Some advice re the mother in law.

DKLS

Dont understand how two graduates dont know how to find somewhere to live, neither benefits or the cat should be an issue.

Try:
Gumtree
Rentaroom.co.uk
Spareroom.co.uk
easyroomate.com
Local rag


As a stop gap, if your home cooking is not to her tastes add a huge spoonful of sugar and salt to her portion, with a squidge of lard, that way your food will taste like her convenience food.

zzzLazyDaisy

ariarnia wrote: »

I can afford to pay you the LHA amount for your area, plus we can prob find another £20 a month, would like 2 rooms and no communal areas ideally (apart from bathroom of course)

LHA for a couple under 25yrs is for one room in a shared house, with shared bathroom and kitchen. If your OH is over 25, then you would be entitled to LHA for a one bedroomed self contained place. It is not possible to get a 'bond' where you are living now and use that to find a room in another area because LHA is decided on a regional basis - there is an upper limit, and if you choose to rent somewhere more expensive you must find the difference yourself (you can find LHA rates by googling 'LHA and the area to wish to move to). In any case in order to apply for LHA you need a tenancy agreement or written confirmation from the landlord that you are a tenant. Also, LHA doesn't cover bills.

Brecon_Beacons

ariarnia wrote: »

she finds it convenient to come home to cooked food and also wants snacks out of her £40 - an unrealistic expectation from the money she's paying.

Hmmm, there could be many interpretations of this behaviour. Like: she offered you £40 a week 'to cook for us all' as a way of helping you out - not because she likes your cooking! But the subsequent behaviour - leaving the food you cooked, sabotaging your planned meals, buying expensive ready-meals - all screams in non-verbal language, "your money problems are not my concern". Which in truth, they are not!!


She wanted us to move in and actively hampered us finding alternative accommodation as she thinks it's a waste for us to rent when she can give us a room.
What people say, and what people really mean, can be two very different things! It may be duty that tells her to offer her son - and you by proxy - a free roof above your head. But the fact of the matter is, you are living in a roof space, surrounded by boxes. It doesn't sound like there's much of a welcome in the hillside, to me!
And what 'waste' are you talking of? If both you and your partner are unemployed, any rent would be paid by Housing Benefit.

I have no real problems living here,
That comment really worries me! You are unemployed, living in an attic, being drawn into arguments about food with a woman who plainly - plainly! - is getting into a very tense situation about the living arrangements.

Please have a little more ambition for yourself. You and partner could go anywhere, live anywhere, look for work anywhere. Hundreds of thousands of graduating twenty-somethings do just that: pick a town, take a council flat - initially on benefits - but then move onwards and upwards as they make something of their lives.

You can do it too!

DVardysShadow

DKLS wrote: »

As a stop gap, if your home cooking is not to her tastes add a huge spoonful of sugar and salt to her portion, with a squidge of lard, that way your food will taste like her convenience food.

MSE - top site for cookery tips.

BitterAndTwisted

ariarnia wrote: »

If so and if they're reading this

Hello, I am a nice person. I'm 24, a bit of a loner. Don't have noisy music or so on (have wireless headphones) do have an OH. And a cat. Cat is also lovely.

Please feel free to pm me - you are lovely.

I can afford to pay you the LHA amount for your area, plus we can prob find another £20 a month, would like 2 rooms and no communal areas ideally (apart from bathroom of course), but would be ok with one if big and access to a communal area. Also willing to do housework and cook if in contract to supliment rent.

Anywhere in the uk, ireland or scotland accepted. Public transport links prefered as we have no car and can't drive.

(not being flip, you never know.)

On a more practical note, other than gumtree, where do people advertise for lodgers, and how expensive are they in relation to flats?

Badger_Lady is in your neck of the woods and sounds like a dream to lodge with. Very flexible and tolerant and her house is lovely. I wonder if she's got someone else since Quackerslodger moved out.....

Paparika

how about, although you can see it as taking the mickey out of what she has bought...


gather up all she has bought, and get her in the kitchen and say ok, we are going to do a can't cook, won't cook kind of thing and ask her what you can cook with what she's bought.. point out that eating nuts could kill you and so she should have the ambulance service on speed dial

or would she take offence,

or perhaps if she is acting like a child treat her like one.

ariarnia

Atomised wrote: »

Am I the only person who thinks the OP contradicts herself? She hates cooking for her mother , claims they want to leave but then says they have it good there
I know how horrible MIL 's can be but you are both young , qualified and healthy so why live in an attic?! There are 100's of sites out there where you can find somewhere less stressful as living with family can lead to fallouts for decades to come. Make a move!

I don't hate it, I like cooking. I hate the childish behaviour and lack of consideration.

I never said we wanted to leave, my OH wants to stay close to home and doesn't mind staying here until we can put a deposit together. I we can sort something re the cooking situation, neither would I. I have offered to pay what rent I can afford and I have pointed out that if we weren't here it wouldn't waste money as LHA, but she disagrees so my partner won't focus on moving with me (it's not a thing against him, but he very much goes with the strongest wind)

I don't object to cooking for when she walks through the door, but I do expect - if I am expected to cook - to know when I'm cooking for and not to have someone walk in with food for tonight when the food for tonight is already cooked.

All it would take would be a phone call when she's finished work to say she's called into the supermarket and fancies pizza. Then I wouldn't cook the food and it would keep for the next day. Coming in when the food is cooked and stropping that you want something else, when you knew what was going to be cooked and when it was going to be cooked for is just childish.

Waste is also the fact that she keeps buying masses of stuff (like the stollen - she got several loves when she didn't know if she liked it or not) and then !!!!!ing when 3 weeks later it's blue and I throw it out. (it was blue after 2 weeks and I had mentioned to her that it was going off)

ariarnia

Paparika wrote: »

how about, although you can see it as taking the mickey out of what she has bought...


gather up all she has bought, and get her in the kitchen and say ok, we are going to do a can't cook, won't cook kind of thing and ask her what you can cook with what she's bought.. point out that eating nuts could kill you and so she should have the ambulance service on speed dial

or would she take offence,

or perhaps if she is acting like a child treat her like one.

Unfortunately, though I can giggle at that, I was brought up to be polite and I value having a relationship with her.

She is a generous and well intentioned woman. My OH loves her, she's just driving me mad.

She's like the typical problematic teen over just this one issue and if I can sort this, while it might not be the best place in the world to be, it means my OH gets to have dogs without having dogs, it means we have somewhere we don't have to worry about rent, and we have somewhere full stop.

ariarnia

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Badger_Lady is in your neck of the woods and sounds like a dream to lodge with. Very flexible and tolerant and her house is lovely. I wonder if she's got someone else since Quackerslodger moved out.....

She does sound like a lovely woman but she's had sleepy lodger moved in and after quackers, I'm not sure how she feels about dss. I might PM her after discussing it with the OH and letting him read the thread (might take a week or so )

ariarnia

Brecon_Beacons wrote: »

ariarnia wrote: »

Hmmm, there could be many interpretations of this behaviour. Like: she offered you £40 a week 'to cook for us all' as a way of helping you out - not because she likes your cooking! But the subsequent behaviour - leaving the food you cooked, sabotaging your planned meals, buying expensive ready-meals - all screams in non-verbal language, "your money problems are not my concern". Which in truth, they are not!!

We didn't cook for her for the couple of weeks or so and it felt uncomfortable us eating something lovely, cheap and home made and her eating a one person microwave lasagnie with a multi pack of crisps. I budgeted for the two of us for less money than JSA (short rent) for the best part of a year before moving in and she knows this. We were origionally doing housework in leiu of rent as we can't get LHA while living with her and she asked if she could give us money for food later after she's spent a week solidly cribbing our food as it meant she snacked less, it was only when she found out the cost of the individual meals that she decided that she wasn't happy and wanted things like micro rice 'as the other stuffs just tasteless'

What people say, and what people really mean, can be two very different things! It may be duty that tells her to offer her son - and you by proxy - a free roof above your head. But the fact of the matter is, you are living in a roof space, surrounded by boxes. It doesn't sound like there's much of a welcome in the hillside, to me!
And what 'waste' are you talking of? If both you and your partner are unemployed, any rent would be paid by Housing Benefit.

she lives in a bungalow with one bedroom after downsising from a 3 story victorian place, the attic's the only place to go... I was just illustrating that as comparable rented accomodation, a landlord couldn't charge much even if it was up to spec.

That comment really worries me! You are unemployed, living in an attic, being drawn into arguments about food with a woman who plainly - plainly! - is getting into a very tense situation about the living arrangements.

We haven't had any arguments about it. I genuinly don't think that she thinks that there's a problem.

Please have a little more ambition for yourself. You and partner could go anywhere, live anywhere, look for work anywhere. Hundreds of thousands of graduating twenty-somethings do just that: pick a town, take a council flat - initially on benefits - but then move onwards and upwards as they make something of their lives.

You can do it too!

I've been offered a place in germany for a summer, to go to my mum in indonesia (if we can find £600 each for the flight) and I can go on LHA, I have these options, but I don't see that I can ennact any of them before christmas. and not really without some form of money on one side for all the other little expenses (bonds, travel to the flat, moving costs - and before you ask, MIL won't help as she doesn't want us to move out)

If I'm being honest (and slightly !!!!!y) her little baby boy has come home finally (she was nagging for him to do so for the full year he was graduated and with me) and all's right with the world. Especially if it also contains cream cakes.