Is this a 'minor annoyance'?

[ellipses]

Recently my roommates (bro and sil) decided to take in a new roommate. This is my niece, bro's daughter. She recently broke up with her long time SO and needed a place to live. She decided to live here 'cuz she could have her cat and her dog with her. I get that. I get that bro wanted to give her a place - I get that. For myself...well, I had reservations. Mainly, on a purely selfish aspect - I don't like having roommates! I don't particularly like that on a purely economic standpoint, it only makes sense for me to live with others. I still would ideally prefer to live alone. Nevertheless, I have adjusted to having bro and sil as my roommates. I could make a whole 'nother thread about the minor annoyances that come with that. But I adjusted. I pay my way. I stay out of the way.

But another roommate comes with another set of minor annoyances. Sil was not that good about cleaning up after herself after showering in our tiny bathroom. That was a minor annoyance. Niece is not that good either. So now I have two people to clean up after. Again, realistically - not that big a deal. A few towels thrown about, occasional clothing left on the br floor. Not a big deal, right? but, still...annoying.

Her dog. Niece's dog. I have already grown to hate that dog. For no good reason, really. The other two dogs in the hh already knew that my room is a dog free zone - I let the cats in, but no dogs. It's just how it is. Of course, this new dog doesn't recognize these rules and feels free to stroll into my room any time she feels like it. I can't blame her, she doesn't know any better. But no matter how many times I have shooed her out, she keeps coming back. She's old and small and just can't compute being unwanted. So now I have to keep the door to my room closed all the time (even then that damn little dog will scratch and claw at my door if its closed!)

Niece is also a bit of a slob in the kitchen. Neither bro nor sil were particularly good about cleaning up after themselves after cooking. I have always been in charge of loading/running/unloading the dishwasher - but that doesn't include cleaning up the rest of the kitchen. I clean up after myself and I expect that others should do the same. They don't. I ignore the mess as long as I can but inevitably, I ulitmately clean up more than I messed up. Annoying.

Now, it's parking. We have four adults in this hh now. Bro has two cars, one of which is parked in the back and out of commission. Sil also has two cars, one of which she keeps saying she's going to sell but hasn't yet and a pickup truck which she prefers not to drive because...well, I dunno exactly - she wants to keep the mileage down, its too expensive to drive? Whatever. They only use the truck when they need to haul something. So that's six cars for four drivers. So for the last couple of years, my car has been parked on the lawn. One of bro's cars is parked on a different part of the lawn. Because we have a narrow driveway that can't park two cars abreast. I was okay with this 'cuz where my car was parked meant that there was never a car in my way - I could come and go as I pleased, without worrying about being in anyone's way or anyone being in my way.

Since niece has moved in, that has placed another car in the driveway. And now, bro and sil want my car to be moved from it's place on the lawn, so that sil's car can be parked there. 'cuz I only drive once a week or so, it should be okay for the occasional car to be parked behind me. In other words, it's okay for me to be inconvenienced for the sake of everyone else, but they should not have to be inconvenienced just because they decided to take in this new roommate and just because they have multiple vehicles (all of which they use interchangeably as needed!) by having to move another car out of their way.

Okay. Now I'm more than just a little bit annoyed...

[Radical Edward]

Hmmm yes those are all annoying, but they add up to major problems. I do have some questions:

1. Is this place rented or owned, and how is the rent / expenses split?

2. Why can't niece's dog live in just niece's room unless she's right there with it?

3. WHY DO THEY HAVE SO MANY CARS WTF?

4. Would it be outside of the budget to hire a weekly cleaning person? I BET IT WOULDN'T BE IF THEY WOULD SELL HALF THEIR CARS

5. You leave your bedroom door open? So the ghosts can come and go as they please?

Sorry for yelling, the whole siutation sounds intolerable.

[ellipses]

Originally Posted by Radical Edward

Hmmm yes those are all annoying, but they add up to major problems. I do have some questions:

1. Is this place rented or owned, and how is the rent / expenses split?

The house is owned by my sil - I don't know if bro has any financial interest in it, but he does do all the maintenance for major hh functions. Maybe I should mention that bro and sil are not actually married - I just use sil for convenience's sake. Up til now expenses were calculated and we were responsible for one third of expenses. I have been responsible for my share and have paid up every month promptly.

2. Why can't niece's dog live in just niece's room unless she's right there with it?

Niece was unemployed when she first moved in a month ago, but to her credit, she has since got a job. As far as the dog goes...well, like I said, she's a small dog and pretty old and slow - bro who has already taken major responsibility for the other two dogs (both large dogs, one is his the other is his so's) so he pretty much assumed responsibility for the new dog too. Niece seems more than happy to let her dad take that off her hands.

3. WHY DO THEY HAVE SO MANY CARS WTF?

Yeah...I'm a little baffled about that too. Both of them said they were planning on selling one of their cars. But they didn't. Or haven't yet anyway. Bro bought his current car 'cuz he got a really good deal and his other car was almost 30 years old...he was supposed to sell that one, but for some reason he didn't. I thought it was still running, but maybe he knew something that I didn't. Anyway, it's just parked in the back now pretty uselessly.

4. Would it be outside of the budget to hire a weekly cleaning person? I BET IT WOULDN'T BE IF THEY WOULD SELL HALF THEIR CARS

Yeah - I don't think that would even be a consideration for them...

5. You leave your bedroom door open? So the ghosts can come and go as they please?

No, I don't - not anymore! I used to, just to feel a little more connected with the rest of the hh - and the other dogs had learned to respect the boundary, but I can't do that anymore! I don't worry about ghosts. I already have enough issues without the supernatural...I'll worry about ghosts once my natural problems have been resolved, lol

yeah, I am rapidly reaching my tolerability limit...

Sorry for yelling, the whole siutation sounds intolerable.

yeah, that

[ellipses]

They threw away my couch! They wrapped it in plastic and threw it onto the curb for trash pickup! I've had that couch for many years, it was my daughter's couch before she gave it to me - I really like that couch! It was a very expensive high quality couch when it was new - it's like 15 yrs old now but it's a very well built sturdy leather couch. I'll admit it's gotten a bit tattered around the edges 'cuz of the cats - but it was still a nice couch and sublimely comfortable. I always liked it and although, because it was so solid and large - it was a pita to move, I took it anyway because it was so damn comfortable! That couch has been in the living room of this house since we moved in several years ago. No one ever had a problem with it.

Apparently, they decided that now it had to go. I don't know why because no one bothered to even mention this to me at any point. I just looked out my window and saw a couch sitting on our curb last night - the night before trash pickup. I thought 'huh? what's that about? Did niece have some furniture she had to get rid of?' It looked too small to be my couch - but as it turns out, that was because they had it laying on its back. I didn't realize this until I went downstairs, after everyone else was already retired for the night, and looked in the living room. My couch was gone. In its stead was a side chair and a papasan chair. The side chair used to be in their office until niece moved in and then it got moved to make room for her sewing machine. Not sure about the papasan - it may have been upstairs in the master. So...wtf??

I did not see that coming. No one had at any point mentioned a desire to get rid of that couch. No one had discussed this with me. Apparently, my permission was not considered to be a requirement.

I don't know what pisses me off more - losing the couch that I liked so much - or the fact that they arbitrarily decided to dispose of it without even mentioning it to me! Okay, I take it back - it's not the couch itself (although it was still perfectly good and I had a dream! that maybe someday I could move out on my own and would have one good piece of furniture!) so much as it is the total disregard and disrespect for my opinion on the matter. They could have easily suggested this to me and made an argument as to why they wanted to do this. They could have - but they didn't bother. It was my couch, dammit! It wasn't yours to just dispose of as you pleased! It was mine.

I guess it's trash now...

[3acres]

My first inclination is to suggest throwing away the papasan and the side chair. No doubt a bad idea.

My second thought is to seek other quarters. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&hps=1&s...+finder&ia=web
Probably not acceptable either.

So I offer my sympathy. Because I'd be absolutely enraged in your situation.

[thorny locust]

If you realized it before the trash picked up, why not go drag it back inside? Rouse the whole house screaming for help doing it if necessary. Have a big fight on the front lawn about their throwing out your stuff if necessary. They are treating you like this because you don't try to stop them.

And you need to find someplace else to move to. If you can't afford to live without roommates, there may nevertheless be more compatible roommates to live with.

[Solfy]

3rding the start roommate shopping suggestion. They've shown you how they regard you by their actions. No amount of communication is going to change that more than temporarily. You also have little leverage since it's SIL's house, other than to vote with your feet.

[ellipses]

I was absolutely enraged. When I realized that it was my couch that was out on the curb, I was furious. I was so upset and so angry that I was literally shaking. But I also knew that at that point, it was a done deal. No, there was no way that my elderly ass could haul that couch back. Even if I had been able to confront my bro then, there was no way that he could even haul it back. He might have tried, if I guilted him enough, but he has had two surgeries in the past two months and there was no way I was going to challenge him like that. It was a done deal.

I confronted him the next morning (long after the couch had been hauled away). He was not apologetic. He shrugged it off as 'no big deal'. He said the couch was never used except by the dogs. (I did not point out that he himself had fallen asleep on that couch after one of his surgeries just a week or two before). He didn't care and took the attitude that I was overreacting. I tried to point out that it was my couch, not his and I should've been consulted. He said, 'well we talked about it in the living room, but you never come out of your room, so no point in talking to you...' So this is my punishment for staying out of the way and being unsociable.

The thing is...this whole drama could've been avoided by them coming to me and saying 'hey we don't want your couch here anymore - find another home for it or it's going on the curb!' I would not have liked that conversation, but I also would not have had a good argument against it and I probably would've had to ultimately agree to it. But they didn't do that - they just took it upon themselves to pitch it - at a time, at night, just before the trash collectors come.

Yeah. Clearly I need new roommates. Except I don't want roommates, I want to live alone. That will be a challenge for me. Suicide is an option that I have considered, but I'm not quite that depressed yet. Rationally I should consider all other options first. When the rage wears off, and i know it will, I will only be left with the depression. But that's down the line. For now, I just have passive aggressiveness and refusing to do any of the routine hh duties I used to do and letting them deal with their own mess.

heavy sigh...

[The Devil's Grandmother]

Not a minor annoyance. You have my sympathy. Living alone in reduced circumstances is better than living with people like this.

[ellipses]

So...parking update. The change to the parking situation played out okay. Even though I had been ousted from my previous position, it turned out not to be an issue. At first. I ended up parked in the driveway, my niece was parked behind me and sil's truck was in my previous spot. The reason this was not an issue is because my niece has a job and she also has a social life. Which meant that there was a lot of time when her car was gone and no one was behind me and I could come and go as I pleased. If I pleased. And I'm the first to admit, that I didn't 'go' that often.

That worked well for a month or so. Then, for whatever reason, they decided to let niece have my previous unfettered spot and just park sil's truck behind me in the driveway. This was not good. Since the truck is only used sporadically, it ended up with a vehicle parked behind me most of the time. Also, I will not drive sil's truck. So I won't move it, even though, theoretically I could. I will not drive it for several reasons. Number one is - it's sil's truck, about which she is very possessive. Also it's a much bigger vehicle than I am accustomed to driving. And it's a stick shift. I can drive a stick shift, that's not the sticking point. It's the combination of driving a vehicle that is not mine, is too big, is a stick shift and belongs to someone who would absolutely have a shit fit if I did anything wrong in it. So I won't drive it, not even just to shift it out to the street long enough to get my car out. That means, if I want to go somewhere I have to ask bro to move the truck out of my way. I don't like that. I don't like having to ask someone to move before I can. I just don't like that. And when bro and sil went somewhere together, which they often did, they would take his car and not the truck. Which left me stranded.

I didn't like that but I didn't say anything 'cuz...well I wasn't going anywhere...and then we had a super snowstorm, which made sure that I didn't want to go anywhere and so I let it slide...maybe it was temporary?

By today, we've had a meltoff. The foot of snow has dissolved for a while and it's the perfect opportunity for me to take a trip to the store and stock up on some groceries - and, yes - cigarettes, so sue me! But of course, there's a vehicle behind me now. I had to ask my bro to move the truck. Which of course he did with no hesitation - I just don't like having to ask. So...it's all good. Anyway, I shop, I get groceries, I get cigs, I even stop and get a little more gas. I get home, and niece has come home before me.

Does she pull up all the way in the driveway, knowing that I'm out and will be returning with groceries? No. She just parks her car midway, leaving me to park at the end of the driveway. And now I have to unload my groceries, tote them up the driveway to the porch bag by bag. And then go from the porch to the foyer and then from the foyer to the kitchen.

And when I'm finally in the house and toting groceries to the kitchen, that's when she comes bouncing down the stairs and asks brightly 'hey, want to move our cars around now?' I didn't even look at her. I didn't respond. Because all I could think was 'no dammit, I'm not moving fucking cars around now - i'm putting my fucking groceries away - get out of my face!' You made it as hard as you could for me to unload my groceries, you didn't show up to offer to help me unload these groceries and you're not doing anything now to make it better.

Well, while I was putting everything away, bro came down and helped niece to shuffle the cars around. It ultimately ended up with my car in the driveway, niece's car behind me and the truck in it's previous position in my old parking spot - which is exactly which worked before all this!

This was just a rant. This is the only place I can rant. Thank you for that!

I'm losing my mind...

[stormie]

Your family is fuckin' annoying, to say the least. You are a tenant and have tenants rights to your personal property and rented space, ie, 100% of your room, 33% of the common spaces, 100% of your assigned accesible parking place. Your landlords must give you warning of any potential changes. If you do not agree, they cannot change your longstanding agreement one-sidedly.

So, having the right to keep your door open or closed without incursion, landlord or new tenant has the responsibility to ensure that their dog does not enter your room. The personal property disposal is not an issue, it was illegal. They must give you notice and a good reason to remove your property from your third of the common space.

I suggest having one calm talk with them about how 1) you have been paying rent for X long, and thus both your convenience and your belonging deserve to be respected as they were before niece moved in and 2) therefore you expect them to never ever ever remove anything of yours from or within the house areas of which you have free use every hour of every day, or to direct you to change your use of that space for the benefit of a newer tenant. This need not be a discussion, only information. End it when you have said or piece or as soon as anyone shouts or says something hurtful & irrelevant.

Then stop cleaning up after them, hire someone to retrieve anything of yours moved or removed without your permission, and return to your convenient parking space. Phase 3 is to find another place to live if possible.

Good luck, and this is beyond even a major annoyance