Living with a freeloader

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Long story short. I share a house with 3 people. Housemate #1, good guy and responsible. Every thing was fine until Housemate #2, total freeloader, moved in. At first we didn't know much about him other than him not being a total slob or thief. We all work together so that's how we knew him. He was fine at first but now he's getting too comfortable.

This guy is the cheapest person I've met in my life. Doesn't drop a dime on anything for the house. Trash bags, dish detergent, toilet paper etc. when he runs out of groceries he just digs into ours like eggs, cheese etc. Never buys anything in return.

a few bucks of groceries and toiletries doesn't really bother me. I lost my mind the other day when I try to detail my car and the very extension cord I brought to power the shop vac was missing. The guy took it to use it to power his own TV in his room. I ask about it and he just says "oh I'm sorry" and walked off to do his own thing. So I buy a TV for the living room and now he just hogs that, doesn't even give me my extension cord back. I have a dirty car and and no TV to watch.

Yes I'm a very lenient person when it comes to sharing, but at this point I feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Guy also still owes me $25. Not that I care about $25, but it's the principle that matters.

I'm sure some of you have ran into trouble with housemates. How did you deal with it?
 
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Can you afford to kick him out? Or is there a lease in place where you have to live with him for a fixed amount of time?
 
I see this all the time. About a quarter to a third of the time when roommates/friends get together, a year after the lease is up, they all move out and sometimes they're not friends afterwards.

You need to have a house meeting to hash this all out. As a landlord I never get involved, I just tell them to act like adults and work it out.
 
I'd be in his face about "house rules". I'd take my extension cord back and put it back in the garage where it belonged, and I'd tie it up in a noose so he got the message.

So, you've let this guy keep you from cleaning your car, and now you cannot even watch your own brand new television. You need to grow some.

Scott
 
Originally Posted by Reddy45
Can you afford to kick him out? Or is there a lease in place where you have to live with him for a fixed amount of time?


Long story short I'm not on the lease so I can leave whenever(although he is), just worked out better that way. I pay both housemates my part of the rent(half each). This was agreed with housemate #1 months prior to #2 moving in. #2 moved in because he just wanted a cheap place to live and we had the extra room.
 
Tell him when he is out of food he buys more food or goes hungry. Get your extension cord back and tell him when you want to watch TV you chose what is on TV. If TV is that important to him he can watch it with you or buy an extension cord.
 
Shank 'em
That'll teach him to be cheap and/or lazy!
coffee2.gif
 
Originally Posted by Wolf359
I see this all the time. About a quarter to a third of the time when roommates/friends get together, a year after the lease is up, they all move out and sometimes they're not friends afterwards.

You need to have a house meeting to hash this all out. As a landlord I never get involved, I just tell them to act like adults and work it out.


Yup, my dad is a land lord and I've dealt with some of the stuff that comes with it. Any house sharing issues is between renting parties, leave me out of it. I was planning on just getting my own place so I didn't have to deal with this type of stuff but with the way things worked out this was my only option up til now.

I have another friend who's looking to split rent, it'd be double of what I'm paying now, it'd all within my budget and I could leave this mess behind, but geez the extra $350 I'm saving per month comes in handy

Originally Posted by SLO_Town
You need to grow some.


I don't have an issue confronting him, but I gotta work with this guy and I'm not trying to be the A hole here. Just wish he could show some common sense and respect for other's property. I have 4 more months left here so I don't even know if I should just deal with this lol
 
Originally Posted by Nick1994
You've got a new Subaru, a Lexus, BMW, and a Maserati?

Move out and live on your own.


It's a long story lol. I have a house half way across the country. I work here temporally and don't really need a full blown house to myself. House sharing works out great if all parties are respectable.
 
Originally Posted by FordBroncoVWJeta
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
Shank 'em
That'll teach him to be cheap and/or lazy!
coffee2.gif


+1
crackmeup2.gif


Like Hank Jr said "spit some beechnut in that dudes eyes, shoot him with my old 45"

Just kidding. Dont do that.

Have a serious talk with him about feelings.
 
I had a roommate in the barracks once who would drink all my beer, eat all my food, and pass out drunk.
I even questioned him, he'd replace it and immediately drink and eat that as well. I contacted his company first line leader, that didnt help, worked up to the top of his company, still didnt help.
So over the course of a month I went around to everyone drinking and collected their bottle caps. My roommate passed out drunk and I took the opportunity to surround his bed with upside down bottle caps, where the sharper side that connects to the bottle was up.
There were literally thousands of these things around his bed. Early in the morning he woke up to hurl, needless to say he stood up and immediately stepped on them, freaked out because it hurt, danced around, kept stepping on them, and eventually slipped and fell on top of them.
His feet and back were pretty torn up. Two days later he had a 8 mile ruck march that tore his feet up even more.
Day later I had a steaming mad 1SG and SFC show up to question what I did. Well, if you werent going to help me first, you really cant get mad? It ended up we were no longer roommates and the guy ended up going to substance abuse due to a DUI.

Ahh barracks stories.
 
Originally Posted by GumbyJarvis
I had a roommate in the barracks once who would drink all my beer, eat all my food, and pass out drunk.
I even questioned him, he'd replace it and immediately drink and eat that as well. I contacted his company first line leader, that didnt help, worked up to the top of his company, still didnt help.
So over the course of a month I went around to everyone drinking and collected their bottle caps. My roommate passed out drunk and I took the opportunity to surround his bed with upside down bottle caps, where the sharper side that connects to the bottle was up.
There were literally thousands of these things around his bed. Early in the morning he woke up to hurl, needless to say he stood up and immediately stepped on them, freaked out because it hurt, danced around, kept stepping on them, and eventually slipped and fell on top of them.
His feet and back were pretty torn up. Two days later he had a 8 mile ruck march that tore his feet up even more.
Day later I had a steaming mad 1SG and SFC show up to question what I did. Well, if you werent going to help me first, you really cant get mad? It ended up we were no longer roommates and the guy ended up going to substance abuse due to a DUI.

Ahh barracks stories.



Well that sounds pretty similar to how my experience is in the AF. If I was working a civilian job I would have booted this guy a long time ago. It's one thing if he's just lazy and doesn't want to physically go to the store to buy groceries/toiletries, another when he's getting cheap and using up everything just enough til there's 1/2 a use left so the purchase falls on you lol. I think that this guy assumes that since I can afford nice things I can also afford to support him.
 
Originally Posted by avacado11
Originally Posted by GumbyJarvis
I had a roommate in the barracks once who would drink all my beer, eat all my food, and pass out drunk.
I even questioned him, he'd replace it and immediately drink and eat that as well. I contacted his company first line leader, that didnt help, worked up to the top of his company, still didnt help.
So over the course of a month I went around to everyone drinking and collected their bottle caps. My roommate passed out drunk and I took the opportunity to surround his bed with upside down bottle caps, where the sharper side that connects to the bottle was up.
There were literally thousands of these things around his bed. Early in the morning he woke up to hurl, needless to say he stood up and immediately stepped on them, freaked out because it hurt, danced around, kept stepping on them, and eventually slipped and fell on top of them.
His feet and back were pretty torn up. Two days later he had a 8 mile ruck march that tore his feet up even more.
Day later I had a steaming mad 1SG and SFC show up to question what I did. Well, if you werent going to help me first, you really cant get mad? It ended up we were no longer roommates and the guy ended up going to substance abuse due to a DUI.

Ahh barracks stories.



Well that sounds pretty similar to how my experience is in the AF. If I was working a civilian job I would have booted this guy a long time ago. It's one thing if he's just lazy and doesn't want to physically go to the store to buy groceries/toiletries, another when he's getting cheap and using up everything just enough til there's 1/2 a use left so the purchase falls on you lol. I think that this guy assumes that since I can afford nice things I can also afford to support him.


Are you both in the USAF?
If so, have you contacted his CoC?
If that doesnt work, the next best thing is to contact the Chaplain. Some units don't want to deal with things like this until something happens, sadly this can be considered a behavioral health/financial issue, and both could end a military career.
If I knew someone was going through the rough, I'd usually contact the chaplain hotline, as they're more willing to help in these situations, not from a religious perspective, but think more "guidance counselor."

Also, most chaplains are cool and are officers you can actually immediately approach as an enlisted personnel without fear of some NCO wondering why you immediately went to an officer.
 
"When you have something to say, silence is a lie — and tyranny feeds on lies."

You have to call this guy out. Either this guy has some kind of psychological pathology, in which case he will never do anything but bleed you dry; or he is basically a good dude with some bad habits, in which case you are doing everyone including him a great disservice by reinforcing those bad habits.

Start by pointing out facts, not by expressing value judgments. E.g., do not call him a freeloader to his face or tell him he's being a bad person or anything like that. At all. Seriously, you have to be super disciplined about that or it could make things a lot more difficult. Instead, tell him straight-up all the things that have happened that you don't like.

Then tell him you don't feel it's fair and can't allow it to continue.

Then invite him to have a real conversation about solutions. The solutions should be super concrete -- e.g.: instead of "I will chip in more for groceries", something like "I will contribute $xx.xx per week toward groceries." Then define some consequences if either of you doesn't hold up his end of the bargain.

Then write everything down, with him present, and make at least a copy available to him. Seriously.

If he protests at any point, tell him that as long as he's living under your auspices, you have to be comfortable with the arrangement or it's not going to happen. Give him one and only one opportunity to accept that.

If he doesn't, you have to kick him out. That means you have to make yourself and your other housemate ready for that possibility in advance.

Again, keep it simple: facts, impacts, solutions, consequences. No value judgments, no punishments, no passing the buck.

Good luck.
 
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