Me: Mike
Her: Jessica
3rd housemate: Avi
Old housemate: Jim
Old housemate's girlfriend: Dana
When we visited the apartment before moving in, there was a black couch in the living room. Jim (who was moving out) asked if we wanted him to get rid of it. I said, "No, we might want it," in front of Jessica. Well, Jessica moved in before I did, and she got rid of it without asking or telling anybody. Everyone was surprised, including Avi, Jim, and Dana (Jim's girlfriend, who was giving us a tour of the place, who knew that I wanted to keep it).
1/24- Jessica comes home at 10:00am, moves a brown placemat onto my fruit bowl (causing bananas to ripen much faster), moves a piece of paper by oils to a box of my kitchen supplies in the kitchen. All without communication.
Week of Jan 24 - Places deer skull on top of my drum while "cleaning" and punctures it. As a drummer herself, I would have thought that she knew not to put things, especially sharp things on top of bare drums, but that slipped her mind, presumably because of an unexplained lack of respect for her housemate and his things.
Jan 29 - This morning (or midday, as we were both waking up), after I finished doing my dishes in the kitchen, Jessica emerged from her room, and began cleaning. When we met in the kitchen, she looked at me like she wanted to kill me. Her face was beyond angry, or let's just say very angry, and the lines around her eyes showed that she was exhausted from being angry.
It's this kind of atmosphere I do not want to live with.
She is still cleaning, and I notice my bathroom mat facedown on the kitchen floor. I go to grab it to put it back in the bathroom, and she says, "Leave it, I'm about to shake it out." I say, "I'll shake it out." She says, "Yeah, probably not good enough" completely seriously.
Once, she started yelling at me about having the shades up so that the plants get enough light. After a simple disagreement, she ran to her room and shut her door, telling me to stop talking to her. When I pointed out that she was the one who brought up the issue, she said, "I'm gonna fuckin' deck you if you don't shut your mouth."
2/1/21 ~6:00pm- Sweeping quickly (and furiously) in the kitchen, I am standing next to the sink, leaning against the counter. She sweeps up to me and says, "Move the fuck over." Taken aback by the statement, I do not move. She proceeds to push me over, forcing me to regain my balance.
I say, "What's your problem?" She says, "You. You're my problem."
I notice OCD / over-cleaning tendencies, and I seem targeted as the "dirty" one.
2/8/21 - Starts vacuuming and loudly cleaning at 6am. At 7, after texting asking what's up, and it's still going on, I tap on the wall between our bedrooms three times. She immediately says, "Fuck off!" And then, "...banging on the walls..."
Same morning, she is singing to herself loudly, and as she opens the blinds (all of them except for the window that my plants are underneath), she says, "Fuckin' ugly-ass porch."
For the next 2 and a half hours she has her headphones on, is cleaning, cooking, slamming the cabinet doors, clattering dishes and pots and pans, with clearly absolutely no regard for her sleeping neighbor.
She's been cleaning loudly nonstop from 6am-10am. When I passed her in the kitchen, we made eye contact, and she tried to stare me down. She glared at me like it was supposed to mean something... what, I have no idea. It sure was hostile, though.
2/9/21 - Again with the clattering in the kitchen. She is wearing headphones, so she can't hear how loud she's being. From 10am-12pm. I avoid her until I can't any longer, I have to make breakfast. I notice she's moved my chair pillow to on top of my personal stuff, including a glass I drink out of. I ask her to find another place to put it. She seems offended. We eventually settled on another location. Then she says, "You fucked up my rhythm," as if it were all my fault, that I didn't belong in the kitchen, etc.
2/11 / 2/12 - She gets home at midnight as I am getting up to go to the bathroom. As I am walking towards the bathroom, she says, not having noticed me yet, "Wash your goddamn fucking feet." Which is not only rude, but baffles me as I've been walking in thick socks for the past week or two, not letting my feet touch the floor. Furthermore, I do wash my feet. This combination of ire and misperception worries me and makes me feel unsafe.
3/26 - I had been away for 5 weeks. When I came back, the living room was completely rearranged. Jessica communicated to no one (in the house) about this. She moved my piano to another wall, she completely removed a large piece of furniture (which had many things on it, books, art, sculptures, a TV, etc.). She had moved it into the garage, and the TV into Avi's room. This was a surprise to both me and Avi. I would like to ask where things were, but I doubt she would tell me, because I also arrived to find my mirror missing from my room and when I asked her (via text) where it went, I got no response.
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Before we moved in, she said, "Sometimes people remark about how quiet I am in the house, they say I'm quiet like a mouse."
Which is now funny to me, because she SLAMS doors, SLAMS cabinets, practically tosses dishes, pots and pans aside, stomps around, and lets the toilet seat slam down (instead of setting it down).
We also agreed before we moved in to discuss things that bothered us. That if there were any problems, we'd communicate about it and talk it through.
Countless times (at least 20 times so far over the course of 2.5 months), I have brought up issues and have received responses like, "I don't want to talk about it now," "Not now, Mike." "I don't owe anyone anything," and/or simply running to her room and shutting the door, sometimes singing or talking to herself to drown me out.
Many other complaints, or polite requests via text to talk about things have been simply ignored.
Jessica claims she is against piano music, for some reason that she will not say. "Don't get me wrong! I love pianos!" Still will not say when asked. When I asked if we could have a piano in the living room, not only did she say that "there's no room for it," but she mysteriously suggested having it next to the fridge, and removing the cabinets in order to do that. Besides, there is clearly room for the piano in the living room--The piano is 4'9" wide, 3'1" tall, and 2' deep, in a room that is 13.5' x 13.5'.
Once the piano was there, she shoved it quite violently (one of the legs is barely attached), and I asked her why she moved it, and she said, "You can move it back."
Jessica is against me having a dog despite proclaiming to love dogs, and will not state any reason why not. I asked her via text why, and she said, "No comment," and, "Just no."
A repeated taunt of hers is: "Have you ever lived with other people!?!?" as if to justify her actions or invalidate mine. When I've tried to respond, I've been drowned out by a continuation of her rant. But the fact is that, yes, I've lived with other people a lot. I lived in a community setting, in close quarters with other people for two months out of the year at Summer camp for 10 years, as well as work retreats throughout the year. during those years. I lived with other people when I worked on an organic farm in Mexico in 2008. I lived with other people while at college for 4+ years. And in several other houses where more than one people lived. One thing has been consistent throughout all of those experiences--consistent, open communication has been the foundation of a functional living space. But, my efforts to have weekly meetings in this house have been consistently shot down or ignored by Jessica. For these reasons, I doubt that Jessica has had proper experience in functional communities given her behavior and attitude towards the concept of sit-down (or even stand-up) conversations about house issues.
Regarding house issues, she even shot down the idea of meeting with the other housemate, Avi in order to settle some in-house issues (regarding the couch, the fridge, etc.). This solution seemed like a no-brainer to me. But her reason was simply, "Too close for comfort."
There have been several instances when I have pulled into the driveway, and the kitchen lights were on, with Jessica in it. As I approached the door, the lights would go off and she would flee the kitchen to her room, the lock still being locked. If I were in the kitchen and I noticed my housemate coming in, I would unlock the door. It's these behaviors and many others that reflect a refusal to lift a finger for even a housemate--the stated, "I don't owe anyone anything" attitude--that makes me extremely uncomfortable living with this person.
I replaced the dining room table with one exactly the same size, except it didn't have the two small leaves that the last one did. She had a fit. She said it's "Way too big," even though the lack of the extra leaf being folded down accounted for just about one foot of space. Fortunately, she left it there, but she did threaten to move it to a corner of the room where it made no sense to have it.
Once I said, "This driveway can accommodate 5 cars." She said emphatically (to put it lightly) that, no, it can't, that there's not enough room. And lo and behold, a few weeks later, she discovered that if she parked a little bit more off to the side, we could indeed accommodate 5 cars, and we have ever since.
With the living room now sparse and neutral, and with it being rarely if ever used due to the increasing hostility of passing interactions, it seems our bedrooms have become apartments and the living room a lobby.
At least four times she has told me that she wants to move out in the Spring (of 2021). She even would say things like, "Good thing I'm moving out in the Spring, because..." and proceed to complain about something about the house. In late March, I asked her about her plans of moving out, and she said, "things feel too stressful with the times." When I mentioned that she had been saying that she would move out, she said, "Fuck off."
Sept 1, 2021:
She has been home for about 24 hours after a long stint (4 weeks, about) of not being home. I find that the kitchen sink faucet is loose. It wasn't like that before, and I know that I am gentle with things, and I know that Jessica slams doors, cabinets, practically throws pots and pans, jostles things aggressively, so I have every reason to assume she had something to do with it. I bring it up, and she gets super defensive about it and says "I don't want to talk about it right now." I say "When, then?" and she says, "NOT NOW."
Nov 24 & 25, 2021:
There has been a ten pound rack of baby back ribs wrapped in plastic and tin foil and a ziploc bag of a dozen hotdogs in the freezer left behind the tenants before us. I finally decided to clear out of the freezer what we weren't going to eat. I told Jessica that I was trying to find somebody to take them. She initially said she would get the ribs for her boyfriend, but then she asked how it was wrapped, and I said it wasn't sealed completely. So she said no. She flat out rejected the offer, saying the meat wasn't good to eat, including the hotdogs.
She came to the house and took the meat out of the freezer anyway without telling me. Not knowing she had done this, I offered the meat to a friend who is financially challenged and enthusiastically accepted the offer of both of the items. When I looked in the freezer, they were gone, so I had to rescind the offer.
