push his girlfriend away, but I am a full time carer and self employed. I need my holiday time. This one was ruined by unnecessary hysteria.

Ideally I would like girlfriend to stay away Friday and Sunday, as these are days when my wife and me would like to have some privacy.

Thoughts?

YANBU. Do what you need to do to gain an harmonious balance.

Unless there's more to this, he sounds useless and incapable.

Why hasn't he got the sense to do what you told him re the panel and bait? In fact, why is he still living at home?

Why on earth are you allowing the GF to stay over 5 nights a week. Tell them both that overnight guests are now only allowed Friday and Saturdays nights as you would like to relax before work the next morning.

Rats are part of living in the countryside, especially if you have animals or livestock.

If my son behaved in such a way, I would refer to him as hysterical, The word has long ceased to have the feminine connotation it was originally created for when physicians thought the uterus moved around the body causing madness as a result if it lodging in various organs.

Telling the OP to not remove a panel but to get an exterminator in is absurd. Country people are their own pest exterminator. There's nothing a registered pest controller can do that the OP cannot, presuming OP has arms, legs and a brain, especially now Type B poison is available to the public. They are expensive to boot.

Get an exterminator in. If they have a panic about it again they can call them (and pay for it). But that there's an instant solution, but it may reassure them.

Your ds is moving his girlfriend in by stealth, put a stop to it immediately. One night a week is more than enough, if they want more they move out and actually behave like adults instead of playing house but dragging you back if there is a problem. Regarding the young couple staying in your house while your away I'd say no, not to happen after last time, ds can stay at home or go stay with his gf but no way are the pair of twits to get a free house after wrecking your break. Bet gf's family won't want ds staying 5 nights a week (with or without rats) and I believe its too much at that age anyway.

I think you just need to bite the bullet and tell him you need more time in the house without guests and tell him which nights are off limits.

If he pushes back or for a reason just be honest. Tell him you're stressed and have a lot on your plate and you need more time to relax at home, which you can't do fully when guests are here.

He can't really argue against that without sounding selfish.

The home invasion thing made me chuckle 😂WTF?!!

I'm sorry that happened to you, I wonder why your son was so terrified? Has he seen the rats in 1984 - my friend worked on it, they were all tame rats. Perhaps he could go to his girlfriend's house next time you are away?

We had a huge listed station house in rural countryside, it was absolutely freezing in the winter. Stripped floorboards and single glazed windows.
Our son's girlfriend visited occasionally, they were able to stay in the tiny self catering in the waiting rooms. One NYE he came rushing into the kitchen asking me to come - I was furious to find that he'd almost blown the woodburner up by overloading it, because she was cold. Unfortunately I'd lost my temper and wasn't very nice, I told her to bring warmer clothes in future.

I have always been of the view that anyone other than my dds stay in my home at my direct invitation.
Yanbu to tell them that there are 2 days a week that you want for yourselves.
Yanbu to say that she can't stay there when you are away.

Yep.
The two of them need to grow up. There was no rat infestation, and even if there was, rats do not tear houses apart. The GF is not being rational, but it would be interesting to know what exactly she fears. Does she think they’ll attack her or something?

This is your house, not theirs, and you have every right to limit the number of day she stays over. In your shoes I would never let them stay in the house alone.

I'm not really sure why you came home rather than telling your son and his gf to go and stay at her house until your (as originally planned) return.

It's fine anyway to tell your son that his gf is only welcome to stay x number of days/week or specify particular days so you know you get e.g. Sunday and Weds to yourselves. I think limiting them to 4 days a week would be plenty generous, that means less than half the time at hers if they want to spend every night together - and frankly when he's living at your house you're under no obligation to facilitate that anyway. If they want to spend every night together it's time for them to move out and get a place together.

If the gf continues to complain about rats. Every single time I'd reply, that yes you get rats living in the country, if she's uncomfortable perhaps she shouldn't stay at your house tonight. You have a right to enjoy your home without having to deal with endlessly criticism from someone who's not even a family member.

I wouldn’t have returned from the holiday: a 20yo should be able to take the necessary action.

wouldn’t allow GF to stay over more than 2/3 nights a week, even if DS was paying ‘rent’.

I can’t understand why they didn’t just go to her house if they weren’t comfortable at yours.

Tell them that if they’re not comfortable in March, leave.

Re. GF staying over so much. Set some boundaries if you want to, it’s your house.

Although depending how far away your sons gf lives I think saying you want every Fri and Sun to yourselves might be being a bit awkward - assuming they work or study Mon-fri so fri-sun is their time to spend together. It means either they have to spend every weekend at hers or spend each weekend moving between yours and hers, I think a fairer solution would be to say you want every other weekend to yourselves or one of either Fri/Sun to yourselves so they can have two nights in a row over the weekend in one location.

I wouldn't have come back. Tell him next time he can send her home and not to bother you with rodent stuff.

Wtf? Tell the grown man to get a grip of himself. Ridiculous that you chose to ruin your holiday to pander to his bullshit.
He's free to house himself if he has an issue, you're under no obligation to house him and his girlfriend, and can permit his girlfriend to stay or not stay as little as you want. If he whines, he can choose house guests when he has a house.
Why is this in the teenagers section?

If you were staying in someone's house where you were 'hysterical' then you go the fuck home. You don't disturb someone's holiday to pacify yourself ridiculous.

OP seems to have a lot of issues with this man, talking about his ‘parental authority’ over him when he was 19, allowing him to doss around his house, doing nothing, and now this ridiculous nonsense.
Can he not just go and start his life? He’s 20, time for him to function as an adult.

If you don't set a boundary regarding the gf staying over, she is going to be there full time before too long by the sounds of things.

I completely agree, you need time in your home visitor free.

If they want to be living together, then they can do that by adulting properly, ie having their own place.

It sounds like his gf got your ds all flustered while you were away by her reaction, as surely he is used to the odd rodent visitor by now.

Having them away Friday and Sunday doesn’t make sense to me. Chose two consecutive days or Friday to Sunday.

re the rats.
id have told them to go to her house whilst you were away if they can’t deal with them. And I certainly would do that if they were to call out again in a panic when you are away.
There is a question to ask to why your ds was so panicky about it when he has been in a very similar situation many times before though…

And please, I agree re hysterical.
There are many other words you can use instead (in panic mode, overwhelmed etc etc) of a word that has such negative connotations.

DD was about ten when she woke up to a bat flying around her bedroom, she opened the window, shoed it out with her dressing gown. Closed the window and went back to sleep without waking her sister on the bottom bunk or us!
(She's 18 now, and had a wobble over a spider recently, I wasn't entertaining that after her robust upbringing)

Perhaps every other weekend he could spend at gf place?

It sounds like they wound each other up about the ‘rats’, I would be wondering if they had perhaps eaten/smoked something to exacerbate this…

What's stopping your grown man of a son from calling a pest exterminator himself if he's too wet to deal with it on his own? Dreadful that they have disrupted your holiday.

They are 20, ( and seem quite childish) they don’t need to be together every night of the week, I wouldn’t want her there more than 2 nights per week.

It was extremely selfish ( and childish ) to disturb your holiday like that, if they are adult enough to be practically living together they should have handled this ‘Rat’ situation themselves or stayed at her place during this time, I also think you were being a walkover by cutting your holiday short and coming back.

Tell your son that her staying there a few nights of the week is too much for you and your wife and you want to be able to have some quiet / downtime time in your own home, if he is a reasonable, sensible and considerate adult he will understand this and and if he Dosen’t understand then he is a child playing at being an adult.

You sir also need to grow a bit of a backbone, it is your house and as long as they are living there they need to play by your rules…. Sorry

I am female.
I will openly refer to myself
as hysterical the night we discovered a rat (seemingly the size of a cat!) in our living room !!!
I got more hysterical when my husband asked me to lift the sofa so he could whack it with a baseball bat to see if there were any more !!

…… I declined his offer !! (& hid upstairs with the children! … stood on a bed).

there’s a combination of shock, fear and the unknown. Hysterical is reasonable description!!

I don’t get that way about spiders …. But we did get spiders that you can HEAR running across the floor under the sofa & the dog backs away from them …. So I understand why people get hysterical about them too !