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I used to babysit for this married but separated dad of 4. I only babysat two of his kids at the time. They were 7 and 9 years old. He got kicked out of his house and found a nice but small 3 bedroom house for rent...problem was he needed a roommate to afford it, which is when he asked me to live with him and pay some of the rent. My rent is set at $400 for the master bedroom which has a very small bathroom attached to the room. I thought this was fair given that I share the rest of the house with his 2 kids. He says that he gave me a "low rent" in exchange for my babysitting service for free on Fridays. I said that if I am at home chilling sure i'll look after the kids. It really is no big deal. But Saturdays are off limits and if i have plans on Fridays he must get someone to watch his kids. He recently added a third child to the house so now i live with 3 of his kids in this tiny house. Mind you, his children are loud and messy cause me to clean often and miss out on tv shows and not being able to have phone conversations in the house. Now that i work on Friday nights and cannot babysit his kids for free he wants to elevate my rent to $500 a month so that he can pay for a babysitter. Is this fair? Is he taking advantage of me? I did not agree to live here as a live-in babysitter nor have my rent dependent on how available i am to take care of his children.
Maybe, but you are taking advantage of him too. Try finding another place for $400, or even $500 a month with no strings attached. Babysitting one night a week as a condition of such reasonable rent, and being given the largest bedroom with a private bath seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.
The problem is that both of you agreed to a nebulous arrangement, each bringing their own expectations to the deal. He said he needed someone on Fridays, and your below-market-rate rent was contingent on you taking that on. You said you'd do it as long as you happened to be around on Fridays, but you wouldn't commit to every Friday. Yet you wanted the lower rent, anyway, for occasional Fridays, or whatever. Both of you should have put it in writing, and then ironed out your differences, so you could agree on some kind of middle ground.
Since you're no longer available on Fridays at all, it's fair for him to raise the rent to market rate, whatever a room in a shared household goes for. You're free to buy your own TV, and you're free to make phone calls in your room with your own phone if you want privacy. He's not obligated to provide you with a TV. A phone, though is a basic utility, so if there's a land line, that's what you get as a renter. Are you sharing the utility bills at all?
I think this guy deserves credit for having (apparently) full custody of his kids, and managing to take care of them in spite of whatever he lost in the divorce. It sounds, though, with 3 kids sharing a bedroom, it could be overcrowded in there.
I'm not sure where you live, and I'm not sure how long you've been living there, or how old you are, or where you lived prior, but that must be an uncomfortable situation all the way around. He DID expect you to babysit, but at the same time, did you have to move from your previous place anyways so he opened up that opportunity, or was he desperate to find somewhere to live, but couldn't afford any place to live, let alone pay for babysitting? He should never have put you in that position (depending on how old you are again) and hopefully you have learned your lesson. I do think it's unfair for him to raise your rent if the only reason you're living with him is to lighten his financial burden because of his divorce he was thrown out and doesn't have a sufficient enough income to even keep a roof over his three kids' heads without a roommate. But if anything I assumed is incorrect, then my opinion would differ.
Edit- Disregard age comments please! I forgot what your thread topic said when responding! If you're 23, where were you living prior? A place of your own, or with parents? Or a different situation paying/not paying rent?
yes, I think he is trying to take advantage. he is counting on you to take care of the kids. he figures you're there anyway so why should it be a problem. try finding roommates with some young women. you don't need to live with a 43 year old man or live with a bunch of kids you have to take care of. move out
Maybe, but you are taking advantage of him too. Try finding another place for $400, or even $500 a month with no strings attached. Babysitting one night a week as a condition of such reasonable rent, and being given the largest bedroom with a private bath seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.
I agree with Mattie on this. But, as another poster said, it should have been in writing. So, much rent per month and you agree to babysit so many times per month.
Also, if you have the largest bedroom (with your own bath) I imagine that an adult plus three kids sharing the other two bedrooms are pretty crowded. That must be stressful for everyone.
Check out what is standard rent in your area to help you make your decision on what to do.
I know this is probably not germane to the topic, but how does a guy who retains custody of his children get booted from his own house?
And how did kid#3 arrive on the scene? Did he/she just show up on the porch one day and decide not to go home?
As others have stated, the agreement terms should have been clearly stated when you moved in. He's much older than you, so, yes, I would say he took advantage of you then.
But you let a second opportunity pass you by. Your renegotiation should have occurred the moment the third child arrived.
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