I had completely forgotten about it until Tammie reminded me. Last fall when she was here, she stayed from late Sept/early Oct until after Thanksgiving. She actually legally filed bankruptcy that time, finally. The year before that, she had to stay somewhere for her husband's 90 trial period and since she almost bankrupted him, he got the house ready and rented it out before he left (to be sure it would get done, because he cannot count on her to do it). Tammie and I emailed back and forth about the horrors of unpleasant houseguests and here are some excerpts from those emails . . . .
I could write a book about this woman. She’s the wife of a very dear old friend whom we love with all our hearts and would do anything for – thus her in the house for months at a time. She stayed with me from early July thru late November last year. She ate our food, drank my wine (mine, not his and lots of it), used our electricity, gas (turned the heat way up and then left it running all day while she was out of the house), water, etc and never lifted a finger to help. She was such a pig that the maid finally refused to clean her room or bathroom anymore.
She got a new computer and couldn’t figure out how to put the password to my wireless network in (put that in cuz it’s the easiest way to hook up the girls’ computers), so she decided to get on my computer and take out the password. Only problem is that my puter is Windows and hers is mac and she doesn’t know anything but mac. I damn near cut her fingers off for that one – if she’d messed mine up, I couldn’t do the books for the pool, do the school lunch program (nice – 700 kids don’t get fed cuz this spoiled brat can’t get online?), couldn’t do girl scouts, couldn’t get to my calendar, etc, etc – not to mention the forums.
Oh and she managed to change the address of every piece of junk mail she ever got in her life to my address – as well as all business and personal financial correspondence. Unfortunately, she then moved to Saudi Arabia and decided to default on every credit card (musta been a couple of dozen), every loan, every bill she’d ever run up. There were a lot of them. I was getting half a dozen creditor calls a day and registered, certified letters every week. They don’t quit calling no matter how many times you tell them that the person they are looking for doesn’t live here.
This time she brought several cd’s of pictures she wants to print on my printer – with my picture paper (at $35 for 100 sheets) using my ink cartridges. I think not. She has been here since the first of October and has done the dishes once. As I said, she actually brought at least 3 plants in out of the cold tonight. But this morning at about 7:30 she brought a cup of coffee down to my finished basement and spilled it all over the tiles. I came home from Steve’s doctor at about 10:45 and saw it. At 11:30, I asked her to please clean it up since the maid only mops the basement every other week and this isn’t her mopping week (a lie, but honestly if you spill coffee, you freakin’ wipe it up!)
Her hubby sent me a check to cover some bills we’ve been paying for him, her food and alcohol (doesn’t come close) and sundries. She came in to my office this morning while I was trying to work and asked me where it was and had I cashed it because if I hadn’t, she’d take it. I said I deposited it in my account so she asked what I was going to spend it on! (none of yer danged busness).
Oh and she hates the cats. We have tried to get her to feed them when we go out of town, but she usually has to go somewhere then and the one time she was going to be here for two of the 4 days we were gone, she flat refused.
And the avocado story:
I wish I could say she has a good heart – in reality she’s just a spoiled rotten brat who needs a spanking. One night, Steve cooked a steak (he makes a great steak) and baked potatoes and fixed a salad. He served up plates for her and all of us. We went out on the patio to eat and she disappeared back into the kitchen. She was in there for a long time. Mads wanted her steak cut up in smaller pieces, so I went to get a steak knife and there’s Jess doing something very secretively in the corner. She comes out and eats with us.
I discovered that she was secretly cutting up an avocado that she’d bought. So she ate our steak, potato, brussel sprouts and salad and half her avocado. Seems to me that the polite thing would have been to offer some to everyone or offer some for the group salad, but no – she had to have it all to herself and be secret about it so nobody would ask for any. (I didn’t want any, but thought that was hugely rude.) She continued to eat that avocado a couple of slices a night for the next several days – always in secret and without any offers to share even one time!
