Hello, New here to the Dope boards.
I have a touchy dilemma. I had moved in with my best friend and his wife after losing my apartment a few years ago. We live in a 1 bedroom apartment with me living behind the couch on a futon in the living room. After a while, they said it would be fine if I stayed since they enjoyed splitting the rent 3 ways, but now after a few years, the lack of privacy has made me a little bitter at the arrangements and I’m now looking for a new place to live. Would I be out of line asking to pay less rent since I don’t even have a room. I could then save up a little faster for the deposit on my own place. My only space for myself is the futon behind the couch and I only get that at midnight, when I need to go to bed. I guess as I write this out it seems like a no brainer, but it helps knowing I’m not the only person that thinks this way. 
Well technically, they don’t each have their own room either…
But yeah, tricky situation. Back in college when a similar situation arose we used household chores as bartering chips. For example, maybe you pay less rent but are in charge of doing dishes, etc. If they are both short of free time and you want to save money this might be the best deal for all.
You’re kind of asking two questions here.
“Am I getting shafted?” No, not if you agreed willingly to pay 1/3 of the rent to begin with.
“Would I be out of line asking to pay less rent since I don’t even have a room[?]” No, you wouldn’t be out of line; I’d have expected to pay less than 1/3 from the start. Problem is, you’ve agreed to it all along, so they’re under no obligation to see it that way.
Wow. I have so many thoughts going through my head that I can’t even organize them all.
Are you serious?
You know, another way to look at is this is that they’re paying 2/3 of the rent for the bedroom. How much of a break are you going to ask for that would make a big enough difference to ‘save up a little faster?’ What’s there to save up for? First and Last month’s rent? Plus it’s their apartment. I can’t even comprehend doing that. Either you rent in a really high rent district (NYC?) or you don’t make much money. Either way, I would think your best bet is to just suck it up until you find someone looking for a roommate. The fact that you say you LOST your last apartment doesn’t set well with me either.
I rarely ever respond to these type of threads. I’m interested to see what other peoples responses are.
Yes, I think you’re out of line to ask for a rent decrease. You made an agreement with them, and to the extent that you’re tired of the situation, that means you need to move out, not that your landlords should cut you a break.
Shoot, I think you owe them just for the fact that a married couple let someone sleep behind their sofa for a long time. Time to buck up, find the money, and move out, and not expect your hosts to help you with that.
Without knowing all of details, it sounds like they did you a favor when you needed a place to stay. I wouldn’t do it if it was me. I would let them know that you’re tiring of the set up and are hoping to save up enough to move out as soon as possible. Maybe they’d agree to cutting your rent a bit if you did some extra work around the apartment?
I would assume that for less than 1/3 it’s not worth it to them to share the space with another adult. It sounds like this was never supposed to be a long term arrangement, and paying less rent doesn’t fix your privacy problem. It’s probably time for you to look for something else.
It was nice of them to let you move in, and you all must get along great if you’ve been able to keep this up for years. I wouldn’t risk the friendship by bringing up money, especially if they’ve kept up their side of the bargain.
That you’ve been doing this for years is kind of (really) odd. I can’t see living this privacy free, oddball existence long term under any circumstance as either the tenant (them) or sub-tenant (you) .
In the end they are kind of doing you a favor. Is it totally fair to you? No. A space behind a couch after midnight hardly qualifies as a bedroom under any definition, but pushing for a rent reduction after a number of years would likely leave a bad taste in their mouth. It’s a funky deal, but (for whatever reason) YOU agreed to it, telling them you’ve decided it sucks now, a month or two before you move, is a bit too late IMO.
It’s really, really… really time for you to go. Since you’ve known them for several years now I would ask them if you could skip the next rent payment to them so you could make your move, and them pay them toward the end of the year when you’re settled in. I’m guessing they might agree.
Do you have any kind of borrowing capacity to scrape up the apt. security deposit?
OTOH, if you make it clear that you’re asking so as to speed up the process of getting your ass out of their apartment, they may not only reduce your rent, but give you the money.
I’m kind of thinking this myself. “Will you take a check?”
You’re out of line because if there was an inequality you should’ve addressed it years ago.
Look you’re not mad at them, you’re mad at the situation. There is a HUGE difference. Don’t let your bitterness toward a situation, which can be corrected, cost you some friends.
How about another flatmate but you and him/her having your own rooms?
If there was a problem you should’ve said something a long time ago
From the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (radio)
…And now back to your regularly scheduled thread 
How much do you pay, and how much do you want to pay? Think about how much sooner that difference will allow you to move out.
If you can’t put numbers on these things, then it’s not worth discussing it with your friends/landlords.
Also, it’s just a terrible idea. If you thought is was a bad deal, you should have brought it up years ago.
Thank you for all your thoughts on the matter. Some of you are right that there are a lot of little details to all this, but I tried to simplify it for the discussion. Yeah, they did do me a favor when I lost my other apartment. That being because I was working at a start up entertainment magazine that folded thus losing my job. Yes we live in NYC. Rent is very high up here. I did agree to paying 1/3 in the beginning because of that favor, but after finding new work, they asked me to stay. So it’s no longer them doing me a favor anymore, it’s a mutually beneficial situation from their perspective. My roommates and I get along fine. My best friend and I have been friends since we were kids. Thing is they use the living room all day long and I don’t have any place to retreat to to be alone. Yeah, I agreed to it, but when you realize it was a bad agreement, wouldn’t you try to change that instead of continue with it? I am currently trying to save up for moving back out on my own, but my student loan payments are doubling now, and saving up 3 months rent to move out is darn near impossible up here. I’m sure they would love to have the place to themselves as I would like to be out too, but they seem more happy with their rent being low and getting to use the computers that I build, my HDTV, my PlayStation 3, and the air conditioners that I purchased. lol this sounds like I have a lot of money, but this was all acquired over the years here. No matter what, I want to leave, but I don’t think I should continue paying an unfair amount of rent considering the wife wants to dictate what time I get up in the morning on my days off to watch the TV. I’m also letting them know my intentions of moving out in 2 - 3 months which should give them plenty of time to adjust to taking over the rent completely.
It sounds like a kind of unusual situation that was mutually beneficial but it’s time to move on now - I don’t think you should be asking for any re-negotiations (and you’re certainly not getting shafted). You made a deal, and as the Ferengi so wisely say, a deal’s a deal. The deal has some downsides for you, but having roommates always has compromises. You don’t just have the futon behind the couch, either - you have the use of a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room as well.
I’m confused about this. You’re being paying a third of the rent of a regular apartment for several years and you haven’t saved enough money for a deposit on a place of your own. How are you going to pay a regular sized rent check?
If you bring up this subject to them, be prepared to move into your own place a lot sooner than you had planned.
I’m flabbergasted that so many of you think he shouldn’t ask. I honestly think that, if you explain the situation the way you did here, and they are decent people, they aren’t going to get upset. And if they aren’t, what are you doing living with them in the first place?
A world where merely asking a question makes you a bad person is not a world in which I would want to live. It’s just yet another one of those things where people are looking for an excuse to be offended.
I can’t imagine living with jerks who would kick you out on the street, knowing you don’t have enough money to have anywhere else to live yet.
This was my thought as well. How can you possibly afford rent somewhere else if you’re just barely making ends meet paying 1/3?
I think if you worded it in this way…
“Hey guys, I really appreciate what you’ve done for me but it’s time I gave you the space you deserve and got my own place. Would you consider lowering my rent so that I can save up for a deposit for my own place and get out of your hair earlier?”
…you’d be a lot more successful that if you word it as per your original post.
how much time are you expecting to live there on a reduced rent?
Lets say your 1/3 of the rent is currently $500. The apartment you will get on your own is $1000.00 a month (cheap studio in NYC). If they reduce your contribution to $300.00 a month, that will give you an extra $200.00… if you had to save up enough to pay first, last and security, that would be $3,000.00. It would take you 15 months to save up $3,000.00 using the rent savings… 7.5 months if you add an additional $200 from your monthly income. See what I’m saying?
My opinion is to suck it up and pay the agreed upon amount until you get out of there. I can’t imagine that if you have enough money to rent your own place you would have that hard of a time saving up for a deposit, or that a reduction in your rent would make that big of a difference. Get a bullshit part-time job if you want extra money.