Life at home

That sounds close to this guy's behavior, nimh.
I agree that it is fruitless, if not passive aggressive-ish, to be other than straightforward.

I did like the dirty pots in the bed thing from, was it pdog?, though, especially if one added the crumbs strewn about in the kitchen to the undercovers, speaking of a passive aggressive layer under the aggressive move...

I admit to my clean well from time to time and let go in between personality, and in my marriage that was fine as we were both that way - I don't remember even one argument about cleaning or territoriality. On the other hand, my business partner and her husband were both neat freaks, and I gained something of a slobbo status. <Please don't move around my piles of paper>. Their righteousness about it was obnoxious...
except that from time to time she admitted obsessiveness.

I remember Dasha in particular is keen on cleanliness.

Don't pussyfoot...

Oh yes, I remember that kind of thing. Not with Portuguese guy, but in one of the students houses in Holland. Happened twice - once, I helped fill a garbage bag with dishes to leave in front of one flatmate's door, and once, I found a garbage bag with my dishes in front of mine.

Yeah I'm messy, I wouldnt ever live with either of you.

The "wiping counter" thing, for example, I just dont get - I had a flatmate who got crazy annoyed about finding bread crumbs on the counter - and I tried to keep it in mind, really, but it was really something I had to consciously remind myself of, so it never became something I did automatically (and thus consistently) because internally, I'm just (still) nonplussed - annoyed about breadcrumbs?

I lived for 11 years in such "students houses" (where people usually - what with cheap housing shortages - stay for a few years after studying - like, we had one 37-year old). And Lord dont I never miss it. Sharing kitchens, showers. Cleaning schedules. Notes on doors. The girls exasperated by dirty dishes, undone chores, inconsiderate late night loudness; the boys by nagging and notes about the seemingly most inane or neurotic things. Exceptions to the rule of course - one flat we had a black guy who once became so annoyed with the mess and stuff that he turned his stereo to ten, went out, locked his door, and didnt come back till evening (well, happened before my time). But overall, yeah - the guys are dirty and loud and careless ... the girls are anal and worked up about something all the time ... which they wont, of course, say out anything straight about until they are furious, instead just giving hints ... which the guys wouldnt get ... which the girls would complain about incessantly - to others...

I have plenty of good memories of students houses too, long evenings listening to Tom Waits and talking, outrageous parties where we decorated the whole house in "underwater" theme, an impromptu "wedding" on the balcony - me with a hat she with a sheet - coming home late to find my Antillean flatmate cooking with friends hanging out in the kitchen, chilling, hanging a plastic christmas tree upside down on the ceiling, always somebody there to chat with, greeting my christian flatmate in the morning when he went out bright & early and i was still awake having made home-made bread..

But yeah, after five or six years it all wore pretty thin.

Oh yeah, sure, no, got that, both examples - sorry. I was reading up from like 10 pages back, was still mostly responding to earlier posts. Cause on previous pages there still was plenty talk about giving "clues", I think. (Clues, hints)

Oh yes <grimace>

Its like, if you have a type that wants everything spick and span clean, and someone who's messy and leaves things lying around - then you got two incompatible types. And thats annoying for both of them - whichever way you push the lever between the two states of affairs, someone is going to be inconvenienced, and that sucks, thats how I always looked at it. Easy to understand and commiserate with the suckiness. But what got my gander up was the others' attitude that, you know, it wasnt just a question of incompatibility - it was that their way was the right way, how it should be done. Ggrr.

Like, its intrusive and bad to disturb someone with your sound - but to expect the others to take off their shoes when they come home, not be in the kitchen after 11 except for on their toes, always to wipe the counter of every breadcrumb even though noone else cares, etc etc - thats not intrusive, thats just.. normal.

We had that in the other house too. If the Antillean guy cooked at midnight - luckily the kitchen was a closed off and pretty soundproof place - but still, it incovenienced whoever of the two people on that floor would be at home. They wouldnt be woken up but if they were still awake they would hear voices, etc - there'd be smells.. But if they told him, say, no kitchen after ten, then he would be inconvenienced, forced to adapt to eat at times that he wasnt hungry, or that his friends wouldnt come for. Me, I eat late too, though not as late as him, so I sympathised with him, but he could be loud and inconsiderate, the macho, so I sympathised with them too - but I didnt think either was inherently more right or anything - just gotta compromise. Some to learn how to keep things in mind, others to shrug things off.

But yeah - glad those days are over! And I'll stop yakking now, I think the Portuguese guy does enough of that already ;-)

Nimh mentioned - it was that their way was the right way, how it should be done. Ggrr.

Yes, you got it.

Reminding me about my old boss, the science guy/writer guy, who said, a clean desk is a sign of an empty mind...

I can see both sides, as I've known bright people with clean desks, that business partner, for example.

But...

K & D had the place first, and presumably have rules priority, and I bet one of them has the lease, but that's none of my business.
In this case, there is a long established comfort zone.
Clarity of expectations, repeated as necessary...

Eh, and anyone who kept talking at me, ah, deserves straightening out. That and table promotion.

This thread is cracking me up. I especially love hearing Dag exasperated. She's just so good at it!

I knooooooooooooowwwwwwww...... <whine>. I know that I am going against everything I try to be when I expect that people do things certain ways while living with me. I used to be so fluid. But, I also used to be that person who's bed people wanted to fill with dirty dishes. I know what it is to live with people who are neater than me. When Dasha first moved in with me it was hard. Granted, she knew she was a little excessive and I knew I was a little slobbish and there was Lili for mediation and comic relief. But, we figured out how to deal with eachother because we LISTENED to eachother. She stopped leaving the spoinge in the bottom of the sink, I tried to keep my crap in my bedroom, she cleaned the houe way more often than I did, but I cleaned the house way more often than I ever had before. She left me a little space on the kitchen table for a little stack of my stuff and I tried not to crinkle and rustle platic bags. We listened, we learned, we compromised and we respected.

Dirty dishes in the bed, instructional signs all around the apartment, kvetching on-line,...my crystal ball says this relationship is doomed.

Before it even began.

Whatever, I am not at issue with his level of messiness. I am at issue with the fact that he hasn't cleaned either bathroom and he's lived here for a month. Perhaps we could start charging him cleaning fees. My sister's cleaning people get around 75 bucks an hour. I am really at issue with his people skills. The constant, inane chatter, the standing too close, the standing outside my bedroom door babbling at me, the constant putting down of my culture, the always being right/better...... that stuff.

Perhaps we need a household meeting.

Who the hell would pay someone 75 bucks an hour to clean a house?

My dumbass sister, for one.

I pay mine $75 to do the kitchen + 2 bathrooms. Think it takes more than an hour though

There are 2 who get paid 100 bucks and they are there for a little more than an hour. Their house has 2 floors, 1.5 baths and 3 bedrooms.

Now I feel like I'm loosing respect from good friends here.....

I started this thread for a reason. I come here to vent so that I can figure out what is going on in my head. I am notoriously bad at self-analysis, especially when it comes to matters where I get emotionally charged. So, I come here to vent so that when I do talk to him over the days and weeks which will come, I will be less psychotic. I will have fine-tuned what it is that I am bugged by and will be able to express my points more clearly.