raine: (A-Team: Amy disbelief)
Raine Wynd ([personal profile] raine) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2020-08-08 03:27 pm

Dear Prudence: Roommate's Sometime Girlfriend Wants to Use My Bathroom

Dear Prudence,

I rent a house with three other people. I pay a bigger portion of the rent for the master bedroom with the private bathroom. It is also the only bathtub in the house. “Jon” lives upstairs. He has an on-again, off-again relationship with “Sarah,” and they have one kid together. Sarah has two other kids with someone else, but she brings all three over here all the time. We live near a public lake and park. The kids do not like showers, so Sarah tries to use my bathroom during those visits. I hate it because her kids can’t keep their hands to themselves and Sarah refuses to supervise them properly. My bathroom is en suite, and there’s no door between the tub and my bedroom. I don’t want to have to worry about running into kids changing or taking a bath.

I have tried talking to Jon about it, but Sarah just bulldozes him. Jon needs to side with her or else he “doesn’t love” her. It is “too hard” to take her kids home dirty and bathe them there (apparently she lives with her parents, and there is never any hot water). Last time, I locked the door and ignored Sarah while she tried to pound the hinges off. I came out after she left. Jon asked me and I lied that I’d had my noise-canceling headphones on. I don’t want to keep doing this. None of us are really friends, so I am afraid to bring it up with my housemates. I don’t really care if Sarah and the kids are in the public spaces. I don’t want them in mine. Help, please!

—Stay Out

First, the good news: You do not have to be friends with your housemates in order to have a house meeting or to establish ground rules for guests. That’s also the bad news, which is that you’re going to have to have a house meeting where you establish ground rules for guests you can all agree upon. That doesn’t mean you’re all going to like those rules or that Jon’s going to have a good time enforcing them, but even a partially unsatisfying compromise, honestly hashed-out, is better than a mix of contradictory, unspoken objectives. Even if Jon can’t or won’t commit to maintaining house rules when his sometimes-girlfriend comes over, you don’t need his permission to keep houseguests out of your room. Nor is it your responsibility to figure out how or when Jon and Sarah clean their kids after they go to the park. Since they can still use other bathrooms both in your house and hers, you’re not preventing them from accessing basic hygiene. “Sorry, you can’t use my bathroom, but there’s another one downstairs” is all you have to say. The questions of how much Jon loves Sarah or whether there’s something wrong with the water heater at her parents’ house are not yours to resolve. You have a straightforward problem with a pretty simple answer. All you have to do is be clear with your housemates about it.
mirlacca: still blue flowers (Default)

[personal profile] mirlacca 2020-08-08 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Two bits says if there's a meeting about house rules, Sarah's going to show up with Jon.
malkingrey: (Default)

[personal profile] malkingrey 2020-08-09 08:07 pm (UTC)(link)
The big question is, whose name is the one on the lease? If LW's the name on the lease, they have a lot more leverage than if they're just paying extra for the bedroom+bath.
cereta: Amelia Pond (Amelia)

[personal profile] cereta 2020-08-08 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
No takers.
tielan: (Default)

[personal profile] tielan 2020-08-08 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I think one of the things that some people fail to recognise in a shared house is that the spaces that you pay for - the spaces that aren't 'common' should be as inviolate as private property.

So, the ensuite bathroom is LW's private property. Sarah the sometime girlfriend is not entitled to use it like it's common space. The fact that it's in the same house may make it seem to her like she has the right, but she has no more right to it any more than she has the right to knock on the door of the house next to the park, demand to use their bathroom, and expect to be accomodated.
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (Default)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2020-08-10 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
Jon may well have failed to communicate the terms of the lease, or that he pays less rent. So Sarah may be bring selfish, or Jon maybe being so conflict avoidant that he's creating conflict.
kelly_holden: A Yahoo! avatar edited to look more like me. Pudgy, freckly, blue-green eyes, long brown hair. (Default)

[personal profile] kelly_holden 2020-08-08 11:50 pm (UTC)(link)
For that matter, even without the whole feeling entitled to use the bath in someone else's ensuite issue, I'd still not be happy with a housemate regularly allowing multiple guests to bathe at our house. Not if we're splitting the power and water bills evenly. And if we run out of hot water more often ...
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2020-08-09 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
Right, like, sometimes accidents happen and you can't expect it, so sure, an impromptu kid bath or shower because they got totally muddy is fine. But if this is happening regularly, you gotta plan better, folks.
sporky_rat: A Giant Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man cruisin' down the street in NYC (campfire time!)

[personal profile] sporky_rat 2020-08-09 02:38 pm (UTC)(link)

We have two bathrooms in this house (such luxury, oh my gosh, I grew up with one and there were five people trying to use it all at the same time) and sometimes if we've got guests that really need to use the bathroom but the hall bathroom is occupied, I'll let people use the one attached to the master bedroom (and yeah you have go through the bedroom for it but I try to make sure it's not an embarrassing wreck for either of us).

This doesn't look like that situation. Jon needs to boss up a bit and start respecting private spaces. (Model some boundary enforcement for those children!)

conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2020-08-09 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, that was a mood whiplash for me.

Looking at the title, I thought it was something like "the kids want to use the bathroom to pee when the other bathroom is occupied" - in which case, I say you gotta suck it up because it's not okay to make people hold it if there's an alternative, especially people with teensy bladders.

But this is totally different and completely uncool on Sarah's part. And John's! You can't just visit at somebody else's house and use their private, bedroom-attached bathroom to take baths.