Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Roommate dilema
H and I have a friend that moved in with us about a month ago. He's a good guy, just hit some hard times. Anyway, we let him stay with us because he has a daughter and his other option wasn't exactly "kid friendly." We told him to just pay us what he can each month.
I got the flu over New Years, and our roommate invited people over for a prebar. H and I were unaware of his plan to have this prebar until everyone was on their way over to our house. I was really annoyed that he did that while I was out of my mind sick. H was mad about it and tried to handle everything without being too confrontational. I still haven't talked to T (our roommate) since this happened, as this is the first day I've felt better.
I feel like since he did that I'm picking apart every little thing he does. I also recently found out that he is turning down job interviews that he doesn't feel are good enough. When someone is doing you a huge favor and letting you live in their basement for "whatever you can afford" you really shouldn't be picky about your job. He gave us $200 last month, but cost us a lot more. He has a lot of "not so green" habits. I feel like he should give us more than that because, he buys an obscene amount of beer, goes out all the time, orders pizza at least twice a week and takes his girlfriend out for dinner every night he doesn't have his daughter. I just feel like if he can afford all of those things, we really don't need to be doing him a favor. I feel taken advantage of a bit.
I'm worried that I may be blowing things out of proportion just because I'm really mad about New Years. He's been very good about helping clean and shoveling the driveway when it snows. So on that level he's a really good roommate. H and I want to talk to him about all of his behavior, but I'm thinking it might be better if we ask him to find a new place to stay. (By the end of February.) I really only agreed to having him live with us for a couple of months anyway.
What do you ladies think? All of my friends/family just agree with me, so I'm trusting you all to be straight with me.
Also if I see him spill one more time on my carpet I might snap! lol!
Re: Roommate dilema
I can kind of sympathize with your situation because one of H's friends stayed with us for 5 months to "get back on his feet". It was a horrible experience and I will never do it again. This guy was a real piece of work and never paid anything (rent, food, utilities) and literally drank about 10 bottles of liquor without asking and didn't replace it before he left.
Anyway, in your situation, it may just be best to ask him to find another place. I feel like that may be best way to keep the relationship in good standing. Telling someone how to handle their finances is a sensitive subject and probably won't go over well. Another option is to give him a set amount that he has to pay per month. You can tell him that some unexpected bills came up on your end and you just don't have the available funds to cover the extra cost.
If he does continue to stay with you, I would advise on going over some "house rules" to avoid another unexpected prebar happening.
Best of luck!
A friend of mine and her now H were in a similar situation a few years back, we'll call them G and B. They met in college and had a friend M, who lived with B. M got a job after college in our area and asked B and G if he could live with them, "just so he could get on his feet." It was only supposed to be for a month or so. B has a job where he is out of town a lot, so G would be home often. She would come home from work and M would be sprawled on her couch with a sink full of dishes. He never helped clean.
M supposedly was hard up for money and G and B allowed him to live for what he could afford also. I kept encouraging them to set something, but they wouldn't After a few months, G and B were cleaning and found M's bank statement, which was laying on the dining room table. He was making more than G and B combined. After a few weeks, B said something to M and M was like oh no, that was just an overtime check.
M never looked for an apartment. He was mad at the holidays when he was asked to leave while G's parents came to visit (they live in a 2 bedroom apartment). When he first moved in, in the fall, he was told that he needed to be out by the holidays because G's parents would be staying with them. He was angry and gave them a hard time.
Things came to a boiling point around March, where the resentment set in. They couldn't stand the sight of M and felt bad asking him to leave. The details were fuzzy, but there was some kind of fight in April where they pretty much gave M like 2 weeks to move out. They didn't mean it in a mean way, but with the anger/resentment/lack of space, it came out that way. M moved out, acted like B and G kicked him out with no where to go (it seemed like the place he was moving to was already arranged) and they no longer talk.
Anytime you bring M up with G, she gets emotional. B gets mad and changes the subject. I became closer with M through the years through B and G. He pretty much cut my friendship off also, although I had nothing to do with the situation and did not get involved in any sides. I only heard B and G's side after M moved out. M never told me anything.
The point of my long, drawn out story is to say something, calmly and politely, before you get angry/frustrated/resentful and say something you don't mean to your friend and lose the friendship all together.
I don't have any advice, just sympathy. H and I have a roommate in our spare bedroom (who we basically let have the second bathroom as well.) As much as he is a good guy and helps us out with the rent and utilities (pays over 1/3 of the rent and pays 1/3 electric/gas/cable bill), I get annoyed that he doesn't help shovel the driveway barely and he doesn't clean the two spaces that he primarily lives in. I'm sure we are going to have to pull up the carpet when he leaves that bedroom!
We will tell him he has to go after I get pregnant (hopefully soon).
We have my brother living with us. He has some vision but is legally blind. Despite this he is fairly independent but still needs someone nearby to help and check on him. Originally we had a loose agreement with him to pay us rent every month. He paid a very low rent and he didn't pay any utilities.
When we moved to our new house, DH and I drafted a rental agreement with him. It includes rent, utilities and household responsibilities. It was the best thing we could have done. I love my brother but having the household responsibilities in writing has meant I don't have to ask him to take out the garbage repeatedly. He is not trapped here either because he only has to give us 30 days notice. We on the other hand have to give him 60 days notice.
One part of our agreement that you might like is we have a 24 hour notice of guests. That doesn't mean it's an automatic yes but we've never said no without a valid reason. If it's less than 24 hours, we have the right to say no without an argument.