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bad ending to a great vacation (LONG roommate rant)
okay, i'm REALLY irritated.
our roommate offered to watch the dogs while we were in mexico this past week. we were very grateful and i left him with the same exact "care sheet" i leave all the other folks who have watched our dogs. i just save it and update it as needed. it's VERY detailed and we've never had issues before.
a few things happened while we were gone that i am NOT happy about.
1. our girl dog peed in our bedroom at LEAST 3 times while we were gone. she VERY rarely has accidents in the house (couple times a year). to me, this says he didn't take her out enough. one of them was fresh when we got home last night.
that lead me to checking the rest of the floors for urine. when we left last week, i'd shut the doors to my son's room and the guest room to keep the cats out. and really, there is no reason for anyone to be in there. when i got home, both doors were open.
when i went into my son's room. the first thing i noticed was a crumpled up cheeseburger wrapper on the floor. then i smelled cat pee. i looked at the duvet on the bed and could see a big, yellow stain. sniffed it, yup, cat pee. so...
2. i asked our roommate who had slept in my son's bed. he said "liz". i said, "shannon, i'm not really too keen on you letting people sleep in our beds." and he said, "i didn't let anyone sleep in your bed." to which i said, "that's not the point. they are our beds, not yours."
which leads me to...
3. he had a small party on saturday night. but it was an ALL NIGHT party where people got absolutely wasted and everyone (6 people in addition to our roommate) spent the night. they broke a glass and i'm fairly certain were helping themselves to our beer and booze. he also definitely ate 2 BOXES of our organic (and expensive) granola bars as well as several other things and didn't replace them. (the guy lives on pasta roni and mac and cheese. he's not one to spend the money on quality food.)
he also had a friend from WI as a houseguest (never mentioned it to us) AND had 2 other mutual friends sleep over both friday and saturday.
i just feel like our hospitality and willingness to always be so agreeable is now leading him to take advantage of us albeit possibly unconsciously.
thanks for letting me vent. i know we need to say something to him. i just don't want things to get uncomfortable.
Re: bad ending to a great vacation (LONG roommate rant)
Judging
1. It sucks that your dog peed in the house, it super sucks that he didn't clean it up. He was being negligent with not letting her out enough, and he was being negligent by not cleaning it up. Uncool.
2. Uncool that he let someone sleep in Parker's bed - and WHY would that person want to sleep in a child's bed? It feels creepy to me, even if the child is obviously not in it. You were right to tell him that having people in your household's beds is not ok.
3. As far as the party goes - it is rude to throw a party at someone else's house, but at the same time - when I have dog sat in the past, I've been told by multiple dog owners if I can or can not have people/a party. One of the people that I've dog sat for before has an absolutely no guest rule when I used to dogsit. Not even Joe, my then fiance, could come over. Others were totally fine with having any people over as long as we were "responsible" and I cleaned up. One of them even told me to have a NYE party if I wanted to, since I was watching their house/dogs over NYE while they were in Steamboat. I would not - however - drink their booze, or eat their snacks for a party. I have been told at all the places that I've dogsat that everything in the kitchen is available for me to eat/drink. I've always been courteous though, and I never finished anything off or ate a ridiculous amount of just one thing. Your situation is different because this is your roommate - it's not like they are staying at someone else's house - your roommate stayed "home" to watch your pets. If I finished things like milk, juice, bread - I always replaced those items with the same brand on the last day so that the family would have something to eat/drink when they got home and didn't have to run right out for essentials. I can't remember a time that I had ever broken anything while dog sitting, but there was a time that one dog ate through a PB jar and ate a whole family sized tub of it.. and I emailed them to let them know.
It sounds like your roommate is a) rude b) inconsiderate c) taking advantage of your hospitality and you need to lay down the law. Serious ground rules need to be put in place, or your roommate needs a reasonable amount of time to get a new place to live.
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I'm with Anita. The more you post about him, the more it sounds like he is taking advantage you and Lars being so nice. It's one thing to help someone out when they're down on their luck, it's another to feel like you're being taken advantage of.
The situation sucks and I don't envy you. At some point it may come down to figuring out what's more important - keeping him as your friend and having him continue to stay there or giving him a quick end date on the renting and being happy in your own home.
here's the thing... when we're home, he might say "do you guys mind if i use some of your _______ (bread, cheese, whatever) and we always say, "no, that's cool, go ahead." but he also uses our milk, butter (which we import. it's expensive), bread, juice, etc when we're not around. i can tell. i'm just hyper aware of how much of things we have since i do the grocery shopping.
i think that he thinks that since we've never said no, it's fine to consume whatever. now, IF I ASK, he'll pick something up at the store, but he never does this proactively. i think i'm just irritated that he KNEW we were coming home and probably just figured i wouldn't notice. he also nearly polished off my box of Annie's Organic Cheddar Bunnies which is my one and only snack i buy for myself. petty? yes. but damn it, that's my ONE treat! grrrr...
we also don't necessarily mind if he has people over but our friends tend to drink a lot and things can get out of hand. when we have parties, i usually stay pretty sober so i can keep ahead of the picking up and be aware when a drink is set on wood without a coaster, etc. i just don't think he's that aware. he THINKS he's that aware, but he's not. so i don't think it's malicious, but that doesn't make it any less irritating. does that make sense?
so yeah, a come to jesus meeting is definitely in order.
Dude needs to be finding a new place to live.
I would be LIVID.
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First of all, I would be beyond furious if I came home to find my dog wasn't taken care of. Getting into my stuff, sleeping in my bed without my permission, leaving the place a mess, etc. would be icing on the cake.
If it were me, I'd talk to my husband and decide if we want to make the roommate move out or stay. I truly don't know if I could trust someone like that in my home in the first place. I would certainly question his responsibility and judgement. I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable ever leaving him with my dog again.
If we decided to let him stay, I would have a serious discussion about boundaries. Maybe you already have, though, and he just doesn't get it. I can't imagine how any respectful person would think it's okay to not clean up after themselves, not replace your food, etc. I can see if it happens occasionally, but it sounds like that isn't the case. I remember when I moved into the dorms freshman year of college, our RA had us fill out a pretty detailed form with info about boundaries and it became a sort of roommate contract. Perhaps you could do something like that so you both know exactly what the rules are.
I don't really know how this fits in - maybe with boundaries or the scope of the roommate agreement - but what exactly is he permitted to do in your home? Did you at some point tell him he can't have parties when you're gone? If you didn't tell him, I guess I can see how he would think it would be okay to have one. It's maybe a stretch for the type of party he had, though, I don't know. He just doesn't seem to have any concept of how to be a good roommate.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Tell him he's got until February 28th to find a new place. This is bullsh!t.
He can move anywhere in TC Metro March 1. Otherwise you're calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
Yep, this.
Nicole and Sam 10/3/09
My first instinct is that I would be livid and would want him out of the house.
However, since you hadn't specifically told him that he's not allowed to have parties, and the boundaries on what household goods & groceries he's allowed to use weren't really clear, I would set some household rules ASAP. Tell him that he can stay if he can commit to following your rules, and if not, he needs to find another place to live.
As for the dog neglect issue, I would not be happy about that at all. I wouldn't trust him caring for my pets again, I would make other arrangements.
You are so much more patient than I would be, I can't believe it took this long for the situation to really get you angry. I never would have agreed to having the roommate in the first place!
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