I'm so tired! I had to drop everything today to run out to my sister's place at school. We had our suspicions about her roommates, and that they'd be trouble but wooooo boy are they trouble.
Like... you need heat, especially when one roommate is sick and on meds and has woken up with ice in her hair. You need to not turn down the heat and break the thermostat's ability to regulate. You need to not mess with the furnace (which is what the landlord suggested has been happening when we spoke with them today). That probably will raise your bill! But you need heat! These are people with jobs/parents that are willing and able to help them (and had to sign a parental agreement to do so when necessary as part of the lease). It's not an outrageous expectation.
You need to pay your rent and utilities! You just need to! I had no idea my sister had been covering for people when they were late, like hundreds of dollars. She knew we wouldn't like that, so she didn't tell us. When you're late you can't refuse to pay the late fee and refuse to drop off the check. You can't demand that she leave work early to handle it (she's the one without a car!). And she's the one who set up all the accounts before moving in, because no one else would, so she's the only with with any risk of penalties (how convenient). You need to stick to deadlines and when someone's parents/siblings drive out to take care of it because you're being awful and just fucking around with someone to make them miserable, just because (these girls had the day off? one is no longer a student and is just living there while working retail, no homework or classes or anything else to do outside of her shifts, they both have cars, why would you demand she leave work to handle your late checks???) don't fucking yell at them???? Why would this be a good thing. Why would you be surprised that after six months you've pushed everyone past their limit.
Genuinely concerned about my sister's well-being at this point. Taking care of her and dropping everything with each crisis has cost us a lot: worrying, car maintenance, gas, stress all around. I think a lot about something from an old Captain Awkward thread: Sometimes money is the cheapest way to pay. She keeps having panic attacks now because she doesn't want to go home, she doesn't want to go near her roommates. They like to ambush her and gang up on her 2 to 1 or 3 to 1. She has a full class load and two jobs, she needs to be able to be safe and sleep.
We would sublet but it's highly unlikely she'll find anyone to live with them. Why would they approve a new roommate anyway? She'd have to dismantle her accounts and they'd have to set up new ones, she furnished the whole place (we got lucky, if you can call deceased relatives and lovely neighbors moving into nursing homes making furniture available lucky), and she's responsible and pays her share. They got mad when she sent home her recalled coffee maker, and when she moved her movies to her room along with the special dishes they've been destroying by not cleaning. Like.. they're even demanding she buy more toilet paper, because while she has supplied the most, she got it on sale and paid less. That is not how that works. Every adult she talks to, the doctor, counselors, bosses, professors, tells her to move out. It's a joke. I know it makes her feel helpless because what kind of advice is that? Who can afford to pay for two places? The landlord refers to her as "the responsible one" and addresses all communications to her directly. She sent her pets home because she can't trust they'll be safe there/won't freeze to death. Her friends won't come over because her roommates are really mean and rude and one has no boundaries whatsoever, so she's isolated. She had to change the locks on her room after she went to a conference and came back to someone else's dirty clothes in her bed.
And have as many "family meetings" as you want, but months ago you literally told her to "suck it up and deal", so why would anything be different now? Those meetings are a trap: the one girl yells and the other two shrug, while she gets harangued. You're not unreasonable for refusing to participate in that. I've encountered that a lot. Dressing abuse up as a meeting for problem-solving, if that makes sense. Has anyone else? "What?? We're abusive? Why didn't tell you tell us we're abusive?! That's your fault, we didn't know! We better have a meeting where we can explain how not-abusive we are, while being abusive. You don't want to do that? Oh, you're unreasonable then, you're the problem if you're not going to solve it by having this meeting."
I'm frustrated because I frequently have to shirk my own responsibilities, as does my mom, in order to deal with the unending bullshit. Thus the late night (ish) anger purge. Please don't reblog this, obviously.
