More roommate issues: Overnight guests the morning after

In My Humble Opinion
21

I don’t think the expectation of overnight guests leave early-ish in the morning is an unreasonable one - I could picture the conversation going something like this; “Well, it’s been fun, but I have a roommate, so see you around!” In the case of a steady girlfriend, maybe more like, “Well, I have a roommate, so why don’t we go out for breakfast?” and then not come back to the apartment together.

If this is a steady girlfriend who lives at home, you really are going to have to nail this one down, because she WILL be over a lot in the future.

22

Why not just switch now, instead of waiting for the scheduled time? Seems like it would resolve most of your issues. They’d have the double bed and private(ish) room, privacy for all. In exchange, he should give up right of access to the public space when she’s there and you’re around. They’ll have to curtail their couch canoodling, in front of the tv, if you’re at home. Seems a small sacrifice and everyone gets what they need, no conflict created.

23

Forgive me if I’m being unempathetic here, but seems to me you could both hold out on overnight guests until you are able to afford better living arrangements. Your lives would be so much simpler.

I mean, you’re sharing a freakin’ room. Waking up to someone’s smooching and cooching is something you can maybe tolerate when you’re in college and have no choice but to stay in the dorms, but when you’re grown, you should be free from such…ew. And on the flip side, you should be able to entertain who you want to, when you want to, for however long you want. Without a sulking audience to boot.

I know I’m a prude, but I just can’t see how it’s worth it to either of you to live under those conditions. Especially if there’s already friction between you.

Here’s a stupid, ignore-if-you-choose suggestion. Set up a jar. Both of you contribute to it depending on your horniness level. Then, when either of you want to have that special night, you turn the jar over to the other and they can use the earnings to rent a room for the night. I don’t know how expensive hotels are in your area, but there’s also hostels, the YMCA, camping sites, or a friend who might appreciate twenty bucks (or whatever) to host you for a night.

It’s the only fair compromise I can think of.

24

yup this comes across as he’s getting some and your not and for that your pissed!

Its a crazy mixed up set up in the best of circumstances, But if she left at 13:30 on a weekend then I guess thats cool.

25

I give you a lot of sympathy for your situation, it sucks. It sucks for both of you, but since you’re the Doper who’s posting about it, you can have more of the sympathy. :slight_smile:

I think a lot of what happened is very subjective, but the absolute wrong was not changing the sheets right away – even if NOTHING romantic had transpired, when you are borrowing a bed, that is the first order of business upon getting up. And I did get from your post that he owns up to this mistake.

It’s reasonable to ask him to be more considerate about the hanging out in the morning/early afternoon, but I would take it on good faith that his levels of comfort with people in the house might simply be different from yours, so if it were me, I would approach not that it was wrong, but that you would be more comfortable with a more intentional departure plan (the going out for breakfast is a good one).

Another thing you might suggest to him is that you will tell him in advance when you know for sure you’ll be away overnight, so that he can invite his date after knowing your plans instead of guessing based on past experience. I’m not saying you have any obligation to do so, only that it would be a favor you are doing him that might also save you both some frustration in the future.

26

You’re living in DC, right? And paying $1500 for a one bedroom?

I know it might seem like it’s worth it to be in the mix of things, living in Georgetown or DuPont or maybe even Capitol Hill (although the last is relatively less expensive). And I know tons of people would rather die than confine themselves to the unhip, drab, dull suburbs.

But I lived in Bethesda (which is really pretty cool in and of itself) and went out 2-3x a week regularly in the city. It’s a really short metro ride. I loved it. I paid $650/month and had a bedroom to myself in a house. If you are willing to live in the ghetto, which is far less unhip than the burbs, I suppose, then you can also get your own living space for the same price or cheaper.

Maybe something to think about.

27

Um, first of all, WTF are you doing living with someone in a one bedroom. It’s patently ridiculous. Yes yes I know 75 or 100 years ago people shared beds with siblings and such but they also didn’t have sex before marriage (or they did it on the sly).

That said, you’re sharing a small place, nobody has their own bedroom. However, in this situation, how on EARTH is it okay to have overnight guests at ALL? I suggest you find a new place ASAP and make it your own bedroom this time.

The thought of letting someone else use your bed is beyond skeevy. Change the sheets? Jesus, you each have your own bed, let it be! I also think that if you lend your bed out you’re inviting disaster. When you’re in the lovely dovey stages of a new relationship you can’t possibly be expected to remember to change the sheets, no matter what you promised before.

If I heard roommate stirrings that I couldn’t drown out with music or that didn’t have a fixed wall down I’d probably go postal.

So the solution is 1) to find a place with your own bedroom ASAP and 2) no more overnight guests for either of you. Or, conversely, Friday is his night with the place and Saturday is yours, and keep it in a fixed schedule. NO SWITCHING BEDS. Ugh. Disgusting.

28

I suspect a sizable chunk of the population spent their college years both sharing a bedroom with a room-mate and having pre-marital sex. So its not like its unworkable.

29

Right, but not when you’re pushing 30. Dorm living means you can easily walk down and crash on the floor of a friend’s room (I’ve been there and done that). If you’re new in a city and don’t have an immediate social group to do that with - and are in grad school, arguably more rigorous than undergrad - you need your peace and quiet. Part of sven’s problem was she hardly has any free time, and she deserves to have a place to relax when she does.

30

This is the part when it started falling apart for me…

In what universe is getting thrown out of your own home overnight “reasonable accommodation”? If you (plural) can’t handle the togetherness of it all, don’t bring people home. If you can’t stand that, then live with the fact that there will be witnesses and witnessing. That “stay out all night” shit would absolutely not fly with me; the one time I left the house so my brother could have a date over, he paid me (paid for a movie ticket) and I was only gone long enough for dinner. Of course, we had our own rooms, but even in a one-bedroom, staying completely gone should not be the initial position, it should be a one time only “I will be your slave” request.

Honestly, with this post and that other one about the kitchen, your roommate is sounding like a self-centered ass. I’d hate to take him camping, but I’d love to see someone else do it.

31

Yeah, gotta agree that it’s much more novel and fun when you’re 18 than when you’re 29. At this point in my life, I kind of want to live like a “grown-up.”

Although, by merit of having lived in much poorer countries, maybe sven is more accustomed to cramped quarters and 6 people sharing one room type of situations?

32

Yes I also don’t see this as a rule that most people would take as given. I can see people agreeing to it, but I wouldn’t take it as given. Watching TV on the couch is behavior that even more fussy types would deal with, I’m kinda surprised that someone is okay with turning over their room and bed for sex but is bugged by an extra morning in front of the TV. The only thing I see that the guy did flat-out wrong was to not change the sheets and turn back the bedroom. But that’s different than watching TV for a few hours. If they had gone out for breakfast but left the room a mess then the OP would still have a gripe with him.

33

This. The entire arrangement sounds awful, but not confronting this bit of it at the time it was an issue appears to have exacerbated the discomfort.

I had all kinds of roomie issues with my last tenant, and the times that I let them fester were the times they became problems rather than inconveniences. Example of at the time fix: she picked someone up in the bar; I came down to breakfast to find them in the pullout bed rather than her bedroom, with condoms strewn all over the floor. “Jesus Christ, can you two fuck off upstairs or something? I want to have my breakfast.” Worked well for me and no hard feelings.

34

I’ve just checked Sven’s profile & according to that, she is still living in China. So I’m guessing this is all she can afford & these crowded living conditions are the norm.

My take is that your room mate can’t take over the entire apartment like this. If you are nice enough to let him have your bed then either they stay in the bedroom the next morning or they clean up the bedroom so you can go in there if they want to watch TV. & having to listen to morning bonking is gross.

35

Pretty sure she is somewhere in the states and just hasn’t updated her profile . . .

I mean, $1500 American dollars for a one-bedroom is pretty pricey in the states, but in China? Day-um.

36

I think most people are over it by the time they leave college. I’ve met a bunch of new friends on Meetup (aged 24-27) and one person proposed (on the Meetup site) a “kegger”. His last sentence was something like “Just cause we’re not in college anymore doesn’t mean we can’t party like it!” Everyone reacted with universal disgust. I mean, come on, at some point you have to grow up.

maplekiwi, she’s in grad school in DC.

Even sven, is there any way to get out of the lease sooner than later? When I was a sophomore and my roommate had a guy over 3-4 nights/week (in our shared room, sending me out to the futon) and I was furious about it, she gathered our friends and surprised me with a pow-wow in the living room. She took a deep breath and said she needed the “emotional support” of them to tell me I was being unreasonable.

They then proceeded to tear into her for being a selfish bitch. It was hilarious. But of course, I had a lot of friends - who were her friends as well - who were witnessing the situation. It improved mildly, but only due to social ostricization. Since you don’t have a ton of mutual friends, I don’t see how the situation could improve without you or him moving out. Would finding one tiny bedroom in a big group house be cheaper, say a 3-5 bedroom house? Especially since you now know the area better?

37

This. No matter how hip you want to be, in a degree program you need a consistant place to study, and not having privacy is a great way to derail your degree. With as much money as you are probably investing in the degree, it is insane to live like this.

Not to mention, he is an entitlement whore, and will only get worse.

As I said, he is giving off seriously bad vibes, and it will get worse not better. First with the kitchen remodel and now this. Perhaps there might be a way that you can get off the lease and the new girlfriend can take your place, and you can get either a studio in a more reasonable place, a room of your own in a shared house where it is more affordable, or perhaps find a new roomie to split a 2 bedroom place with.

Either way, no more shared sleeping space unless it is with a lover…

38

OK, thanks for that. I’ll bow out of this thread then, seeing you guys will know more about the American rental market then I do. :slight_smile:

39

Of course I realize now I didn’t make the best choices. A large group of friends from Peace Corps China had planned to rent a large group house together, but the group ended up breaking apart at the last minute and roomie and I were the only ones left with nowhere to go. When I arrived in DC, I was living with a family in VA, new to the city and fresh from an international move, commuting 1.5 hours each way, attending full-time orientation and looking for anyplace to live in the few hours I wasn’t in class or on the subway (he, meanwhile, was on vacation in Europe while I was busting ass looking for a place.) I found this place, the rent was reasonable (includes utilities) and it’s easy for both of us to get to school. The (extremely nice) landlord wanted to sign immediately, and I thought it’d work.

I am rarely home. I take night classes, and I’m at school four days a week. I’m usually out with friends or doing school-activities on the other nights. I figured I could live with anything as long as I had a bed and shower waiting for me at night and some place to study during the days. I also feel like roommate has more than enough time to conduct his private activities when I am not here.

Roomie is upset he doesn’t have the room, but we are planning on switching halfway through. I’d just do it now, but I take night classes- I often don’t get home from school until 11:30 PM. So I sleep late in the mornings. He wakes up early in the morning and does the breakfast-tv-coffee thing hours before I’m even thinking of waking up and also does a lot of beer’n’TV on the couch. He’d be in the living room often when I was in it. I can avoid ever being in the living room when he is in it- which is what I do.

I’ve proposed a number of ways to make his space more private, and it’s totally possible as we’ve got plenty of tall furniture that could block off the end of the long narrow room. But he refuses to do any of them and apparently prefers to sulk in his bed out in the open. He won’t even hang a curtain. He chose the twin bed because he felt it was more comfortable for him- he never asked which one I wanted, just tried them both out and claimed one.

I’ve got a boyfriend and am getting plenty :p. If he comes over, I plan it for a time that roomie has night classes, and I keep it pretty down to business so we are done when roomie gets homes rather than planning long drawn-out romantic evenings at home. If we want to spend a lot of time together, we go out on a real date. This is a big fun city and there are plenty of places to have dates that are not under my roommate’s nose. The couple of times he’s been here overnight it’s because we were out on a date and he missed the last train out. I’ve always made sure roomie didn’t see or hear him except when I walked him out the door first thing in the AM- I’ve never had my only and entire plan for a date to be “Dude will eat dinner here, then sleep here, then eat breakfast here, then eat lunch here, and generally just hang around home all freaking day.”

Anyway, I would love to move and have plenty of friends I could move in with, but unless roommate can make a close friend to take my place (and I think you can see why that is unlikely) it’s not going to happen. I worry because he will always default to “date at home.” He doesn’t like to go out, and his idea of a perfect date is “cooking dinner and watching TV at home.” I was okay with the idea of making accommodations for an overnight guest now and then, but I was picturing it more of a “we have no place else to go” last resort kind of thing, not as a first-choice plan that is going to happen on a weekly basis. Why would you even want to plan your long romantic weekend to be in a room that you know someone else is going to be trying to live their life in?

She was here last weekend. He begged me to stay out overnight, and that was fine because I was out overnight anyway. I think he is resentful this weekend that I spent Saturday night out instead of Friday night out. I think this is totally unreasonable- if I happen to be out on the night you want your gf to sleep over, lucky you! But if I don’t want to go out that night for whatever reason, too freaking bad. And I don’t find the “my girlfriend has to sleep over every single time she visits because she can’t drive after drinking” excuse convincing. There are metros and cabs and if they know they are going to be drinking they can plan for it.

40

I would try to get him to have the girlfriend move in. Seriously. He’s sulking because he doesn’t have that great homelife he wants. Encourage him to have it!

Otherwise, try to make the situation unbearable by ALWAYS being there. Nothing short of leaving will improve this situation. You’re simply giving in by not being there - you’re giving him exactly what he wants, his own space. You’re dealing with someone who is unreasonable, and there’s nothing to incentivize them to become reasonable.

In my situation there was a group of what she thought to be her friends telling her she was an unreasonable, selfish bitch. With you, there’s nobody telling him that. I’d work my ass off to get out of there any way you can at all. This includes telling the girlfriend directly in his presence. The passive way you’re going about it won’t change anything.