My flatmate gave me 2 weeks notice yesterday. She's moving out. I'm really annoyed how she's gone about it.
Last week she bought a dog. She didn't ask me if I minded her buying a dog to keep here at home. She just bought it and said she's bringing a dog home.
Dogs aren't allowed according to the lease on this place. I couldn't find the lease though, but I told her that there are at least a couple of reasons why a dog can't be here. 1) I really don't like dogs. 2) Eve goes berserk and runs away or hides when there are dogs around. She hates 'em.
She bought it on the Wednesday, and said that she'll keep it at her boyfriend's place from the weekend onwards. Between Wednesday and Friday, Eve was frantic about a dog in the house. By Friday she simply refused to come inside at all. Luckily the dog was gone Friday afternoon, but Eve didn't come back into the house until Saturday morning.
I haven't seen my flatmate since Friday. Two days ago I came home to find a note on the kitchen bench for me.
"We have to discuss Blossom's and my living arrangements." (Blossom is the name she's given to her dog.)
I thought, oh really? Is that right? Sounds like an ultimatum to me. I called her, but she didn't answer her cellphone. She didn't call back until yesterday. She advised me that she can't really stay here any more, because there's no large yard for the dog to run around in, and so it's not a suitable place to keep a dog.
You'd think she would have thought about that before buying the dog, wouldn't you.
So I'm not stupid, and as you know, I'm quite direct. I said, "Michelle, what you're really saying is that you want to leave and so you bought a dog to create a 'good excuse'."
She said, "Well, yeh… I think I'd like to live with my boyfriend now, until I leave the city in March."
She's a lying, manipulative woman. In order to get out of here, she bought a dog. In order to get into her boyfriend's place for a couple months (probably no rent) she bought a dog.
Her: "I can't stay there with this cute little doggy, so I'll have to stay at your place."
Him: "Awwww, ok, that's fine. She's such a cute little doggy… coochy goo goo…"
It's amazing how so many people can't live honest lives, and have to do things to be manipulative, simply because they don't know how to be honest.
I wouldn't have been annoyed if she talked to me, and said that she'd like to leave. But noooo. She had to use this stupid excuse that it's not a good place for her new dog to live. Like she thought I would accept that? She thought I would be stupid enough to think that she bought a dog and THEN realised she couldn't keep it here?
1) she didn't talk to me about bringing a dog home, and just dumped it on me, so to speak, and…
2) she didn't talk to me about her desire to change her living conditions, so…
3) I'm annoyed.
That's all.
Anyway, as a result of my experiences with her since the beginning of April when she moved in, I'm changing the way I do things, in regards to getting money from flatmates.
I'm going to set up a flat account, and I'm going to charge a set amount each week which will go into the flat account. This set amount will cover rent, phone rental and electricity, inclusive. I'm not going to have late payments like I did from the one who's just moving out now. She was consistently late every time a bill came in, by an average of 2 weeks past the due date.
So my new plan is to get money coming in each week to cover the monthly bills, rather than hope they'll pay their share on time.
That's my plan. I started advertising yesterday on a couple of online flatting websites, and included photos of the view here. I hope I get some interest. I'll also put an advertisement into the local paper for this Saturday. I need to find someone within the next 2 weeks. Wish me luck.
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