Submit a counter-invoice for all the random crap you do around the place. Be sure to itemize. Make sure it comes out to $0.01 less than hers, and tape a penny to it.
Alternately, see if you can find the part of the Consumer Protection Act (check the Colorado Attorney General’s site) that discusses billing for unrequested services.
I wasted my last hour of work checking out that site. Awesome.
tmanpdx beat me to the website suggestion :) Don’t leave things unspoken, go and have a talk about it. Explain that your standards of reasonable cleanliness and hers clearly differ, so you will all have to work out some kind of compromise that is acceptable to all. Perhaps a cleaning schedule will keep her happy? Of course not everyone likes to have cleaning schedules (me included). Make it clear that being passive aggressive and leaving notes or bills is not acceptable house-sharing behaviour, and that she needs to either lower her (possibly OCD) standards or you and your other roommate need to raise yours. It might be best if she moves out, but then again who knows what kind of roommate you will get as a replacement.
Oh god, I don’t miss the days of house-sharing with other women. I lived in one hell-house with 4 other girls, and they had a toilet-roll rota. They also insisted that everyone buy their own separate staples (bread, milk etc), so the fridge was full of 5 of everything. It was a total bitchfest and I do not miss it.
QFT.
5
I agree. This is when brutal prison rape is justified.
Argh!
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title too.
Wonderful site!
Ignore all these repulsive loafers. Ask her if she’ll scrub the house twice weekly at that rate.
Fuck people like that. I was an RA in college my sophomore year and people like this piss me off. Just fucking man up and talk to eachother about it. Going behind eachothers backs is just stupid. Also, it is a good idea to think of written rules of cleanliness, so that there is no arguing down the road. Seriously, my roommate just pulled some shit like this on me too.
He was saying something to the effect of, he thinks he is getting sick because our apartment isn’t clean. We don’t share rooms, the only rooms we share are the bathroom and the kitchen, with are both kept clean, the only dirty room is my bedroom, which is always cluttered, because I am a very cluttered person. Jesus christ. But, apparently he has been talking shit about this behind my back? Just fucking tell me! Whatever.
Do this.
Definitely just pay her for the cleaning, but see if you can get a discount by locking her into a three month service agreement. But seriously, I wish I could get someone to clean my place for that cheap.
Go through the house and tighten the lids on all the jars and bottles, then charge her $1 for each one she brings to you to open.
I would gladly pay someone $30 a week to clean my shit.
Same here. Pay her AND bake her a cake, you’re probably a bigger slob than you care to admit.
Just print these out and give her $30 worth.
It reminds me of the story in the book Freakanmoics where a day care center was having a small problem with parents picking their kids late. They decided to instituted a late fee for the tardy parents, but it turns out it legitimized picking up kids late and parents considered it a good deal so a lot more people came late.
So, turn it around and give her what she wants, $30 to clean the house. Save the note (as evidence) for the trip to the Peoples Court if she suddenly decided she doesn’t want to do it, but will ‘charge’ you some crazy number. She already gave you a quote on what her time is worth.
$30 a week would be good and fine if we had a bigger house that wasn’t already pretty much clean. Probably an hour of that time was mopping and sweeping which I had just done 2 days ago.
So my other roommate just got home. She saw the note, flipped out for 10 minutes about how it’s bullshit and she’s not paying and on and on about all the things she contributes to the house. Then she says “I’m going to write her a very nice letter explaining how I feel.” Sigh, women.
Never live with women you don’t sleep with.
There’s only one viable solution to all this that only you control: make more money and get your own place.
At this point I think it’s funnier than anything else. 2 passive aggressive girls going head to head in angry letter writing. There’s really no way this girl can get me to pay her anything. If she refuses to pay part of her rent, epic shit will go down between the two girls and I’ll just sit on the sidelines and laugh it up.
