Sick of shared house living

Lotus-eater

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

I'm saying all this whilst knowing that I'm a lot like you I'm living alone now and it totally suits my temperament

Yes I should have said, I'm the same, while I did enjoy my years of sharing, (most of it was in an alcoholic haze to be frank, not to be recommended) I enjoy being on my own alot more. I live now with my lovely OH and kids, but I still need to be by myself sometimes.

The various guys and our girlfriends I shared with, were just great and we had some fantastic times, but we had our moments. We were all very relaxed about stuff that went on, you just have to be. But when it went wrong I started feeling sick about going home and not enjoying it at all.

Can you picture yourself happy in any sort of shared house? Because I can't see it, so take measures and sort yourself something else out, it's your health and it's not going to get any better while you are getting so stressed all the time.

top_drawer_2

hello again,

Thanks everyone for posting, it given me some things to think about, some replies were more useful than others but the good ones were excellent. I wonder if some of you have actually lived in a shared house and understand its not all like friends, Neighbours etc etc and I am not an unpleasant, dominating person (exactly the opposite in fact) who hates and detests all housemates. There is not enough space on the internet to tell you all the good that has come out of shared house living, before things went t!ts up last time I would have sold this way of living as the answer to all life's problems (well maybe not quite ...... but its certainly not all bad).

Some people could certainly do with working on their empathtic skills or use their imagination a little, sometimes things seem to obvious to say. I did my best to convey as much as I could last night in the attitude I have in reality, maybe im not great with words but I cant find any suggestion that I was suggesting that my housemates don't have the "right" to try the bathroom door, I have no doubt he didnt know I was in there (why else would he try the door?) - what I was saying was that I did my best to accomodate (i.e waiting til they were all out, funnily something one your suggestions, shows how well some people read) them to make sure no-one was waiting for the loo and he came home just as I had got settled. What I guess I am trying to convey overall is that the last few weeks everything has seemed a bit like that .... the bus just leaves as I am arriving etc

Almo - I am rarely home and if I am then I am busy, I do pilates on a Monday evening, dressmaking on a Thursday (daytime). I have hobbies in photography (Thursday evenings), the gym and swimming, I have two guinea pigs and I work. Last night just seemed too much as I am in quite a bit of pain (ongoing back problem) and have had a !!!!!! week. If I could live alone then I would ... wouldn't everyone?!?!

Lotus Eater - No not at uni and unlikely things will change soon.

Jody - As I said I have suffered depression in the past and as with many illness its something thats always in the shadows, I am on the lookout all the time for things which may affect me adversely and try to deal with them promptly rather than letting them fester. I dont think I have overly set ideas really on how I want to live but as far as I am aware I am a single person who lives in a shared house. I do my best to mitigate the impact my choices about my life (hence waiting to have a bath till everyone is out/knocking on doors to check if they want the loo before I get in the bath...) have on others who happen to live with me and don't think its reasonable that on an evening I am listening to someone else's music bump bump bump bumping away .... Now I have articulated this in my own mind I will be telling my housemate so later this week when I next see him..... I am also going to make an effort to chat to him a little ...... I love cooking and I know he has come from living in a traditional family home so I am going to appeal to his tummy a little and see if I can persuade him to come out of his room. The gf never comes down into the house unless she can help it, if she does then she disappears sharpish when she sees one of us around again.... There is no problem with her stopping occasionally ... but she has been here the past two weeks!

TD

belfastgirl23

top_drawer wrote: »

hello again,
\

Some people could certainly do with working on their empathtic skills or use their imagination a little, sometimes things seem to obvious to say. I did my best to convey as much as I could last night in the attitude I have in reality, maybe im not great with words but I cant find any suggestion that I was suggesting that my housemates don't have the "right" to try the bathroom door, I have no doubt he didnt know I was in there (why else would he try the door?) - what I was saying was that I did my best to accomodate (i.e waiting til they were all out, funnily something one your suggestions, shows how well some people read)

TD

Hmm so even though I took the time and trouble to read and respond to your first post I guess I haven't lived up to your exacting standards. Interestingly that's exactly the point I was trying to make to you, that you are setting standards for people and then judging them when they fail to live up to them.

At the end of the day you can choose to sit around feeling that the rest of the world should fit in with you but it isn't going to get you anywhere. If you really can't move, you need to also accept that you can't change your housemates and try to find a way to live with them. Or you can continue to be very unhappy. Those are your choices and it's up to you what you do about them.

mountainofdebt

tbh OP I think you are in a difficult situation as effectively you are living with 2 other people who have been thrown together through necessity rather than a desire to live together.

As others have said nothing you originally posted seems out of the norm for living with others - be honest now how loud is the music? Is it so loud tha you can hear it down the street or is it audible just becuase his room is above the living room?

As for the bathroom thing I have to say if you waited for the 1st hm to go out then chances were that the 2nd hm was going to come back whilst you were in the bath (ask any mum children will always want to come in when they're trying to have a relaxing bath!) and it does sound as if you are making the bigger deal of the situation than your hm was!

As for the gf staying does it really matter? I mean I presume the hm is paying for her food and it costs the same to heat / light a room for one person as it does for 2! The only additional expense I can think of is toilet roll!

ceridwen

I have to say that I agree with feeling peeved that a H.M. has someone staying constantly for two weeks at a time - and would be worried that they had moved in "unofficially" in fact. After all - its an extra person sharing the facilities - which isnt a good thing.

I do find the idea VERY odd indeed of a landlord choosing which total strangers live together with each other - they could be incompatible, they could even be thieves - who knows? I have come across a couple of households like this and find it wierd that they havent been able to choose their own housemates TBH. Until recently I had assumed that all houseshares consisted of a group of friends who had decided to live together and then found a house together - and that the only variation on that would be if one of them moved out (at which point they would all hold "communal interviews" with prospective new tenants to make sure they all thought that particular person was suitable to move in as a replacement).

Way back - when I had to live in rented accommodation - I deliberately chose to live in bedsits, rather than houseshares. It was annoying to have to share bathrooms with total strangers - it meant, for instance, that no-one ever seemed to clean the darn bath. However - at least when I shut my own little door that was me on my own or with company I had invited in of my choice. There were a variety of other problems with bedsit living - which would also apply to other rented accommodation (FAR too low a standard of accommodation basically) - but living in bedsits, rather than a shared house did have SOME minimising effect.

I have shared accommodation with strangers for some years in the event - as I had to take in lodgers to start with when I bought my own house - but at least I chose who moved in. Even more to the point - if they didnt work out - I could/did give them notice.

I do sympathise about having to share with others. It very much depends on the type of person you are/activities you go in for/etc whether this will suit you.

I dont suffer from depression - but couldnt live in the sort of set-up you do. In fact - I had always assumed I would eventually have a detached house with a reasonable size garden by now - because of the level of privacy/peace and quiet/etc I require and regard as the norm - but am having (like a lot of people) to live in a level of accommodation that doesnt quite suit me because of shortage of funds. But - my situation is a heck of a sight better than yours I can see - at least when I shut my front door behind me then I'm on my own inside my home.

Take care - and I do suggest you start looking for a bedsit instead. Am also wondering whether you might have thought of more "alternative" type living arrangements - do you have enough money to be able to buy a live-in caravan or something perhaps?

rach

OP there are some different kinds of shared houses, for instance my friend owns one (a bit place next to her own house) and she interviews all potential tenants and then invites them for a meal with the current tenants so they all have a say in who moves in. Over many years she has only had one or two problems. She also makes clear that occasional guests are fine/ partners staying at weekends etc but that it's not ok to have someone else constantly living in your room - if everyone did this there would be far too many people in the house!

I wonder if you could find somewhere more like that to live?

top_drawer_2

hi again,

Mountain of Debt - The music was loud enough that the bump bump bumping was disturbing me doing what I was wanting to do with my time. As I have said I am a single person who cant afford to live alone and I am adamant that the people I have live with should impact too much on my life, I expect that the same is true of me and do my best to make sure it doesn't.... I will be making this point to my housemate on the next occasion that he has his music on this loud. Its not a one-off but pretty much every night as he and our unofficial houseguest stop in (I quite feel for her to be honest, she must be getting terrible cabin fever by now and to listen to that racket would drive me insane.....)

I think the unofficial houseguest is only really a problem because we havent been introduced, and she stays in the house while he is at work... plus we don't know how long this is for (two weeks now who knows if she will be back next week).

Ceridwen - Thank god for someone who seems to have actually been there and it bothered them too - honestly I am not odd in this but seem to be the only one of the people I know who has these type of situations.

Our LL chose the ones who come come up with the money the fastest - this used to be her house but she has moved to live with her partner. I had hoped she would be a little more fussy but she seems to be in it very much for an easy life and the money ....

I haven't thought of "alternative" living arrangements to be honest. I don't know where to start - would a caravan not be too cold in the winter? where would I park it? I have looked into council flats but with having no children/dependants etc I am unlikely to get offered anything in the near or even distant future as there is just too much demand around here by people who do have children :(

I'm not sure about the idea of bedsits - I used to know someone who had one in a huge house and they said that they had many of the same problems but without the contact with people so that they could at least go and speak to them about the problem.... Like I said I feel that I could now that I have got it straight in my own head and to be honest I don't envisage he'll be too unreasonable about it :cool:

Rach - I hoped that this would be a similar situation (with it being her own house in the past) here but the LL has proved not to be too fussy and very lazy in completing jobs/coming round to deal with things - she is always full of excuses which is getting to be annoying, afterall we all work/have other things going on that we would prefer to be doing and for me living my life around the stuff she hasnt got round too is one of them.

Plus the last place I lived the LL thought her was fussy but I found that people can be very good at protraying an image which is complete
bol locks but in the end most people prefer to believe what they see regardless of what others tell them.

TD

Fluffi

top_drawer wrote: »

hello,

This past few months I have made this house home and that is all I want .... I just seem to be stuck in a caatch-22 as I can't afford to live alone, I don't know of anyone looking for someone to share with or who has a spare room (and is willing to let me make it home as opposed to their house where I have a room IYSWIM).

TD

I've lived in a shared house and know people that are sharing and from what I can tell its unusual for a shared house to be a home unless its a group of friends that have got together by choice - the room in a house is much more usual. Shared houses tend to be transitory places that people put up with while they are trying to save to buy their own place or as a stop gap before they can afford to rent on their own or go traveling. It's not really in a landlords interest to encourage tenants to make a house their home either ... it causes all sorts of problems should the landlord ever want to sell up or move back in again if the tenants have got too emotionally attached.

You sound like you'd be happier somewhere were the landlord and tenants interviewed new house mates for their compatibility and collected references before allowing them to move in. This kind of house structure would be more likely to have the atmosphere you seek and its something you could check at the interview stage. Sounds like your current landlord just wants to collect quick cash from their tenants and there is nothing wrong with that as a business model as long as they've got good insurance that covers any damages by the tenants.

I would advise trying to seek out a shared house or room with a different style of landlord that meets your needs better. Ask prospective new landlord how they approach filling vacant rooms and how (and if) they intervene between disputes between tenants before you sign a new contact on a new place.

Good luck.

mountainofdebt

The thing is, regardless of who you live with in a shared house, they will impact on your life - I shared a house when I was in Uni with friends and there is still one song that I can't stand to listen to because it was played on what was a continuous loop forever, and that was over 20 years ago, lol!

Indie_Kid

top_drawer wrote: »

However, I am finding him hard work, he never spends any time with any of us (me or the other housemate)

Have either of you (other HM & you) made the effort to spend time together?
Not going into any detail; but there was a bit of an incident involving myself, where I live on Sunday evening (not involving HMs for once) which HMs do know about. Now, I was having probelms with them and we've now made up. In order for us (or anyone for that matter) to spend time together, we all have to make the effort.

One of them knocked on my door on Monday afternoon (which woke me up - not an issue) and talked to me for a bit. One of the others knocked on my door later on and asked if I wanted to go into the kitchen with them - this is where people always meet each other and talk.

but in the end for me it will always make for a bad atmosphere as theyre always going to have more in common, have similar opinions, share friends etc

You need to make the effort. When I first moved into where I am now, none of us knew each other. However, we all made the effort and do get on. I do have a few things in common with one of the girls (we went to the same college and come from the same city - we didn't know each though) but this doesn't always mean that we see eye to eye with each other.

he came home just as I had got settled.

Do you honestly expect him to know you were in there? TBH, I've had that with living at home and there's no way to get away from it - unless you decide to live alone.