It finally happened, the last of the apartment cleaning has been completed and all keys have been turned over to their respective landlords. All that is left to do now is to wait for the deposit checks in the mail. My place, no big deal, looked better when I left than when I moved in and the check is due any day.
The apartment my daughter and her boyfriend shared is a slightly different matter. They were only in it for 3 months and the carpet looked, well, not recently cleaned is what I'll go with. Hint for young first time renters, keep the charcoal briquettes stored OUTSIDE! You had a storage room on the patio for crying out loud. Oh well, it came clean with a lot of work and helped me decide that the grill we purchase for this place will be propane. As for the bedroom door and patio screen door, those were lost causes and luckily they had paid a sizable deposit which should be more than sufficient to cover the damage.
This brings me to my current dilemma. Boyfriend was raised, no, make that, grew up with, a single father who couldn't care for himself much less a child. Spending larger amounts of time with Boyfriend it's painfully obvious he has almost no life skills, and very limited social skills. Oh he can cook and has the conceptual knowledge of things such as cleaning up afterwards, taking out the trash, laundry, etc., he just doesn't utilize them unless made to do so. Ah, but he also has a problem being told to do things! He pouts and gets all huffy like a 3 yr old child, not a 19 yr old. My daughter just gets frustrated and gives up.
I find myself making cutting comments while suppressing the building anger. I do not like doing that. It was made abundantly clear before this living arrangement was decided upon, that there WOULD NOT BE a continuance of these behaviors and that things would have to be kept clean. It saddens me greatly that I can't trust that the bargain will be kept. Actually, it is not being kept, period.
I have tried going through her so as to keep things non-confrontational in the home. Maybe that's the mistake. I just worry about what may come out of my mouth. I admit, I mostly want to smack him upside the head and get through to him. Subtlety has certainly not worked! I can point out dishes on the floor or a garbage bag that is over-flowing and he doesn't even seem to notice or care. I think the not caring is the worst part. He doesn't care if he lives like an animal, stepping over trash to get to his pile of food, soda cans and his video game controller. As long as the TV or computer are in eyesight, he's good. Mind you, between work and her commute, my daughter is out of the house 12 hrs. a day or so. I work out of town and am gone 2 or 3 days at a time. When I come home I want to see things looking better not worse! Oh and his employment status you may ask. He has resumes now that my daughter made him one, still hasn't actually used one for anything.
So, good-bye subtlety and non-confrontational niceties. He's not 12, he's not made of glass and he isn't my child. Time for ground-rules and repercussions for failure to follow through. And my getting ulcers will not be the repercussions I am talking about. I hate that my daughter is stuck in the middle but I won't be anyone's maid.
If you have any suggestions you'd like to leave in the comments on how you'd handle this, please leave them in the comments below. Thanks!
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