Dung Beetle: I don’t understand. If you’re not the guarantor, not on the lease, and not paying the rent every month (or even a portion of the rent every month), why do you check his account? It’s literally none of your business. Leave it alone and it will reduce the stress in your life. He is an adult, right? This is a wonderful chance for you to let him learn what consequences the Real World[sup]tm[/sup] has for certain actions (or, in this case, inactions).
Seriously, the only conversation you should be having with him about the online account is:
I mini-rant against trusted brands and their “bargain” or “budget” or “essentials” variants. I just bought a big package of Charmin quadruple-sized rolls of toilet paper. That should be like the gold standard of TP, but I seem to have bought the bargain version by mistake. Now, unless I want to throw these out, I’ll be using hotel or grocery store public restroom quality TP for a couple of weeks!
I travel quite a bit for work. Love being in different cities. Hate traveling. That’s not the rant.
Sometimes I’ll arrive on a job site and about an hour later my immune system will decide the local atmospheric water molecules are the wrong shape and I’ll start breaking out in red itchy welts all over. If I don’t pop a couple of Benadryl in time my arms, and the rest of my unexposed skin, will look like I’ve been rolling in nettles.
Even with the Benadryl I’ve still got to deal with an hour of wanting to scratch my skin off.
Wanna guess what happened yesterday to prompt this post?
Bdo zank you. Are you trying to make me feel better about my clogged nose? Because I’ll happily admit it did work. I want to move to a planet where “20ºsh C and humid” doesn’t exist, apparently it’s when every plant I’m allergic to goes “party time!”. Instead I’m about to accept a project in an area where that used to be the default: not any more.
Our hospital has the “cute” habit of playing Brahms’ Lullaby over the PA system every time a baby is born up in Maternity. This is merely obnoxious on a routine basis, but today…
TODAY…
They have played the goddamned Lullaby about 30 times already. Either someone is pumping out sets of quintuplets out there or the button is malfunctioning. Either way…
SHUT OFF THE FUCKING LULLABY ALREADY, OR I’M GONNA DIAL UP THE P.A. SYSTEM AND PLAY MOTORHEAD’S “BACK TO THE FUNNY FARM” FULL BLAST.
Well, one is reason is just that I’m his mama and I can. I know that’s not a good reason, so I support it with reason number two. That is, the boy’s roommate is my brother, and I want to make sure the rent does get paid eventually. I wouldn’t put it past the young beetle to collect his uncle’s share of the rent in cash and then use it for other than its intended purpose.
I spoke to the boy last night and he assured me he was going to pay the rent today. :rolleyes: He also says he’s going to make other living arrangements when this lease runs out, so I’m glad for that. I doubt his current landlord will invite him to stay on.
Well, thanks for the response. But your brother is an adult, right? (You see where this is going, right?) It’s on him, I would think, to ensure money he turns over to his nephew is actually being paid for the rent. That can get complicated if the rental agreement prohibits subletting, but it’s still on him. Not ensuring that can have drastic consequences.*
Out of idle curiosity, was the conversation similar at all to my hypotehtical?
I wouldn’t be surprised if current landlord evicts his ass along with anyone else in the apartment. *That’s what happened to one of my university classmates. He and another roommate were paying cash to the guy actually on the lease. About three months before we graduated, the guy on the lease scuppered off with the money, and it turned out he had not been paying the rent for months. The two (my classmate and the other roommate) got evicted.
p.s. IANAL, but you might want to consider the bit about accessing online accounts that are not yours. I understand you want to ensure your son and brother don’t have anything bad happen to them. You know that series Locked Up Abroad/Banged Up Abroad? The real moral of that series is some people don’t learn until they fight the law and the law wins. From what you’ve posted here, your son is one of those people. Your brother? A much better conversation for him: “Bro, you can’t trust your nephew to pay the rent. Word to the wise, huh?”
Let me tell you what happened to my younger brother once when we were teenagers. My dad’s buddy, the sherrif, called Dad and said one of his officers picked up my brother for some offense and would he come pick him up. This was about midnight. Dad’s response was simple: “Sure, I’ll be there at 9 in the morning. Good night.” Yes, that was in the “Tough Love” era. Little Bro pulled other inane things in the ensuing years, ultimately ending up with Mom kicking his ass out (he was an adult by this time). How did LB turn out? Great husband, outstanding father, leader in his church, runs two businesses. And he never held it against Mom for kicking his ass out. I think Mom and Dad had it right.
A bit of an anti-rant. I had a package delivered from the UK last week. The DHL delivery guy was polite and professional, and a couple of minutes later rang the doorbell again to let me know that it was starting to rain and my car window was open. I felt this was service above and beyond, and posted a compliment on the DHL website. This morning, the doorbell rang again with an unexpected delivery, which turned out to be a thank-you card and large basket with a selection of gourmet chocolates from DHL. My wife loves the chocolates and the cat has snagged the big bow. I guess they don’t get a lot of compliments!
I hear you, Monty. I know you’re right but it’s hard to watch your kid screw up without trying to manage it a little, even if you actually have no power to do so.
Ah no, at least not in tone. I said, “I see your rent is late again, is there some reason this keeps happening that I could help you with?” He said, “No, it’s my fault I didn’t ask Jim for his half until a few days ago. I’m going to pay it tomorrow.” Notice this brings up questions as to why you didn’t ask for the rent earlier since it was due on the first, or why my adult brother didn’t realize the rent was due, or why this happens for a different reason every month. But we didn’t go down the rabbit hole. I just wanted him to know someone’s got an eye on him. As far as him moving in with us, he already knows that’s not an alternative.
Not to mention that if you ask “Jim” about it, it might (as in will) be a different story. That’s not how it works in the real world. The person on the lease pays the entire rent on time, even if the other party hasn’t forked over the funds. Then the person on the lease harangues the other party or ultimately kicks his ass out. Well, maybe they both need learn the hard way.
For the second time since getting this ‘upgrade’ from DirecTV, I’ve managed to delete an entire block of recorded programs instead of just a single program. :mad: At least there’s plenty of space on the DVR now.
My latest annoyance is when someone posts totally inappropriate, off-topic stuff to a thread. Like compliments in a venting thread. You know who you are! :mad:
just kidding - Bookkeeper, it’s nice to hear of someone (and their employer REALLY going above and beyond).
My latest: Our Verizon service has been creeping up in cost for no special reason.
A year or so back, I looked at changing plans. I could have gotten a slightly better TV lineup for the same as we were paying then (once I got them to drop some bogus crap that was automatically added in, that I couldn’t remove using the website). I never got around to making the change.
Over the past week I have made numerous attempts to view their current plan lineup. NOWHERE on their web page does it give you options to tweak your own current configuration. Or if a link suggests that it might, the timer icon just spins, and spins, and spins. There are plenty of links to changing the TV lineup to a higher-end one - all of which are a LOT more expensive than our current one.
Their new-customer rate is pretty good - about half what we’re paying, as long as you lock in for 2 years. I have no issue with that - overall their service is decent. But they do not offer those rates to existing customers - I asked about that the last time we made a change. So yeah, they’re counting on inertia. Well, that’s worked, so I guess it’s a valid business model… but I am going to get quotes from Box-Of-Rocks, and the satellite people. We’ll see if making a serious threat to leave does anything for us.
Anti-rant first. Ralph, the big hairy dog peed outside today! Not at home, I’m a bitch, so tossed some ice in their water bowl, which made him slurp down a lot of water, then took the dogs to the dog park. He has followed the litter box outside, but this time, he did it on the dirt just like a big dog! Many good boy words happened
Rant: I use an Amazon Fire for reading because I can use it for other things in a pinch. The one I have is about 3 years ago, and something started happening with the screen a couple of months ago. It was like train tracks running down the side, connecting lines and all. I couldn’t see how I would have damaged the screen so as to leave those sort of marks, so I ignored it. Next came train tracks down the other side of the screen. OK, I know I didn’t do that sort of damage, its just the screen, but I can still use it for its primary function and I’m a tree-hugger. Not going to just toss it in the landfill in less I really have to.
The train tracks started coming down the middle of the screen about a month ago. Not really noticeable when it was on, so still usable.
Now smaller train tracks are filling in the bigger train tracks, kinda looks like fractals. Functionality is not so good anymore, so go to Amazon to order a new one. Arrival date? 8/28/19.
I know that’s not a good reason, so I support it with reason number two. That is, the boy’s roommate is my brother, and I want to make sure the rent does get paid eventually. I wouldn’t put it past the young beetle to collect his uncle’s share of the rent in cash and then use it for other than its intended purpose.
