IIRC from other threads, you have this bizarre dichotomy where you can EITHER live in a ritzy neighborhood OR the ghetto. It’s like there’s no in-between. And also, I find it interesting that in this thread, you say
but in your student loan thread, you said
So, uh, which is it? Is it ghetto because poor little white-girl-you is in a suburb that has :: gasp ::… blacks and Latinos? Oh my stars and garters!
You are incredibly sheltered and naive and it is not a good thing; in fact, it’s downright offensive, since you basically equate “black people live here” to “ghetto and dangerous” (
Give it up, Rach. Even if you do win at home, which you won’t, you’ll never win here. The bitches here are mean. Sorry, bitches! You know I love you please don’t hurt me.
Wow, false dichotomies? Saying that I, an average white woman, will have a similar living experience to a significantly above average half-black man is a false fucking dichotomy if I’ve ever seen one.
I’m not responding negatively to all of the good advice from Dopers. I’m responding negatively to your shitty snarkfest. Or did you think you were providing good advice? Your mistake, indeed.
My mistake was thinking that you are a reasonable adult, capable of rational thought.
You still have literally zero reason to believe your landlord is a homophobe, you refuse to acknowledge that you may have over stepped your bounds in regard to where you put your shit in her home, and you continue to act like a 12 year old gamer in your flippant responses to folks. LULZ UMAD OMGLYKWOW.
On the upside, you’ve made me realize that I should go home and hug the girl who rents a room from me and thank her for not being totally bat shit crazy. Maybe I’ll get her a WoW subscription or something that will bring her endless and true happiness, who knows.
No, you moron. I’m saying that you, “an average white woman”, have made it clear that anything less than lily white is ghetto (or at least is “more ghetto”, right?) to you. I was pointing out that you are sheltered and racist (and classist, to boot!). A neighborhood being majority black (or Latino, or Russian immigrant, or whatever) does not automatically mean it is an unsafe place to live.
Fair enough. But on the off chance that you don’t find a place within your budget that includes all the amenities that you cannot live without, it’s best not to burn bridges with your current landlord. So don’t park in the driveway. Don’t send her sullen emails. Don’t quit cleaning the bathroom. Act like an adult because you ARE an adult.
Once again, I don’t blame you for being annoyed by your landlord’s pettiness.* But, if for no other reason other than your own self-interest, do as the others have advised, and let it go already. After all, even if you do find another place, you might need her to be a reference given your not-so-stellar credit rating.
*Sorry, I believe that not allowing a tenant to stick her greeting card onto the shared refrigerator is pretty damn petty.
As do I, speaking as a former landlady with a shared refrigerator. However, it is possible that lovely Rachel isn’t quite so charming in real life as she is on here, and perhaps her landlady has just hadituptohere.
Mature? No.
Understandable? Maybe.
Anyhow - $450/month inclusive would be very reasonable around these parts as well. You may want to be as nice as possible to your LL, given that you may be stuck there for a bit longer than you want.
Further, I must point out that the ‘no food in the bedroom’ thing could be obnoxious control-freakness, or it could be that there’s a mouse problem, a roach problem, or that Rachel left crap till it stunk/rotted. We don’t know, 'cus she didn’t tell us.
When I was living in a situation identical to rachel’s, I had zero problem with everything outside of my rented room belonging to my landlady, the home owner. It wouldn’t even have occurred to me to put my stuff in her space (and everything outside of my bedroom was her space - that was understood without her saying anything).
As for “no food in the bedroom,” when I rented an apartment with my sister, we would eventually run out of dishes because they were all in her room. I don’t find that rule too strange, either.
As I’ve stated, and as seen in this thread, different people have different boundaries about this issue (and surely many others). There is nothing wrong with that unless you are of the opinion that “my worldview is right and everyone else is an idiot.” Any criticism based on this fallacy is equally fallacious and unworthy of address. It’s a nice anecdote I guess (it’s edifying to know that different people think different things if only for the purposes of expanding one’s worldview), but it’s not relevant to others.
For the record, and for reference, it wouldn’t even have *occurred *to me that someone would get pissy about a roommate putting a christmas card on the refrigerator. If that had *occurred *to me, I’d have asked or just not done it in the first place.
And I wouldn’t have had a problem with it if this rule was laid out beforehand. As it turns out, this was the first time I’ve ever tried to “decorate” the shared space. There’s nothing about this type of situation in the lease and it’s never come up before. But instead of saying something nicely, or rudely (but honestly) smacking me down outright, she took a disrespectful passive-aggressive route. Hence this thread’s existence. And whether your decor boundaries are more similar to mine or to my roommate’s, her reaction **was **an idiot.
I think most people in this thread are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt as to your landlord’s poor behaviour. But what we’re trying to say, and what you keep ignoring or turning into “you’re dissing me,” is that you aren’t going to do YOURSELF any favors by actively pursuing as you first posted you were (the whole battle to the death thing).
Part of growing up is recognizing when you’re dealing with irrational people and then behaving in a mature way regarding that situation. And yeah, it can hurt when people call you names based upon your reactions and feelings. But learning from experiences like this can be turned into positive experiences, especially when you get a few under your belt. It’s just like learning any other skill. No one starts out an expert at social interaction.
Did you ever find out what her reason was for not wanting the picture on the fridge? Because it sounds as if it’s still bothering you and you still believe it was homophobic. If that burr is still under your saddle, it could hamper your ability to continue to deal maturely with the situation.
It’s not likely there’d be a rule laid out beforehand for something which has never come up before.
Has she had renters before? It’s possible that the “no food in the room rule” is based on past experiences with others. I’ve known lots of people who had that rule in their homes for their own families.
We’ve spoken and cleared the air, so I won’t actually be waging war. I was extremely angry when I first posted here, but the thread has been a good way for me to gather perspective, and thereby blow off that steam. I’d rather be immature here than IRL, at any rate.
Yeah, I posted that in a reply, on page 3 iirc. She said it’s her house, her rules.
I haven’t *actually *dealt immaturely with anything. I wanted to and I talked about it here, as anger can make me impetuous, but I managed to resist being rude. We exchanged emails (mine was more civil than hers, I didn’t even curse once). I wouldn’t say I groveled, but I definitely showed a willingness to defer to her judgment without calling her petty, bitchy, or batty. Even though I was thinking those things very loudly.
An explicit answer, if it’s not too much trouble. Did your landlady/housemate unambiguously voice any homophobic attitudes?
Also, I’d still kind of like to know if the third resident in the house has reacted visibly to the incident, or if you have spoken with her about her experience with the landlady.
Is it possible you’re completely insane, and that the magnet was accidentally on your sister’s face that first time—and you freaked out so completely that your roommate/landlord, out of morbid curiosity, decided to keep fucking with the Christmas card just to see how unhinged she could get you?
Why did you come and bitch here if you didn’t want other people to comment on the situation and weigh in with their own experiences? In this and other threads you seem determined to prove that we can’t possibly understand your world or offer any reasonable advice regarding your problems.
I’m pretty sure 90% of the people posting in this thread have lived with roommates. While your particular roommate has her own foibles, passive-aggressive tension between roommates is a story old as time. I’m sorry that our criticism bothers you, but believe me, we have lived this situation, and we know you can’t win. You can, of course, do whatever you want, but there’s no reason to pretend this is some obscure circumstance that none of the rest of us could possibly comprehend.
White girl or not, I would think it would be better to live alone and contently than rent out a room with a landlord hovering over you all the time. Even if she were a saint and never made any demands, that would work my nerves. And no food in your room? She may have perfectly good reasons for that rule, but for $450 a month, I better be able to pop bon bons while propped up in bed, watching back-to-back episodes of Maury and Judge Judy.
I’d rather be shot by a crackhead than be kept from that luxury. That and being able to put up as many refrigerator magnets as I want.
Yes, I saw that one, but it seemed that it was still bothering you in later posts, that’s why I wondered. I’m glad you had a chance to clear the air. I’ve been really lucky, back when I had roommates, I’ve generally had pretty good ones. But when I was very VERY young 19, I had this one roommate who thought that “women did the cleaning” so I passive-aggressively left little notes stuck up all over the place. “Do NOT leave your toast crumbs on the counter, they’re YOU’RE toast crumbs, clean them up”. Funny, I was such a neat freak at that age. You’ll totally get used to this and get more practice, it’s not that you’re immature, that’s not quite the right word, it’s more that you were “untried”? so to speak.
I kind of guessed that that was the case. I’ve noticed that, especially in the pit, sometimes a person has to be OVER, SUPER over the top and OBVIOUS that they’re letting off steam when they’re posting rant threads similar to this one, otherwise some people can tend to think they really do mean to do the things they’re ranting about.
Don’t knock groveling! Honey collects more flies than vinegar (not that you want flies, but you get the idea :D). It wouldn’t be a bad idea to contact a landlord/tenant (or the Chicago equivalent) association though, just to find out what your rights are. Just to be forearmed and all that in case this lady decides to wig out after all.
“Do NOT leave your toast crumbs on the counter, they’re YOU’RE toast crumbs, clean them up”. Funny, I was such a neat freak at that age. You’ll totally get used to this and get more practice, it’s not that you’re immature, that’s not quite the right word, it’s more that you were “untried”? so to speak.