Never rent from family
Me and my (now) wife moved in together at the age of 17. Finding a place to live was the first challenge.

Her aunt and 'lesbian life partner' agreed that we could rent their house, since they were moving anyway and I can only presume they had enough money to chuck around that they could afford not to sell.

Everything was pretty much fine for the most part, but things came to a head about 2 years later when they decided they wanted to sell the place. We couldn't get a mortgage at the time so we had to move out and rent somewhere else. This is where the problem began.

~~~~~~~Bit of back story~~~~~~~

When we'd originally moved in, Auntie wanted the living room carpet changed. It was old, worn down and it was blue (didn't go nicely with beige walls). But with them on the process of a move and money being tight, they asked us to pay for a new one. At the time we were a little miffed but thought "Hey, we've got to live with it, why not?" and so the old carpet was pulled up and stored in the loft/attic and a nice new thick brown one put down, lovely.

~~~~~~~End of back story~~~~~~~

So, having seen the new place we decided we wanted to replace the carpet in the main hallway and decided between us that we were entitled to take the brown carpet from Auntie's house.

*Please note that I accept we may be wrong about this, but that's not the point of the story. In my opinion, we had paid for the carpet at her request and they still had the old blue carpet (which was still usable, just a bit worn) so they should be able to put that down*

I argued the point with her partner in a calm and composed manner, giving my reasons and backing them up. She claimed that we had to leave the place as it was when we moved in, which is when I suggested they put the blue carpet back down. She said they had given it away to a friend and no longer had it.

Anyway, the conversation fizzled out, I told her I wasn't happy, but there was no way to resolve the problem amicably.

At this point the missus realised something. About 10 months prior they had increased our rent by £20 per month for 'gardening costs' (another family member de-weeding once a month) because said family member had gone past 1 day and noticed we hadn't de-weeded the garden in the freezing, wet winter months. The garden was basically all shingle, no grass, but of course some weeds did poke through. 1 month after the rent increase the other half and I relaid the garden, which meant shovelling up the existing gravel, raking the soil, laying another plastic sheet (to stop the weeds) and covering with several bags of stones. Total cost was about £100 and it meant there no more weeds. But of course, the rent never went back down, despite us no longer needing a 'gardener'.

After we'd moved into the new place we waited for the return of our £350 deposit, of which we received a meagre £75 and an itemised list of what they had deducted. The list included:
- Repairing items which were already damaged when we moved in
- £1.32 (or something similarly ridiculous) for 2 light bulbs
- 8 hours labour (!) plus cleaning equipment (which we had already left) to clean the oven, which we had already done
- 1 hours labour to move a box from the attic which we forgot (1 hour? Seriously? It was pretty much empty except for a few broken Xmas decorations)

Anyway, it was completely ludicrous, some of the items were necessary, but only about £100 worth, so we felt we were out by about £175.

So when everything was said and done, we felt cheated out of:
£200 for the carpet
£100 for the cost of weed-proofing the garden
£180 for the continued 'gardening costs' after we'd weed-proofed the garden
£175 loss of deposit

A total loss of £655.00

To top things off, they thought I'd been very rude when trying to claim back the carpet, which I hadn't. I had merely stated my case the same way she had stated hers. As such, they stopped speaking to me and the missus, they never even contacted us to say congratulations when we got married in private (everyone else was over the moon).

Rant over, sorry. Length etc
(porkinator is a Rock n Roll nerd!, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 14:13, 10 replies)

Had you mentioned
"Rug Munching" during your discussions with Aunty about the carpet? This may be why she was so unreasonable.
(Rsoles, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 14:17, closed)

No
But now I wish I had
(porkinator is a Rock n Roll nerd!, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 14:20, closed)

Aye
Was going to suggest they may have actually wanted the blue carpet to eat it.
(Toucan - http://www.titmonday.com, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 16:55, closed)

Interesting story.
I take your side. Money greed on one side of a family over another is (imo) the root cause of most family issues that lead to no talking between parties for years.
(barrycounty, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 15:23, closed)

Thanks
I think *MAYBE* we were wrong about the carpet situation (I'm still fairly young and naive) but I certainly wasn't rude.

They've quite clearly withheld a certain amount of money from us and yet we have, on a couple of occasions, tried to make contact, but they're just being bloody stubborn and self-righteous.
(porkinator is a Rock n Roll nerd!, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 15:59, closed)

Cuh, lesbians, eh.

( Michael Ellis contributes nothing, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 16:39, closed)

i was going to rant....
but thanks for doing it on my behalf. i don't have a particular anecdote of a family feud, but i have loads of things that annoy me about them. this just brought it all back. i share your pain.

congrats on the wedding!
(BHMM, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 18:33, closed)

Sue!

( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Fri 13 Nov 2009, 2:49, closed)

Wrong
Neither of them are called Sue.

I wouldn't bother now anyway, not worth the hassle.
(porkinator is a Rock n Roll nerd!, Fri 13 Nov 2009, 10:10, closed)

Regularly
...drive past the place very early in the morning and take a long hard shit in their prized flower bed.

Extra points for curlyness.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 13 Nov 2009, 18:47, closed)