My partner and I bought our first house together earlier this year and have been renovating for about 3 months. We are only just starting to feel at home but still have much to do. Our friend is coming to stay with us for about a month whilst she is in-between homes. We are happy to help and give her a place to stay, however she is a social butterfly and has a very active dating life. We don’t feel like hosting her romantic partners or her pals because we feel somewhat protective over our space and we don’t often have mental capacity to “entertain” others. She is paying rent though (at friend rates), so are we assholes for wanting to put these boundaries in place? How should we even go about communicating this?
P.S she’s moving in tomorrow (yikes) and we will be using this to formulate our next steps.
Edit: yes we know that we have left it late however we honestly didn’t think that far ahead and we just wanted to help a friend in need.
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My partner and I bought our first house together earlier this year and have been renovating for about 3 months. We are only just starting to feel at home but still have much to do. Our friend is coming to stay with us for about a month whilst she is in-between homes. We are happy to help and give her a place to stay, however she is a social butterfly and has a very active dating life. We don’t feel like hosting her romantic partners or her pals because we feel somewhat protective over our space and we don’t often have mental capacity to “entertain” others. She is paying rent though (at friend rates), so are we assholes for wanting to put these boundaries in place? How should we even go about communicating this?
P.S she’s moving in tomorrow (yikes) and we will be using this to formulate our next steps.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) not wanting best friend to have her friends over becuase it’s our home. 2) she’s paying rent and we are “limiting” her social life
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Y’all should have had this conversation earlier than the day before she moves in dude.
>How should we even go about communicating this?
You should have communicated this from the beginning, so she could have made an informed choice to live with you, or not. Because what you are doing is changing the rules, and she’s moving in tomorrow.
Which makes you TA.
YTA if you didn’t make this a condition up front. Sounds like it might be too late by now.
Sorry, but waiting until the day before she moves in is just far too late to have this discussion. If you wanted to set these rules (because those are not boundaries), which you had every right to do reasonably, then you needed to communicate that up front so that she could decline the offer and make other arrangements if that didn’t work for her.
At this stage, you need to understand that the fault lies with you. She should be allowed to live reasonably within the home, having partners and friends over on occasion. So long as her partners and friends remain respectful and not too frequent, bite the bullet. Otherwise, address issues specifically as they arise (rude friends, not cleaning up, too much noise past a certain hour, too many paramours in and out, etc.).
And by the way, those aren’t “boundaries”. Boundaries only control your own behavior. Those are rules. You are looking to SET RULES around what another adult can and cannot do in your shared residence, and so you understand why that’s a conversation you needed to have up front (because she should have every right to decide those rules don’t work for her).
At this point, YTA for waiting this long. I think you should just drop the matter unless it becomes an issue.
YTA because as you say you “left it late”. Too late imo.
If you are protective of your space, why did you say yes? This might be a temporary situation but the reality is she is helping with rent and is now a roommate, this is no longer just your space. Setting house rules is one thing, but you need to treat her like an equal. If she isn’t allowed people over, neither are you. I would consider talking over things like asking one another before having people over and setting quiet times, but you are being controlling. She is not your child. YTA
YTA. If the friend is paying rent, in any amount, then they should be allowed to have company over. That said, it’s fair to have a conversation about quiet hours, use of common space/areas, and general safety practices to ensure no one is hurt or anything is stolen – and frame it that way. It’s poor form not to discuss those issues ahead of time, especially when your friend doesn’t have the opportunity to look for alternative housing, so compromise on your part is needed here in my opinion. Hopefully your friend is understanding and is willing to reach an agreement that everyone is happy with; I would hope they would be inclined given the deal on rent and short stay, but I wouldn’t blame them for being frustrated.
I’ve suddenly noticed a bunch of posts recently in which the word “whilst” is used, which is unusual to me. Is this an AI-generated thing, a Gen Z thing, or has some celebrity used it in a song or TV show? It’s baffling.
I don’t agree with everyone here. I don’t see a problem with you saying that you don’t want people in your home that you don’t know.
If she was a guest, maybe. She is a paying tenant so yes YTA. That you are changing the terms of her tenancy the day before the move in? You are REALLY the AH.
As you said you are giving her a discounted rate plus doing her a big favor. She can go to others houses for the next 4 weeks
YTA for not making clear your terms long before she arrived, not a day.
YTA for waiting to the day before to have any conversations about this, but not for not wanting random people in your house.
I’ve rented a room short term in a boarding house before, part of the lease was guest restrictions. Only allowed during certain hours and never any overnight. Your friend isn’t a full on tenant, they are a temporary lodger just renting a bedroom in your house, so rules on guests make sense.
YTA
She’s paying rent, so unless this was discussed before these plans were decided, she’s right to assume the standard that she can have guests in her paid living space.
Live and learn.
Request is not unreasonable but the timing is which makes YTA.
Do you have a porch or a terrace? Maybe tell her that’s the area where she can entertain from XX:XX TO XX:XX.
BEFORE taking any money, establish the rule you want for visitors and any others you left off. Let your friend decide to move in or just stay the night. But keep in mind that taking money also means that if they do not leave at the end of the month, you may also have to evict.
NTA I wouldn’t want that either. It’s one month just tell her you don’t want people here hanging out and absolutely no overnight guests. You could, I wouldn’t, tell her she’s allowed one guest once a week but never overnight.
YTA-she is paying and you didn’t communicate this before she arrived.
YTA. You just acquired a house, and you are having a guest stay with you for a month! If you are so protective of your space, why did you invite her after knowing what sort of person she is? Also, be sure to check the local laws in your area. A month might allow her to establish residency and thus make it even more difficult to protect your space.
You definitely should have told her those expectations in the beginning. So she could have made a different choice if she wanted to.
I don’t see those expectations as unrealistic at all, and really, she should be okay with that. She can go to her friends/partners houses for a month instead of hosting them. But you should’ve told her about them right away.
At this point, I think it would be wrong to spring that on her since she moves in tomorrow. And since she’s paying rent and it wasn’t discussed beforehand, she should be able to have occasional company as long as the company is respectful of your home and belongings. And if the company isn’t, you can always make them leave. Lol.