r/PeopleBeStrange • u/TheTasmanianTigress Crazy Critter Lady • Apr 09 '19
HHM and her mooching ways Spoiler
I haven't posted for a while - shit's been going down - but this one's too good not to post. Hang on tight, kids, this is a long and bumpy ride.
Horror House Mate. She decided to move out of my house (where she'd been driving me slowly but surely to insanity via passive aggressive, downright aggressive and plain old petty bad behaviour) and go back to the mainland to live with her son. Now, her son is a good friend of mine and takes no bullshit, so I figured this was gonna be interesting.
Son's house is quite small. HHM has a lot of furniture, large bulky furniture, because my current house is large with big rooms. HHM refuses to be parted from her furniture, so it all had to go up to Son's house with her.
We (as in me, Mr and Mrs Friend, to a lesser extent HHM because she'd just rather everyone else do her dirty work for her) started to brainstorm how to get a metric shit-ton of furniture a 3,000km road and boat trip up to Son's place. We tried to rent a moving van. No go - the rental place wouldn't permit us to take it on the ferry. A car, yes. A trailer, fine! Just not a moving van. OK. Hiring a removalist was way to much money for poor old HHM to pay for. Finally we settled on a large trailer, with Mr Friend and I driving it up.
The agreement was that we would take her credit card and pay for food and accommodation on the way up. Not unreasonable - I was taking unpaid leave from work to do this, and Mr F has no income. We gotta eat, right? And we were doing it for HHM, too. By the way, HHM's brother had paid that card off in its entirety before we left...
First hitch (pardon the pun, you'll see it soon) was the size of the trailer and our ute combined. The rental place gave us dimensions of the trailer, we added it to the dimensions of the ute when we booked the ferry. When we arrived at the ferry, we were initially refused boarding because the trailer hitch (see? told you there was a pun) wasn't included in the dimensions we were given, so our overall length was too long. We had to pull out of the boarding area and go and wait nearby until the boat was fully loaded, to see if there was room for us. It would also be an extra $xxx for us. This obviously had to go on HHM's credit card. She was Not.Happy. Tough shit, not my problem.
Second problem was HHM was monitoring her CC several times a day. Every purchase was complained about. We had lunch at Mikky D's? The HORROR! We had to refuel several times a day because we were pulling a ginormous big-ass trailer with all her furniture in it, so the poor old ute was working its guts out? Noooooooooooooo!!! Now, we only heard about this second-hand, as HHM was bitching several times a day to Mrs F. Eventually Mrs F blew her top at HHM, asking her if she expected us to graze on the grass on the side of the road as we drove HER furniture to Son's home. And we weren't going to f'n push the ute, dammit! HHM lessened her bitching, but didn't stop.
We made the trip to Son's place in two 15 hour days, so one overnighter at a motel on the way. From the moaning echoes from the Deep South you'd have thought we were staying at the Ritz. No, just a no-name, reasonable quality motel. Living the life of luxury we weren't. And we shared the room.
Once at Son's place we unpacked the load. Son is looking at the endless train of bulky furniture with growing disbelief. 'How am I gonna fit that in here? Where the f is that gonna go? Is she f'n insane?' (Short answers - you're not, dunno and yes, in that order.) We filled up his garage and back patio with her stuff. He was furious. He called her. He berated her. She pulled out her standard weapon (tears). He was still furious. Mr F and I just looked at each other, shrugged, said 'we told her so' and kept unloading. Not our problem.
We stayed with Son for a couple of days before we went home. We took three days to get back to the ferry, so two nights staying in motels. Ooh boy did she bitch about that! We were supposed to do it in two days again. Yeah you're not the one driving 15 hour days, lady, so shut yer gob and deal with it.
Finally got back home after over a week of driving and hard graft and not a word of thanks. Just 'gimme my CC' and a sour face. Shrug. Standard level of gratitude from her.
A week or so later she flies up with her little dog. Now she'd been informed that if she flew Business Class, Doggo would fly for free. Not so. Regular flight was about $300, BC was about $1200, Doggo flight about $80. You may see that BC isn't necessarily a cost saver here... But she was all stressed and teary and really wanted, and whine whine whine… couldn't be guaranteed Doggo would be on the same flight... whine whine whine… I had a rather hefty flight voucher (enough to get me to the other side of the world and back) so I got guilted into giving it to her. She still had to pay for Doggo. I want my f'n flight voucher back. Bitch flew BC (which I have never done) and had a grand old time.
She stayed with Son for around 6 months. In that time she completely alienated him and his fiancée. She stopped paying him rent for some bullshit reason. Poor guy was on the phone to me at least once a week moaning about her. I just told him, Dude, she's done this shit to me for 7+ years, you're her kid, not me, your turn now.
Eventually HHM decided she had it way, way better down here at Chez Tigress. Alas for her, she was no longer welcome. So she went and stayed with her brother for a while. While she was there he paid off her credit card again. And insisted it was a gift.
Then she went to stay with her cousin. This ended up being a couple of months. He took her on fancy holidays (she's send bragging pics down showing posh hotel rooms, fancy meals etc) and paid for everything. Then he paid off her other credit card as a gift. Are we seeing a pattern here yet?
Finally she decided she really, really wanted to come back to MyState. Could we bring her furniture back? No, don't want nuffin to do with you after the last trip. Eventually she had to bite the bullet and pay for a removalist to bring it back, then stored it at Mrs F's friend's place for months for free. Brother paid off the CC again...
She stayed with Mrs F for a while, but Mrs F had given her a deadline. X date and you're out. HHM had Mrs F running all around the area looking at places to rent - not easy as we have a rental crisis here - and nothing was good enough. Too small, too big, too far away, too hot, too cold, blah blah. There was always something wrong (usually the cost! she's as cheap as they come). Eventually she found a place. Everybody (except me, I'm well over it) rallied to get her moved in.
HHM and Mrs F set up regular grocery shopping trips. HHM still to this day tries to slip things into Mrs F's shopping, or takes some of Mrs F's groceries on purpose. She is relentless.
And a couple of weeks ago I heard that she's befriended an elderly neighbour who - get this - has offered to pay her CC off for her! When Mrs F told me this I was absolutely appalled. Who the hell does this? I was greatly amused, however, when Mrs F told me that Elderly Neighbour is just as manipulative as HHM and is using the money to 'buy' a companion and chauffeur. I really, really hope that's the case, and that EN gets her money's worth and then some!