Landlord won't go away!

fergie199

allandanyways wrote: »

Hi all,

I know there's a similar thread up already, but mine is slightly different so please bear with me!

I'm living in rented accommodation, and my lease is up in July. I live with 5 other tenants and it has been fine for the last 7 months - we had good banter and cosy nights in etc and nobody was in anybody's space too much.

One of the tenants is actually my best mate, and the rest of them tend to come and go and are from the country so go home most weekends so it was mostly myself and himself just chilling at the weekends. The house is also 20 minutes from my work and a comfortable enough distance from my parents in Kildare! Essentially, aside from 1 messy housemate and a dodgy double glazing job in the sitting room, it was ideal.

Then, in January, the landlord moved back from Germany as she lost her job and has taken residency back up in her attic room (she lived in the house previously before I had moved in).

In all fairness to her, she's pretty sound. Lifted the non-smoking ban in the lounge as she's a smoker and all but 1 of us in the house smoke, has done a fair bit of maintenance work as she's at home on her own all day but she is literally ALWAYS there. She is always, and I mean ALWAYS (until 2 or 3am in the morning) in the sitting room and the kitchen. She never goes to her own room.

Since she came back in the middle of January, there has not been one single evening that she hasn't been sat in the sitting room, knitting and talking over the television. It's really starting to grate on all of us now, because as tenants, we're entitled to be able to sit in the sitting room and actually watch the television but she insists on talking over it to the point where I'm saving up to buy a smart TV for my room just so I can watch telly in peace. It's also really annoying because we're all paying for Sky Digital but unless you get up at 6am before she does, you can't actually watch the bloody tv without her stupid running commentary.

We all work long hours (except her) and the idea of just chilling in front of the TV when we come in from work is a saving grace. I know this sounds so petty but myself and my friend are really into our TV shows, and say on Wednesday, that new series Fleming was starting. We even warned her beforehand that we were really into this (I fancy the a*rse off Dominic Cooper, and my friend loves Ian Fleming) and we didn't want to chat while it was on. We got about 7 minutes of silence and then she starts a running commentary!

I know it's her house, and she's relatively sound in most other aspects, but it's really starting to feel like it's not our space anymore, and that we're living in her house rather than ours. I'm paying a fortune in rent and I'm just wondering if this is a common situation for people with live-in landlords or is there a way that we can tell her that we'd really like to have an evening to ourselves in the lounge?

I do apologise if I'm coming off as a d1ckhead here, it's just the change in dynamic and it's not that we don't like her, but it'd just be lovely to be able to watch a film in the sitting room that we are paying to use on our own! Also, I'm aware the obvious solution is to move out, but it's not a viable option at the moment financially.

Cheers!

Hi there.

Under law she has a legal right to be there as it is her home. She can set the rules and take up as much of the sitting room and tv as she wants lol

As a tenant though you are only paying as harsh as it sounds for a roof over your head and to be able to use the utilities and to have them and the property maintained.

I am on your side here don't get me wrong, I thinks its total rudeness that the land lord feels they can just come back an rule to roost regardless of the others that are there.

You only have 3 options which im sure you are aware of the main on already so I wont even bring it up.

Option 2. Would be to put up with it, use the utilities as normal Note; TV is not one of them; and if she gives you any trouble tell her that your paying rent and are entitled to use them. This option doesn't get ur issue resolved and is a more put up and shut up approach.

option 3. Tell her how you and the others feel. It is best not to do this in a confronting style. Best way to approach it is to say something like ''Hey me and the rest would like to discuss something with you at some stage, maybe tomorrow night''
This way it is not going to be a BIG SHOCK to her and both you are her are ready for the confrontation.

Explain to her you feelings regarding the situation and try to settle on a solution, she seems a sound enough girl but also seems to be settled in her ways and believes that its her house end of! so this convo could go either way lol

Finally if all else fails and she is totally un-compromising I would (personally) call into question if she has registered herself as a landlord and is paying tax through the rent that she gets for you and your friends, a simple mention of this to her should she not be a licensed landlord will surly put the ball in your court and if she doesn't want to be investigated for tax fraud she will give you ur share of the tv.

As always thanks for reading

Fergie

The_Morrigan

fergie199 wrote: »

Hi there.

Under law she has a legal right to be there as it is her home. She can set the rules and take up as much of the sitting room and tv as she wants lol

As a tenant though you are only paying as harsh as it sounds for a roof over your head and to be able to use the utilities and to have them and the property maintained.

I am on your side here don't get me wrong, I thinks its total rudeness that the land lord feels they can just come back an rule to roost regardless of the others that are there.

You only have 3 options which im sure you are aware of the main on already so I wont even bring it up.

Option 2. Would be to put up with it, use the utilities as normal Note; TV is not one of them; and if she gives you any trouble tell her that your paying rent and are entitled to use them. This option doesn't get ur issue resolved and is a more put up and shut up approach.

option 3. Tell her how you and the others feel. It is best not to do this in a confronting style. Best way to approach it is to say something like ''Hey me and the rest would like to discuss something with you at some stage, maybe tomorrow night''
This way it is not going to be a BIG SHOCK to her and both you are her are ready for the confrontation.

Explain to her you feelings regarding the situation and try to settle on a solution, she seems a sound enough girl but also seems to be settled in her ways and believes that its her house end of! so this convo could go either way lol

Finally if all else fails and she is totally un-compromising I would (personally) call into question if she has registered herself as a landlord and is paying tax through the rent that she gets for you and your friends, a simple mention of this to her should she not be a licensed landlord will surly put the ball in your court and if she doesn't want to be investigated for tax fraud she will give you ur share of the tv.

As always thanks for reading

Fergie

The bolded bit doesn't apply if it's an owner occupier/rent a room scheme. She only has to declare the income with revenue, she doesn't have to be registered as a landlord.

the_syco

Check with your current housemates if they'd prefer living in a house without the landlady, and if so, check your locality for a house to rent (ensure it's a house this time, not per-room), and let the landlady know that since she came back home, no-one can relax in the house, and thus you'd like to move, without the loss of your deposit, and see what she says?

LynnGrace

OP, you are not in the slightest bit petty. My house/flat sharing days are over, but I know exactly what you mean. It's a difficult situation. I hope that at the very least, she pays her share of the utility bills.
If, overall, you think she is sound enough, and I know you have said financially, it suits you to stay put, it might be worth suggesting some kind of house rules, making it seem as if it's not just directed at her, IYKWIM. From what you say, she won't take hints, so it needs to be sorted out a bit more plainly. However, the last thing you want is someone taking a huff, for example, and slamming and crashing around the place, and generally making life difficult.
Someone else suggested a second living/ common area, would that be an angle you could take? Otherwise, as you said, you did have a good setup previously, whereby you asked one another to work around when one person had guests etc, could you try to get this back up and running, and be explicit in saying 'can we agree xyz re guests, tv etc'.
If all else fails, maybe a few of you could get together and find another place, not ideal, I know, but, personally, the thought of not being able to relax, and have a bit of comfort, when you get home, would drive me mad!
Best of luck OP.

foggy_lad

LynnGrace wrote: »

OP, you are not in the slightest bit petty. My house/flat sharing days are over, but I know exactly what you mean. It's a difficult situation. I hope that at the very least, she pays her share of the utility bills.
If, overall, you think she is sound enough, and I know you have said financially, it suits you to stay put, it might be worth suggesting some kind of house rules, making it seem as if it's not just directed at her, IYKWIM. From what you say, she won't take hints, so it needs to be sorted out a bit more plainly. However, the last thing you want is someone taking a huff, for example, and slamming and crashing around the place, and generally making life difficult.
Someone else suggested a second living/ common area, would that be an angle you could take? Otherwise, as you said, you did have a good setup previously, whereby you asked one another to work around when one person had guests etc, could you try to get this back up and running, and be explicit in saying 'can we agree xyz re guests, tv etc'.
If all else fails, maybe a few of you could get together and find another place, not ideal, I know, but, personally, the thought of not being able to relax, and have a bit of comfort, when you get home, would drive me mad!
Best of luck OP.

Also the op must consider that the owner could lock them all out and throw their stuff out on the street if they consider the op and others as licensees rather than tenants!

the_syco

foggy_lad wrote: »

Also the op must consider that the owner could lock them all out and throw their stuff out on the street if they consider the op and others as licensees rather than tenants!

The OP would need to check with a solicitor on their tenancy type, imo. Can a tenancy transfer from rent-a-room to owner occupier mid-lease?

If the above is clarified, it'd swing both ways, and the OP could move out at a moments notice to a new place, and get her deposit back.

makeorbrake

I'm going to run with the assumption right now this is a 'rent-a-room' scheme scenario until someone comes back and confirms otherwise.

On that basis, there seems to be nothing wrong whatsoever with what the owner/landlord has done!

You've confirmed that she's 'sound' and has not in any way denied access to anything in the house to you. You do say that she's 'there all the time'. On that, firstly any one of you is entitled to 'be there all the time' if you so choose. I accept that this may be frustrating - and it may have destroyed the cosy setup you had before - but it's the reality - you have to accept it. Especially so, if she's not working. Anyone who is not working is likely to spend much more time in their own home! Think about it.

I do see the frustration re. use of the living room and watching tv - but it is what it is. What would you have her do? Move out of her own home? Someone talking over what you're watching does sound frustrating but on the flip side, it sounds like she's not doing it in a spiteful way from what you describe - it's just a very annoying character idiosyncrasy.
You mention that previously on the weekend, you shared the house with your best friend. You can't expect things to be so cosy and for what is a new person in the house that you hadn't shared with before to be the very same (although I understand how this might be frustrating...but that's all it is at worst, frustration).

You've identified that the dynamic in the house has changed. Again, that is what it is - she's the owner - that's not her fault. You've also identified that you moving out (as she simply cant!) is the solution. Given that you can't achieve that, all thats left is a mixture of accepting your current set of circumstances and possibly discussing a few things.

One other option is that you suggest that you now subscribe to sky multiroom - given that she's home a lot - and you have different programming tastes.

Mrs OBumble

Faith wrote: »

...you all need to be direct in your expectations of your home environment. Statements like "I expect to be able to watch television in peace" or "I expect to be able to have friends to visit without being interrupted by others without invitation".

There are seven people living in the house. It is totally unrealistic for aoyone to be able to expect to have exclusive use of the living room at any time.

In sucn an environment, the place where you can have freinds visit or watch TV uninterrupted uninterrupted is your room. Unless the house-owner is invading that, then the OP's only issue is that s/he doesn't like the way the house-share has changed, and it's an issue for PI not A&P.

allandanyways

Hi all,

Many thanks for your replies, they have all been of great assistance with the issue.

I've only lived with a partner or with family previously so I'm not entirely familiar with the entitlements/privileges of sharing with a landlord.

I was under the impression (perhaps falsely) that landlords who live in the house should respect the space of their tenants and at least spend a certain amount of time in their rooms to allow fair usage of the common areas of the house. I would not consider her 18 hour residences of the sitting room to be fair usage for all.

I think it's possibly a case of we had it great and now this is the reality.

Since starting this thread yesterday, I vented my frustrations with 2 of my housemates, and it has since emerged that she is not paying any bills, and more importantly, is stealing (albeit small) things from her tenants.

It started with the fact that she never, ever buys milk/butter etc and I noticed that the 2L milk I bought at the start of the week was gone by Wednesday with only 2 of us using it for tea since Sunday. I also left my cigarettes on the kitchen table and went up to have a shower and came back down and there were 3 missing and she was the only one downstairs. She's also robbed small things like washing powder, and has gone directly into people's individual presses and robbed pasta/rice/chicken etc. So not only is she making it uncomfortable to avail of the common areas of the house, she's also scabbing off all of us.

After some thought and consideration, and looking at the situation from the outside (thanks to all contributors on this thread), I really am going to have to look at moving out.

Nothing that she's doing is especially illegal, but it's not making for a pleasant living situation. I must have been living in a dream world, but if I were a landlord, I would want to keep my tenants, especially if they had been in the house before me and been no trouble. She moved back and has upset the whole house dynamic and isn't giving us any space at all.

Grolschevik

the_syco wrote: »

The OP would need to check with a solicitor on their tenancy type, imo. Can a tenancy transfer from rent-a-room to owner occupier mid-lease?

If the above is clarified, it'd swing both ways, and the OP could move out at a moments notice to a new place, and get her deposit back.

Yes. It looks weird.

The way the lease seems to have been originally worded is like a rent-a-room scheme with an owner occupier. Except the owner was resident in another country. Which is outside the terms of that scheme. So essentially, it was a house share.

Who collected and paid her taxes for her? The partner into whose account rent is paid?

And she has recently returned. Can a de facto house share situation morph overnight into an owner-occupier rent-out-rooms one?

In these circumstances, I really would doubt that the landlord has been fully complying with the rules for the rent-a-room scheme, or her tax liabilities.

None of this is relevant, of course, unless you want to report her.

However, she's unemployed now. Does she have the cash to return deposits if some tenants move out?

makeorbrake

allandanyways wrote: »

I was under the impression (perhaps falsely) that landlords who live in the house should respect the space of their tenants and at least spend a certain amount of time in their rooms to allow fair usage of the common areas of the house. I would not consider her 18 hour residences of the sitting room to be fair usage for all.

I don't think that should be an expectation of her or any other house occupant. If she's not working, then it stands to reason that she will be around more. That would be true whether it be home owner or lodger/tenant.

allandanyways wrote: »

I think it's possibly a case of we had it great and now this is the reality.

Yeah, seems that way.

allandanyways wrote: »

Since starting this thread yesterday, I vented my frustrations with 2 of my housemates, and it has since emerged that she is not paying any bills, and more importantly, is stealing (albeit small) things from her tenants.

It started with the fact that she never, ever buys milk/butter etc and I noticed that the 2L milk I bought at the start of the week was gone by Wednesday with only 2 of us using it for tea since Sunday. I also left my cigarettes on the kitchen table and went up to have a shower and came back down and there were 3 missing and she was the only one downstairs. She's also robbed small things like washing powder, and has gone directly into people's individual presses and robbed pasta/rice/chicken etc. So not only is she making it uncomfortable to avail of the common areas of the house, she's also scabbing off all of us.

Not paying bills and scabbing off everyone is a whole different ball game. I guess you could have a discussion about that. Personally, I don't think that should ever have to be a subject for discussion. Keep your belongings to yourself and bide your time. Make moving out your objective - and do so at the first opportunity ....although don't act impulsively. You don't want to end up with a similar set of circumstances once more. ;-)

Grandpa Hassan

Yup, I think you just need to move out of there. You don't have to give any notice, other than obviously staying there for the amount of time that you have already paid for, and an amount of time equal to the deposit if you think she is going to keep it.

It is no different than having those problems with another housemate. She has no more obligation to respect your space and allow you a fair time with the TV remote as any other housemate does. Except in this case, she isn't going to be the one leaving

Unfortunately you just get people who are d*cks. LLs and tenants both. Not all live-in LLs who rent a spare room behave like that. And you are just as likely to get a fellow tenant who does

The Spider

This always happens, take my advice and get a new place, I spent many years renting with strangers and not so strangers, sooner or later a situation like this arises. If the house isn't particularly large it really gets in your face.

Years ago had a similar situation was renting a room in a fantastic large redbrick on the coast in Dublin, with three others including the landlord, all the rooms were en-suite and all were wired for tv, and everyone had their own tv, so never any issues in that regard. We had a huge back garden and used to have marquee parties it was fantastic and the landlors was a really cool guy.

However landlord decided to move in with his missus, and we had to get someone else in, a friend recomended this guy to the landlord and he took over the landlords room.

Dynamic completely changed, the guy was a bit odd and hard to get on with, we tried bringing him out for pints etc, but eventually it was too much like hard work, in this guys case it wasn't the living room we could have lived with that as we all had our own tv's.

Nope he took over the kitchen, the kitchen was great huge and a big wooden table at the bottom of it, but this guy night after night sat in the kitchen reading his book at the table not speaking to anyone, it made it so that you didn't want to go into the kitchen after work as it was so awkward.

I remember one of my house mates stopping me in the hall and asking "Is he in the kitchen? I can't eat another bloody take away because I can't use the kitchen with him out there!"

Like I say not always the landlord, and it's weird the way these type of people will find the room that'll cause the most grief to use all the time, he could've read that book anywhere, but he chose the room everyone wanted to use after work, or have dinner with their missus etc.

I could go on about others over the years, but like I say the only solution is to find your own place.

louloumc89

It's hard to find a good dynamic in a house share. I would say the landlord side of things makes it that bit more difficult for you, but your main problem is like with any house share...there's always going to be a messy/scabby/annoying housemate. At least you said she seems sound, so that's good. I think things have just changed for you personally. Paying rent for 7 months doesn't make it just as much your house as hers. She's the one paying house taxes, insurance etc, and more than likely a hefty mortgage on top of that. Just move out if you don't like the new dynamic, but honestly unless you're moving with your previous crew that you know you can live with, then you probably are going to face similar problems.

_Kaiser_

OP as already mentioned I think you're best/only real option is to move out at this stage - maybe you could all get another place together?

Side note - Who says that rentals are stacked in favour of the tenant? Here ya have a owner who's shown up out of the blue, is stealing from her tenants, and yet they are the ones now who have to move?! Yes.. tenant-favoured indeed!

Hope you get sorted either way OP!

MouseTail

This is not a tenancy though, tenants rented under rent a room scheme. This scheme was brought in to alleviate the last rental crisis, you would never get people willing to rent out rooms in their PPR if the same regulations and rights applied as to normal tenancies.

athtrasna

MouseTail wrote: »

This is not a tenancy though, tenants rented under rent a room scheme. This scheme was brought in to alleviate the last rental crisis, you would never get people willing to rent out rooms in their PPR if the same regulations and rights applied as to normal tenancies.

The point is that the OP and housemates did not move into a rent a room scheme, which only applies when the landlord resides in the house. As another poster pointed out, the tenants rented their rooms in the house when it most definitely was not a rent a room scenario, that can't just change retrospectively.

The_Morrigan

OP I'm curious - was the landlords room occupied or empty while she was in Germany?

SeanSouth

It seems to me that the OP has a house share budget but wants all the convenience and facility of sole occupation.

You're sharing a house with others. You have your own room and you share some common rooms with all other residents. Its exactly what it says on the tin. These room mates are your new "family". You cant expect them to "disappear" or "shut up" just to suit your whim or mood or to facilitate your visitors.

Each person sharing the house is entitled to be present in any of the shared rooms at any time. Your landlord house mate has not prevented you from using any of the shared facilities. Your irritation and complaint is that you don't want her there all the time. You don't like her commentary. You don't like her choice of TV, you don't like her company etc etc. Your problem is that this is actually what you have signed up for and she is doing absolutely nothing wrong. I don't think you can expect to be hosting friends in this type of accommodation. Its not really included in the price. Yes it might be more comfortable for you if she wasn't there all the time but unfortunately that's just how it is.

I sense that your main grievance is that it was better before the landlord returned from Germany and you'd prefer if it remained that way.

Shared houses are cheap and cheap for a reason. In exchange for a cheap accommodation you need to put up with living with strangers, that you don't necessarily like.

If you want more privacy, get yourself an apartment. It will cost you more.If you don't want to spend more, you'd be better off trying to get along with your house mates instead of issuing ultimatums or calling house meeting or any of that other nonsense that has been suggested here. You could move out but it may not be any better in the next place. In fact what you have described here is probably quite typical, quite average for this type of housing arrangement.

Eutow

SeanSouth wrote: »

If you want more privacy, get yourself an apartment. It will cost you more.If you don't want to spend more, you'd be better off trying to get along with your house mates instead of issuing ultimatums or calling house meeting or any of that other nonsense

The OP in a later post mentioned that the landlord is now taking other people's food and cigs without asking, so that alone calls for a meeting. The landlord is also not contributing any money towards payment of the utilities. The landlord is using electricity, heating, the t.v. and the internet, so should contribute. I would be pissed off coming home after a long day at work and finding out that the food I planned to cook had been taken by somebody else.

allandanyways

The_Morrigan wrote: »

OP I'm curious - was the landlords room occupied or empty while she was in Germany?

It was empty, used as storage. We were told by the acting landlord when we moved in that the house was not owner occupied and that the landlords would not be returning to Ireland for at least 2 years. I was told that in July 2013.

SeanSouth wrote: »

It seems to me that the OP has a house share budget but wants all the convenience and facility of sole occupation.

You're sharing a house with others. You have your own room and you share some common rooms with all other residents. Its exactly what it says on the tin. These room mates are your new "family". You cant expect them to "disappear" or "shut up" just to suit your whim or mood or to facilitate your visitors.

In fairness, the set up we had beforehand worked. If a housemate had a guest over, they would notify the rest of the house and ask if it was ok to use the sitting room alone for the evening. Two of us specifically asked if we could have the sitting room for an evening last week after some stuff happened that we needed to discuss and she said "yeah, that's fine" and yet, SOMEHOW, managed to find her way into sitting on the couch while we were having a private discussion. I actually turned to her and said "this is a private conversation, is there any way you could come back later?" and she just laughed and said "But I'm soooo comfy!!" and didn't shift her arse once.

SeanSouth wrote: »

Each person sharing the house is entitled to be present in any of the shared rooms at any time. Your landlord house mate has not prevented you from using any of the shared facilities. Your irritation and complaint is that you don't want her there all the time. You don't like her commentary. You don't like her choice of TV, you don't like her company etc etc. Your problem is that this is actually what you have signed up for and she is doing absolutely nothing wrong. I don't think you can expect to be hosting friends in this type of accommodation. Its not really included in the price. Yes it might be more comfortable for you if she wasn't there all the time but unfortunately that's just how it is.

I sense that your main grievance is that it was better before the landlord returned from Germany and you'd prefer if it remained that way.

That's fair enough. Yeah, she's basically turned what was a well functioning house where we respected each others' space into a situation where we are literally people renting rooms in her house and this is palpable. I understand that this is essentially the situation, but if you can just take a moment to understand that we had a great house dynamic beforehand where we were all friends renting this lovely house together, and now this has changed into the aforementioned situation. It's not pleasant.

I was speaking to a few people about this yesterday and I'm going to look at moving with another friend, or possibly into a houseshare that is not owner occupied and with less people.

Word of warning to all renters - never, ever move into landlord occupied properties. It'll never be your home. It's a room in their house. And they won't let you forget it.

Mrs OBumble

athtrasna wrote: »

the tenants rented their rooms in the house when it most definitely was not a rent a room scenario, that can't just change retrospectively.

Huh? They either rented individual rooms, or they jointly and severally signed a lease for the entire house. I woudl have thought that was pretty clear.

The landlord's tax status is totally separate: if she's resident and can say it's rent-a-room then the tax rules are a little different. And if rent is paid to her and she is overseas, each tenant is responsible for paying 20% to Revenue. But that doesn't affect the tenancy status.

djimi

allandanyways wrote: »

In fairness, the set up we had beforehand worked. If a housemate had a guest over, they would notify the rest of the house and ask if it was ok to use the sitting room alone for the evening. Two of us specifically asked if we could have the sitting room for an evening last week after some stuff happened that we needed to discuss and she said "yeah, that's fine" and yet, SOMEHOW, managed to find her way into sitting on the couch while we were having a private discussion. I actually turned to her and said "this is a private conversation, is there any way you could come back later?" and she just laughed and said "But I'm soooo comfy!!" and didn't shift her arse once.

To be fair, there are seven people living in this property; if you want to have a private conversation or some alone time with a guest etc then you really should be doing so in your room, where you can be assured some privacy and where you are not denying the other housemates the use of the common areas.

This is just how houseshare situations work Im afraid. From what you have said, it sounds to me like the real issue is that the house is not big enough to accommodate all of you living in it. A house with 6-7 people living in it should really have at least two sitting rooms, and should not rely on that many people sharing one common room area.

djimi

allandanyways wrote: »

I was speaking to a few people about this yesterday and I'm going to look at moving with another friend, or possibly into a houseshare that is not owner occupied and with less people.

If you dont like this scenario then its probably best not to move into another houseshare, where its entirely possible the same thing will occur. What you are seeing now could equally happen in a houseshare with 3 people; it all depends on who you end up living with.

The issue that you have now is also little to do with the property being owner occupied. You could just as easily be seeing the same behaviour from one of the existing 6 tenants, and it would cause just as much hassle and would be equally difficult to sort out.

Grandpa Hassan

allandanyways wrote: »

Word of warning to all renters - never, ever move into landlord occupied properties. It'll never be your home. It's a room in their house. And they won't let you forget it.

that's not necessarily fair. I have done it before, and had no problem. The owner has behaved no differently than a tenant would. There are as many bad housemates out there as bad owner occupier LLs

allandanyways

djimi wrote: »

If you dont like this scenario then its probably best not to move into another houseshare, where its entirely possible the same thing will occur. What you are seeing now could equally happen in a houseshare with 3 people; it all depends on who you end up living with.

The issue that you have now is also little to do with the property being owner occupied. You could just as easily be seeing the same behaviour from one of the existing 6 tenants, and it would cause just as much hassle and would be equally difficult to sort out.

I do think that if it was a tenant causing the issue, that it would be the kind of thing a discussion and conversation about personal space and respecting privacy and belongings of others would sort.

We did actually have to do this with a tenant who was an absolute slob and ended up with black mould growing on dishes, they were in his room for that long. But we sat him down, had a word and it was all sorted and he's been spotlessly clean ever since.

My issue is that, as others on this thread have pointed out, it's her house, and so asking her to respect other people's space in her house is futile because at the end of the day, she can just turn around and say "Well it's my house so I can do what I want". She's a bit of a petty person, despite my earlier statement that she's relatively sound. When I said it to her about my missing cigs, she said "Ah sure, I fixed the window in the kitchen, so I think I'm entitled to take some form of payment". :mad:

allandanyways

Grandpa Hassan wrote: »

that's not necessarily fair. I have done it before, and had no problem. The owner has behaved no differently than a tenant would. There are as many bad housemates out there as bad owner occupier LLs

True. I retract that statement.

I would be wary of renting with an owner-occupier again though.

djimi

allandanyways wrote: »

I do think that if it was a tenant causing the issue, that it would be the kind of thing a discussion and conversation about personal space and respecting privacy and belongings of others would sort.

We did actually have to do this with a tenant who was an absolute slob and ended up with black mould growing on dishes, they were in his room for that long. But we sat him down, had a word and it was all sorted and he's been spotlessly clean ever since.

My issue is that, as others on this thread have pointed out, it's her house, and so asking her to respect other people's space in her house is futile because at the end of the day, she can just turn around and say "Well it's my house so I can do what I want". She's a bit of a petty person, despite my earlier statement that she's relatively sound. When I said it to her about my missing cigs, she said "Ah sure, I fixed the window in the kitchen, so I think I'm entitled to take some form of payment". :mad:

And if the other tenant had turned around and told you all to f off? You got lucky in that situation that they saw reason and were prepared to change their habits, but equally you could end up living with a stubborn prick of a housemate who has no consideration for others and has no interest in changing. Its the gamble that you take in house sharing situations; this situation could arise in and house share, be it owner occupied or not, and there are no guarantees either way.

Ultimately if you want guarantees of space and privacy then you need to rent your own place. It works out more expensive, but it is precisely this privacy that you are paying for.

makeorbrake

allandanyways wrote: »

True. I retract that statement.

I would be wary of renting with an owner-occupier again though.

You're retracting and all but re-stating.

What you suggest about having exclusive use of the living room at certain times is completely unreasonable. If your conversations are so private, then drop down the local pub or cafe and meet there! If someone turned to me in my own home and told me in my own living room, "this is a private conversation", I wouldn't be long in telling them where to go!

You say asking her to "respect other peoples privacy is futile". Respect is a mutual thing and as much as you hate the fact (and this comes up time and time again on boards threads - and I've had 6 years experience of it previously), you are living with a home owner.


Whilst I agree that you should bail out on the basis of what you mentioned re. her not contributing towards bills and scrounging food & cigs off the rest of you, I do NOT agree with the general points you raise re. living in a owner occupied house share.

If that remains your viewpoint, you are right not to enter into a owner occupied house share at any future point (I'm thinking of that from the point of view of the owner occupier as you would be doing them a dis-service).

My final point....
I hope that at some future point you get the opportunity to experience the 'dynamic' of a house share as an owner occupier. I can guarantee you it will temper and adjust the way you see it.

allandanyways

djimi wrote: »

Ultimately if you want guarantees of space and privacy then you need to rent your own place. It works out more expensive, but it is precisely this privacy that you are paying for.

That's exactly what the mammy said!

It's a valid point though, and one that I had probably not considered thoroughly. I moved into the house off the back of a bad break up and I had to either move straight away (ex had the lease to old apartment) or move home, and I moved into this place with my best mate probably without thinking it through that the landlord returning earlier than expected was a possibility.

Live and learn and all that crap I guess.