Setting "house rules" for adult living at home

[Parents! Get help here!]

My 19 year old dd will be coming home next week and I have set out some very basic house rules including the fact that I need to be able to come into her room when I feel I need to.  She feels that this is a violation of her rights as an adult but I say it is my house.  In the past, her room was such a mess that it honestly was a fire hazard and she was drinking and using drugs in her room.  Am I being reasonable?  What do you think?

[femom]

My 19 year old dd will be coming home next week and I have set out some very basic house rules including the fact that I need to be able to come into her room when I feel I need to.  She feels that this is a violation of her rights as an adult but I say it is my house.  In the past, her room was such a mess that it honestly was a fire hazard and she was drinking and using drugs in her room.  Am I being reasonable?  What do you think?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[jellibeans]

Dear femom

I have issues with my dd room being clean and neat but I made a choice not to make it a battle. It is her room and I feel she needs a place that she can just be without stress. I can understand that you don't want drinking and smoking in her room so what is the rule? keeping her room neat? not smoking or drinking? Being able to inspect her room without notice? I think you need to define the rule clearly first then see how you can implement it. Is there another way to ensure she is not drinking and smoking? Could you give random drug testing?

[chooselove]

Good luck.   I had a basic list of common sense rules (things like "clean up after yourself in the kitchen" when my daughter came home for a time.  She broke every rule and ended up slapping me when I attempted to enforce them. I did not list that I could inspect her room in the rules but I should have as there was a small fire in there from a light bulb coming in contact with her papers and dirty clothes that were strewn everywhere.   She wore me down and in the end I gave up all the rules and we had a very miserable co-existence.  As a result I will never ever let her move in again unless she is transformed into a contrite, respectful person who says "no problem" to all the house rules.  Oh my, but it was an utter nightmare to have her here.   I wish you the best.

[chooselove]

PS when she wasn't ignoring the rules she was having a negative opinion on what we watched on tv, getting in political arguments, helping herself to all our food, deciphering my expressions and telling me she knows what I'm thinking.  I would find myself sitting outside looking up to the sky saying, "Please help me."  We'd lost all the sanctity of our home.  We had to nag, nag, nag to get her to fulfill the smallest of chores and so we ended up just doing them ourselves. She felt it was insane that we ask her to pay a tiny amount of rent so that didn't happen either.  If a family member was going to visit that she didn't like (all of them, ) then she would throw a loud nasty hissy fit.   It all served as a very painful lesson, which are the best kind because we really learn that way.

Hopefully, your daughter moving in will be a very positive experience for both of you.  I just felt compelled to say what happened to us because as you can see, it really left a mark on me as to what I will and won't allow in our house now.

[femom]

Thank you for the replies.  I want to be able to open her door when I feel I need to and once a week know that dirty clothes and dishes are brought downstairs and that garbage is thrown out.  I don't think it is too much to ask.

[pessim-optimist]

I want to be able to open her door when I feel I need to and once a week know that dirty clothes and dishes are brought downstairs and that garbage is thrown out. 

1. I think that doing once a week inspection for clothes garbage and dishes is absolutely reasonable.

2. Your ability to open the door at any time:

If I were the child, I'd feel like I have no privacy with never knowing when the door would suddenly open... .

Do you think that a compromise would work: she would agree to drug or alcohol test upon request, and obligation to open the door or invite you in upon your knock?

[mom2bpd]

  I also created a list of house rules when my uBPDD and her boyfriend (at the time) moved in.  For the most part the house rules were followed.  I had to remind them to do many things on the list, and they fumed about it.  The main thing that got them to sit up and pay attention was my H's offer to hire a maid and charge them for her if they didn't clean up after themselves.  They knew he was not going to back down since he's a BPD too... . LOL.  So, they followed most of the rules.  They are, however, still steamed (after moving out in Jan) that we told them to pay a tiny bit of rent.  I also made sure that they paid for their share of the groceries and charged them for their portion of the utilities.  We didn't charge them very much in hindsight, but my uBPDD pretended we were asking for a fortune.  Our BPDD has moved in with us at least 5 times so I wanted to do it right this time with the rules, and I didn't want her to think she could ever move back again and not pay her fair share.  It's setting boundaries that need to be set even though it's hard to do, and it may take while for the BPD to get over it.  I hope you don't have to go through this 4 times like I did before I seemed to get it almost right this last time.  Good luck, and I also don't blame you for wanting to inspect her room periodically, but agree that she needs to have some privacy.  let us know how it all goes.

[kelc323]

femom, when our BPDD27 moved back home her treatment team helped us develop a contract which both of us signed.We had a revolving door a few times until she was 21. When she moved home at that time, she was very appreciative and did very well. Then she met her current boyfriend, moved out and it's gone downhill from there.

Anyway, our initial struggles were over the fact she would sleep all day while my husband and I were at work. When we went to bed, she would be up playing her music loudly, rage with her current boyfriend over the phone and be generally disrespectful of our need for sleep, not only for us but for her little brother who was 9 years younger. Her DBT treatment team actually encouraged us to set pretty strict boundaries, including getting her get up at 8:00 am and making her leave the house when we went to work. Unfortunately, we weren't strong enough at the time to follow through with this expectation, but it sounded good in theory.

Even though our plan didn't work out, it was still a good one. We expected her to pay a small amount for rent, which we saved and gave her when she moved out. If she lost her job, we expected her to earn her keep by helping around the house and yard. We also had a weekly, predetermined time to do a room inspection. Our BPDD would spill fingernail polish on the carpet, lipstick, milk, pop, etc. -- food under the bed, cereal bowls and spoons, etc. Piles and piles of dirty clothes would be strewn over the floor and never washed -- sometimes up to a month. It smelled. So, if she refused to clean up her mess, her treatment team said it was perfectly acceptable to pick it up for her and put it in trash bags. We did this once. It worked. Even in the psych hospitals and treatment facilities having a clean room was always a requirement. I believe it was more about having structure and rules that would help develop discipline and facilitate a healthy emotional environment than the neatness itself, though.

The part we had less control over, and ultimately was the reason we wouldn't let her come back, was the raging and fighting that occurred with her boyfriends. Police would be at our house at 2:00 a.m., because some drunk boy would be knocking on the windows or she would leave and fight with them in the front yard. It even happened when our DS was 10 and he was having a sleepover. We were all embarrassed. We needed to have peace in our home. And, of course, there was lots of raging and aggression toward us as well. We may have been able to endure and manage it, but we were always keenly aware of the impact it was having on our youngest son. To this day, if someone raises their voice, he starts to tremble and will tear up. It was traumatizing to him. We had to be his voice and say "no more."

In short, I think these arrangements work best when there are clear written rules, consequences and respect given to all involved. Providing a place for her to live is a gift, not a requirement and it needs to be respected and appreciated.

[peace in steel town]

That's easy, your house, your rules. If she feels it's a violation of her rights as an adult for you to go through her room, then let her exercise her right as an adult to get her own place. People with nothing to hide hide nothing. It sounds to me that the defiance has already begun, as she is trying to guilt trip you into letting her move in mostly rule free. You do not owe her anything. It is a privilege to be allowed to live with you. Just the fact that she is trying to come back, after previously proving that she is not trust worthy, proves that you need to set ground rules now. Best of luck enforcing them. 

[peace in steel town]

What a coincidence, our 19 year old dd wants to move back in too, but she is determined to control this situation from the word go. She wants to be treated like a tenant, so in her mind, she could come and go as she pleases, and do what she wants, when she wanted, and we weren't allowed to say anything. She told her mom that this was moms house, too, and that mom didn't have to ask my permission. She told us how much she was willing to pay. She didn't want to talk to me, as I ask all the hard questions. After much discussion, I called dd back. I told her that I would treat her like a tenant, and have her sign a tenancy agreement, and she had to come up with first and last months rent. She said that she didn't have any money, and wouldn't get start up money until September, so I said let's reopen this conversation then. That ended this discussion quickly, and so she is off looking for another place to stay. The last thing we want is for her to come back home, sleep in until noon, have whoever over when we are not around, stay up until 2 playing video games, get busy with her boyfriend whenever, dump the baby for us to babysit, and we can't say anything. We live in a tiny, 2 bedroom house, unfinished basement, there is no separate living space.