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What would you do? Or maybe I just need to vent...

I am in the lucky position to rent a large house with a nice ocean view on a quiet street at a very, very reasonable rent. My landlady knows I take good care of the house and pay for small repairs myself, so in 5 years she never raised my rent. I am financially in a position to afford the house on my own. It is a bit big for my 2 girls and me, but certainly very comfortable when we have visitors and guests over.

In 2012, when XH moved out I moved upstairs and took in a friend and her 2 daugthers (15 and 16) who live downstairs. She was losing her house to the bank and leaving her drug and alcohol addicted husband who also was a hoarder. She needed a roof over her head and her girls needed stability.

We sat down back then and talked money and the need for her to protect herself and her girls and file for separation/divorce from him right away as he was incurring debt, driving their marital car unregistered and uninsured etc. I told her I can do this roommate situation for a year until she is back on her feet financially but probably not much longer unless things work really well between us and our girls.

In the beginning, things worked well. Everybody pulled their weight in the house and it was okay.

So, here I am about a year later and now have reached the end of my rope:

- Their two rooms (a large den and bedroom) and at times their bathroom are a complete pigsty. The carpet is ruined from who knows what, it smells, she constantly has dirty dishes with mold growing on the leftovers sitting in her room, clothes and stuff laying everywhere. Her daughter lives pretty much in complete darkness in her room, never opens a window or airs it out. I am always making sure to close the door to their room when I have visitors as their room is the first think a guest would look into when they enter the house. I am truly embarassed. I know they nickname me the vacuum Nazi which I find offensive - we do have cats in the house, they shed, so I take about 10 minutes everyday to vacuum the upstairs and get rid of pet hair. I guess that is too clean...

-Several months after she moved in, she would do nothing but stay in bed all day long in PJs being on her computer. Helping around the house became sporadic. I confronted her, she was depressed (understandable) and on ADs. I don't think the doctor advised her to drink 4 - 5 bottles of beer a day though.

- While I was traveling in Europe in June with my girls she signed up on match.com. Since then, basically for two months straight, she has been out on dates every night except for maybe 3 or 4 days, has stayed out with some of these guys all night without letting anybody, including her panicked kids, know, has left her teenagers home alone knowing that I would be here at night, has not supervised them and left it to me to make sure to have groceries and clean their dirty dishes they left all over my kitchen; she has brought men over to the house and told me, while giggling, that she made out with some of them on my couch upstairs....seriously, at 45 you think that is funny?

- While my kids were gone this summer with their dad, I completely redid the upstairs and the deck. I paid for painting, carpet cleaning etc and reorganized my private rooms as well as all joined areas, such as the kitchen. I exchanged all furniture in my private rooms as well as all the furniture in our joined areas. She never once lifted a finger to help me with anything, yet, she brought one of her boyfriends over to show him the new digs...When I gave her notice that the carpet cleaners were coming and that I would pay for the carpet to be cleaned, she was too busy going out and left the floor covered with stuff so that cleaning the carpets were not an option.

- She has only now, after almost a year filed for divorce/separation while whining to me about her XH continuing to take money and overdrafting their accounts. Various places where her stbxh has occured debt are now suing her. All that could have been prevented if she had tried to get her life in order.

-Her stbxh got arrested for drunkenness in public and posession and gave the cops my address as his permanent address. He comes around to drop off stuff or hang out. I asked her many times not to have him come close to the house because being an addict and desperate he is unpredictable.

I am tired of enabling her and that's how I have been feeling now for months. She has a good deal, lots of space, always a full fridge and low rent. She does not cook, so for the past year, when I cooked when my girls are with me, I cooked for her and her girls as well. Leftovers were always theirs because she cannot afford to go and have lunch at work. I fed them for the most part, having paid for all meat/fish and and other more expensive groceries that were consumed. I never asked for money and did it because I knew she could not afford it.

However, having been treated like chopped liver for the last months and having her live this lifestyle of dating multiple men, worrying by whom she gets laid first and not pulling her weight have brought me to the brink of kicking her out. I feel sorry for the girls, because they have an absent drug addicted father who lives in his car and a mother who can't seem to get it together at age 45.

I am craving my place back and the peace of being alone in my house. A few weeks ago I had a long conversation with her that this behavior was not acceptable. She made 'nice' one evening and then continued. So now that she realized that I am withdrawing, not cooking anymore, labeling my groceries so they are not constantly being used up without being replaced, she is making nice again. Why do people take kindness for weakness? All of sudden I am the bad guy in the house for not wanting to put up with this any longer.

I will never have roommates again if I can avoid it, that is for sure.

[This message edited by fraeuken at 10:08 PM, August 26th (Monday)]

My input?

You are waaaay too nice.

no nice way to say this.....

you have to give her notice. this is not being a good example to your daughters - I mean you wouldn't want them letting themselves be used like this by their friends.

and she sounds like the type of person that's going to blame you for her choices. she will get nasty with what she says about you. you just have to bite the bullet and stand firm. a year was agreed on and that's up now.

yourself and your children are your responsibility - not her and hers.

you have been a good friend and she has not.

sorry to sound harsh but she is not your responsibility. she has not respected you or your home.

you deserve better.

((((fraeuken))))

sorry to sound harsh but she is not your responsibility. she has not respected you or your home.

^^^ THIS, in spades. Although you didn't say so, I have a feeling she's not chipping in for the rent also.

It's time to kick her to the curb. This kind of disrespect is not acceptable from either a spouse OR a friend. Get rid of her. If she's treating you like this, she's NOT your friend. She's a user/loser and you don't need that in your life.

I agree - time for her to go. You rescued her, she didn't have to rescue herself. Maybe she'll straighten herself out when she doesn't have you to save her. Either way, not your problem. She is ruining your sanctuary, your home. Give her a month to get out, and stand firm.

[This message edited by kernel at 5:53 AM, August 27th (Tuesday)]

Time for Princess to go!

I know they nickname me the vacuum Nazi

This alone is reason enough to kick them out.

Give her 30 days notice. Remind her that when she moved in you said you could do it for a year but not more and now she needs to go.

(((hugs)))

Uh, yeah. She is taking advantage of your good nature. She needs to take control of her own life.

Just the fact that she's bringing strange men into your house is enough reason for her to be on the streets.

If I had had someone like you take my daughter and I in and help us out the way you did, you would rarely have to clean at all! I would have taken up the slack and proudly worn the "Vacumn Nazi" badge for you and made sure that you were okay with helping me out! I would have cooked and cleaned and done my part because you show gratitude when someone shows you mercy in a hard time in your life....not take advantage of them! I can't stand people like this. My sister gets taken advantage of a lot and it drives me nuts. I struggle month to month living alone with my daughter....but its stories like this that make me happy that I don't have any dead weight "literally" lying around my house ...

...making it difficult for me to vacumn every day! (which I do too btw....you aren't so strange....)

Glad to see there are other vacuum afficionados out there

As for rent, she has been paying that, not always on the first and I had to ask her for the check but I did get it. She shares utilities with me and even though her kids are there 100% of the time and they use water and electricity for 3 while my kids are only there 50% of the time, I always made it an even split. In June, when she took care of the bunnies and cat for the 3 weeks I was gone I paid utilities fully.

I really would have hoped that she would have saved some money, maybe gotten a second job for the time being and worked on re-establishing her credit score. Nothing. She was happy to have some money after changing jobs and went shopping a lot. I have my main job, teach languages in the evening when I don't have the kids and took on a contract job I can do from home. You do what you have to do.

First question I have is does your landlady know they are there?

As to what to do - you sat down with her and said you'd do this for a year. The year is up. Give her 30 or 60 days to find a place and out she/they/Match dates go.

This is YOUR place for which you are legally responsible for. Her practically free ride needs to be over.

AJ's MOM

Glad to see there are other vacuum afficionados out there

Yep! I have a 13 month old baby....who eats in her highchair over my livingroom carpet on a nightly basis.... so yes.... If I didn't vacumn....my carpet would look like a food battleground....

This is YOUR place for which you are legally responsible for. Her practically free ride needs to be over.

THIS! Definitely. Game over chick!

[This message edited by She11ybeanz at 9:33 AM, August 27th (Tuesday)]

Yes, my landlady knows she is here and approved of the one year sublease.

Looking at the way things are downstairs, I will have to paint and replace the carpet and fix the faucet on the wet bar. Things that I know friends will help me with to keep cost low.

I am sad about stuff like this, because it was, what I thought a good friendship of many years.

Yes, my landlady knows she is here and approved of the one year sublease.

And there, if you need it, is your out.

Your landlady approved a one year sublease only. Ta, ta!

She best get busy checking out places to live rather than guys to date.

You do what you have to do.

^^^This

She doesn't have to do much because you are doing a lot for her already. The more you do, the less she does.

Time to kick her out. She needs to make it on her own with your assistance.

It's quite simple. Time for her to go. Why put up with frustration caused by an entitled user?

I'm sure this is hard because you've had to do the boundary-enforcing with STBX all year. It's got to be wearying to have to do it again in another situation. ((fraeken))

But you do need to do it.

The housemates must go. In addition to all the reason already cited, you have a terrific situation for yourself with your landlady that you cannot afford to let someone else screw up. It is too great a risk that this will not work out going forward. You would be the one to suffer if they ruin your rental arrangement. Their portion of the current rent vastly underpays your potential future costs if you lose this house.

Maybe you can summon Beetlejuice to scare them out of the house.

You may want to find out how to LEGALLY evict someone from your home. This way you have the law to stand on and can have the sheriff remove her at the end of the 30 days if she refuses to go.

Time to give her notice that her tenancy is ending. You do not have to defend your decision, but you can remind her that it was for one year, and your landlady only agreed to that. Do not fall prey to her asking to talk to your landlady. Say "I'm sorry, but even if landlady approved an extension, I do not want to extend your tenancy."

Give her 30 days notice plus the remainder of the month, so she knows she needs to be out by Sept. 30.

Give it in writing, but tell her first, then hand her the letter. Don't set up another "we have to talk" discussion, just do it.

There is no kind way to end a kindness for someone who is abusing that kindness. Just be professional and businesslike and get it done.