Weird Flatmate Advice Needed

I have two flatmates, they pay less than half of the total rent together.

The last four mornings in a row, when I've woken up, their friend has been sleeping on the couch. It's like he lives here. This guy has his own place, too.

Am I wrong in being kinda annoyed with this situation? On one hand, I feel like I'd come off as a total douche if I confronted them about this, but on the other, he's totally assimilating my fucking living room.

Come out and crank up the TV. When he wakes up and asks WTF, tell him this is your living room, not his bedroom, and he's welcome to GTFO.

That would work. Or you could save a plastic bag from the next time you go grocery shopping, sneak up on him while he's sleeping, pull it over his head and hold it there until he stops struggling.

Pretend that he's Mewa and the couch is a New York City subway seat. Find a fat woman. The rest is just funny.

Just grow some sack and ask him straight out WTF is up with him crashing on your couch so much lately? Why the hell are people so scared of communication?

I see a Judge Joe Brown episode in your future ...

Good lord, fucking man up and say get the hell off my couch.

If your flatmates want to have sleepovers make them keep their guests in their rooms.

If it's Ed, you're never going to get him to leave.

My first question would be why your regular flatmates don't pay a fair share of the rent.

Confrontation sounds satisfying in the short term, but if they're petty dickheads they're gonna try to get back at you by bitching about it the next time you have a guest over. Then it becomes a pissing contest over who has more guests staying over and for how long.

I'm not suggesting it isn't a confront-worthy situation (got a pretty low threshold for that, myself ), but if you're gonna bring it up at all, you should prepare for it escalating to the point that you are booting both roommates out on their asses.

Shit like this is why I never had roommates after college- don't need the hassle.

Just ask him how long he plans to take up prime time space with a laugh and lacking malice.

If it's only been a handful of days then give it a few more if it seems like it will pass.

You could actually take the concerned route by asking if there is a problem or reason he's crashing on the couch.

Personally I'd take that tack first.

I initially signed the lease by myself at the start of the summer because I didn't have anybody else at the time, although I told the realtor that I was going to look for roommates. Later on he resolutely refused to let me add anybody to the lease, which was pretty unreasonable considering that the rent is $2700/month and it's a three bedroom. Regardless of the qualifications and personalities of the people I proposed, he would not let anybody move in to help with the outrageously high cost. So, I went to a lawyer, he looked at the lease and evidently the realtor actually edited it from the standard California lease agreement form, which includes a clause essentially saying that the realtor shan't refuse flatmates without a good reason (this is not on mine). So, he advised me that I was fucked, and that I should just find people who were willing to live with the risk of eviction.

Prior to this, my hope had been to find two people to split the rent $900 each, with me paying all the utilities, etc in return for the master bedroom and a private bathroom. Because of the risky situation, I lowered my request to $600 a month from each and found two guys on Craigslist. They're nice enough, but I'm still paying 60% of the rent plus utilities.

If the dude is sleeping on my couch again when I wake up tomorrow, I think I'll ask him, "Do you live here now?" Hopefully he'd take the hint, but if not I'd go on to say that while crashing on the couch once in a while is fine, if he wants to sleep here every night he needs to pay rent like anybody else. I'm starting to get a bit uneasy, he went to school a bit before I did this morning but more and more of his stuff is around the house - his guitar, bike, jackets, computer. This situation obviously needs to get fixed before it becomes a real issue, but I have major issues with assertiveness and confrontation. Ugh.

Why not just ask why he's staying there. he might have a very good reason.

Jesus tittyfucking CHRIST!!

$2,700 a month?!?

Fuck me. Does it come with a nightly rub & tug?

Yesterday he was talking about needing to go home to do his homework, but one of my flatmates convinced him to bring his computer back and do it here. I think it might just be the social aspect, he seems to be bonding rather well with the two of them. Extraverts are weird. And anyway, he lives alone in a cottage behind some old woman's house, so I don't think he has any issues there, though I guess it's possible.

California's expensive, plus this is a university town, and I'm literally a block off campus. But yeah, it's obscene.

Yeah...it sounds like he's slowly moving in. Maybe his own lease is up soon and hopes to be ensconced at your place so he doesn't end up on the street.

For all you know, one of your room mates is getting money from him to ease his share of the rent.

In any event, the place to be assertive is in the sanctity of your home. You don't need some mystery bum sponging off you and potentially helping himself to people's belongings when he does decide to leave.

I have two questions....

Number One....
You live in California but you call it a "Flat"? Have you adopted a fake English accent to sound cool too?

Number Two...
Who owns the couch?

Number three, how in the fuck are you gonna advertise in the paper and let strangers move into your home?!?!

If he's there more than he's not, it's time to ask him to start paying some goddamn rent.

That's what I'd have said.

Plus though I dislike giving free advice to lefties or to trolls, anybody he sells space to should be charged extra for the feature of not having to sign a lease with the landlord (it's almost always better not to sign a piece of paper). Sounds like a premium term to me.

Something's peculiar with a landlord who doesn't want additional names on a signed lease, but I don't know many specifics of Cal. landlord-tenant law. Plus he's probably on the hook personally for every act of his two roomie-tenants just as much as he is for the acts of his current moocher if they break shit or something.

So he crashed over the weekend?
That doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

If...
You own the couch this guy is sleeping on.
or...
This guy is still there by himself after everyone else has left for work.
or...
This guy's stuff is starting to show up around the flat - ie clothes, books, food, lamps, etc

THEN you might have something to be worried or complain about.

If you're unhappy with that then next time choose better roommates. People who are more inline with you and don't like to have alot of friends over.

You don't have "flatmates", you pretentious cunt, because you don't have a flat, because you're not in the United fucking Kingdom.

It's been part of my affectation for the better part of the last decade.

Me.

Never done it before, but I didn't know anybody else.

He doesn't want me having any flatmates at all, on or off the books.

Thursday night to Monday morning, a bit more than the weekend. He was here on Monday and Tuesday mornings too (last week), and a few scattered nights before that.

Yup.

None of us have normal jobs, we're idle students. They only have classes two days a week each, so they're pretty much always around anyway.

Yup.

It's not really about having friends over, that's fine with me. It's the having friends living here thing that bothers me.

Just when we think you can't be any more of a douchebag, you go and raise the bar just a little more.

Yeah if this guy's stuff is showing up with him then you've got a problem.

um, maybe he was born in the UK or spent his childhood there?
please, please tell me that's true...

No, I'm going with "pretentious douchebag."