(no subject)
I have a big house, and two kiddos, so I rent out the bottom two bedrooms and the finished basement as a shared accommodation scenario to help out with cash.
I'd like to say that goes well, but if it had, I wouldn't be here. Almost every single one has been horrid in some way, but the last two..
Last year I had a roommate, who I'll call Sally. Sally had a two year old boy. When I first met Sally, she seemed completely normal, she had a good, full time job, a car, seemed stable enough, so in she moved.
The first month wasn't bad. The second month, December, her and her boyfriend decided they were too stressed and wanted to take a month off to relax. She paid for December, and quit her job. Because she quit her job, she didn't make a car payment, and her car got repo'd in front of my house one day.
January came - no rent. She stayed with me until March, and every single month she would be late on rent and then come up last minute with some government agency or church who would give her money so she wouldn't be homeless.
She kept saying every day that she couldn't find a job because she had no car, she would tell me that she was out all day dropping off resumes and there were just no jobs anywhere (this is a huge city, everywhere is hiring right now. It's ridiculously easy to find a job. My fiancee wants to switch jobs, put out three resumes by email yesterday and got two call backs within an hour offering him a job.)
In reality though, I checked her facebook, she would make status updates or post stupid pictures about every half an hour throughout the day, which meant she was sitting on my computer.
On top of never working, never paying rent on time, and then eventually helping herself to all my food since she couldn't afford to feed herself or her kid, she never actually looked after her kid. I rent out the bottom half the house. She would spend her days on the computer in the basement, while her kid kept coming upstairs. It ended up with me looking after him (and he was crazy) for hours a day because she just would not come up or come get him. Finally, because I'm NOT a free built in babysitter, I installed a baby gate to separate the two halves, but he would just stand there and bang bang bang on the gate and after 45 minutes she'd finally make a half hearted yell from the basement "Where are you?". She'd spend her days begging church's and groups for money or food. Some would drop off food. The other ones, that dropped off money, well her and her bf would go right out and buy beer. They always seemed to have money for beer.
So in February, I told her I'd be flexible with February's rent but if she didn't have March's rent on the 1st in full, she would have to move out at the end of March. Which she did. Since then she's had her kiddo taken away.
I think the worst part was, she had her own living room, she was expected to use her own living room. I went away to Louisiana for a week for work, I gave her $200 to look after my pets (two cats, a dog and a fish), I came back and she was passed out drunk in MY living room with red wine spilled in two spots into the white carpet, food smushed into the ground, garbage (like filthy garbage) strewn EVERYWHERE, and half my furniture tipped upside down. Including my fish tank. My son's fish that he had for two years and loved (this fish was cool, he'd come up and let you pet him and swim around your finger) was dead.
This past roommate seemed okay. Older mom, two older kids, all of them quiet and well behaved. Doesn't party, drinks a lot, but is quiet. The first month she paid rent on time. Every other month, she would pay like $200 on the 1st and make sporadic payments throughout the rest of the month. Finally I told her, I need the full rent on the 1st, because that's when all MY payments are pulled out, and for months I've had to make the daycare wait til mid month so I could get all the money together.
Use of the double garage was not included in the price, and that was discussed up front, because my fiance wants to set up a wood working area for his hobbies. She asked after she moved in if she could put just one dresser in there, so I agreed. Then her friend said she couldn't store stuff at her place any more, so just out of the blue with no warning I get a call from my roommates father saying "I have a moving van full of her stuff, she told me to call you to get someone to unlock the garage." which was annoying. I told him, she didn't have use of the garage, and he says "It's only a couple things, a few sentimental things, like a hope chest I made her, won't take up much room at all." So I arranged for my fiance to go unlock it. He calls me and says "It was a full truck load. The entire garage is PACKED." and at that point, he was done unpacking and gone.
She would never buy her own toilet paper for her bathroom, just raid mine, she'd use my laundry soap and cleaning supplies, and the worst part is - I have a Keurig. K-cups are NOT CHEAP. I'd buy a pack of 12 that would usually last me 2 weeks and it would be gone in a day or two, with a promise that she'd replace them, which she never did.
She had just started working on the rigs, so then she pulls, "Well I'm only here a week out of the month, I want to pay 1/4th in rent."
I told her, you can't hardly call up your car dealership and tell them since you're driving only a week out of the month you don't want to pay your full lease. Life doesn't work that way. Your crap is in the rooms for all 4 weeks, whether you are or not, it's not like I can rent it out the other 3 weeks to make up the lost money, too bad. I rent out because I HAVE to, because raising two kids in this city is expensive. My daycare alone costs more than my mortgage.
Not only that, but her being gone for 3 weeks out of the month, she expected me to look after her cat. She said in the beginning, "I'll pay you extra to do it!" but never once did, and I've been looking after him for three months now. That's a lot of litter, and extra cat food, AND he's started spraying. I told her about it and she denied it was him, said it must be my cat, but I've caught him twice now. It's definitely him.
So she doesn't like not getting a break in rent, puts up with it for a bit, and says on Oct 1st, "Well then I'm giving you two weeks notice and only half the rent this month. Sorry to put you in a bad spot, but I don't agree that I should pay for a month and I'll find somewhere else."
So at this point, I say whatever. Go. Lack of notice absolutely SUCKS because that means half my bills don't get paid. I search high and low and find a single dad who needs a place to move into by the 15th, it works out really well.
So I contact her today, and tell her that I have someone else moving in on the 15th so please make sure when she moves out on the 14th that everything is clean and left the way it was when she moved in.
Now she says "Actually, I can't move out til the 21st, sorry! I'll pay you an extra $100"
Sorry lady, you gave two weeks notice, I'm holding you to that. This guy's already paid damage and half of October, I can't stiff him on a week because she couldn't get her stuff together. Not only that, but rent is $700, an extra week would be $175, not $100.
She's arguing with me right now, because I told her, "This guy is paying for the last two months, I can't short him a week he's paid for because you didn't plan things right. I took '2 weeks notice' and payment for half the month as to mean you were out on the 14th, and I planned around that." Now she's arguing whether the 14th or the 15th is the exact middle of the month. I figure, one week = 7 days, 2 weeks = 14 days. NOW she's arguing that I have to give her til the 15th because the 14th is a holiday and no one can move on a HOLIDAY. Ugh, semantics be gone.
Now I'm hoping this next one goes okay. On this short of notice, I couldn't find much. The guy moving in is young, a single dad, just settled joint custody with his kids and needs somewhere he can live full time but where there's a second room that the kids can come stay in when he has them. Although, he's young - he says his job is a rapper/performer, and initially he was looking for a single mom to live with, though he's 'okay' with the fact that I'm engaged and my fiance lives with me.
Haha, on another note, my fiance is freaking out a little. All we've had so far is female tenants, and now he's like "What? a MAN is moving in here? I 100% trust you, but I don't know if I'm comfortable with A MAN living here with you" and I was just like, "Seriously, we've lived with females, I've had to deal with you living in the same house as other girls, deal with it"
I'd like to say that goes well, but if it had, I wouldn't be here. Almost every single one has been horrid in some way, but the last two..
Last year I had a roommate, who I'll call Sally. Sally had a two year old boy. When I first met Sally, she seemed completely normal, she had a good, full time job, a car, seemed stable enough, so in she moved.
The first month wasn't bad. The second month, December, her and her boyfriend decided they were too stressed and wanted to take a month off to relax. She paid for December, and quit her job. Because she quit her job, she didn't make a car payment, and her car got repo'd in front of my house one day.
January came - no rent. She stayed with me until March, and every single month she would be late on rent and then come up last minute with some government agency or church who would give her money so she wouldn't be homeless.
She kept saying every day that she couldn't find a job because she had no car, she would tell me that she was out all day dropping off resumes and there were just no jobs anywhere (this is a huge city, everywhere is hiring right now. It's ridiculously easy to find a job. My fiancee wants to switch jobs, put out three resumes by email yesterday and got two call backs within an hour offering him a job.)
In reality though, I checked her facebook, she would make status updates or post stupid pictures about every half an hour throughout the day, which meant she was sitting on my computer.
On top of never working, never paying rent on time, and then eventually helping herself to all my food since she couldn't afford to feed herself or her kid, she never actually looked after her kid. I rent out the bottom half the house. She would spend her days on the computer in the basement, while her kid kept coming upstairs. It ended up with me looking after him (and he was crazy) for hours a day because she just would not come up or come get him. Finally, because I'm NOT a free built in babysitter, I installed a baby gate to separate the two halves, but he would just stand there and bang bang bang on the gate and after 45 minutes she'd finally make a half hearted yell from the basement "Where are you?". She'd spend her days begging church's and groups for money or food. Some would drop off food. The other ones, that dropped off money, well her and her bf would go right out and buy beer. They always seemed to have money for beer.
So in February, I told her I'd be flexible with February's rent but if she didn't have March's rent on the 1st in full, she would have to move out at the end of March. Which she did. Since then she's had her kiddo taken away.
I think the worst part was, she had her own living room, she was expected to use her own living room. I went away to Louisiana for a week for work, I gave her $200 to look after my pets (two cats, a dog and a fish), I came back and she was passed out drunk in MY living room with red wine spilled in two spots into the white carpet, food smushed into the ground, garbage (like filthy garbage) strewn EVERYWHERE, and half my furniture tipped upside down. Including my fish tank. My son's fish that he had for two years and loved (this fish was cool, he'd come up and let you pet him and swim around your finger) was dead.
This past roommate seemed okay. Older mom, two older kids, all of them quiet and well behaved. Doesn't party, drinks a lot, but is quiet. The first month she paid rent on time. Every other month, she would pay like $200 on the 1st and make sporadic payments throughout the rest of the month. Finally I told her, I need the full rent on the 1st, because that's when all MY payments are pulled out, and for months I've had to make the daycare wait til mid month so I could get all the money together.
Use of the double garage was not included in the price, and that was discussed up front, because my fiance wants to set up a wood working area for his hobbies. She asked after she moved in if she could put just one dresser in there, so I agreed. Then her friend said she couldn't store stuff at her place any more, so just out of the blue with no warning I get a call from my roommates father saying "I have a moving van full of her stuff, she told me to call you to get someone to unlock the garage." which was annoying. I told him, she didn't have use of the garage, and he says "It's only a couple things, a few sentimental things, like a hope chest I made her, won't take up much room at all." So I arranged for my fiance to go unlock it. He calls me and says "It was a full truck load. The entire garage is PACKED." and at that point, he was done unpacking and gone.
She would never buy her own toilet paper for her bathroom, just raid mine, she'd use my laundry soap and cleaning supplies, and the worst part is - I have a Keurig. K-cups are NOT CHEAP. I'd buy a pack of 12 that would usually last me 2 weeks and it would be gone in a day or two, with a promise that she'd replace them, which she never did.
She had just started working on the rigs, so then she pulls, "Well I'm only here a week out of the month, I want to pay 1/4th in rent."
I told her, you can't hardly call up your car dealership and tell them since you're driving only a week out of the month you don't want to pay your full lease. Life doesn't work that way. Your crap is in the rooms for all 4 weeks, whether you are or not, it's not like I can rent it out the other 3 weeks to make up the lost money, too bad. I rent out because I HAVE to, because raising two kids in this city is expensive. My daycare alone costs more than my mortgage.
Not only that, but her being gone for 3 weeks out of the month, she expected me to look after her cat. She said in the beginning, "I'll pay you extra to do it!" but never once did, and I've been looking after him for three months now. That's a lot of litter, and extra cat food, AND he's started spraying. I told her about it and she denied it was him, said it must be my cat, but I've caught him twice now. It's definitely him.
So she doesn't like not getting a break in rent, puts up with it for a bit, and says on Oct 1st, "Well then I'm giving you two weeks notice and only half the rent this month. Sorry to put you in a bad spot, but I don't agree that I should pay for a month and I'll find somewhere else."
So at this point, I say whatever. Go. Lack of notice absolutely SUCKS because that means half my bills don't get paid. I search high and low and find a single dad who needs a place to move into by the 15th, it works out really well.
So I contact her today, and tell her that I have someone else moving in on the 15th so please make sure when she moves out on the 14th that everything is clean and left the way it was when she moved in.
Now she says "Actually, I can't move out til the 21st, sorry! I'll pay you an extra $100"
Sorry lady, you gave two weeks notice, I'm holding you to that. This guy's already paid damage and half of October, I can't stiff him on a week because she couldn't get her stuff together. Not only that, but rent is $700, an extra week would be $175, not $100.
She's arguing with me right now, because I told her, "This guy is paying for the last two months, I can't short him a week he's paid for because you didn't plan things right. I took '2 weeks notice' and payment for half the month as to mean you were out on the 14th, and I planned around that." Now she's arguing whether the 14th or the 15th is the exact middle of the month. I figure, one week = 7 days, 2 weeks = 14 days. NOW she's arguing that I have to give her til the 15th because the 14th is a holiday and no one can move on a HOLIDAY. Ugh, semantics be gone.
Now I'm hoping this next one goes okay. On this short of notice, I couldn't find much. The guy moving in is young, a single dad, just settled joint custody with his kids and needs somewhere he can live full time but where there's a second room that the kids can come stay in when he has them. Although, he's young - he says his job is a rapper/performer, and initially he was looking for a single mom to live with, though he's 'okay' with the fact that I'm engaged and my fiance lives with me.
Haha, on another note, my fiance is freaking out a little. All we've had so far is female tenants, and now he's like "What? a MAN is moving in here? I 100% trust you, but I don't know if I'm comfortable with A MAN living here with you" and I was just like, "Seriously, we've lived with females, I've had to deal with you living in the same house as other girls, deal with it"