I could really use some advice about how to deal with this situation. It's affecting me and my husband quite badly now, and we are trying to work out the best way to manage it.
Here's the background:
We are lodgers in a house owned by a friend of ours, but he works abroad for most of the year, coming back for about a month or two in August and for a few weeks over the year. So we effectively get the house to ourselves most of the time whilst paying very cheap rent. I should also say that the house isn't 'finished', and there is still work to be done inside and out, which also justifies cheaper rent. The living room, kitchen, bathroom and study are all nice, though. We enjoy it when our landlord is back. We cook together, hang out, spend time. It's nice and we're happy with the deal.
The house is an ex-council property, with a living room and kitchen downstairs, 2 normal-sized bedrooms and one tiny one which serves as a study upstairs. It was built in the 1920s and the bathroom is off the kitchen.
Here's the problem:
Our landlord told us he was coming back in July. He told us that his wife (who lives abroad too) was coming to stay. This was fine by us: we like them both and were looking forward to spending some time with them. He then said that his wife's brother and two cousins were coming over too, and would stay in the house for a week. He said they would then be travelling around the UK, going to France on holiday etc. That was fine with us too, we made arrangements to leave the house for that week (including the weekend). I changed the sheets and tidied our bedroom so that they could use it. As I said above, it's a pretty small house, so having 5 adults in it was going to be a bit tight and we didn't want to stick around to bring that number up to 7!
We got back home at the end of the week. The house was full of people and their stuff. It transpired that they were actually planning on using the house as a base for ANOTHER 2 weeks, going to visit places, occasionally staying overnight. This was all very ad hoc, so they had no idea in advance when they would be in and when they would be away. At this point we felt a little put out. We had been told that they would be in the house for a week, and then away. Now we were being told that not only would they still be based at the house, but we would have no idea when they would be around.
Our landlord doesn't seem to have any tact. An example: one day they went off to Cambridge, and were planning on staying the night and coming back the next day. By 9pm the following evening, they had not returned. I phoned our landlord and he just said "oh, yeah, we're not coming back tonight". Would it really have killed him to have sent us a quick text to let us know? The worst time came when they were supposed to be away for a weekend. We invited our friend up to stay, something we'd been hoping to do for a while. We put her downstairs on the sofa bed, and happily went to bed on the Friday night, looking forward to having the house back for the weekend. At half past midnight the phone rang. It was our landlord saying that he'd decided to cancel their hotel room for the evening because it was 'too expensive' and they were all coming back to the house, and would be arriving at about 2am. So, in the middle of the night, I had to go up into the loft and get the spare sleeping mat, make up a bed in the study, wake up my friend and move her upstairs. When we woke up in the morning, they had somehow acquired an extra person, meaning that there were NINE people in the house. Nine people and one bathroom. We were not amused.
The final straw came last week. While the wife and two cousins went home at the weekend, we were told that the brother was actually staying for A MONTH. This was bad enough, but then last night he told my husband that he's actually staying until the 21st September. Our landlord leaves next week, and just said "well, when I'm gone he can have my room".
We are both incredibly stressed about this situation, and don't know how to explain to our landlord that we are not happy with having someone we don't know in the house. So far this week, the brother has just slept and eaten, not going out of the house as far as we can work out. Our landlord has been out at work all day. Why is this guy here? He can eat and sleep in his home country. He is in the UK for the first time and yet seems to have ZERO interest in actually getting off his ars* and seeing anything on his own initiative. I hate the thought that he's going to be in the house for another month. I feel that we have already suffered a huge invasion of privacy and massive disruption to our lives, and now it's dragging on.
So, what is the best way to bring this up? I don't want to come across as unreasonable, but this is really too much. I am worried that our landlord will take offence and we'll have an argument, the last thing I want. Any ideas?
