Problems with roommate

[Tiredofbeingused]

Hi,

 

I'm having issues with a roommate of mine, she's actually a very dear friend that I invited to stay with me temporarily so she could strike out on her own and get her own life. I guess to start with, I should have defined what temporary was, put a timescale on it, however, I get the feeling that she is going to become a permanent housemate.

 

Ten months ago, my friend moved in with me and was in the midst of getting her certification as a massage therapist. She had taken all of the classes before she moved in and just needed to study and take the exam, then send off for her certification. I had already called around and found places for her to talk to so she could get a job in the field after she got her certs. To make a long story short on that one, she took the exam and passed back in September, but it was a long seven months of not being able to play music in my house, watch TV...etc, so she could study. The noise bothered her and I can understand that. Since September, she still hasn't sent off for the certification though. She did finally tell me that it only costs $25 and she just needs to send in her results and she could have it...she just hasn't done it yet. Instead, she has decided that she wants to go to nursing school...another two to four years of college. It took her four years to finally complete the one year program for massage therapy, so I am figuring that the nursing school will take her four to six years knowing how she is.

 

Now, to understand the dilemma, she's over 40, never been married, no kids. She's never lived by herself, always lived with her mother and for a short time, lived with two female roommates. Since moving in with me, I've noticed how totally dependent she is on other people. She can never remember her banking info to go online and check her bank account, she doesn't know how to do anything online at all, I had to teach her how to use a cell phone, she doesn't even know how to check her email even though I set it to her favorites with an auto log-in....she can never recall her password or username. It's as if she is helpless, and I've been helping her with this stuff for 10 months....just somewhere you would think things would "stick". When she can't recall these things, she gets upset with herself and hates the fact that her mom and her other roommates had to do everything for her due to her frustration or she would just let things go due to being embarrassed asking for help until she wound up in a pickle (overdrawn bank account, loss or registration on car...etc).

 

I also have a problem with her when it comes to my animals. I have told her that I don't mind that she lets them outside or plays with them, if she wants to throw down some food and water for them once in a while, that's fine too. But....I have a very old toy Pom that I've had for 15 years who has a sensitive stomach...I've asked her not to feed her wet food or table scraps numerous times as I wind up cleaning up vomit for days. She goes behind my back and does it anyway. I have another dog that is mostly an outdoor dog, he loves to wallow in the red mud, so it's hard to let him in the house without that becoming an issue, he also gets too excited and has accidents that leaves a trail from one end of the house to the other....so I will let him have the run of the downstairs sometimes where there is not carpet, but not upstairs. I've asked her repeatedly not to let him in upstairs, but she goes behind my back and does it anyway.

 

Things came to a head yesterday when I came home at an odd hour and looked for the dog due to it raining. I was worried that she let him out and didn't realize it was pouring. I called for the dog, he wasn't outside. I came in the house and found my roommate ironing her clothes for work. I asked her where the dog was and she said on the back porch. I opened the back door and there he was dry as could be. She said she had just let him out right before I came home when I noted that he wasn't wet, I asked if he had been in the house and she bald faced lied to me about it. Later, when I came home from work and she was gone to her job, I found a paper plate of wet food on the kitchen table. I sent her a text asking who she gave the wet food to....I never got an answer. She does that too, acts like she doesn't know how to answer her phone or text when she knows something is wrong. She does this to her mom all the time, I typically don't even send her a text or call her on her phone as I know she hardly answers it.

 

When she got home from work, I asked her if she got my text. She immediately got defensive, so I knew she got it and had been thinking for hours how to explain the wet food. I told her that I have asked her not to do these things with my animals repeatedly, I don't ask much of her. I didn't bring this up to her, but as info, she pays nothing to live with me but she does try to drop a $50 once a month to help out...I usually wind up giving that back to her before the end of the month because she is running short. So, she and I have been here many times. She feels that I am a horrible pet owner because I don't feed my animals wet food, don't let the dirty one have the run of the house. When I talk to her about it....and I mean talk, not yell or scream, but do tell her sternly that this is my house and my animals and I wish that she would respect my wishes, she runs off crying like a child and says that I yell at her and am being mean. Not only is she hyper-sensitive, she is retalitory, so I fully expect she will find some daggers to throw this weekend.

 

She will say things in front of my boyfriend sometimes when she is angry with me as if they are just innocent observations....just the other week, she said in front of him that I was going to "allow" her to get her own furniture for her room...as if I had said that she couldn't. I put furniture in her room because she didn't have any when she moved in and I had told her before I didn't mind if she wanted to replace it, I was going to give it to Goodwill had she not needed it. The only thing I have asked her not to do is replace the blinds as they were expensive and match the windows in the rest of the house. He has made some general observations about her, her forgetfulness, the way she tithers and acts scatterbrained and her reclusiveness, but I try to keep quiet about it and not say anything to him about her. I have caught her a few times doing stuff in the house in her bra and underwear when she knows that he is there and have asked her not to do that as well.

 

I guess things are really coming to a head and I am thinking that this has not been a good idea letting her live with me. I almost want to ask her to move back to her mother's as things are not working out, but I feel horrible like I am not being a good friend. But, would a good friend continue to do things behind your back and lie to your face about them? I don't think so. I finally found her a permanent job close to the home, she kept getting laid off on a temp job and was going to take a waitressing job 50 miles away in another town....I had to talk her out of that as she would have been paying more in gas and it wasn't a steady income.

 

I feel that she just doesn't make the best decisions sometimes, and with her forgetfulness, I do worry about her pursuing this nursing program, the time it's going to take for her to complete it and knowing that she is not good at electronics, I worry that she does not realize what being nurse is going to require. I also worry that, while I told her she could stay with me, she feels it is a permanent thing. She felt threatened when my boyfriend started coming over and I know she fears that one day he might move in or something. She has said that she and I are like the movie Beaches....but I am starting to feel like I stepped onto the set of Single White Female some days. Some days, I do feel like I am being used when she doesn't respect my wishes and that is all I ask of her living here. I don't know how to approach these things with her without her getting upset and defensive and I think I want to ask her to move out, but how do I do that without hurting the friendship with such a hyper-sensitive person? Any advice? Am I being a horrible friend to her by asking that she respect my wishes?

 

Sorry for such a long post, if you have read this far, thank you.

[darkmoon]

i'm a woman who rented (yours is free, worse) a room in a woman-friend's flat and when she said she wanted the flat to herself, i was ok and went and we are still friends, so this is do-able and ok

 

as for being in a bra with your boyf there, she is being horribe to you. so stop worrying about her and her and being self-sacrificing. i bet she says it's just like a bikini - or will. she's horrible to your dog, makes you feel responsible for her laziness/technophibia - i had to try hard to get ok with that stuff

 

you're not her mom, and what you have said shows she's not even trying to be a friend. i have been the stooge with some women and i think that's the pattern she's forcing on you and to her you are in the wrong whatever

 

give her a month's notice, she's gives you no alternative. or bundle up her stuff and kick her out- i've seen that before with a similar horrible live-in person - poor you!

[Tiredofbeingused]

Darkmoon, thank you for taking the time to read this and offering insight. Tonight I came home to $100 on the table to put towards food and bills, but she still does not understand. It's not about the money and I never mentioned it to her, it IS about my home, my animals and lying to me. I have a HUGE stalemate that even my children know about lying to me.

 

Today, I talked to my daughter...as this woman is her Godmother. Even she knew that her Godmother was doing wrong with my dog. Her first reaction...."she fed her wet food?" She assured me that when she moves back home in the spring, she will straighten it out. After all, she has known our Pom much longer than my "friend" who does not respect that I opened my home to her. My daughter's first reaction..."Didn't the vet tell you not to feed her wet food after you spent $1500 to save her when she got sick??" It's not the money...really...this dog is like my child and I am acting on the vet's recommendations to keep her healthy is repulsed by someone I "thought" was my best friend for over 20 years but continues to go against my wishes. I live with a woman who has never had her own animals and thinks that money is going to replace an animal that is like my own child?

 

How can someone be misplaced to think that her compassion is about animals just because she believes that the fact that they gulp wet food and table scraps down like they are starving must mean they are mistreated? I really don't care if her aunt fed her animals like that...her aunts dog was put to sleep at 8 years old due to obesity...hello..something is not going to the TOP?

[darkmoon]

if i came to you with the same problem - what would you advise ME to do? answer that and you will have a solution YOU can live with

 

i will say only this - a real freind may get something wrong and put it right but she and you are hardly a match made in heaven, i do not put up with things much because the alternative is to get stuck where you are

 

more i cannot do for you - think what advce wuld U give ME if i had your problem and you will have your answer

Edited December 11, 2011 by darkmoon

[PlumPrincess]

You're an absolutely great friend and have done more than 99% of other people would have done, including myself. It's time to kick her out. She is cunning enough to lie to you and do things behind your back. She will be sufficiently smart enough to take control over her life and live on her own. If she doesn't, it's because she doesn't want to. After your story with her running around in the house in underwear when your boyfriend is at home, I'm even inclined to believe she is a very manipulative person and you do well to keep a lot of distance to her.

[Tiredofbeingused]

Well, I'm back...and thank you again for all the replies. No, I have not thrown this person out of my house yet and yes, I know that I should. I just have not been able to bring myself to do this because she truly has nowhere to go, except back home to her mother in another state. After this morning, she just might do that.

 

In the past month, my daughter and her fiance' have moved in for a brief while to get on their feet and find a place to live. I think I heard somewhere that kids having to move back home is higher now than it was 20 years ago....sad, but I recall having to do this myself when I was a single parent. At any rate, my daughter got upset one day because she and her fiance' came upstairs while my roommate was getting ready for work and lo and behold, there she was with the bathroom door wide open in just her underwear. Oh!! She must have "forgotten" again that she is not the only person who lives in this house. I had a talk with her that night again about not walking through the house half dressed. According to her, she and her mom used to run around the house in their undies and she said she wouldn't do it again and that she was very sorry.

 

This morning, I happened to be up early as was my daughter and her fiance'...my 16 year old son was also home and had just fallen asleep on the couch. My daughter told me that she did it again...door wide open and barely dressed....when suddenly, my roommate comes around the corner into the kitchen in a short T-shirt - not sure she was wearing underwear. As soon as she saw us (and we were not being quiet so she had to know that people were up and about in the house), she ran back for her room and put some pants on. Of course she always looks like a deer caught in the headlights when this happens.

 

That was the straw that broke the camel's back....this time I was not so nice and told her that she will respect me in my home or she could find her own place to live where she could let it all hang out. She has a step-sister in the next town, and I told her that even her step-sister would not allow something like this in her home in front of her children or husband. I even went so far to ask her to give me her little FWB's address so I could go flash my tits at him and see if she "gets me" this time!!! Of course she spent the entire conversation over-apologizing, saying that she did respect that it's my home and she wasn't doing it on purpose...she thought that no one was up. Excuses....always excuses, and I am tired of hearing them. She comes across to people as this innocent and pure person who wouldn't hurt a fly, but seriously, how can a 45 year old woman be this childish and not remember to put clothes on as there are men in the house unless she enjoys being caught and wants people to "see" her. Nobody is this naive.

 

I fully asked my boyfriend if he has seen her do this the last time this was an issue and he said he had not caught her, I think he is being honest. However, this morning, he knew I was upset so I told him what happened. He even said she needs to stop, even he wouldn't walk around in the house in his underwear as he is aware that there are other people in the home. Lord give me patience if she starts doing her passive/aggressive antics to "get me back" for being upset with her, which she generally has done in the past....I will put her on the sidewalk and not think another thought about her.

[Aidenwood]

Living with roommates can sometimes be a challenging experience. Many people experience problems with roommates. It is common to have problems with roommates regarding noise, food, and space. It can be said though, that all problems with roommates are based on the lack of consideration of one roommate for another.

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[2sunny]

Just simply tell her that it's time for change and she needs to go.

 

You've done her a huge favor - only to have you continually disrespected! That's not right!

 

And it's also not right that your kids see that YOU ALLOW someone to disrespect and disregard you by keeping her in your home.

 

It's not your duty to house her.

 

She can figure things out. She is not your responsibility!

 

Next time don't take in room mates. Your house - you should have it the way YOU want!

 

She is a mooch! She lives here free and treats you and your family that way? Sheez- she acts like she is 5 years old - get rid of her NOW!