Dirty flatmate

merlie

Hi,
I am posting on behalf of a friend. Currently her situation is this. She is renting in a flatshare with 3 other girls. Of these girls, one is does not clean or tidy up. That girl and one other are good friends and the other girl doesn't care how she lives. In other words puts up with it.
My friend showed me how bad it was. There is mould growing on food stuffs in the fridge, rubbish in the hall and on the table, dirty piles of plates, dirty carpets etc. There was even a rusty bicycle in the kitchen at one point, which my friend removed out to the back. But one of the flatmates complained and said it was normal to have a bicycle in the house!

My friend has spoken with her landlord about it and even tried to get some cleaning routine in the house, but to no avail. She has had a talk with the girl but it hasn't done any good and she now feels that the two flatmates are backing up each other. The other flatmate doesn't like the state of the house either, but is now fed up with it too and just wants peace and quiet.
The landlord did call over and inspect the house, he knows its not clean but he also doesnt want to upset the tenants he has. I figured out from speaking with my friend that the landlord is only interested in the rent, nothing else.

My friend loves the area where she lives and would love to stay but its really tough on her to deal with this. She said though that if she had known what she was going into she would never have rented there.

It would seem it is not just a cleaning issue it is also a health issue. Can you give me any advise to pass on to her. She has been to threshold and a few other places but with no luck. Can she get the health inspectors down to the house?

Thanks

Del2005

Why can't she move out? If it's as bad as you described than her health is at risk and she ain't going to get the others cleaning. Her other option is to be a sucker and tidy.

A bike should be in the house! Only if it's worth more than 4 figures and there's no secure place outside.

ABajaninCork

I would tell my friend to move. No matter how nice the area is, it's not worth the stress of living with such a dirty article!

Stheno

I'd also move if I was your friend tbh

djimi

Yup, she needs to move. No support from her flatmates or from the landlord; she can either learn to live with the issue or find somewhere better to live.

okiss

I would tell your friend not to move out if she likes the place. I don't know where she lives but I know that in Dublin it is hard to rent a place at the moment.

She has tried being nice to this girl but at this stage she needs to do the following.
1) Chat to the girl who is not the one who won't clean up and tell her I know you and //// are friends but I can't live like this. Unless she cleans up the place we will have rats, mice, insects ect
2) Agree that you will both tell the messy one that your mother is coming to stay in the flat for a night and you need to clean the place up before she comes
3) Tell the landlord that unless he does something about her that you will have to consider moving out of the flat.
Once they realise that they won't get the same rent/ won't rent the place out due to dirt he might have a chat with the messy one.
4 ) Both of you need to tell this girl that you are sick of the mess and dirt. Tell her unless you all clean up you will have mice, rats, inscets.
I would also let her know that unless she starts to clean up you will have to chat to the landlord about her moving out.

If she refuses to listen to you I would start to dump all the rubbish outside her room or better still in her room. If she has a boyfriend tell him when he comes over Sorry about the mess but you know //// does not like cleaning.
I would also go out and buy the following - 5 Mouse traps, rat poision and leave them on the kitchen table when you know she has friends coming around.
Have these on the kitchen table also when the landlord calls.

Pawwed Rig

Different people have different standadrs of hygiene. Some people like everything pristine and clean whereas some people have no problem living in an absolute pig sty. The problem arise when these people end up living together. Your friend has 3 options here. Either clean up after the dirty girl, live with the dirt or move out. My last house share was with possibly the most disgusting person I have ever met. She would never clean up after herself and used to eat in her bedroom all the time where we would notice that all of the dishes were gone eventually reappearing as a pile in the sink (yes we had a dishwasher). About once a month I would just throw out all of her food from the fridge that had expired or was mouldy but she would leave food spread all over the kitchen.
It took months to get rid of the mice after I moved in.

She could also suggest hiring a cleaner. With 4 people it would not be more than €10 per week.

wirelessdude01

A cleaner might be n idea if you could get everyone to buy into the idea. At least then you know that the place gets a good clean once a week. That's what i did when I lived in London as the other two lads weren't the cleanest in the world.

bottlebrush

Tell her to start looking for other places to rent in the area. Even if she has to move away from this area, it seems that the stress on your friend of living in this hovel would far outweigh the inconvenience of moving to another area. She can't live with this situation, and she has tried to change it to no avail, so the only other option left is to get away from it altogether. There are far more pleasant things to be doing in life than getting consumed with sorting out inconsiderate, dirty people.

handlemaster

I'd love yo live with a dirty girl ;-)

Mrs OBumble

Oh .. and it is normal to keep bicycles in the house.

Sorry about that.

Tokyo

How is this the landlord's problem either way??? It's an internal problem, between the four flatmates.

If you trust someone enough to live with them, then there's enough of a connection there to tell the flatmate to clean her **** up, that you're not her bloody mother.

wirelessdude01

My bikes stay inside the house as it ain't safe to have them in the hed as they could be robbed.

petes

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

My bikes stay inside the house as it ain't safe to have them in the hed as they could be robbed.

That is the only reason I'd consider it normal to have a bike inside the house.