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The owner/occupant agreement

Wicked stepmo.'s picture

YSD will be returning from her grandparents. Since she has made it abundantly clear her issue with me is that I "act like a parent." I have taken it upon myself to correct this aweful behavior I have that causes her so much distress.

I have now re-estblished my role as her non parental landlord and will refer to myself as such. 

I have written up an owner/occupant contract. Which states as the occupant of said residence. YSD is required to maintain the property by the standards listed in the contract and the owner reserves the right to inspect the property at any time.

Violations of the agreement will result in a 24 hour notification. If violations are not corrected items loaned to the occupant for personal use will be repossessed .

A cleaning service fee will be charged, if the fee is not paid by completion of labor in the form of chores a repossessed item may be sold to recoup the cost.

I have made violation notifications which will be given to her as notice when thier is an infraction. 

Comments

Wicked stepmo.'s picture

SO is supportive. He admitted he is scared of BM. So I told him to tell BM that it's not his house he can't tell me what to do with my house and if she has a problem she needs to tell me.

Also anything she has that she values I bought, I can take it back.

She won't, she is scared of me because I am not intimidated by her. 

SO is tired of SKs being mouthy and disrespectful. Plus YSD ripping up all her pictures of him and calling the cops was the straw that broke the camel's back for him. He has never been more hurt or disappointed.

ESMOD's picture

Unfortunately... this is still "parenting" this 13 yo.. she is a child.  She does need parenting.  She has a father.. he should be parenting her.

You can require that he make her maintain her personal space and belongings in a sanitary and orderly manner.. but unless he is inclined to go to the mat with her on this.. it's all basically "peeing in the wind".

 

Wicked stepmo.'s picture

Is sad as it is. BM being homeless has been an awakening for SO and how bad his kids behavior really is.

Even the officers sat him down and had a talk with him about the seriousness of his kids behavior problems. 

SO has stopped talking to OSD altogether. He has talked a lot about how he is not putting up with YSDs behavior anymore and he is scared she is going to end up like OSD. He has had her phone locked so she can't use it. He said he is going to start enforcing house rules.

He says he is supportive of me not doing anything for her until her behavior changes and he is not going to do anything for her either.

Before the 911 incident he did start to enforce consequences. That is why her behavior escalated. She left a mess in the kitchen and wouldn't clean it. He took away all the appliances and locked them up so she couldn't use them when we were gone.

She wouldn't eat the dinner he made he put it in the fridge and told her that's all she was getting.  

 

tog redux's picture

Yes. You are taking on his job instead of insisting he man up, stop being afraid of his ex, and parent his child. 

Wicked stepmo.'s picture

Most importantly my reason behind doing this in the first place is YSD does and says things intended to hurt those she is closest to when she is angry. She has terrible coping skills and takes her anger and frustration out on whoever is around her. 

I always intentionally take what she says and make it true to teach her a lesson to be careful what she says because it just might happen.

Ultimately her words are going to hurt her more than they are going to hurt me.

YSD cares that I have always been there for her, done things for her. I have been the only one outside of her dysfunctional family she can talk to about thier dysfunction and won't go running back to BM to tell her.   BM doesn't do anything for YSD and never will. 

YSD doesn't really want me to stop "acting like a parent" she just wants to be angry and hurtful. Because she is angry BM has blamed the break up on her and won't have anything to do with her and not precious OSD who was the real problem.

I might be empathetic to what she is going through. But I will not be a doormat, and I am trying to teach her that treating those who are there for you poorly has consequences.

Cover1W's picture

I have to say I understand. I wanted to do something similar with OSD around the same age. Oh, ok, you want to be treated like an adult? Here's your rental agreement, your share of household expenses, and you know where the bus schedule is....DH didn't so I just disengaged further. 

One of my friends however thought it was great and used part of the ideas for her own son who was having some issues.

1st3rd5thWEInHell's picture

I feel for you but no amount of writing and agreeing will change the fact that these kids come in and destroy your home as they please and you will be expected to clean up

Any questioning or comments will be labeled as "nagging", "you are not my mother", "no one asked you to clean after me" while ur husband will parrot the same words "who asked you to do that? (Yet he wont do it)" or "they are not used to cleaning up after themselves, they were raised differently"

 

Consider this battle lost....

Wicked stepmo.'s picture

SO is on board the day she called the cops it's because he took her make up and locked it up then threw her clothes in the garbage outside and told her she had 10 min to get them and put them away or they were gone forever. 

Survivingstephell's picture

I think that you are at your wits end, both of you, and she's 13 , not 3.  That's eighth grade by my calculations, middle school, which having survived 3 bios and 3 SDs going thru that , I know how awful it is with average girls. I can't imagine having the cops called at that age.  
I agree with you that teaching her that you are not a doormat and that it's your house is a good thing.  Make sure to connect all of your consequences to her calling the cops and escalating it like she did.  I do think I would strip her room and do some burning platform like chores.  This event she caused should be life changing for her.  Not so much the outcome, no guarantees there, but affecting her life style so she feels the pain of her poor choices.  I screwed up as a kid and any thing that humiliated me in front of my peers worked with me. Taking my DL was a tragedy!!   That was the 80's though.  
 

Reclaim authority in you house.  To the skids and BM.  If you can present a United front with DH to everyone, all the better.  
Good luck!