DIY with Bob the Lodger
Nov. 12th, 2025 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseBob the Lodger, as I've previously mentioned, was not the easiest person to deal with. He wasn't in any way malicious... a refrain I seem to have to keep repeating throughout my life. While I have, at times, been harmed by people who were actively malicious, the vast majority of the harm that has been done to me (and there has been plenty of that) has been done by people who weren't in any way malicious but something. In Bob's case, it was quite a number of "somethings".
One of the biggest "somethings" in Bob's case was he had, to put it as kindly as possible, an extremely sketchy idea of other people's boundaries. He knew exactly what his own were, but the idea that other people might have them too was clearly quite strange to him. So, when he ran out of money and calmly announced that he would no longer be paying any rent or sharing the bills (it was extremely obvious that he considered this to be my problem, not his), I said that that wouldn't do. I wasn't just going to let him live in my house free of charge, since I not only had to pay for him but I also had to cope with him. As a bare minimum he'd have to do something I needed doing, and that on a regular basis. So he thought about it and decided he could do DIY; and the house, to be fair, did need a lot of that. I said, fine. You can do that.
I frequently had cause to regret that decision. It wasn't that he was too bad at it; he wasn't entirely good at it either, but when he did get it right, the results were impressive. He made a lovely job of my kitchen, less so of my loo. The main problem was that he very much had his own ideas about what ought to be done with my house, and he had a tendency to go ahead and put them into practice without consulting me first. I once came into the living room to find him running an electric sander over my nice artexed ceiling, and I asked what on earth he thought he was doing. He replied that my ceiling "needed" smoothing down, so he was doing it. I said I didn't like it; I'd liked it fine as it was, and I hadn't given him permission to smooth it down. He said it didn't matter if I liked it. It needed doing, because otherwise I "wouldn't be able to sell the house". And, obviously, now that he'd started I couldn't stop him, because it would have looked a whole lot worse if he'd stopped halfway; but I was still pretty upset about that, and quite a number of other incidents like it.
And then there were the screwdrivers. He was for ever borrowing my screwdrivers (and other hand tools) without asking, and then failing to put them back because doing so was too much trouble. (No, really. He was not merely forgetful; I'd have had patience with that. He once said he wanted to go into business doing people's kitchens up, and I said that wasn't a bad idea; but then he added that he'd make a stipulation that he wouldn't have to clear up after himself. I said, "If you do that, you won't get any work. Clearing up after yourself is expected." He complained that that wasn't his job, but at least he didn't push the kitchen-renovating business idea any further. I wasn't entirely surprised, since he clearly felt it was my job to clear up after him.)
Finally I got fed up of not being able to put my hand on a screwdriver when I needed one, so I went out and bought a new set. I showed them to him, and I said, "Right. I'd like you to understand that these are for my use only, because you keep borrowing my screwdrivers without asking and not putting them back, so I can't find a screwdriver when I need one. You do not, in any circumstances, borrow any of these. You do not so much as touch them. There are plenty of other screwdrivers in the house you can use. Do I make myself clear?"
He said I did; but a few days later, two of them went missing. I was, as you can imagine, not happy with him. I said, "Did I or did I not tell you that you were not to borrow any of these screwdrivers?"
He had the brass neck to reply that since he was doing up my house, he had every right to borrow whatever he needed to do it. There seemed to be no recognition at all that the reason he was doing up my house was that I'd given him an extremely generous concession to allow him to keep a roof over his head when he could not, by rights, afford one, and that had it not been for that concession he'd have been living on the street. But he was, at any rate, consistent. For the entire time that he lived in my house, I was made to feel that I had no more than second priority over the use of my own property, except, of course, for those things he had no use for or interest in. I remember getting shouted at for daring to float the idea that I might grow potatoes in my own defunct dustbin (replaced some years back with a wheelie bin, of course). He was quite cross with me. Didn't I understand that he might need it to mix cement in at some point? What was wrong with me? Wasn't it obvious?
Well, no, it wasn't, because I couldn't read his mind any more than I could read my parents' minds when I was growing up (which explained why I was always getting into trouble for reacting the wrong way, because I had no idea how I was supposed to react). But he did have this thing where it wasn't intuitively obvious to him (as it is to the vast majority of people) that people need to be told things. He knew it intellectually, but it was something he had to remind himself about, because his inbuilt default assumption was that if he knew something, so did everyone else who needed to know it. And that, of course, played into his tendency to do things in my house without so much as discussing it first, because he'd decided that was what I wanted or needed, therefore clearly I knew about it, and if I didn't know that that was what I wanted or needed, I was either mistaken or just stupid. It was, really, an awful lot like being a child again, except for the fact that I did own the house this time, so I couldn't be told off for saying "my house" in casual conversation.
I didn't do a very good job of enforcing my boundaries, though a lot of that was down to two things: partly not being allowed any boundaries at all as a child, so I still wasn't quite used to the idea that I was allowed even to have them, let alone enforce them; and partly the fact that Bob was extremely domineering. I didn't want to have to use his dishwasher, partly because I didn't have enough crockery to make it worth my while, and partly because I didn't want the pattern to come off any of it. But he decided that I needed to use the dishwasher because it would save me so much time, and I was stupid not to, and he finally made me use it by dint of shouting at me till I was reduced to tears. And, of course, all the pattern came off my favourite mugs, just as I'd tried to tell him it would. He didn't go to the length of actually replacing the mugs, but at least after I showed him that I did get a concession. I was allowed not to use the dishwasher any more.
I have had counselling since. He was one of the things that came up. My counsellor said I'd been bad at enforcing boundaries with him, and I said, yes. So we did quite a bit of work on that, and I'm happy to say I have got a great deal better. As for Bob, he eventually met an American lady online and married her, so he's now in Florida. I get on with him a great deal better from that distance; it's also true that he has mellowed enormously. Marriage has been extremely good for him.
I never did quite work out whether his wife was a mug, a saint, or possibly even both.
One of the biggest "somethings" in Bob's case was he had, to put it as kindly as possible, an extremely sketchy idea of other people's boundaries. He knew exactly what his own were, but the idea that other people might have them too was clearly quite strange to him. So, when he ran out of money and calmly announced that he would no longer be paying any rent or sharing the bills (it was extremely obvious that he considered this to be my problem, not his), I said that that wouldn't do. I wasn't just going to let him live in my house free of charge, since I not only had to pay for him but I also had to cope with him. As a bare minimum he'd have to do something I needed doing, and that on a regular basis. So he thought about it and decided he could do DIY; and the house, to be fair, did need a lot of that. I said, fine. You can do that.
I frequently had cause to regret that decision. It wasn't that he was too bad at it; he wasn't entirely good at it either, but when he did get it right, the results were impressive. He made a lovely job of my kitchen, less so of my loo. The main problem was that he very much had his own ideas about what ought to be done with my house, and he had a tendency to go ahead and put them into practice without consulting me first. I once came into the living room to find him running an electric sander over my nice artexed ceiling, and I asked what on earth he thought he was doing. He replied that my ceiling "needed" smoothing down, so he was doing it. I said I didn't like it; I'd liked it fine as it was, and I hadn't given him permission to smooth it down. He said it didn't matter if I liked it. It needed doing, because otherwise I "wouldn't be able to sell the house". And, obviously, now that he'd started I couldn't stop him, because it would have looked a whole lot worse if he'd stopped halfway; but I was still pretty upset about that, and quite a number of other incidents like it.
And then there were the screwdrivers. He was for ever borrowing my screwdrivers (and other hand tools) without asking, and then failing to put them back because doing so was too much trouble. (No, really. He was not merely forgetful; I'd have had patience with that. He once said he wanted to go into business doing people's kitchens up, and I said that wasn't a bad idea; but then he added that he'd make a stipulation that he wouldn't have to clear up after himself. I said, "If you do that, you won't get any work. Clearing up after yourself is expected." He complained that that wasn't his job, but at least he didn't push the kitchen-renovating business idea any further. I wasn't entirely surprised, since he clearly felt it was my job to clear up after him.)
Finally I got fed up of not being able to put my hand on a screwdriver when I needed one, so I went out and bought a new set. I showed them to him, and I said, "Right. I'd like you to understand that these are for my use only, because you keep borrowing my screwdrivers without asking and not putting them back, so I can't find a screwdriver when I need one. You do not, in any circumstances, borrow any of these. You do not so much as touch them. There are plenty of other screwdrivers in the house you can use. Do I make myself clear?"
He said I did; but a few days later, two of them went missing. I was, as you can imagine, not happy with him. I said, "Did I or did I not tell you that you were not to borrow any of these screwdrivers?"
He had the brass neck to reply that since he was doing up my house, he had every right to borrow whatever he needed to do it. There seemed to be no recognition at all that the reason he was doing up my house was that I'd given him an extremely generous concession to allow him to keep a roof over his head when he could not, by rights, afford one, and that had it not been for that concession he'd have been living on the street. But he was, at any rate, consistent. For the entire time that he lived in my house, I was made to feel that I had no more than second priority over the use of my own property, except, of course, for those things he had no use for or interest in. I remember getting shouted at for daring to float the idea that I might grow potatoes in my own defunct dustbin (replaced some years back with a wheelie bin, of course). He was quite cross with me. Didn't I understand that he might need it to mix cement in at some point? What was wrong with me? Wasn't it obvious?
Well, no, it wasn't, because I couldn't read his mind any more than I could read my parents' minds when I was growing up (which explained why I was always getting into trouble for reacting the wrong way, because I had no idea how I was supposed to react). But he did have this thing where it wasn't intuitively obvious to him (as it is to the vast majority of people) that people need to be told things. He knew it intellectually, but it was something he had to remind himself about, because his inbuilt default assumption was that if he knew something, so did everyone else who needed to know it. And that, of course, played into his tendency to do things in my house without so much as discussing it first, because he'd decided that was what I wanted or needed, therefore clearly I knew about it, and if I didn't know that that was what I wanted or needed, I was either mistaken or just stupid. It was, really, an awful lot like being a child again, except for the fact that I did own the house this time, so I couldn't be told off for saying "my house" in casual conversation.
I didn't do a very good job of enforcing my boundaries, though a lot of that was down to two things: partly not being allowed any boundaries at all as a child, so I still wasn't quite used to the idea that I was allowed even to have them, let alone enforce them; and partly the fact that Bob was extremely domineering. I didn't want to have to use his dishwasher, partly because I didn't have enough crockery to make it worth my while, and partly because I didn't want the pattern to come off any of it. But he decided that I needed to use the dishwasher because it would save me so much time, and I was stupid not to, and he finally made me use it by dint of shouting at me till I was reduced to tears. And, of course, all the pattern came off my favourite mugs, just as I'd tried to tell him it would. He didn't go to the length of actually replacing the mugs, but at least after I showed him that I did get a concession. I was allowed not to use the dishwasher any more.
I have had counselling since. He was one of the things that came up. My counsellor said I'd been bad at enforcing boundaries with him, and I said, yes. So we did quite a bit of work on that, and I'm happy to say I have got a great deal better. As for Bob, he eventually met an American lady online and married her, so he's now in Florida. I get on with him a great deal better from that distance; it's also true that he has mellowed enormously. Marriage has been extremely good for him.
I never did quite work out whether his wife was a mug, a saint, or possibly even both.
