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Housemate Vs Noise (*update page 2*)
Willeh Dee
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
*update page 2*
Iv got a serious problem with a house mate. Some advice on how to handle and go forth with the whole situation would be great.
There are 7 of us in the house, were all students at the local university. Were all doing varying courses and were all friends from the first year. We all get along, but some more than others. This is where the problems have arisen.
Last year the 7 of us lived 4 doors down the road, but this house was nicer and the landlady's seemed allot nicer than are 1st one. Girl A, B and C are above me, with girl D behind me on the ground floor (ground floor rooms are allot bigger so iv got more than one room above mine)
The first night girl A has moved in, after B and D have been here a week, im watching TV at about 1 o'clock in the morning (im a geeky night owl i guess) i don't recall how loud it was at first, but it wasn't unreasonable in my opinion. I got a text message from girl A asking me to turn it down, I do so. The TV is now very quite and I get another text asking me to turn it down again from girl A.
Now im a little annoyed at this as the TV is very quite as it is, so i turn it down to the point where im having difficulty hearing whats being said myself! My program finishes and I get a very important personal phone call, not a heated one, but one that I had to answer. I don't talk loudly, but after the 20 minute call i get a text message from girl A, once again telling me im being to loud!!
Now, at this point im kinda frustrated, so i text back telling her that tomorrow shell have to buy some ear muffs or plug's because id been easy with the noise that night and that i was only going to get louder, for i had not been unreasonable and was well within the noise limits of a considerable house mate.
The next morning all my house mates are angry at me for being so inconsiderate and telling me iv gotta keep the noise down etc etc, obviously believing the lies that have been coming from girl A about how noisy i was. (my house mates betrayal to me is not an issue i wanna get into in this thread ta)
Now, girl A swaps rooms with Boy A, who's room was at the back of the house, the opposite end to my room. So now girl A is not a problem, and boy A is now in that room. He hasn't complained once, neither has anyone else, and iv been a hell of allot louder, iv even tried to annoy people at points and haven't had a word said badly about me.
My house mates have all recognized this and are now fully aware that I am in no way an inconsiderate person.
Now, that little problems been solved, we have the big one, and the point of this thread.
3 days ago it was made clear to us that girl A was not happy, or "the unhappiest shed ever been", and that she wanted to move out. We asked if it was the noise to which she replied no. We asked this because she has been down to the lounge 4 or 5 times to ask us to keep it down and shut the kitchen door to not hear us.
We do not know why she is unhappy in this house, she doesn't lift a finger when it comes to doing household chores such as washing up, she doesn't control any of the finances, she does nothing to contribute essentially, we haven't asked her to, she has not revealed why she is unhappy. She tells us she is moving out, to where ever, when asked if it was with a bunch of random people she said possibly.
Now, none of us are unreasonable house mates, were all fairly different, we all have our own friends, whilst at the same time sharing friends and doing stuff together as a house as uni students do. My house mates do not party hard, only me and one other are single, we haven't had a house party, we've never had more than 3 people over at a time, basically, i cannot stress how considerate and mellow a house this is. (there are no drugs and drunkenness occurs at a max of maybe once a week) I call the house boring, and party with outside friends when I feel the need to, but to be honest, I do like the quiet life here. Shes moving out and we frankly, cannot understand why she is unhappy, or what she thinks shes going to get in a different house!
The day after this shit really hit the fan. The whole house got an email about noise. Apparently someone was complaining about it, and it was bought to our attention we had neighbors and house mates to consider and that our noise levels were unacceptable. Frankly, this was bullshit. How our neighbors emailed are landlady's at all, let alone doing so before asking us to turn anything down, screams the idea that they haven't complained.
It was obvious Girl A had been complaining about us to the landlady behind our back and telling them she was moving out before telling us. What she has said in these emails must have made out we were very noisy and terrible people, which is a huge lie. Obviously i am biased, but i cannot stress enough how quiet this house is, ESPECIALLY for a uni house!!
This has obviously caused everyone who already thought Girl A was a bit strange, spoilt, and frankly rather unsocial and not someone anyone would want to live with, to dislike her. We all feel fairly betrayed by this. Obviously my house mates have seen that it was not me being loud as they have experienced first hand I am not, especially now they are being complained about as well.
How do we handle this? My landlady's think were inconsiderate and bad tenants and we want to live here next year! We obviously want girl A out as were fed up of pandering to her (not turning bathroom lights on because it makes to much noise etc etc, it really is insane!!)
My house mates want to compose an email to respond quickly and politely claiming to not know what is going on, but imo, and im the only one who thinks this, is that one of us rings her and explains the situation from our side, of which the landlady's haven't heard, and get the ball rolling on that front, for we aren't in the wrong!
Sorry its so long, but i wanted to make sure i was explaining everything correctly as im not a brilliant writer and my English is terrible. Thanks guys.
Iv got a serious problem with a house mate. Some advice on how to handle and go forth with the whole situation would be great.
There are 7 of us in the house, were all students at the local university. Were all doing varying courses and were all friends from the first year. We all get along, but some more than others. This is where the problems have arisen.
Last year the 7 of us lived 4 doors down the road, but this house was nicer and the landlady's seemed allot nicer than are 1st one. Girl A, B and C are above me, with girl D behind me on the ground floor (ground floor rooms are allot bigger so iv got more than one room above mine)
The first night girl A has moved in, after B and D have been here a week, im watching TV at about 1 o'clock in the morning (im a geeky night owl i guess) i don't recall how loud it was at first, but it wasn't unreasonable in my opinion. I got a text message from girl A asking me to turn it down, I do so. The TV is now very quite and I get another text asking me to turn it down again from girl A.
Now im a little annoyed at this as the TV is very quite as it is, so i turn it down to the point where im having difficulty hearing whats being said myself! My program finishes and I get a very important personal phone call, not a heated one, but one that I had to answer. I don't talk loudly, but after the 20 minute call i get a text message from girl A, once again telling me im being to loud!!
Now, at this point im kinda frustrated, so i text back telling her that tomorrow shell have to buy some ear muffs or plug's because id been easy with the noise that night and that i was only going to get louder, for i had not been unreasonable and was well within the noise limits of a considerable house mate.
The next morning all my house mates are angry at me for being so inconsiderate and telling me iv gotta keep the noise down etc etc, obviously believing the lies that have been coming from girl A about how noisy i was. (my house mates betrayal to me is not an issue i wanna get into in this thread ta)
Now, girl A swaps rooms with Boy A, who's room was at the back of the house, the opposite end to my room. So now girl A is not a problem, and boy A is now in that room. He hasn't complained once, neither has anyone else, and iv been a hell of allot louder, iv even tried to annoy people at points and haven't had a word said badly about me.
My house mates have all recognized this and are now fully aware that I am in no way an inconsiderate person.
Now, that little problems been solved, we have the big one, and the point of this thread.
3 days ago it was made clear to us that girl A was not happy, or "the unhappiest shed ever been", and that she wanted to move out. We asked if it was the noise to which she replied no. We asked this because she has been down to the lounge 4 or 5 times to ask us to keep it down and shut the kitchen door to not hear us.
We do not know why she is unhappy in this house, she doesn't lift a finger when it comes to doing household chores such as washing up, she doesn't control any of the finances, she does nothing to contribute essentially, we haven't asked her to, she has not revealed why she is unhappy. She tells us she is moving out, to where ever, when asked if it was with a bunch of random people she said possibly.
Now, none of us are unreasonable house mates, were all fairly different, we all have our own friends, whilst at the same time sharing friends and doing stuff together as a house as uni students do. My house mates do not party hard, only me and one other are single, we haven't had a house party, we've never had more than 3 people over at a time, basically, i cannot stress how considerate and mellow a house this is. (there are no drugs and drunkenness occurs at a max of maybe once a week) I call the house boring, and party with outside friends when I feel the need to, but to be honest, I do like the quiet life here. Shes moving out and we frankly, cannot understand why she is unhappy, or what she thinks shes going to get in a different house!
The day after this shit really hit the fan. The whole house got an email about noise. Apparently someone was complaining about it, and it was bought to our attention we had neighbors and house mates to consider and that our noise levels were unacceptable. Frankly, this was bullshit. How our neighbors emailed are landlady's at all, let alone doing so before asking us to turn anything down, screams the idea that they haven't complained.
It was obvious Girl A had been complaining about us to the landlady behind our back and telling them she was moving out before telling us. What she has said in these emails must have made out we were very noisy and terrible people, which is a huge lie. Obviously i am biased, but i cannot stress enough how quiet this house is, ESPECIALLY for a uni house!!
This has obviously caused everyone who already thought Girl A was a bit strange, spoilt, and frankly rather unsocial and not someone anyone would want to live with, to dislike her. We all feel fairly betrayed by this. Obviously my house mates have seen that it was not me being loud as they have experienced first hand I am not, especially now they are being complained about as well.
How do we handle this? My landlady's think were inconsiderate and bad tenants and we want to live here next year! We obviously want girl A out as were fed up of pandering to her (not turning bathroom lights on because it makes to much noise etc etc, it really is insane!!)
My house mates want to compose an email to respond quickly and politely claiming to not know what is going on, but imo, and im the only one who thinks this, is that one of us rings her and explains the situation from our side, of which the landlady's haven't heard, and get the ball rolling on that front, for we aren't in the wrong!
Sorry its so long, but i wanted to make sure i was explaining everything correctly as im not a brilliant writer and my English is terrible. Thanks guys.
Willeh Dee on
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the landlady wont care once she is gone, especially if it was girl A who wrote the email, i doubt any of the neighbors said anything to the landlord before asking you all to quiet down, especially if the neighbors are young crazy college kids
i say let her go and dont think twice about it
If she isn't going to tell you what's wrong except that it's not the noise, then there isn't much you can do I don't think other than vote her off the island or something.
Now I've never lived in a dorm or a house with a bunch of college people, but I did share an apartment with a roommate who (was) a good friend of mine.
I think there is something where if you are being obnoxious, annoying, noisy, irritating, whatever, you just don't notice. My roommate was pretty much drunk at all hours of the night, partying 2-3 nights a week during weeknights and basically just making tons of noise and being an inconsiderate asshole the whole time. I told him on almost a daily basis to keep quiet because its 3am and I have to work at 8am. 3-4 nights a week he would be up at 2-4 am cooking ramen noodles in the kitchen, banging all the pots and pans, slamming drawers and cupboards, which were on the wall against my bedroom... drove me absolutely fucking nuts. He also liked to watch tv and dvds in the living room after midnight with the bass turned up all the way because his girlfriend won't let him watch tv in his room when she is sleeping.
I got depressed, slipped up at work, lost my job, and moved out. On my way out I made sure his whole family and all of his friends knew what kind of an asshole he was.
While I'm sure you and your housemates are reasonable people, keep in mind that to some people a little bit of a noise can be too much. Although I agree turning on a bathroom light is just bitching, but making noise in the kitchen if their room is nearby and they are trying to sleep or something, not cool. Also, TVs are louder than you think. My TV in my bedroom for instance, I have to have the volume at 15-18 to hear it most of the time, yet if I walk down the hall to the kitchen past 2 other bedrooms I can still hear my TV pretty clearly in the kitchen... just the way sound works.
If you need to appeal to your landlord, go ahead and do that. Get everyone in the house to sign a letter or something explaining that Girl A is just being unreasonable and list the stupid requests she has made.
My 2 cents.
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Thats the thing, clearly the landlady has only heard her side of the story, which means she thinks theres reasonable grounds for complaint, when there really isn't! This is why this is such a big problem. I mean, its obviously not reasonable and when she hears from a full on Christian (that hates swearing and is pretty straight edge) and the other 5 of us, its guna be clear were not unreasonable, but how do we go about this? I wanna phone up be upfront about our whole side of things, but my house mates don't wanna start a big war with the landlady's encase they don't see things our way straight away or something, i obviously disagree with this as im fairly certain anyone who hears this from all 6 of us will know who's the problem.
I'd disagree with the kitchen thing, you should be able to use the kitchen at all hours save banging pots and pans around and beeping from the microwave you should be able to use the equipment fairly quietly and within normal tolerances, it sounds to me that she needs to learn to be able to sleep through stuff (it is possible I used to wake up from people walking up and down a slate corridor barefoot, now I sleep through it). Just go have a chat with the land lady and ask her to confirm it was one of your neighbours.
Also turn crazy bat girl lose, the only thing that she appears to be doing is chipping in once a month for rent and thats it. I.e. Bad room mate.
Satans..... hints.....
Dont call the land lady. Let the crazy bitch move away, and your land lady will never get another complaint. Im sure she'll realise it was just some bitter idiot trying to screw over the people she was leaving behind.
And yes. Some roommates are just insane. I had one who used to tell me i couldnt go to the bathroom after 9pm, because it shared a wall with her room.
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Say, "great, would you like me to help you pack?"
Personally, I'd probably get the rest of my housemates together, and either write an e-mail to the landlady signed by all of you, or meet with her together, so she knows that it's one crazy person, rather than the rest of you being assholes.
No, you paid your rent for your room and those rooms also, as long as you don't get into singstar battles at three in morning or feel the urge to use a mixmaster you have free reign of those areas, seriously you should be able to talk at normal volume. What did that girl used to sleep in a sound proof recording studio?
In regards to the entire toilet thing as someone who is located next to a wall of one I'm a massive fan of if it's brown flush it down, if it's yellow let it mellow once I'm in bed. That thing is noisey if you are right next to it, but if it needs to be flushed it needs to be flushed.
Satans..... hints.....
Exactly
she is a heinous bia
let her go, the landlady doesnt care as long as she is getting the rent and you arent trashing the place, if things get sticky, have everyone collectively assertain that the girl is nuts in the presence of the landlady
What you need to do is get everyone together and have a house meeting, and confront the girl. Tell her "you have a problem with dealing with people and noise. We don't know what's causing it, but if you're not willing to talk to us and compromise, you need to find a new place to live."
I've had friends who roomed with 4, 5 people, and inevitably one person gets weird. There's not really much rationale or reasoning behind it, as it could be because the person is a single child and is used to a lot of space, or they have a big family and are used to everyone around them being related. Or they're a very orderly person and if something deviates from that, they freak out. Or she's just a stone cold bitch. There's no way to really know without talking to her, but it doesn't change the situation that you need to either have her fix it (and you guys can support her), or you need to have her move out.
It's 6 vs 1, and if the 6 of you want to use the kitchen and talk and watch movies after 1am, and she doesn't, then she needs to find new accomodations. You can do house rules like "OK, we study and go to bed earlier mon-thur, since we have classes etc. Some of us don't so if you watch TV, don't blast it or use the fancy speakers. On fri-sun, try to be in bed by 3am (or whatever time), and remember that people are sleeping until 11ish
But you all need to agree on it. If she's just a debbie downer, then you guys need to get together and ask her to move out.
Yeah, I'd say depression is a strong contender, especially as a lot of people can suffer from it when they go to university. That fact that she is living with a group of people who she only interacts with to tell them to shut up makes it even more likely. It's not much fun living with people who you don't connect with (not that that's your fault or anything, it might not even be that she doesn't like you, just that she can't identify with anyone in the house or something). Moving out would probably do her good as there's a strong possibility that she might move in with people she does like.
My first year at university, I stayed in halls of residence. I got along with the people in my halls (except for one guy, who wasn't that bad but he had some obnoxious girlfriends who I crossed swords with once or twice and I don't think he though much of me anyway), but I never really felt especially close to any of them - I liked them, but I guess we just shared different motviations. I was severely miserable that first year. When it came to the end of the first year, we all started looking for flats.
I was going to share a flat with one of my hall-mates and some mutual friends from other halls, but the flat they settled on had a landlord who ticked all the boxes on my 'suspicious person' checklist - guarded, pushy, defensive, inconsistent - and there was some disagreement on who we had and hadn't agreed would share the flat, so I decided it seemed too volatile and pulled out early before getting stuck in a lease.
It was probably one of my best decisions ever. I found a room in a new flat with no idea who my new co-tennants would be and ended up with one guy who I got to be really close with (we virtually lived in eachothers dressing-gown pockets for a year), one girl who was really nice and one guy from Nigeria who was most definately schizophrenic, sociopathic and quite possibly a terrorist (he dissappeared nver to be seen again in a taxi at around 3am one morning after having loaded it full of 'bathroom fittings' from Homebase right around the time the police were raiding terrorist cells in Birmingham who were using stuff bought at DIY stores for building bombs). Nevertheless, I was much, much happier that second year (plus the original flat fell appart - one of the guys I didn't want to share with us originally bailed on the rest and the landlord turned into a total dick trying to make them pay his share of the rent and other asshattery).
I'd say either encourage her to get help or hope she moves on soon. Forcing her out wouldn't be cool. Once she's gone, settle thing with your landlord. So long as nobody else is complaining, she'll mark it off as either an anomaly or dealt with by her email.
It's an adjustment period for you too, apparently. You're quite afraid that this girl's letter is going to affect your place of residence, and you're wondering what you should tell the landlady? The truth! You and your roommates don't have to put up with that, but you're going to have to stand up and let it be known--you're not being unreasonably quiet and you've made every effort to accommodate this girl, but her demands have gotten excessive. If you don't tell your landlady this (be calm, too), then of course she's going to believe girl A's side of the story, since that's the only one she's heard.
Actually, that makes things easier. For you at least. It's definately the tenancy agreement of choice for any UK student as it means you are only responsible for your own bills and conduct. There's no way the landlady is going to try and evict six tenants on individual leases unless there is substantial evidence from the girls complaints. That would probably involve the girl complaining to the police so there was official police reports and police witnesses to your mayhem - which there won't be if you haven't been causing any mayhem.
Aren't they ALL?!
Don't worry about the lease. Have her find a new person or split up her share amongst you until you do. I've done it before. Everything went okay.
lrn 2 reed, n00b. They all have seperate agreements for each room rental.
I'd agree with the earlier statements of creating a letter (actually do a letter and print it and have the other tenants sign it) explaining that The Undersigned agree that no excessive or unreasonable noise or distraction has occured, etc etc.
If it comes down to it, unless there actually was a complaint from somone besides GirlA, the landlord would be unlikely to evict 6 vs. 1.
The one (semi-pain-free) option that occurs to me right now is to have a one-on-one with her and explain that if she feels uncomfortable now and wishes to stay in ANY CAPACITY, then she needs to engage in a group meeting with all of the tenants and everyone should agree upon the rules.
However, it sounds like Girl A is on the way out the door and has no interest in staying. In which case, Doc's suggestion of, "Can I help you pack, since you want to be underhanded and sneaky, rather than upfront and mature," seems like the way to go.
TL;DR If she's in a bad way, be nice; if she's being snotty, get everyone together with the landlord, and speak your piece.
I don't see how that would change the reply.
Now, shes signed the 12 month contract with the landlady's, however, she is advertising the room for rent. This has confused the hell out of me, as she hasn't told the landlady's.
I'm posting cause I don't know how this is guna go. If she finds someone, tells my landlady to put the contract in there name and tell them there paying for it, will this mean me and my house mates will be stuck with some random person in her room? I don't wanna end up living with some reject of society, I mean, the only kind of students looking for accommodation at this time of year are guna be the retarded/crazy/awkward ones like her.
Advice please H&A.
The rejects are the ones who get all excited for moving out and register early
If the leases are all individually signed, you don't have all that much say in the matter. If her leaving doesn't increase your rent, then it's a moot point. Can you petition the landlady to completely ignore her contract, giving you an empty room but increasing everyone's rent? Possibly; that's something to ask her, though. You can also simply find a friend or "relatively normal person" to answer her ad.
It culminated with her flipping out at me when i moved, cause 1 week after she insisted i take every couch with me, cause she didn't want to move them, she caled me an insensitive prick for taking every couch.
Point is, I guess not everyone is rational when it comes to this stuff, and my quality of life vastly improved when i finally moved out. Since you have a bunch of people that are cool, and she's not, the simpler solution would be to get her out.