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How To Deal With An Anti-Social Housemate Keeping Nocturnal Hours
23 Answers
I live in a shared house with two other housemates (in their 30s). One of them has this peculiar habit of staying on at work after her shift has ended (she works in care) which means for example, that she might finish at 10pm but she hangs around chatting (!) to colleagues until very late.
The challenge is that she's arriving home between 2am and 3am which means that she wants to shower, cook and stay up to watch TV. This means lights on, smell from food, sound of the shower, the washing machine running etc whilst two of us are trying to sleep for our 'office based' jobs that see us waking up at 7am ish Mon-Fri.
This is happening 5 days a week when she has to go to work. Which means that more often or not we are woken up during the night.
She knows she disturbs us as we have told her multiple times and she hears us get up when she's disturbed us.
I was explicit before moving in six months ago (she already lived in the flat) that I would need to sleep between 11pm and 7am and that I was looking for a quiet house. She told me the house had normally quietened down by 11:30pm-12pm.
This weekend things came to a head when she had been off on holiday for a week and on Saturday night she decided to start doing the housework at 11pm, then decided to die her hair and dry it at 1.37am knowing full well that two of us were asleep and that I had expressed to her before going to bed at 11:45pm that I'd prefer she didn't do it.
A side note here is that she lives a very unhealthy lifestyle and when not a work she sleeps all day, every day, even during the daytime. She seems to want to keep nocturnal hours.
On Saturday I told her it was inconsiderate in a shared house to behave this way. She told me that I shouldn't complain about being kept up late as it's the weekend. As though that is an acceptable justification and that we all must want to live our lives like her.
I know it's a shared house so some give and take expected. But am I being unreasonable???
The challenge is that she's arriving home between 2am and 3am which means that she wants to shower, cook and stay up to watch TV. This means lights on, smell from food, sound of the shower, the washing machine running etc whilst two of us are trying to sleep for our 'office based' jobs that see us waking up at 7am ish Mon-Fri.
This is happening 5 days a week when she has to go to work. Which means that more often or not we are woken up during the night.
She knows she disturbs us as we have told her multiple times and she hears us get up when she's disturbed us.
I was explicit before moving in six months ago (she already lived in the flat) that I would need to sleep between 11pm and 7am and that I was looking for a quiet house. She told me the house had normally quietened down by 11:30pm-12pm.
This weekend things came to a head when she had been off on holiday for a week and on Saturday night she decided to start doing the housework at 11pm, then decided to die her hair and dry it at 1.37am knowing full well that two of us were asleep and that I had expressed to her before going to bed at 11:45pm that I'd prefer she didn't do it.
A side note here is that she lives a very unhealthy lifestyle and when not a work she sleeps all day, every day, even during the daytime. She seems to want to keep nocturnal hours.
On Saturday I told her it was inconsiderate in a shared house to behave this way. She told me that I shouldn't complain about being kept up late as it's the weekend. As though that is an acceptable justification and that we all must want to live our lives like her.
I know it's a shared house so some give and take expected. But am I being unreasonable???
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I know it's not the solution, but Id be inclined to give her a taste of her own medicine.
You say she sleeps during the day, most of the day ..... that sounds like an ideal time to turn the TV up, put some nice loud music on, do the housework, put the washing machine on, bang around with the vacuum cleaner, have friends round for a chat .... you catch my drift??
If/when she complains, just tell her that you'll stop if/when she stops :)
You say she sleeps during the day, most of the day ..... that sounds like an ideal time to turn the TV up, put some nice loud music on, do the housework, put the washing machine on, bang around with the vacuum cleaner, have friends round for a chat .... you catch my drift??
If/when she complains, just tell her that you'll stop if/when she stops :)
Thanks folks.
She was living there when I moved in but I did have a conversation with her about needing to be able to get sleep and she said nothing about her nocturnal activities.
I really don't want to have to move but she gets funny if she's woken up! I set my alarm for 6am on Monday and she was huffy about it! Talk about everything on her terms.
She was living there when I moved in but I did have a conversation with her about needing to be able to get sleep and she said nothing about her nocturnal activities.
I really don't want to have to move but she gets funny if she's woken up! I set my alarm for 6am on Monday and she was huffy about it! Talk about everything on her terms.
yes she makes a racket when she gets home and all night so when they get up she is sound asleep, perfect opportunity to fight fire with fire. Why are you so contrarian ummmm? What would you do, wear it? Just let her treat you like a door mat? I'd have a big empty saucepan and hit it with a wooden spoon right outside her door. The funny thing is you'd only have to do it few times then she'd realise and call a truce and everyone is happy. Geddit?
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