Source: Reddit
My daughter (19) and I (40) recently moved into a new house three months ago. We both work, but neither of us could afford to live alone, so we decided to rent this new place together. She is on the lease to build a rental record and references for when she wants to get a place of her own.
Daughter and I are very close and have a great relationship. I work from home and have my own ensuite bathroom attached to my bedroom, and daughter has the main bathroom and separate toilet. I earn most of the money and pay for all of the food and do the majority of the cooking and cleaning; she pays half the rent and half the internet. My 12 year old son also lives with us.
Recently my daughter was talking about having her boyfriend (20) move in with us. This isn’t an emergency housing situation, just something that my daughter and her partner want. The boyfriend is polite enough and is kind and respectful to her but my daughter pays for everything, drives him everywhere, and leaves him here in the house while she’s at work. He is a very, very overweight guy and keeps all of the fans running all the time in the house, and he tends to clean out the pantry when he stays over. His moving in would also require modifications to be made to the property to accommodate his mobility issues which would be on us if he wasn’t added onto the lease with approval from the landlord.
This doesn’t affect my daughter much because she gets lots of great quality free food at work, but it can be a problem for my son and I. When there’s nothing left to eat in the kitchen, boyfriend will order delivery to the house and go into my daughter’s room to eat it.
This can be very frustrating, because although we aren’t dirt poor, we are far from well-off and we live paycheck to paycheck. I also find it a bit rude that he orders delivery and doesn’t ask us if we want anything even though he knows we’re hungry, as we feed him very regularly and I never order without asking him what he’d like (son doesn’t like takeaway, so he doesn’t order).
Daughter’s opinion is that she is a leaseholder and they have their own bathroom to use, so it shouldn’t be any extra burden in terms of capacity. She says he won’t be paying any rent, but she pays half the rent when I have my 12 year old son living with us who also doesn’t pay rent, so if her boyfriend moves in we’ll be even by each having a person to cover the rent for.
I’m uncomfortable with this and I told her so. She was surprised, upset and disappointed, and thinks that I am both treating her as a child and discriminating against her boyfriend because of his weight. She is hoping that I’ll change my mind on this, but I have no intention of doing so.
Am I Acting Entitled ?
*Edit to address some points raised in the comments: we live in New Zealand where there is a rental crisis with availability below 2% and rents are cripplingly high. People working full time are failing to get rentals due to a combination of huge rents and low availability. Daughter and her boyfriend have almost zero chance of renting a place of their own with no rental history and one income. Not their fault, these are hard times.
I can afford to pay the rent on my own, but it would make things tough and consume about 70% of my total income. We could do it if we ate beans and rice and nothing else. The situation is beneficial for both of us, as otherwise my daughter would need to live with an elderly grandparent who she clashes with quite badly.
She does have a say in everything that goes on in the house – pets are allowed on the lease so she has two small dogs now. Her bathroom has a spa bath, separate enclosed shower and a separate toilet, 12 year old brother uses the en-suite bathroom in my room because he likes it better. I do all of the cleaning and laundry except for cleaning her room because I never go in there. I try my best to give her a fair deal
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