Looking for opinions here but also looking to vent, so my apologies because this will probably be long.
As some of you know, I recently found myself without an apartment and needing new lodging tout de suite (we won’t get into that). A coworker told me that his roommates were moving out at the end of February and I could move in. Good price, decent house, seemed like a sweet deal. But the problems started almost immediately.
I gave him half of March’s rent in mid-February with the understanding that I needed internet for school (and wanted cable because I like my Law and Order marathons), so he promised to have it hooked up by the time I moved in. He had 2 weeks to do this, and more than enough money to do it. Now April’s upon us and still no cable or internet. I don’t want to pay out of my own pocket to get it hooked up because he gave me a flat rate for rent which included utilities and cable and internet.
Then there’s a whole host of generally inconsiderate shit. I don’t even care if he has friends over that want to get drunk until the wee hours. I just don’t want them to do it in the kitchen (my room is next to the kitchen) or turn on loud music while I’m trying to sleep. But then he invites friends over (“we’re going out to the bar at 11”) and they decide to play beer pong on the kitchen table until 3 AM.
I let him borrow my car once to take his dog to the beach to go fishing. The next day, my car smelled kind of fishy. The day after that, it smelled completely rotten. I mentioned it to him. Apparently, he had filled a 5 gallon bucket with water and bait shrimp, then driven around with it uncovered on my backseat. Turns out it spilled and there were now shrimp rotting in my car. So he offered to clean out my car, which he did. But while doing so, he took out my air purifiers which had never made it into the house during the move, and left one sitting in the front yard. Where it got rained on, and is now broken. I brought it up tonight, and he kindly offered to give me my other air purifier, which he has in his room. No apologies for the first one, which he ruined through carelessness, or offers to replace it.
Then there’s the slightly skeevy stuff. I usually come home after work or school and just drop my stuff on the floor in my room and fall into bed (I don’t get home til after 11). But one night, I left my purse on the kitchen table. The next day, I went out to eat and noticed I only had 2 twenties in my wallet, but I thought I had had more money. I shrugged it off because I had just shelled out a lot of money in bills and figured I didn’t notice how much I spent. So I spent one twenty on lunch, went to work, came home, and left my purse in a common area again because I didn’t think anything of it. The next day, the other twenty was missing. :dubious:
Then the other day he woke me up in the middle of the night to borrow money. He’d gone out but hadn’t taken his scooter, and apparently ended up somewhere with no ride home, so he took a cab. Which he woke me up at 2 AM to pay for. I don’t know the whole story, like maybe he thought he had cab fare but didn’t and only realized that when he got home, or if he took the cab knowing he couldn’t pay but that I’d be home. Either way, it really annoyed me being woken up at that hour.
Finally, there’s the pet issue. He has a dog and is allergic to cats. I have (had) 3 cats. We discussed it before I moved in. My cats have been indoor/outdoor cats before, so I figured they’d be fine as strictly outdoor cats. He told me his dog is very good with cats. Well, that was a disaster. First off, (which bothers me regardless of the cat situation) he lets the dog roam the neighboorhood at will. We don’t have a fenced yard (although there is a 10X25 ft dog enclosure that he built on the side of the house) so when the dog wants to go out, he just opens a door (or occasionally, if he doesn’t want to get out of bed, his bedroom window) and lets the dog out. And she’ll wander around for hours at a time. Ignoring all the other problems with letting a collarless, tagless dog roam a populated area, that means she is free to terrorize my cats. Because she’s not good with cats, she harasses them mercilessly, chasing them up trees and barking like mad. Scares the shit out of all my cats. I understand she’s a dog. She likes to chase things. But that doesn’t mean that my roommate should tolerate that. When I’m home, I let the dog in the yard and then sit outside with her, to make sure she doesn’t wander off or bother my cats. But he doesn’t do that. Now one of my cats has run away, the other refused to come into the yard and was staying in a fenced-in backyard down the street where the dog couldn’t get to him (thankfully, those neighbors didn’t mind their new tenant). But that means he wasn’t eating, because he wouldn’t come into our yard. And he pulled all his fur out on his sides. So he’s half bald and lost like 3 pounds.
And I couldn’t do anything but bring my remaining 2 cats inside, confined to my bedroom. But I’m allergic to cats (hence the indoor/outdoor aspect and my urgent need of my air purifiers again). I tolerate it well enough, but I have allergy-induced asthma. In the past, I controlled it by not letting the cats in my bedroom, having the air purifiers, and letting them out at night so the dander doesn’t get too unbearable. Now I’m wheezing all the time and can barely sleep.
Ignoring all the other problems, what bothers me most about the pet situation is that he doesn’t seem to care. I tried gently broaching the subject at first, bringing up the dangers of letting a dog wander freely (traffic, Animal Control). Then I tried to show him how much it stressed out my cats. We just talked about it tonight, and I tried to tell him how upset I was that Bridget ran away (I walked and drove the streets calling her, knocked on all my neighbors’ doors asking about her, and searched the gutters for flattened kitties. She’s gone) but he doesn’t care or even feel like he did anything wrong.* He keeps saying “She’s a dog. Dogs like to chase cats.” Well, dogs would also love to shit wherever and whenever they pleased, but it’s up to the owner to train them not to. If he would have just supervised the dog when he let her out like I did (or used the dog enclosure), then he could have prevented most of this problem, and it would just be a matter of letting the cats and dog get used to each other.
Ugh. So now I guess I’m looking for a new place to stay. Again.
*I know that I bear some responsibility for this. I took a chance letting her be outside. However, seeing as how she hasn’t turned up dead on the side of the road, or in an animal shelter, or in a neighbor’s house, I’m fairly certain she ran away because she was tired of the dog chasing her. So please, let’s not turn this into a debate about indoor vs. outdoor cats.
