Our tenant is getting on my nerves. (having people over)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Living rooms are common spaces, and in shared housing that means you can’t just decide that you control the terms of the living room. In shared housing, the bedroom is the private area that you can control, and that is where you can go for privacy. It’s not ideal, but when you take money from other people in exchange for a service, sometimes you gotta put up with stuff that are not ideal.

Think about it this way- if you reserve the right to do it, you can’t expect your house-mate also not to have the right to do it unless you have previously explicitly agreed on that arrangement.

If you for some reason got a new girlfriend and wanted to have her over all the time, you’d expect to be able to do that, right? If you wanted to volunteer to hold your book club meetings at your house, you’d want to be able to do that right? If your friend’s washer broke down and he asked to run a load through so his interview clothes would be clean for an important job interview, you’d expect to say “yeah, sure.”

But no doubt you also recognize that holding an all-night jackhammer contest would be out of bounds.

Your housemate expects to be able to do these things, too. And since he is a paying tenant, not a guest who you are doing a favor for, he does have some say.

I know your saying “But, but it’s my house! I ought to be able to make the rules!” Indeed, you can. There are plenty of housing situations that included clauses like “no guests” or “tenant does not have use of the common space.” But you have to do these things ahead of time, so that everyone knows the terms and can agree on them. You can’t just subject your tenant your changing whims. He needed to know your expectations a long time ago, and have a reasonable chance to agree on them.

Note that I’m not saying it’s not okay to whine. Whine all you want- roommates are obnoxious!

22

Murder him and take his gold. It’s the only solution.

23

You earn your reputation!

24

The OP didn’t say if the roomie was having his own guests come over and spend time in his room or in the common areas. I would think that he should keep his friends mostly to his own room, and he has every right to have guests over at reasonable hours in his own room, and even staying overnight with prior consent, etc. But he’s not renting the common area, presumably, so he shouldn’t just have his friends sprawled out all over the place.

That being said, if the previous arrangement was that you all shared the common room and anyone could entertain there, you will have a hard time changing that and probably should have started over with a new tenant.

I’d never rent to anyone unless they had their own exit and entry door at the very least. In my parents’ house they had a nice basement apartment that you could exit via the garage door; that would have worked. (It also had a half bath and a tiny kitchen, so it really was meant to rent.

At this point, you’ll have to hammer out some rules and regulations, present them to him, with plenty of time for him to decide if that’s what he likes, and then go with it. If he doesn’t, you should give him some time to look for a new place.

25

While 'mika, as we’ve come to expect, makes a great deal of sense, it should be noted that this arrangement nets the OP exactly zero free gold. Just sayin’.

26

This, to a T. You can’t have the benefits of the $ without the drawbacks of having them AROUND.

But the washer part was obviously waaaaaay over the line.

27

Again, I completely agree that he is fine having friends over. I’m just annoyed that it’s gone from virtually never to almost daily very recently. Trust me, I well understand having to compromise with people you live with.

And yes, his rent is very reasonable and we give him extra off the rent to do the dishes and take the trash out.

28

Exactly.

Yes.

Right on.

He’s not really a “tenant” in the traditional sense of the word. He’s sharing your living spaces. He lives with you. Which means he should have the right to live his life as any member of the household would. Would you allow him to ask you to restrict the times you could invite people over?

29

I think it’s time to move him out.
It’s not a bad thing…he now has a life and needs room to grow.
It’s a bit boorish saying not to have friends over, to somebody that pays money for a standard renting arrangement. Putting any restrictions on a friend, who is paying you money…not overly cool.
OTOH, I blamed well sympathize with you-you aren’t running a rehab center, it’s your house that you have a boarder in.
So just sit him down, tell him that you don’t want to try and squelch his bourgeoning social life, yet, you value your privacy, so…
Best wishes,
hh

30

I disagree with this. If he has an actual lease, and not just some arrangement, there is no way the tenant is just living with you.

But even if he was, that doesn’t mean it would be right for one person to monopolize the space. Too many people, and there is not enough space for the OP to potentially have friends over. The OP might not be able to say you must do X, but he could negotiate, and even move out if the other person didn’t become reasonable.

Of course, in this situation, that’s not going to happen, since the OP owns the house. So it is still a homeowner-tenant relationship. The homeowner could still evict the friend. Heck, even having a proper lease only means the OP has to evict a certain way.

Fortunately, since the homeowner and tenant are friends, the homeowner can (and probably should) be nicer than legally necessary.

31

I signed up specifically for this thread, because some people are saying what the OP can and can’t do, rather than what he should do.

He doesn’t say his location, but I assume there are laws governing this sort of thing? For example in BC, there is a difference between roommates (two or more people paying a third party to live somewhere), tenants (one or more people paying someone to live in a suite), and shared accommodation (one person paying someone to live in a room in a house/suite that they own/rent). This is all covered by the Residential Tenancy Act. It sounds like the OP is in the third situation, because the line between tenants and shared accommodation is explicitly drawn when either a kitchen or a bathroom (not laundry) is shared.

There’s a whole host of rules pertaining to what a landlord can and can’t do to a tenant, and they don’t mean anything if it’s shared accommodation. So unless the “tenant” in the OP has his own kitchen and his own bathroom, then Antinor01 is free to make a rule saying: “No guests except between the hours of 10:00 and 16:00 and even then they have to wear nametags and speak in their best impression of Arnold at all times.” “Or else you’re evicted” is implied.

Of course if a formal lease has been signed, then the rules can’t go against those terms (it’s still a binding contract), but unless it’s explicitly covered, then it’s fair game.

32

So you’re saying that the landlord can just create arbitrary rules at his whim? I don’t think so. You can’t change the terms of an agreement AFTER it’s signed. Otherwise, why bother signing an agreement?

If the roommate has signed a year lease, then the next time Antinor can impose these new rules, upon threat of eviction, would be when the lease is up for renewal. That’s not prohibiting him from trying to come up with some reasonable gentleman’s agreement re hours before then. What we’re trying to do is come up with a consensus of what “reasonable” is. To some people that means no guests between 10:00 and 16:00; to others that might mean no guests ever.

33

There’s the legal relationship and the social relationship. The legal relationship is nit what is relevant here. Otherwise the OP wouldn’t have a problem here. The real issue is the social relationship. This guy is a long-time friend who has been a roommate of the OP for years and has continued that arrangement while actual ownership structures have changed.

In other places, this would be called a “paying guest.” It’s someone whose primary relationship with the OP is personal rather than commercial. He’s a member of the household who just happens to be paying for the right to use space. The existence of the contract and the guy’s legal status as a tenant is secondary. Legally, the OP can exercise all the rights of a lessor, and more actually since this is the OP’s actual residence.

But if the OP’s concern is about maintaining the social relationship, then this guy should bs treated with the same rights as all members of the household and be able to engage in ordinary social interactions in his own residence.

You can’t downgrade a friend-roommate to a tenant – In a social sense-- without losing a friend.

34

Other than the washing machine thing, I think it’s unreasonable of you to want to limit your boarder’s friends, unless they are noisy or somehow intrusive. Just being around doesn’t count as intrusive. Your boarder isn’t your child, he’s an adult, and it’s probably a good thing that he’s finally starting to make friends. On the other hand, if it bothers you that much you can decide to not renew the lease.

35

I think your little boy has grown up and it’s time for him to move out on his own. :slight_smile:

I lived in shared accommodations for a time while going to school (friend of a friend’s house, me renting a room from her), and there was no question of me having people over all the time - it was her house, and I was renting a room from her. Since I did want to have people over and have my own space, I moved out when school was done and rented my own apartment.

36

There’s absolutely nothing unreasonable about loaning the use of a washing machine to a friend on an occasional basis. Obviously, if its a weekly thing, the friend should look for some other arrangement, but to freak out about loaning a washer+dryer is bordering on ridiculous. An extra $0.40 in utilities isn’t going to break anyone’s budget, and it can be of huge service to a friend.

The OP should politely discuss the imposition with his roommate, maybe come to consensus on some new guidelines if necessary, and get on with life, perhaps even finding some friends of their own.

37

I just explained the difference between tenancy and shared accommodation. In this situation, under BC law, Antinor isn’t really a landlord, he’s just the property owner. As long as none of his rules go against anything in the contract they signed (and this includes clauses about guests, or clauses about not making random, arbitrary rules), he’s free to make them as he pleases.

If the lease contract is well written, then it will contain clauses about guests, or at least clauses about not making up new rules. If it’s like most contracts drafted without outside help, though, then most of it is probably unenforceable anyway.

Of course clearly the correct course of action is to not even think about the contract, and talk to the roommate like a person, explaining that you’re not used to all the noise and could he please keep it down. The washing machine thing? I would let it go, if it’s just the once. If it keeps happening, then speak up.

38

You are friends with this guy, right? Can’t you just say one night: “Want some leftover spaghetti? Oh, by the way… it’s awesome you’ve made some new friends, but I’ve since discovered that having frequent guests makes me uncomfortable. I’m sorry we never discussed this before, is there a compromise we can find? And don’t forget to DVR Dexter tomorrow!”

39

I would be questioning his friends. How well do you KNOW these friends. Are they actual friends or just people he’s meeting on the streets?

They could be stealing things and if they aren’t now they could be soon.

There’s no real good way to handle this. I would simply say, you decided against renewing his lease and advise him he should start looking for another place to live. Say you decided you need more space.

Don’t tell him the reason, other than the space is for your needs.

Then when he moves out, wait a month, and put an ad in but this time specifically spell out things for the next boarder. No visitors, no cooking, no etc, etc…

When you rent out a room, you’re best to not allow use of common areas. The boarder may have a shelf in the refridgerator but that’s it.

The new person will come into the boarder arrangements knowning this.

You simply aren’t going to make this current boarder conform. He’ll be resentful and you will have to live with him till the lease is up.

So by just telling him, you need the space, and leaving it at that, you made up a plausable reason to be rid of him.

Now that you know you don’t want boarders having company, spell it out. There are plenty of arrangements like that.

If the guy finds out you rented out to someone else, after you told him, you needed him to move out so you could have more space, you can simply say, “Well, we tried to get along but I guess in the end we couldn’t live without the income we got used to.”

40

It IS unreasonable. It isn’t about the .40. It is about having one’s own stuff being lent out by a friend to a total stranger, without permission. Your response makes me think that you wouldn’t mind the tenant lending out the owner’s bed, because there is no overhead with that! Of course, it’s not about the money.

Best wishes,
hh