Roommates and overnight guests

[Yehudi]

For those of you who live with other people, what is acceptable as far as letting other people stay overnight? I currently share a house with 6 other people. We actually have a house rule that states that you can't have people overnight more than two times a week but with one guy, we never really enforced it because he and his girlfriend were generally very quiet and we only noticed her if she happened to go into the kitchen when someone else was there.

Another guy, however, has been bringing his girlfriend over frequently, more than the allowable two times a week, and while they're not screaming and stuff, I can definitely hear them talking in his room, which gets annoying when I am trying to sleep. I am also concerned that the girlfriend seems to have a key to the house because I saw her just walk into the house without ringing the door bell or the guy letting her in.

[GarrAarghHrumph]

My thought is that if you guys didn't enforce this rule with the one roommate, you can't enforce it for roommate #2. Or if you do, you must now enforce it for roommate #1 as well.

What might be best is if you guys were to talk to roommate #2 about being quieter when they are in the room talking, and about your concerns re: the girlfriend having her own key, which is not okay. Ask that she return the key.

[Badams]

My thought is that if you guys didn't enforce this rule with the one roommate, you can't enforce it for roommate #2. Or if you do, you must now enforce it for roommate #1 as well.

What might be best is if you guys were to talk to roommate #2 about being quieter when they are in the room talking, and about your concerns re: the girlfriend having her own key, which is not okay. Ask that she return the key.

Yeah, I agree. It's kinda hard to enforce a rule with one person, and not another. But ABSOLUTELY get the key back, if she has one! That's not cool!

[Yehudi]

Thanks for the feedback. I think what we'll do is tell roommate 2 to just keep it down at night and remind him that most people in the house need to get up at 7 to go to class or work. We really don't want to enforce it with roommate 1 because he has been considerate and his girlfriend is not obtrusive at all.

[MacMadame]

Maybe you could add gf of roommate #1 to the lease. Then she's not a guest.

This assumes she's basically living there though. If it's just that she's over 3-5x a week instead of 2x, then that isn't going to work.

[my little pony]

when this happened to me, we had 4 roommates. we told the roommate with the ubiquitous guest that we were going to start dividing all the utilities by 5. that ended that.

[*Jen*]

I have another issue with roommates and overnight guests. Last weekend, my roommate was a very naughty boy. He snuck a girl home (unsuccessfully since we all know)...and then she snuck out in the morning. It's naughty because he has a girlfriend, but they have a distance relationship.

Don't need any advice here, just idle gossip

[genevieve]

Yehudi, do you ever hold house meetings? Because it sounds like the rule about guests needs revising - as others mentioned, since you're not enforcing it with roommate #1, and have no intention to, the rule about guests means absolutely nothing. It's time to either get rid of it, or identify what the household really wants to prevent (noisy guests, giving key copies to gf/bf) and change the rule to reflect that. Good luck!

[milanessa]

I notice you said that you can hear them in his room and that you saw her come in on her own. Are you the only one that's concerned or does it bother your other roommates?

7 people living in a house when they aren't related to each other (or even when they are) need rules to make it work as smoothly as possible. I agree with genevieve about a house meeting.

Must be a big house.

[Yehudi]

An update on the situation. Our landlord evicted the roommate after he and his friends apparently trashed the downstairs area over the holidays and the landlord found out the girlfriend was essentially living in the house. (I am not sure of the details as it all happened while I was away). He was given 30 days to vacate the premises but since he has nothing to lose, he has decided to make life as miserable for the rest of the house as possible by having loud sex with his girlfriend, hogging the bathroom, and playing loud music til 3am and flaunting all the house rules we put up. Is there a way we can get rid of him sooner?

[Aceon6]

First thought is to speak to the landlord, as he seems as interested in getting rid of the guy as you are. I'd mention abuse of the hot water as a concern, as that may cost the landlord more than he plans per tenant.

As for what, if anything you can do, if most of you get up at 7, there's no harm in having the house be buzzing, especially if you know that the amorous couple went to sleep late.

[*Jen*]

You could do what a former co-worker of mine did and record the loud sex noises and play it outside his room at 7 in the morning, alongside loud music Or you could just wait it out and let karma eventually get him. There's nothing you can do to hasten the eviction process, so just hang in there and look forward to the peace you'll have very soon

[madm]

In college I had obnoxious neighbors (young college boyfriend & girlfriend) below me in an apartment building, who partied with loud music til 4am and argued and threw things at each other. One day when I was fed up, I got up at 7:00am, aimed some stereo speakers down on the floor, turned on a loud radio station, and then left to do my own stuff for several hours. When I returned and turned off the music, they banged on the ceiling with something that sounded like a tennis racket. Mission accomplished. They did not bother me again and they moved out a month or two later. I did not want to talk to them for fear of retribution or assault, and the landlord was virtually non-existant (a college town property rental slumlord). My philosophy was that if I had to keep their hours, they could keep mine. Such people are incredibly inconsiderate and self-centered. They don't think about anyone but themselves.

If you want to do something a bit more subtle, just make a lot of noise in the house early in the morning. You can all bang around in the kitchen and bathroom, and put on a loud TV or radio. There's no reason why they should get a good night's sleep :-). Morning noises might make them more anxious to move out too.

[Aussie Willy]

I am surprised he got 30 days. I would have thought trashing a property was justifiable reason for immediate eviction. Particularly as it is a shared house.

[Yehudi]

I am surprised he got 30 days. I would have thought trashing a property was justifiable reason for immediate eviction. Particularly as it is a shared house.

I ran into the landlord today as he was showing the soon to be vacated room and he told me that by Massachusetts law, they have to give notice for eviction, even if it is "for cause" So yeah, sadly we're stuck with him.

[Aussie Willy]

I ran into the landlord today as he was showing the soon to be vacated room and he told me that by Massachusetts law, they have to give notice for eviction, even if it is "for cause" So yeah, sadly we're stuck with him.

All I can say is "That sucks".

[Alex Forrest]

It's funny because I'm having issues with my bff's landlord. I was always spending the night and he wanted me to put my name on the lease, which I thought was odd. I own a house. He started complaining that my car was always parked outside ON THE STREET and was taking up space. And because I would go out and smoke at all hours, the apartment now has an anti-smoking policy and it's OUTSIDE. I can smoke inside the apartment, but I hate smoking inside because of the smell. But I can't smoke OUTSIDE. Crazy. This landlord is like a nazi and is always on my ass. I never pay attention but I somehow through osmosis learned the pass code to the gate, because I guess my subconscious pays attention to details. The next day my friend got a letter that said I wasn't welcome. Uggh. I can't stand landlords. I spent the night there last night and at least didn't see him.

SIX roommates? Wow. Do you share bedrooms? In college I did the four fratboy, two BR bs. The problem was when you're already in bed and your roommate brings someone back to the room and has sex and wakes you up. You're basically paralyzed for the time being, and don't know if it's rude to get up and leave or just pretend to sleep through it. I picked the nerdiest pre-med to share a bedroom with and thought I'd be safe because he had NO game. But he somehow found it. And there's nothing worse than hearing a nerd do dirty talk. At times I almost burst out laughing even though I knew I had to pretend I was asleep. Eeek. Ground rules are very important, and there should be no exceptions.

I eventually learned that I needed no roommate and my life was simplified and smooth sailing. Roommates are nothing but a problem I came to the conclusion.

[BigB08822]

I never pay attention but I somehow through osmosis learned the pass code to the gate, because I guess my subconscious pays attention to details.

Really now? So its not your fault that you used the code that you aren't supposed to have because it was your subconscious who stole the pass code?

[*Jen*]

If you have a house, why doesn't your bff stay there?

[Ziggy]

Thanks for the feedback. I think what we'll do is tell roommate 2 to just keep it down at night and remind him that most people in the house need to get up at 7 to go to class or work. We really don't want to enforce it with roommate 1 because he has been considerate and his girlfriend is not obtrusive at all.

That's the problem though. If you don't enforce that rule with one of them, you can't really expect to enforce it with the other.