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So many posts berating the OP for being a slob and roommate is cleaning up after her dishes. Did you all miss the part where OP does roommie's dishes often? wth?
OP can live any way she likes. The end.
I'm sorry you had an off week when roommie sprung this on you. I'd be taken aback too. I had a roommate with poor timing too but she owned the house. She went off on a loaf of bread that I forgot about that got moldy, yet I not only fed her cats every weekend all weekend, I also bought the food, every weekend, while she was at SO's house. And my mum did all dishes, hers too, every week when she visited. Yet I made an error and I had to hear nonstop about it the week my grandmother died. Yeah. Fun.
What is with all of these people advocating the use of paper and plastic plates? Are people really that lazy that they can't do some dishes and the entire planet has to suffer their trash for it? Unbelievable.
JerZ, it's your house. She's getting a good deal. If she doesn't like it, she can move out when she's supposed to, after which you will start "tallying" the days she goes past her promise, for which you will charge her market rate (which you can use to get a dishwasher!).
Do yourself a favor and develop different cooking styles. I like to do one pot meals. For spaghetti use one pan from start to finish. Boil water, put in noodles, meat and then drain when done. Add sauce. This dirties one pan vs 4 or so. From there you can do paper plates, try to avoid plastics. One pot and two forks is much easier to clean up than a whole sink full. Plus, you can cover in tin foil for the left overs.
Once you retrain how you cook you'll save time and effort. A BBQ grill can be your friend. Just light it early and burn off any old stuff. No pans at all with a bbq. You can even do a cast flat skillet that you don't have to clean often. Nothing survives 500 degrees for 5 minutes before you cook.
So many posts berating the OP for being a slob and roommate is cleaning up after her dishes. Did you all miss the part where OP does roommie's dishes often? wth?
OP can live any way she likes. The end.
I'm sorry you had an off week when roommie sprung this on you. I'd be taken aback too. I had a roommate with poor timing too but she owned the house. She went off on a loaf of bread that I forgot about that got moldy, yet I not only fed her cats every weekend all weekend, I also bought the food, every weekend, while she was at SO's house. And my mum did all dishes, hers too, every week when she visited. Yet I made an error and I had to hear nonstop about it the week my grandmother died. Yeah. Fun.
Empathy to you.
You can live anyway you like, when you live alone.
Not when you're dependent on a roommate to cover bills.
They want this one out so they can raise the rent.
You think strangers are going to pay market rate rent and live like that? Not likely.
I agree the timing was bad, but this was clearly building for a long time. The roommate didn't get upset because this was happening for a week, this has been ongoing.
1. Buying a bunch of paper plates won't solve this problem. Unless there's some major, underlying emotional or health issue going on that you have not shared with us, washing dishes regularly is a normal responsibility that comes with the role of being a functional adult. Developing a wasteful habit of using paper plates on a daily basis is not the answer and your dish problem will quickly turn into a much nastier trash one.
2. Having lived with people who refuse to clean up after themselves, I've found the best bet for a good joint living arrangement is to place the immediate responsibility for cleanliness and hygiene on the individual. In a functional, adult household everyone should be expected to clean up their own mess. Obviously there are exceptions where someone is sick, etc but for the most part, the best way to preserve a good living environment is to simply take responsibility for your own tasks. It can be extremely frustrating to come home from work/school and have to clean up someone else's dishes/mess before you can eat dinner. Hygiene is also a concern if people are not cleaning up after preparing raw meat, so this can quickly become more than a simple annoyance.
3. You mention your tenant is a friend. I've found that living with someone is the quickest way to put a strain on a good relationship. This dish issue may not be the hill you want to die upon and it may be better to simply take ownership of your dishes until your friend moves out. It's much easier to enforce household rules when you are renting to someone in a more formal situation.
4. Since you are hoping to rent your place at FMV in the near future, I'd suggest starting to enforce a cleaning regimen on yourself now. You may find that the pool of tenants who are willing to live in a dirty/messy environment are not the type of people you want to live in your house. By improving conditions now you can significantly improve your odds of finding someone responsible to rent from you. If you find this task to be overwhelming, invest in a recurring weekly or bi-weekly cleaning service and absorb the cost through the increased rent money you will be earning. If your new tenant is especially slovenly, pass on a portion of the cleaning fees to them.
Best of luck and hopefully you find a more harmonious living situation soon.
Excellent post!
Your first point hits home with me. I remember an impromptu stopover to use the bathroom at an ex-boyfriend's house, and his dishes were stacked so high in the sink, you couldn't turn the water on. I was aghast and should have seen that for the sign that it was--especially because he had a dishwasher! He kept paper plates and cups around, and created so much unnecessary trash that way--trash that smelled, too, because paper and plastic plates absorb grease from animal fat and they go rancid after a day or two. Every time I opened the lid to throw something out, it was gag-inducing. His mother even got him a stainless steel trash bin with a battery-operated deodorizer, and he complained about it and then passive-aggressively threw out the deodorizer, claiming he didn't know it was battery-operated and thought it was just broken.
Long story longer, it was indeed a sign of bigger problems to come, including dirty living conditions and hoarding so bad, he didn't know a bat had died in his basement until the smell became overpowering in the bedroom above it and I said something to him. It had died on a wall, but his basement was so packed to the ceiling with boxes and junk that he and his brother had to go searching for the source of the smell because you couldn't see the wall where it was.
Not saying this will happen with JerZ, but yes, when the dishes get out of control, it's often a harbinger of issues to come.
It seems as if JrzDefector has defected from this thread! No posts on here from her since the 18th - despite her having multiple posts on other threads. Guess the dishes issue is in the past for her.
To each her own. This has not been my experience ever. I consider a dishwasher an essential appliance.
You still need to rinse them off before you place them in the dishwasher. Why not just complete the process and wash them on the spot?
Our dishwasher is scheduled for removal. We are going to replace it with a small glass door refrigerator. We don't drink but figure that something similar to a wine cooler would work in that spot. Keep drinks or easy to go food items in the small refrigerator.
It seems as if JrzDefector has defected from this thread! No posts on here from her since the 18th - despite her having multiple posts on other threads. Guess the dishes issue is in the past for her.
Pretty much. And reading a thread where I'm repeatedly berated for being a slob isn't really something I need. Especially when the roommate is just as messy.
I'm not worried about the situation with another renter because, as I said before, I tend to rise to the other person's level of cleanliness.
We're solving the problem by doing the dishes more frequently. I was just upset that day because I haven't been that sick in a while, and I hadn't even picked up my dog's ashes yet.
Pretty much. And reading a thread where I'm repeatedly berated for being a slob isn't really something I need. Especially when the roommate is just as messy.
I'm not worried about the situation with another renter because, as I said before, I tend to rise to the other person's level of cleanliness.
We're solving the problem by doing the dishes more frequently. I was just upset that day because I haven't been that sick in a while, and I hadn't even picked up my dog's ashes yet.
Please, when/if you read back through this thread, notice that I did not berate you even once and did express sympathy for the loss of your dog. And I am so very sorry about that. I've had to deal with it myself in the past and know how awful it can be.
I also didn't berate you for defecting on this thread. Just making a point, and trying to make a joke (maybe a lame one) about your screen name and defecting on this thread. Don't blame you one bit for not commenting!
I was mostly just wondering if you were still even reading it.
Do yourself a favor and develop different cooking styles. I like to do one pot meals. For spaghetti use one pan from start to finish. Boil water, put in noodles, meat and then drain when done. Add sauce.
What do you make your sauce in?
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Don't blame you one bit for not commenting!
