Dear LPG,

A couple of years ago, one of my brother’s grandchildren found himself in a bit of a predicament.  After three years of training miles away from Lewisham his studies were finished, but returning to his family home was not practical and, of course, he found himself in a fair amount of debt.

As my house has lots of room for just one, he asked if he could stay in one of my spare rooms while he worked out where his future needed to take him and I agreed.  I have never really liked living alone, the room was empty and he had studied to become a chef which I thought would make meal times a little more interesting.

He told me at the time that he felt that he would stay for six months at the very most, and I thought that the arrangement would work out well for both of us.  I told him that he could help me out with some of the housework that I am beginning to find a little more taxing these days.  He also promised to use me as his test subject when working on his new recipes which I found an exciting prospect.

But that was three years ago now, and while he does really help out, and it is nice to have some really interesting dishes to try out, I am worried that he now feels that he has an obligation to stay with me.  He is in his mid-thirty’s and works very hard long hours.  He brings very few friends to the house and, while I get annoyed sometimes because things are not where I would like them to be, he is really no trouble.  My big problem with our arrangement is my worry that he is not moving on with his life because he is too busy looking after me.  I want to avoid a day in ten years’ time when my forty-something nephew is still without a partner and becomes my official carer. 

I have tried to tell him this but it is hard to explain to him that, even though he is no trouble, I would like to see him do something about his future which I feel that he will never do while he is staying with me, but I fear that he will think that I am ‘chucking him out’.  I have tried to broach the subject in a roundabout way but my hints leave him asking what he has done wrong, or if he needs to start paying rent and, try as I may, I can’t explain that he needs to find his own way.  I really like having him around but I don’t want to get so used to him that I lose my independence earlier than I need to because he is making life too easy for me, and I know that I am getting lazier because he is around.

He is a thirty-something year old young man who doesn’t really go out and socialise and I feel that, even though I don’t think that I am at the stage of needing to be looked after yet, he feels that he has an obligation to do this.

If I could turn the clock back I would have put some rules in place when he first came to stay because it is really hard to do it now without upsetting my houseguest.  I know that other people of my age take in relatives once their house gets too big for them and I have heard the stories of the ones that take over before you know it.  So can I advise that, if any reader finds themselves at the start of such a prospect, there is real importance of writing down some rules about the same issues that affect a lodger, including how long a stay is agreed?  Adding a regular review period to the rules will allow you to add sanctions about things that crop up as time goes by. 

Remember that even if they are only planning to stay for a week, and there is no rent involved, it is better to have an agreement in place which will give you a reason to be a bit more objective about the way things go forward.

IH, Beckenham

IH offers some related information…

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