Why are you having a drama filled meltdown over a picture? Am I missing something?
I am reminded of a quote I once heard. Can’t remember who said it but it goes like this:
Would you rather be right, or would you rather have peace?
Personally, I usually choose peace.
The longer you allow yourself to be upset about this the longer you’re upset. Usually, escalating the conflict will only result in more upset…for you.
Move the piture of your sister to your room and let it go.
Is your sister or her girlfriend monstro-ugly perhaps? Maybe she just enjoys irritating you. I remember when I was a young man, everyday I’d go into the parking lot and raise the windshield wipers on this kids car. At first he was like, “WTF weirdo, am I supposed to care?” I did this for four months.
Anyway, I strongly advise you to take a less mature course of action than many dopers suggest. Since this is a petty squabble in every respect, I think the response needs to be equally petty. For example, the kid with the car stole my backpack and took a dump in it. See my previous post if you want some ideas.
This.
You’ve decided FOR her that the reason she doesn’t want the picture up is because the two girls are lesbians. How do you know that’s her reason? Maybe it’s as simple as others have suggested, that is “It’s my house, I want only MY decor (insofar as pics on a fridge are decoRATIONdecorations) about”.
I would feel the same way about a roommate in a home I owned. I likely would let them know up front that my decor would be the ONLY decor in common areas, but is that what’s bothering you? That is, that she wasn’t clear about it? She sounds as if she doesn’t want to be confrontational about it and was hoping you’d get the hint “it’s my fridge, I only want MY family items and pics on it thank you”. But you’ve made up your mind what her motivation is, and it seems that you’re really angry about what you THINK she’s thinking, when you really (if and until you talk to her) have no way of knowing why she doesn’t want your pics there.
Also as others have said, you’re doing the exact same thing you are angry at her for doing. You’re putting the pic there, she’s removing it or covering it. All without a word too each other. She may very well be merely VERY uncomfortable with verbal confrontations, so you’ve BOTH gotten yourselves all worked up over imagined slights, because neither of you (based on what you post of your relationship) have communicated at all.
At any rate, I agree with the others, whether or not a lease is legally binding, it is something you’d have to go to court to win and in between you getting kicked out, and you (maybe) “winning,” is a whole lotta time on the streets looking for a new apartment.
Before you do anything you need to clear the air with her, for your OWN good.
Further to this, and I have nothing to cite here, I believe that rental situations where the renter is in a room in the landlord’s home, as opposed to a self-contained separate building are a bit different.
Like, if she’s the home owner and decides she doesn’t like the cut of your jib anymore, she can get you out much easier than if it’s a separate rental unit, lease or no lease.
Read the whole thread. This is not the case. I have written her a note and sent her an email without getting a response. I am not negligent in expressing my desire for her to stop the bullshit.
Again, read the whole thread. Like when I said this:
She has not had a problem in the past bringing up when even something relatively minor is bothering her. That is what leads me to believe she has a nefarious reason for saying nothing now. I am uncomfortable with verbal confrontation, but she has not been afaik.
'Cause then it would be a parkway, amirite? 
For what it’s worth, I think the fact that the person you are having a problem with is the home-owner from whom you are renting a room changes everything, too. She is indeed your landlord, not your roommate, and while having a rental agreement is a bare minimum for this situation, she does have the final say on pretty much everything in HER house. I am a very territorial person, and I can see not wanting my tenant putting her family pictures on MY refrigerator, too, and it has nothing to do with lesbians and everything to do with the fact that it’s MY refrigerator.
But it sounds like in the past her reasons for asking you to change have been “because I like it that way”. So why are you attributing different motives to her now? This person sounds super anal retentive to me, which is an irritating quality in a roommate, but I don’t see any reason to assume bigotry.
Incidentally, this stuff is the reason why I never rent from an live-in landlord anymore. They tend to want to be king of their own little castle. IME, it’s much better to rent, with a roommate, from an off-site landlord or in a managed building. I wouldn’t put up with all these rules you’re talking about (no eating in your own room? Hell no!), and I’m surprised you’re thinking about staying on after April. Things will not get better. I certainly hope this place is hella cheap.
This is exactly what I was thinking as I was putting myself in her position. I wouldn’t want someone else’s pictures there, either. Not that that excuses her passive-aggressive behavior, but why would you think that your pictures belonged there? Would you put them on the mantel with her family photos, too? To her, that’s just way over the boundary. Especially since you say that she is particular in other areas of this rental situation, too. Renting a room in her house is not at all like sharing a rental with someone. You need a better living situation.
I had to make a decision in less than a week when I moved out of my last place so I couldn’t afford to be choosy. Which incidentally is the last time I’ll ever do a verbal lease agreement. I want my 30 days legally required notice in the state of IL, please. THAT guy I could have taken to court (he was trying to jack up rent with a weeks’ notice) but I was already unhappy enough that I preferred to just get the hell out of dodge. And this place is even cheaper than I was paying there.
It is hella cheap. It’s also fairly inconvenient. But my credit is not in the best shape, so I don’t know if I want to apply to rent from a company. They usually charge an application fee and I’d hate to waste it just to get turned down. Not that I know whether I would or would not. But approval would not be guaranteed.
Sounds to me like a territory thing. You have use of the rooms in her house but not the right to decorate them. She probably feels you are encroaching on what is rightfully her territory, and by taking the photo down and putting it in your room she is trying to tell you that.
And frankly, I can see her point of view. If I were to rent a room in my house with the understanding that the tenant could use the kitchen, the den, whatever, I would in no way feel I was giving him or her permission to hang up pictures, display photos, put out flowers, move or add to the furnishings, etc.
You seem to think your lease agreement puts you on an equal 50/50 footing with the woman who owns the house, and it doesn’t. It simply gives you a room to call your own plus use of the bath and kitchen facilities, etc. I think you owe this woman an apology and assurances that you will respect the fact that the house belongs to her, and that henceforth you will treat her home outside your room as though you were a guest - which is likely what she expected to begin with and what I think most reasonable people would expect also.
Plus, you might find that by doing this and then asking her permission should you want to place a personal item somewhere outside your room, you will find her more amenable to the idea. People can be much more agreeable when they are asked for permission first, and truly it is her house and her rightful place to decide what permission to give (or withhold).
I was thinking this as well.
Someone calls you out and you reply with “umad?” That’s one hell of a cop-out.
As to actual advice, suck it up and remove the picture for the next 4 months and find a better living arrangement. Principally, you’re probably in the right here, but that has nothing to do with your boundaries within her house.
Confront her. If she doesn’t want to discuss it with you, that is well within her rights. It’s insanely childish and passive-aggressive, but stooping to her level is not any better, really. It might make you feel better, but I’d take heed to what people have said in this thread. It’s not worth the potential hassle, legality aside.
If she doesn’t discuss it with you, remove it and put it in your room or some other place that you can view it and not have to worry about intervention. It sounds like your room is the only likely area for this, so do with what you’re able.
Just my 2 cents.
OP is in the wrong here.
I think she’s jumping to the (stupid) conclusion that her landlord/roommate is homophobic, when the simpler answer is probably correct.
Most people don’t want to rent out their own homes, they do it out of financial necessity (though I know an old lady who runs a B&B for the company so there are exceptions).
It’s a hard thing to have another person traipsing around your home, sitting on your furniture, using your kitchen, but it’s doable once you either become friends or like ships passing in the night.
Even though she knows that she has rented to you, and is forced to put up with you, and accomodate you, she will still view this as her house - as she should.
And you should respect that. That doesn’t mean that you never have friends over (though if she is sleeping, keep the noise down) or keep food or anything like that.
You live there.
But what you don’t do is displace her pictures on the mantle with your own.
Don’t hang a new painting in the living room.
Don’t stick your family member’s pictures on the fridge.
Basic respect makes this kind of relationship a lot easier - there is no need to try and make her home feel like it isn’t hers anymore (even if you have a legal right to reside).
I don’t keep pictures on the fridge (always struck me as an odd thing to do), but I’d still be annoyed if I had someone rooming in my house and he/she insisted sticking pictures there - it would be like rubbing my face in the fact that I was forced to share my home with a stranger.
I think you are reading far, far too much into the situation by ascribing homophobic motivations to your landlord - your behaviour would antagonise most ordinary people.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Really Rachel. This is one of those things that you should just let slide.
Call your sister, tell her you love her, and warn her that if she visits you, she’s visiting the hauntings of a hateful landlord.
Actually it seems to me that the most unreasonable thing she has done is to prohibit you from eating in your room. That’s very intrusive. Your not her child. With the fridge thing, she’s in the right. It’s her fridge she can decide what goes on it.
You want to start a war with your landlord because she moved a refrigerator magnet? And you think she did it because your sister is a lesbian?
Ooooooooooooooookayyyy…
I rather suspect that [list=A][li]You can’t prove any of this, and []your landlord would tell a very different story, either true or false, but at any rate different. And []Your landlord’s story would include a number of details that don’t appear in your account of things.[/list]I would not involve the courts in this, by breaking your lease or by any kind of retaliation or whatever you feel like doing - it will probably not work out 100% in your favor. [/li]
It is certainly possible that things are exactly as you describe, and your landlord is completely in the wrong here. Or possibly not.
If, as you say, your credit is fucked, then you are fucked as well and you have to take what you can get. If that means living in a cheap room with loonies, then un-fuck your credit with all deliberate speed and chalk it up to a life lesson - “you get what you pay for” and “beggars can’t be choosers”. And even, possibly, “birds of a feather flock together”.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, yeah. That is the type of response you give to people aren’t really trying to help and just wanted to get a cheap shot in. It aggravates them. It’s fun to aggravate the trolls.
And it’s not like you generally know how to work out problems: you like to hold grudges even when people apologize. And the grudge can be about their actual personality, and nothing they actually did to you.
You constantly make a big deal out of little things. Heck, apparently Rachel’s existence on this board causes you ire. Save your cute little flames for yourself.
I’d rather be right. But I’m a stubborn, hateful bitch.
Where the fuck do you live that you have “application fees”? Japan? Living in Milwaukee, as far as I recall I’ve never had to pay a fee just to put in an application for an apartment. The worst cash-out-of-pocket problem I had was that I had to put down a double deposit on my current place when I first moved in, because my previous landlord had reported that the rent for that apartment was late more than once (because my roommate was sometimes behind with her half). And I was able to get that extra fee returned after the first year because by then I’d demonstrated that I actually paid on time every month.
I’ve known people with absolutely abyssmal credit and employment histories who were still able to get apartments. You’re not going to be living in the nicest places ever, but they don’t have to be pits, either. At least that’s the way it’s been in this city IME.