This is kind of long, my apologies.
I’m active duty and I’m currently splitting rent with a shipmate, his wife, and a civilian in a split-level home. I only recently made E-5 and started receiving my housing allowance, and I only have a year left in the service.
I wanted to split rent to save as much as I could on my way out, money for furniture, random school expenses, emergencies, etc.
My living situation has gotten increasingly more complicated and dramatic. My shipmate and his wife entered an open relationship, she does not have a job. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, because aside from some occasional spats their relationship seemed stable. He didn’t seem to mind that she wasn’t working and his housing allowance covered their rent. He appointed her as “household manager” and asked her to manage bills and keep the house clean since she wasn’t working. When I had signed the lease, she was attending classes and had been working her way towards becoming a medical transcriptionist. She stopped going to classes while we were at sea.
She basically smoked pot all day and left the house a mess, she spoke endlessly about "fostering a community" and incessantly complained about how dirty the house was despite the fact that she was the one making the vast majority of the mess. It was the responsibility of THE COMMUNITY to clean the house. Basically, those of us that were working 12-18 hours a day were expected to do just as much cooking and cleaning as the unemployed wife and her equally jobless friends/partners who spent most of their idle time sleeping, smoking pot, or spewing buzzwords about harmony, energy, and balance.
I couldn’t really afford a move at the time, so I thought I’d just endure the remainder of my lease and move once I had secured a nice safety cushion of funds.
Well, their drama has accelerated ten-fold and I may have to move soon, but my lease doesn’t expire until December. Her husband is filing for separation. She won’t be receiving his housing allowance anymore and now she’s desperately trying to get some money. Yesterday she accused me of owing her a thousand dollars in utilities, which is complete and utter bullshit. I’ve paid every month, with the exception of one month when I was at sea and she told me I didn’t have to pay, and last month because she still hasn’t given me a statement despite several emails and inquiries in person.
She then accused me of not contributing to THE COMMUNITY because I hadn’t been cleaning the house or buying furniture. I clean up after myself and I stopped buying furniture because her friends/other partners destroy everything they touch. It was evidently my responsibility to clean up after everyone else. I told her to get a fucking job, she got angry and said something along the lines of “being just like everyone else.” Her new boyfriend kept pushing himself between us and started yelling at me. I left the house and stayed the night elsewhere.
I don’t know how to go about this, the lease is in her name and my portion of the rent is sub-leased. I'm on orders away from the ship for the remainder of the week so I can’t pull up my copy of the sub-lease right now. My job is stressful and I've only just started to get some savings going. I'm also a year away from being a civilian, I have my entire future to worry about and an adult who is perfectly capable of working is lashing out at all of us because her gravy train is coming to a halt.
Posts
As for money supposedly owed, let he see you in court.
An E-5 housing allowance should be sufficient to lease a studio or one bedroom apartment in most markets, even on a six month lease. This will cut into your savings, which sucks, but roommate drama (especially with drugs involved) can fuck you even harder. Time to be on your own, or at least find a new, less crazy roommate.
If you have no legal out and cannot afford lease break penalties (assuming they're enforceable), start documenting every dime you give her. Also consider a storage unit and keep all but essentials elsewhere.
This is precisely why I don't bother with roommates anymore, even though I'd be more comfortably financially if I did (and I have spare bedrooms).
Having less savings at ETS sucks. Losing your education benefits would suck more. Especially if you somehow wind up with a drug charge, meaning you lose civilian financial aid too.
On that note, though, if any of the use on the property is less than 100% legitimate (assuming any is to begin with) that may be another path to justifying a broken lease on your part.
But all of that is stuff you should try to get legal advice on. The legal office can only go so far, but maybe able to at least offer some general advice. But seriously, 100%, look to extricate yourself from this situation.
Even if the only way out is to pay some penalty, I'd pay it and move. Aside from the ridiculous drama, If THE COMMUNITY turns your home into a hot box slum, you could fail a pee test & get into whatever trouble is involved there.
Also, it's only a matter of time before THE COMMUNITY just starts stealing / wrecking your stuff while you're out of the house.
But seriously, last resort. Hardly even an option, really.
Edit: as an E-5, I'm assuming you're fairly young, which is why I feel it necessary to impress upon you how serious the situation you're in could be. It's not altogether likely, but if you were doing a risk matrix the seriousness of potential consequences (again, lost veterans benefits or even civilian financial aid) would still bump that to a "moderate" or even "high" risk. It's the kind of thing that you assume won't happen to you, and statistically you're right, but some people win the lottery every day, and some others get fucked for life, each unlikely.
They had someone sleeping in my bed while I was at sea, they never asked my permission. I take Adderall once every morning, and she has tried buying it from me multiple times. I keep it locked away so no one has stolen it but at this point I wouldn't put it past them.
Thing is, I'm willing to have an objective conversation about this but they just start shouting, or they extrapolate some bizarre shit out of a very direct statement.
I let some friends stay over for a week and I had informed her months in advance, at no point was payment mentioned. She just asked that they contribute to the grocery budget if they ate anything. They ate out the entire time, and after they left she told me they owed her 200 dollars a piece. The end of that conversation essentially went like this;
Her: So you just let people live in our space without contributing the community?
Me: I was just trying to be nice, I didn't want them to pay for a hotel room.
Her: No, you just like being the cool guy with all the hookups and you wanted to impress your friends. This isn't your mommy's house, okay?
Shit like this just prevents any reasonable discourse, her boyfriend is just as bad.
Scribe. Purveyor of Logic. Player of Video Games.
But you need to find out your exposure on the military side, seriously, because the last thing you need is to wind up getting caught up because you're living in a drug den.
I mean personally I'm a strong advocate for legal recreational marijuana and sensible drug policy. Last I heard the Navy wasn't though, and you need to live in that reality right now. Pop smoke before you get fucked.
lolwut
Yeah, move as soon as you possibly can.
Pretty sure -you- still could (on the military side), but yeah WA makes that less likely. And it may still give you an argument for breaking the lease.
Good luck, man.
And seriously, fuck roommates.
out
no more talking or negotiation
just get out. Pay whatever is obligated legally and not a dime more, get your shit, crash with a friend, and get out. Use their drug use as a legal reason if you need to, tell the landlord you can't be a party to their criminal behavior and you need out.
And frankly, err on the side of paying less and letting then collect if they have legal recourse. You don't owe them shit.
There is also zero chance you could ever hot box eneough to come up hot on a piss test. That is a big wives tale that privates use when they pop hot.
I'm guessing your up in Bremerton? If you were closer to JBLM I would offer you a place to crash until you could get the fuck out of there. I really despise people's spouses that act like her. I see it all the damn time. They are completely independent people, they get married to a service member and realize everything is just being handed to them and they have no more responsibility and they just turn into giant lazy turds. That's why you see all these military wives who weigh 200+ pounds with 20 damn kids.
Get out man, have someone make you some fake pcs orders, do what you got to do.
― John Quincy Adams
As the OP is in Washington and the drug in question is weed, it's only really a legal issue if the apartment is on a military base, which it doesn't sound like it is.
And @Skrims, difficult as it may be, @spool32's advice is probably the best: get out, pay what you have to pay, and do what you can to inform the landlord for your reasons. Do this as quickly as you possibly can.
Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Last.fm | Pandora | LibraryThing | formspring | Blue Moon over Seattle (MCFC)
Get the fuck out. You are at risk sharing the household with someone breaking federal law. And while it's unlikely to occur, all it takes is one wrong person to find out and next thing you know you're up against the wall with a bunch of khakis looking to make an example.
Pay whatever you owe and get out. If you're concerned about cash Fleet and Family and the Navy Marine Corps Society exists for this exact reason. Explain your situation to them and they will help you get the hell out. I've sent my Sailors there before and know they work. Once you are out of there if they keep hounding you for money but don't provide proof, contact JAG. They deal with this bullshit all the time.
I know it sucks that you probably won't have the money you were expecting but you've got job experience that counts for college credit and the GI Bill to help wherever you rent next. Everyone suffers financial setbacks in life and with this one you're still ahead of the vast majority of people.
...consult a lawyer. I would just roll out and tell them to pound sand. Also why isn't the OP living on base?
As for living off base, Navy personnel usually move out of the barracks at E-5 in my experience. Often sooner depending on the bachelor housing situation.
When I was Army it was E-6 generally (for single soldiers), but yeah that'll depend entirely on if the base is short on housing or not (or has a surplus).
And yeah, when you get into UCMJ it's a whole different story...that it's legal in Washington may be entirely irrelevant. Especially when you remember your good friend, Article 134, aka the General Article. Could you get popped for UCMJ action under 134 for being in a house where drugs that are illegal under federal law are commonly possessed and consumed? Could that UCMJ action be cause for separation? Could that UCMJ action (and the particulars of it) impact current or future security clearances?
Great questions all, and I suspect nobody posting in this thread is necessarily in a position to definitively answer them. Especially since part of that will likely come down to his particular command, and whoever is reviewing his particular security clearance. But I think GTFO, ASAP is pretty much the most solid advice available here.
I pad my last month of rent and they know I'm leaving. I've already walked through several apartments.
Pretty excited about having my own space, living in a dump drove me fucking nuts.
It's not enough to just get out (although that's important). Make sure you are not going to be held legally responsible for paying their rent.
Get it down on paper or it didn't happen.
Don't be the kind of idiot I am and require multiple experiences to accept this simple fact.
Yeah, it's a bit ambiguous. OP says "sub-lease" and mentions having a copy of something. "Sub-lease" is not the same thing as "sublet", and the subletting rules can vary depending upon where you live (in some places, subletting is illegal without express content, in others you are essentially treated an unnamed member of the original lease, while in others the terms of the sublet determine your rights & responsibilities).
OP, just make sure you are legally in the clear, here. If you need to notify someone, notify them in writing. If you don't, then enjoy getting the hell out of Dodge!
She brought up my friends again and accused them of abusing her space because they didn't want to cough up 200 dollars a piece despite the fact that payment was never discussed prior to their arrival. I told her she shouldn't expect payment from people out of the blue like that, I told her things like this need to be stated in writing, then she went on a rant about being BUREAUCRATIC and that I'm not prepared for the real world. She won't sign it until she does "research" and she implied that even though I won't be living here that she will make me pay until December if need be.
Jesus christ, I don't know how to talk to this person. Everything becomes a personal attack that has nothing to do with what I'm actually trying to discuss. I guess it's time to talk to a JAG officer.
Edit: I was just physically threatened by her boyfriend again. He ran up to me, smacked both of his hands together, got within inches of my face and told me I had to leave, even though he doesn't pay rent and isn't on the lease. She insisted that I shouldn't feel threatened because he didn't touch me, that "having a small bubble" doesn't prove that I'm being harassed. Fuck this.
I called my chief, he's going to see if I can stay in a spare room next to one of the RO's.
2nd'ing this. I have been in situations where my roommates had decided that my personal property was a nice little bargaining chip and it never turned out pleasantly. If you have a trustworth friend with a spare garage or some nearby storage facility, I would move your valuable items asap and consider putting some kind of lock on your room if you can.
Wud yoo laek to lern aboot meatz? Look here!
Yeah definitely get your stuff out immediately
Oh and call the landlord and get your side of the story acorss first before he starts hearing about how you are literally Satan himself.
I was going to suggest contacting the landlord as well just to see what options there were with regards to the lease but there might also be the fact that she has a "community" living there that he might not be aware of, nor receiving money for that he might otherwise have asked for. I know some landlords charge rent based on occupancy, not to mention the legal ramifications of having people actually living there not on the lease could be something of concern for him as well.
Absolutely true. As a landlord, if I find out that people have moved in subsequent to the lease signing they had better add themselves to the lease agreement--especially if you were on the original one and are leaving.
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
Everything I read basically said "you have to pay the lease until another tenant is found." and she sure as shit isn't capable of doing that considering how long it takes her to tell me what utilities I owe.
Also, her husband apparently isn't paying rent now despite the fact that they aren't legally seperated yet. He literally moved out the other day and left me and the other guy who lives here (not the boyfriend) with his fucking mess. He has to suppport her until matters are settled and he is being very nonchalant about the whole affair so it looks like I'll have to get the chain of command involved.
I'm not sure how much good legal will do because the husband and wife are seperatly seeking advice at the local offices and when I phoned in the representatives said my case could be a conflict of interest.
I also found out that she drove my car over the weekend while I was camping, she's not on my insurance policy. I'm now keeping my keys on my person at all times and I'm avoiding the house as much as humanly possible, my shipmates offered to help me move out this week.
I hate that this is happening. I have to troubleshoot my gear and deal with this bullshit. She tries to make it sound like I'm being cruel for telling her to get a job. She keeps making it personal.
if you are not on the lease then why are you still there
Which could mean she didn't have the legal right to create a sub-lease in the first place invalidating anything the OP and COMMUNITY-girl signed about paying rent. Bonus points would be awarded if the landlord also starts an eviction process against her for breaking the terms of the lease.
Until it's determined that everything is on the up-and-up, and until it's determined exactly what you owe (For instance, in my state a renter only has to pay up to 3 months of rent max or until a new renter moves in prior to the 3 month mark after breaking lease), I would hold off giving this women any more money. Put everything you would give her for rent and bills she claims you owe aside and not touch any of it so you can give her everything in one shot, but not until you and her have a signed, itemized agreement stating what you owe. Also, if you haven't been yet, make sure all payments are with traceable checks and you get a written receipt of any payments made. It'd really suck to pay her in cash then have her turn around and sue you for non-payment, which you'd have to pay if you can't prove you paid it.
At this point, I agree with everyone else here: move as soon as humanly possible, even if it's to a storage unit and friend's couch. Email your intent to terminate the sublease to her and CC the landlord, noting in that email that you already gave it to her in person on [date], and have paid prorated rent for a full 30 days from the moment you hit send on the email. Talk to a lawyer ASAP, and don't communicate with this person in any form but email, waiting a day before responding to anything she says to make sure you don't say anything that will exacerbate the situation.
That's what I'd try to do, anyway. Good luck.
― John Quincy Adams
― John Quincy Adams