Tag: family

Having your adult kids move in and not on the lease is the new having undeclared pets in a rental

 

There was an article in the Guardian this week “‘You can’t send them to their room’: the tensions and challenges of parenting adult children” and credit to my parents who took my sister and me back in as growned ups, a certainly not in easy times in our lives. But this is my challenge now, parenting 18 year olds, when I didn’t even parent them as kids. While they themselves are parents now trying to figure out how to do that too.

Yes, I’m a mountain of stress at the moment, moving house before Christmas wasn’t in my plan, but here we are, and I’m glad that the finding part was so short (8 days between finding out the owners were selling and being accepted for a place). But this next month is gonna be crazy. Crazier than normal for a homeful of neurodivergent people just trying to find their place in the world. At least we’ll fit into the new place – aside from the purple bathtub it has a secondary bathroom that I get to relegate the kids to!

After reading that Guardian piece, I was thinking about the situations of having to move back in with your parents, and how I did that, but I was moving in with parents who own their own home. While it puts pressure on everyone, one big strain that’s come from having the kids here is us renting this place (and the next place) and them being here being in breach of the lease agreement that only two adults maximum would live here regularly. After three months it’s certainly regularly. Them being in their mum’s house but over 18 and not on the lease was included as a reason why they could be considered homeless by the social worker before bub was born, because they could be asked to leave at any moment.

I guess that makes them homeless still now.

So, when they moved in and shortly after we were informed of an inspection. my fear was that the real estate wouldn’t take too kindly to there being extra bodies in the house. Which is one of the reasons why that inspection and trying to get everything clean was so stressful, not a hair outta place was the aim. And getting the kids to get their stuff done was a task in itself with the new bub and mental health issues and so forth. Fun. But we got there. And then we thought we’d get to stay.

PSYCH!

So, they’re coming to the new place with us, again not on the lease, and I was thinking, are adult children that aren’t on your lease the new undeclared pets that you hide at your mates when it’s inspection day? That you could have legally had one they were under 18, but full time as adults is naughty naughty and it’s not like you’re going to try to GET them on the lease when you apply since, like not declaring your dog, they make you lower down the list and youth don’t look good to any real estate agent?

So, I was able to stay in the home my parents owned, but then we’re smuggling kids here in our rental, risking our own tenancy and not just our sanity. And their kids? I can’t exactly being the teenagers back to my parents like Jen did with her bubs either.

It’s also not even about saving for a house deposit any more. Somehow they’ll need to find at least $3000 upfront for bond and 2 weeks rent when they DO find a place. Hard to save for any, impossible on youth allowance, and I know there’s bond loans but ugh they do now look good on paper do they :/

Good luck out there x

Well, that was a fast turnaround (MY NEW BATHTUB IS PURPLE)

What rental crisis?
Yeah sorry I know it’s terrible out there and yes prices are stupid but I’ll bask on the glory of getting the second place I inspected, 8 days after the possibility of having to find a new place was raised when we were informed the current creekside house was going on the market and we could be given 30 days notice if the new owner wanted vacant possession.


And I was so close to breaking in that short period of time. I was soooo restless, sleeping terribly, pacing, picking. Managed to mount a kerb in my AU the day of the second inspection (yesterday) and Busted my 17. Of course I didn’t have a spare so Bruce had to show up with a 16 (though he ended up bringing a 15) to get the car home.
I called him in panic, then had to compose myself and impress the agent at this private viewing.
Which I suppose I did woot woot cos she put us forward to the owner and called me this morning to offer us the place.

And yes, it has a freaking purple bathtub

So yeah. It’s $60 more a week (geez thanks for that $13 a week rent assistance increase Jim) and we have the time and expense of moving and cleaning and overlapping rent weeks and yeah.
At this stage the kids and bub are coming with, maybe being more out of town will motivate them to look for a place and then we can really feel how horrific this rental scene is. But we’ll see how we go, and we don’t have to make them homeless with a 3 month old.
So, sorting stuff. We have bulk waste collection conveniently the week of the 27th so if in doubt, out the front it goes!

I may have set up my xmas tree and some lawn lights already but from the 4th I can set up at the new place. New place new vibe. Get that lemon theme kitchen going hard-core to complement the purple wash room.

And babies first Christmas in the new place will surely be fun!

The Stress of Rental Inspections done for another ?Three ?Six months

Our rental changed real estate agents a couple of months back, and one of the first things they did was to book an inspection time, three months after our last one, mostly so they can get a baseline on the place, but also the do the check in if we’ve wrecked the joint thing. This rental I’ve had 2 inspections a year – they can legally do four if they want – so it was a shock to get notice of this one. Also an added stress given we weren’t sure if they’d be okay with Bruce’s daughter, their partner and the bub having moved in two months ago, and how long they’ll be here is unknown.

It was a great excuse to get the place clean though, and nag the kids into cleaning up their area. But it’s a stress, because our lease says two people, so they could use that against us if they wanted us out.

But it was fine, and now I can stare at the wall for the afternoon and try to get my brain back. Hopefully we’ll be offered a new lease, Bruce said they said the owners wanted us to stay on forever, well until they want to redevelop the place, which would be years off. So, fingers crossed. And fingers crossed it’s not too much of an increase. Cos while this place isn’t all that, it’s still a land lords world out there :/

 

Re-finding a new routine, with added players

A blurry baby photo. The baby is wearing pink and in is her mother's arm who is wearing a green dressing gown. They are in my kitchen

Bub has been in the world 17 days, kids have been living with us for 22 days. It’s busy and lovely and stressful and new and I’m slowly figuring out here I fit in all this, what I can look after and control, what works and doesn’t work for me and what I just have to remember is out of my control.

My kitchen with clen dishes

I’m doing my dishes in the morning still, cooking dinner for everyone in the evening. We’re still getting Everyplate boxes – upped it to four serves which is $50 extra a week, which makes it better value. Just trying to figure out what meals everyone likes and eats. I mean everyone eats every main, I just suss out the preferred meals. I’d love it, if you haven’t yet, sign up for a free trial box and I’ll get $25 credit towards ours 🙂

Our landlord moved us to a new real estate agent, so they’ve booked an inspection for September 26. They’ve also organised for a plumber to do a water efficiency check on the property tomorrow, and I replied to their email about the inspection asking if the requested repairs from the June 2 inspection had been handed over, because the last real estate didn’t follow up on any of them, and of course not. So I re-requested the bathroom light and exhaust to be looked at since it is dodgy as and doesn’t always turn on with the lightswitch, and the two hotplates whose thermostats don’t kick in and the kids burned things the first time they cooked here since I hadn’t given them the rundown on which hotplates to avoid or use with caution.

We’re of course anxious about meeting a new real estate agent and what their expectations will be. We’re also out of lease and hope to get a new one – bearing in mind that the kids aren’t ON the lease and as adults should be to live here on a regular basis. Even though they were kids when we moved here, and still living at their mums, but the whole *situation* necessitated it and they’ve got a lot on their plate and public and social housing is this mythical unicorn, and who’s gonna rent to two new parents on youth allowance? So, it’s engaging with those services, social workers, mental health etc etc that I’m also supporting the kids to do. At least Bee could get into the non-bulk billing GP I go to since they were on their booked from when they tried living with us three years ago.

We have managed to acquire a bunch of home stuff from my Nanna’s deceased estate – a kettle, sandwich press, microwave, toaster, crockery and cutlery , much needed TOWELS (mine were all on their last legs without there being extra people!), and I’m getting the fridge and bed once the photos are taken for sale. So that’s been super helpful. I picked up another baby gate off marketplace to keep Maxi out of the kids room without permission. We’ve also sorted so much more of our own stuff, and moved everything car parts and computer parts wise out to the garage. Not sure yet if and when Ash, Bruce’s son will be joining us, but we’re as ready as we can be, ey?

I’m still going to my weekly Antabuse group, we did our urine tests this week to check whether we’d been taking other meds to cope with not being able to have alcohol, and surely I passed.

I’m excited and nervous about our Australian Unemployed Workers Union meetup this Thursday in town. 1pm at Bernie’s Bar (the Old Star Hotel) – you should RSVP and come! There’s gonna be free food and beanies and scarves and comrades!

me nd Maxi in our life jackets on the boat
Maxi and Bruce have been keeping me grounded

I want to say thank you again to family and friends who have been so supportive in so many ways from hugs to an ear to listen to me to cash to packets of nappies and biscuits off our wishlist. If you wanna help out materially, use those links or Buy Me A Coffee?

Growing up Neurodivergent in Newy

So, Black Inc Books went and pathologised Autism and related conditions and tried to uphold the medical model and delegitimise self-diagnosis in a world where diagnosis costs thousands of dollars and the trauma of reliving your childhood to get a label you already identify with so you can access NDIS and DSP and other supports. But go off. Click through to Twitter if you want to know how well that went with the Actually Autistic Aussie community there. Apparently they’re owned by a Zionist anyway, so whatever.

I’ve had a huge week, two days at the Sydney World Pride Human rights conference and my Nanna’s funeral and just surviving in between. I’m tired, probably sick, but always up for a rant.

The conference was amazing, 1800 delegates from around the world coming together to reaffirm the fight for our human rights as LGBTQIA+ people and wondering beings. The first session started late, about 45 minutes, which had me cranky since I’d been up since 4.30am to get there. They also had lunch scheduled in for times like 1.45pm…. I know it’s only 15 minutes later, but I feel like lunch should never start later than 1.30pm, Preferably no later than 1,

There were cookies. Many cookies. I feel like I need to learn more about Intersex people and the issues that affect them, and also about how gender is described in Indigenous populations and I need to step back more as a cis white woman and stfu. We need to decolonise at every stage, We need to look at who is not in the room and see how we can bring them in. I was there on an “affordability” ticket that I had to apply to get based on being a concession card holder. It was still $120, so well out of reach for most people I know living on welfare in this country, I put it on Zippay, so it’ll be paid off at some point. There was a panel on economic inclusion which talked about offering training to people to start their own businesses, but it all came down to there needing to be capital, start up funding and grants and microloans. Queer people will continue to need to crowdfund to get their dreams.

There was a roundtable on Thursday about Autistic and Queer identities but I had to miss that for my Nanna’s funeral. It was probably for the best I didn’t travel to Sydney three days in a row, anyway. I got to nap on the trips down which was helpful. I wish the coffee stations were open before the first session! But I guess they want everyone to buy from their cafe. The funeral was fine. I got impatient with an old lady who was asking my father where some other relative was living and I’m lady talk to us at the wake, not right now right after the service. I may not get along great with my father but I’m protective of him. Rah. It’s like when my Aunt died and someone was going off on him on the phone about something and I made my mother take the phone and tell them to kindly leave him the fuck alone.

I look at my family I’ve come from and the one that’s developing. I have queer and neurdiverse niblings on my side and Bruce’s, who’ve come out into this world and what it offers and threatens. I’m here to help them how I can to protect them and celebrate them. I’m going to become a step-grandmother this year, which I’m aiming to embrace and celebrate.

I’ll leave you with two book recommendations of amazing neurodivergent women. First is Anna Spargo-Ryan’s A kind of magic and second Amy Thunig’s Tell Me Again. Two women of around my age growing up in Australia with brilliant minds but fighting their own and their family’s demons around mental health and addiction. So much from both books resonated with me. You never know what people are going through.

I’m two years sober from alcohol. And I’ve done two months straight daily Japanese practice. I like numbers.