The Potential Roommate Who Wanted Me to Clean Rooms I Wasn’t Allowed in.
She didn’t like cleaning, or letting others use common spaces. What could go wrong?
It’s late May, 2018, and I need a place to live, ASAP.
Since my marriage had fallen apart, I had been renting a room in a house with some friends, but it was only temporary, they had a more regular tenant coming in. My friend said I could stay on her couch, and care for her dog while she was on vacation, but that was also temporary.
As a teacher, I had the summer off, and my goal was to rent a room in house, move in, get my life back together just in time to start my new job in the fall. Once I found a stable home I could take my stuff out of storage, and start to grieve the loss of my marriage.
So my new full-time job was finding a place to live, and getting settled ASAP, along with walking my friend’s dog while I crashed on her couch.
Scanning Craig’s list, I found a large, sunny room for rent in a nice area. The room was huge, the size my previous studio apartment, with a spacious walk-in closet and windows on three sides. The room appeared to take up most of the 2nd floor. I could easily fit all my meager belongings in there, set up a comfy chair and table, and practically live in just that room. Excited I called and left a message, already figuring out my floor plan.
Days later I got a call back from Billy* who owned the house herself and was looking for a roommate because her current tenant was moving out soon. She set up an appointment for me to come and view the room. While talking to Billy on the phone, several red-flags came up right away. Billy explained that the living room, would not always be open for me to use. I tried to get clarification on more specific details of when I could use the living room, but it was hard to pin down. Billy explained that she worked from home, and her office was adjacent to the living room (her office was set up in the dinning room). Her work required her to take confidential phone calls with her clients, so if she happened to be working and needed to take a phone call, I would need to leave.
That seemed reasonable, not idea but okay. The room I would be renting was so big, I might not even need to hang out in the living room. I could literally set up my own living room up there.
The second red flag was when Billy mentioned she didn’t like doing housework. She said if I was willing to do her share of the housework, in addition to mine, she could knock 100$ off of my rent. That didn’t feel right to me, and I told her so. I didn’t like the idea of being the sole cleaner of the house. When a person cleans, they have a certain care for the space and their messes, since they know they will have to clean them up. She then said she could just hire a cleaning service on her days to clean for the same price. That sounded better, but still a bit apprensive to me. But that big, spacious room was calling to me, and I figured I should at least check the situation out; I needed a home. Anyway Billy sounded nice, and I did like meeting new people.
Billy’s house was located in a nice neighborhood, and had a nice small yard. The minute I stepped inside and met Billy, I realized I could never live there. Billy’s living room was a mess, little to no arrangement of furniture, and books and materials placed chaotically unoragnized around surfaces, furniture, and the floor. The wall was full of art that was placed crooked, or had fallen on the floor, never to be rehanged. There was no room for any thing I could possibly add to the space. The living room was above all else, Billy’s. Everything there was hers, and she clearly could do whatever she wanted with the space, but not me. A strange sort of space-ownership radiated out of her chaotic belongings.
Billy gave me a tour of the house. She showed me the spare bedroom on the first floor. That room was mostly empty except some boxes and more random objects and junk spread around in the corners. She showed me the kitchen. I asked if I would given a cubbord or some drawers to use in there. She starred at me, then informed me that like the living room there would be certain times when the kitchen would be off limits.
I tried to get more clarification when this would be. Would I be able to make myself dinner, breakfast, or other meals in the kitchen? Billy explained that she usually worked during the night, and slept during the day, and her bedroom was right next to the kitchen. So me using the kitchen during the day may wake her up. I asked again exactly what hours/times I could use the kitchen, and which ones were off-limits, but she was vague. “Let’s just take things as they go, and if it becomes an issue, I’ll let you know.” She said with a wink. This wasn’t feeling good, she was pretty much telling me I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen at certain times, but those times could be anytime. I would have no guaratee I could use the kitchen at all.
She also explained, that if she was busy with the living room, such as if she was watching a movie or doing something else, I wouldn’t be welcome there. However if she felt like having company and talking to someone, then I was definately welcome in the living room. I started to wonder if Billy really understood what having a roommate arrangement really was. From the dinning room, to the living room, the spare room to the kitchen, I started to realize, every rooms was Billy’s. My presence in any part of the house was purely based off of her pleasure. Only if she felt like it would I have access to anyththing other than my bedroom. It was her house, and I was meerly a guest in her common areas, at her leisure. At one point she showed me the backyard. A small, unkept or managed area without a lawn, garden, or anything. I asked if I could plant a small garden there, she seemed unhappy with this idea. “That’s where my dog goes to the bathroom, so that might be a problem” she explained. I started to sense in her that she needed to own all the spaces in her house, and outside, possibly she even found a way to control the bedroom for renting.
After coming all this way, I still wanted to see the room. It looked so beautiful in the photos, and if nothing else, I wanted to see if it would have been a good fit. As we climbed the stairs to the top floor, Billy showed me something that confirmed my impressions.
Billy had built a side door outside that tunnelled into the room’s walk-in closet. She showed me that she had filled 80% of the closet with tightly-packed boxes, well organized and stacked.
“This is the only place in the entire house I have for storage.” She explained to me, in a stern, boundary-setting manner. She had somehow found a way to claim the space in the room she was renting as well by using the closet. The one room that would I would be welcome in, the only room that would soley be mine, she needed to use for storage. I could picture her going in and out of the closet from the backend, getting to her stuff, but also on some level claiming the space of my room.
Given that Billy had an entire, nearly empty, spare room to store stuff in, why did she need the small space in the tenant closet? Not only that, she referenced the house having a basement several times. Why couldn’t she have stored her stuff there? The few square feet in the closet somehow needed to be hers as well, along with the entire house.
The room was indeed beautiful, with 270 degree views of the city. It was lovely with sky-blue walls and gerogus blue, oriental rugs. A great place, but the closet was small due to Billy’s belongings.
As we descended the stairs Billy brought up again that there would be a weekly chore list to clean the “common” spaces, including the living room and kitchen. I failed to see how these were common spaces, as I wasn’t guaranteed access to them. She explained she didn’t like to clean and again offered to take 100$ off of my rent if I did her share. It didn’t make sense that I had to do 100% or even 50% of the cleaning if I wasn’t granted equal access to them, if felt like I was cleaning up after her. They were her spaces, but I was responsible for keeping them clean. Furthermore, Billy had a dog, and we all know they add more mess. I would be responsible for cleaning up any dog hair or mess left in these “common” areas. When I told her no, that wouldn’t work for me, she then again said she would just hire someone instead. I suggested perhaps we could have the cleaning company come every week, and we could share the cost. At least we could have some more even footing around that. For some reason that didn’t seem to land well on her, and I started to feel like she was expecting more of a serf than a roommate. Someone who could clean up after her, but not use the house, unless she was lonely and wanted to have “company.” That may be a good arrangement for some people, but not really the way standard roommate expectations work.
I came up with an excuse of why I couldn’t live there, but not all was lost, I still wanted to get to know Billy. She may have had delusional ideas on what a tenant was supposed to do, but she was still interesting, nice, and clearly a bit lonely. I too was lonely and wanted to talk with her. We sat around in her living room chatting for about an hour and half. She talked about trips to Russia, her childhood, and interesting topics. Billy was indeed a lovely person, just not someone I wanted to live with.
Billy mentioned she hadn’t worked in about 2 years, instead she collected SSI and used the money from her tenants to support herself. Something didn’t add up in my brain. Why did Billy need a home office, where she had to take private calls, if she didn’t actually work? Furthermore, if she needed a private office, why not use the spare room that had it’s own closing door, so as not to hoard the living spaces? And then why would Billy need to work at night, if she didn’t have an actual job?
So after asking, Billy explained that her “client” phone calls were actually just if a friend happened to call her and she wanted to have privacy. This apparently had to happen in the living room, she couldn’t take private calls from her private room. She prefered to stay up at night and sleep all day, so that’s why she “worked at night.” Billy said she used to have her office in the spare room, however she got tired of opening and closing the door whenever she went to the kitchen to get a snack, so instead took over the dinning room and subsequently the living room as her “office.”
It was becoming very clear Billy just wanted to claim all the space in the house, with paper-thin excuses. Everything was hers, even the closet in my would-be bedroom. I also was sensing that Billy had some sort of mental illness, and that was probably why she was collecting SSI. If nothing else she wasn’t working or really doing anything with her time to develop herself, and she seemed in a state of atrophy, doomed to stay frozen in a state of non-functioning until forced out of her by interveining life event.
Leaving the house, I admit I did enjoy this journey of meeting Billy, seeing her home, and talking with her. She was a colofrul and interesting person, But I would never return. Cleaning an entire house by myself, when I wasn’t even allowed in most of it, no thanks. I wish her the best though. Live and Let Live.
*Name has been changed.
