Anyway...

Several months ago, DH told me that his best friend and his wife were buying and building a house down the street from where we live. That was okay, I guess. The husband annoys me. He's too hyper or he jokes around too much. I'm not sure which it is. The wife I like much better. She seems much more mature and we seem to have quite a bit in common, but she nevers seems to be interested in anything I have to say. Another annoying quality about this couple is that they think it's okay to just drop by without any notice. It drives us crazy and it's rather rude.

A month or two later, DH told me that he was going to let them stay at our house until their house was finished being built. Apparently the lease for their apartment at the time was almost over and if they'd leased the apartment for less than a year, their monthly rent would be doubled.

To be honest, I didn't care if they'd have to pay double the rent. I didn't want them living in our basement. For one thing, we were (are) having money problems of our own and having them live in our house will only cost us more. For another thing, I barely know these people. They aren't my friends, they're HIS friends. Lastly, I knew that any thought of privacy while they live with us should be banished from my mind.

DH and I had agreed that if anyone we knew and loved needed help, we'd let them stay with us until they got back on their feet. I can't say that the Live-Ins need help. They're always trying to take the cheap way out and they want a free ride for a while.

It didn't matter what I said or how much I protested, DH gave them the go ahead and they moved in sometime around the end of June/the beginning of July.

Another thing I never anticipated when I agreed that we'd help out anyone who needed it was that someone would be moving their entire living space into our basement. It seems to fit well in the space, but they've taken over one of our storage rooms and they've also put things in two of the rooms that DH asked them not to use. I personally feel like I shouldn't go downstairs to even look for something of mine that I might want from the storage room. At the same time, I feel like I shouldn't care because it's my house, not theirs, and if they decided to use the room that they were told not to use, then they must not care very much about their belongings.

For the first month and a half, it wasn't half bad. We hung out and had meals together from time-to-time. The wife and I had a lovely drinking experience that left us with horrendous 2-day hangovers and we swore that we'd never drink again.

I don't remember exactly when, but they'd left for a 2 week vacation at Ocean City. I was left to take care of their cats. The cats from hell. They pooped on the floor, on the chair, peed on a pillow... I was so tired of taking care of them after the first week. There are three of those darn cats and they were cooped up in the morning room while they were gone. Why they have 3 cats when the only one who takes care of them has allergies, I don't know. Actually, I do know. The husband gets her a new cat every time she asks him if they can start trying for a baby.

Having that as the worst experience for the first month and a half is not bad at all, if you ask me. Lately, though...it's been a bit worse.

It's all little things.

First off, this has happened on another occasion, but before DH and I went to D.C. a week or two ago, I shut all of the doors upstairs, including our bedroom door, closet door, and master bathroom door. When we got back, the bedroom and bathroom doors were wide open. I was immediately angered. This happened before when we went to San Diego for a week. This time, we were only gone for a day!!! The doors were open, which meant that the cats had free reign of our bedroom. I noticed that all of the ceiling fans were turned off, which would indicate that the power had gone out (our bedroom light turns on if the power goes out and then comes back on). But that's no excuse to leave the doors open. They have no need to be in our bedroom. If the light's left on for a day, leave it. I don't care.

They also used up an entire roll of our paper towels in the day that we were gone. The only time I've used up a roll of paper towels is if I was cleaning all of the bathrooms in one day or something. They don't need to use our papertowels anyway. They can buy their own. I mean, that's what we do! *rolls eyes* I just can't fathom how they'd use up an entire roll in a day. And they're really absorbent, so that should mean that they use less.

We've also discovered that they use our appliances and then don't clean them afterward. They used our oven and whatever they were cooking overflowed into the bottom. We've never had to clean our oven since we moved in because we're very careful. Then DH goes to use the oven and something smelled like it was burning...and they'd made a mess. They also allowed a pot of rice to boil over a make a stick white mess on our stove. The wife wiped it up, but again, it burned when we tried to cook next.

They also made a mess of my fabric softener bottle. Somehow it was on the lid and it was so slippery I could barely open it. Not a big deal, just a nuisance and more work for me.

The wife will leave her laundry in the washer and dryer (at the same time) and then leave. That means that I either have to finish her laundry for her (which still puts me behind on my own laundry) or I leave it there for her to finish.

They used our George Foreman grill while we were gone. It was out and messy when we got back. We left it there for a week to see if they'd clean it up. They didn't.

This part is the weirdest. We're charging them half of what they would've paid for rent at their apartment (without it being the double rent). This month, they paid us less than half of it after the wife got home from work. I assume it was her tip money from that night. Then later in the week, they gave us all but the $5 that is now left (tip money again?). Ever since then, we haven't seen them! We may have seen them twice in the last two weeks, but no more than that.

I don't know if they've having money problems, but they're certianly finding the time to go to a drive-in movie theater every weekend and they skip out of work early. DH said that he was going to tell them not to worry about the $5, but I told him that he needs to get it from them. They must not understand that we're having real money problems that we can't control (not getting paid for 5 weeks is a doozy). If we let them skip out on $5, they'll probably try to skip out on more next time (I hope they're not around long enough to have to pay another month's rent).

Our electricity bill has doubled.
Our water bill has nearly doubled.
They slam doors.
They let the toilet lid in the basement fall down after they use the toilet instead taking the extra 3 seconds to quietly lower it themselves). And I can hear it all the way upstairs in the middle of the night.
They're creating more work for us.

Even DH admits that he's tired of having them around.

Worst of all, I don't think they even have their loan yet and their house is almost finished.

If their contract falls through, I'm going to tell DH that he needs to kick them out and find somewhere else to stay. Their lifestyle is really affecting ours and we shouldn't have to deal with this. We're doing them a huge favor and I feel like they're abusing.

It's the whole thing where in the beginning of any situation where someone else is staying with you, they're polite until they start to get comfortable. I don't feel like I can trust them anymore (not that I really did in the first place).

The Live-Ins are too comfortable in our basement.

I want my privacy back. I want my space back.

I hope they're gone before the end of the month.

--last || next--

LAST FIVE
New Location - October 18, 2007
Be Still, My Soul - September 17, 2007
Just leave already - September 16, 2007
Changes...I hate them (well, most of them, anyway) - September 14, 2007
Funky Love - September 12, 2007

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