hello. i may not elaborate on every detail, and some of what i say might be a bit confusing if you have not read my last thread. feel free to give it a read if you want. it's obviously optional.

https://www.steptalk.org/forum/parenting/blended-family-issues/family-10...

Disclaimer:
everything i will say here is the truth, but some of it may be slightly exaggerated. exaggerations should be obvious. if i ever dish out insults like calling someone stupid, it is the truth, but i'm saying it out of frustration. it's not necessarily a matter of intelligence. it's mainly about behavior, actions, and tendencies. yes, i'm mainly just venting my frustrations.

My Home Situation:

TL;DR: everyone who i'm living with is an idiot in some way or another.

Introduction:

so i'm living with my mom, one of my brothers, and some guy who is renting a room. i live upstairs on the same floor as some guy, my mom lives a couple of floors below, and my brother lives a couple of floors below my mom, which is in the basement. that might sound impressive, but it's actually not a big house. the floors are small and pretty much diagonally segregated. so like instead of each floor being on top of each other, they almost sit beside each other, but separated by some stairs.
i am a 23 year old man, my brother is 4 years older, my mom should be in her late 50s by now, and some guy is probably in his late 30s or so.

anyway, usually i just ignore these issues. i understand that everyone is different and has different priorities. i don't expect anyone to do things for my benefit, and i prefer if others don't get in the way of me doing things for my benefit. so despite all of the issues going on in this house that i was able to deal with, something happened recently that kind of sent me over the edge. i guess i will discuss issues with my brother first.

Brother Issue:

so about a couple of years ago my brother started paying for internet access for the household. my mom was paying for it before that. i guess this was my brother's way of helping mom out because he can't properly pay rent yet. which is weird because he originally moved out of the house about 7 or 8 years ago. back then i was just glad that my brothers finally got the hell out, so i didn't get the details. i assumed he moved to an apartment. apparently he was staying with one of his friends. i don't have a clue why he thought that would work out. all it took was a second after entering that house for me to realize that it was a broken home. there was no order or logic. only chaos.

so he moved back in not long after that. mom gave him the entire two bottom floors to himself and laid down a few simple rules. actually in regards to the floors, he lives in the basement which consists of a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. the floor just above that is the kitchen area where we also keep the laundry machines, and a door leading outside, and a door leading to the garage. so sometimes it's necessary for other people in the house to go downstairs for laundry and to go to the garage. it's mainly his area, but not exclusively. also that's not the only kitchen in the house, but only he uses that kitchen.
as for the rules. mom told him no friends in the house, no smoking in the house, no animals in the house, don't fucking break anything, and he has to pay rent.

these rules are completely reasonable because he has a history of fucking off with a bunch of random people, a history of smoking in the fucking house when he's not supposed to, a history of brining animals in the house when he's not supposed to and being completely irresponsible with them, a history of breaking shit in the fucking house because he has anger issues. of course, the reason mom wanted him to pay rent is because he moved out before moving back in. obviously if you are going to move out in the first place, you need to use common sense to know that you are capable of paying rent. so mom went easy on him and wanted him to pay $300 monthly.
i was never expected to pay rent because i never moved out.

so this is still around 6 years ago. for about a month everything seemed to be going well. he moved back in, he was following the rules. all he had to do was improve himself and discover his path in life. nope. he started brining a bunch of random people over to the house. he started smoking and drinking in the house. he started breaking shit every time he got mad. and he couldn't pay the rent that mom required. eventually he even got a girlfriend and had her live in the basement with him, after he asked mom for permission and mom denied. she almost burned the fucking house down, they got into fights constantly which resulted in him breaking every single fucking door downstairs. to this day there is not a single door in the basement separating the living room from the bed room, the bathroom, or the kitchen area. there used to be good doors separating all of those areas. there are holes all over the fucking walls where he punched the drywall.

i'm pretty sure it was a while after he had the girlfriend living with him he decided to ask mom if he could buy a dog. obviously mom denied that request. so instead he chose to buy the dog anyway and brought it home. it's a mix breed between a fucking pitbul and a german shepherd. the first time i saw that dog was when it was in the backyard and i was in my room upstairs. i couldn't tell if it was either a pitbul or a german shepherd. i as not surprised when i learned that it was both.

this is probably about 4 or so years ago. so immediately after buying the dog he saddles me and mom with the responsibility of walking it when he's not home. feeding it when he's not home. i'll be blunt. i never wanted a damn thing to do with that dog. i don't know exactly how mom feels about the dog, but i'm pretty sure she would rather it not be here either. every single time we put that dog in the backyard it starts barking like hell after a couple of minutes, and it never fucking stops. every single time my brother leaves the dog home it starts barking like hell until it gets tired and goes to sleep, then starts barking again after it wakes up, and keeps barking until my brother comes back home, and it never fucking stops. when i'm fucking sleeping, when i'm fucking cooking, every time. it's even worse for mom because she has a tough job and her room is even closer to the area that the dog stays in. to this fucking day, it never stops. he didn't always have me and mom look after the dog, and as time went on we did less and less for the dog.

he got rid of the girlfriend about half a year or so after getting the dog. big surprise there. i didn't really know much about her, but she was obviously a fucking idiot. i'm sure that her circumstances are not her fault though. a lot of people just aren't dealt good cards in life. like... for a while they even had another dog and a cat down there when she was living here. so they had 2 dogs and a cat living down there. why? i don't fucking know. the second dog and cat left when she did. obviously the whole thing was a terrible idea from the beginning.

so let's fast forward to today, and even recent events. my brother has the dog shitting and pissing on the floor downstairs now. he's so fucking lazy that he can't even put the dog in the backyard anymore, so the dog just shits and pisses in the middle of the kitchen floor, where everyone has to walk by to reach the laundry machines and go to the garage, and where my brother has to actually use the kitchen. sometimes it takes him days to clean it.

man... there is nothing more vile and ferocious than the smell of a fresh turd from that dog mixed in its piss. when i first noticed this, i almost fell down the fucking stairs when i was going down there to do laundry. that smell slapped me in the face like a two handed war hammer from a fantasy game. it is the most offensive and amoral thing that i have ever smelled in my entire life. like, what the hell is he thinking?

it gets even worse. the furnace room is in the basement. so when we need to turn on the heater and ac, whatever horrible smell is downstairs gets pumped throughout the entire house from the vents. just the other day i was in the kitchen and i smelled that shit again. it was fucking savage.

like... back when we first moved into this house, the basement area was so relaxing and peaceful. i even slept down there a few times. it was like a haven to me. these days the only reason i go downstairs is to do laundry. even then i need to watch my timing. i hate being alone with that damn dog, so i need to make sure that my brother is either home, or he took the dog out with him. i also need to make sure that there is no shit or piss on the floor down there, or that it is dried up enough so that the smell isn't as bad.

--------------------

anyway i think it was around mid last year when my brother started to fuck off even more and just flat out made late payments for the internet bill every months for like 3-4 months. do you have any idea how inconvenient it is when you are working on a project, streaming content, or playing an online game, and the FUCKING internet cuts out?

some might say something like "well he's the one paying for it, he doesn't have to let anyone use it, and you can help him pay for it". no. it is the responsibility that he took on himself to provide internet for the house. he has the modem downstairs giving himself ethernet, which is the fastest possible connection. the rest of the house has to deal with wifi.

so a while after he missed the first payment i went on facebook. this guy is on facebook showing off with a bottle of fucking alcohol and a new pair of shitty ass shoes. he really tossed his responsibilities just to show off to a bunch of low lives on facebook, when the household needs internet access. fucking idiot.

i bring this up because the same thing is happening now. i don't see anything on facebook, but i'd bet a lot that he missed the payment because he's fucking off with his friends and wasting money to accommodate them. this guy has at least 5 people in and out of this house every single fucking day, and this has been going on for years. he never gets any time to reflect on himself or improve himself because he is always surrounding himself with these fucking people. in the winter it kind of calms down depending on the weather, but there is always at least one person over here, and in the summer it can go up to over a dozen people in and out of his area every single day. fucking why? i'm sick of it.

there are various reasons why this bothers me so much. when i'm home i want privacy. i need my alone time and quiet time. i live upstairs and these people he brings over stay downstairs, but it's still annoying. i don't know them and i don't want to know them. being exposed to their presence is tedious. and they say the dumbest shit when they are all down there. i can often hear them from upstairs or when i go downstairs to do laundry. absolutely nothing productive goes on down there.

i think i know what you are thinking. the answer is yes. despite the piss and shit on the floor, despite whatever awful smell might be festering down there, all kinds of people willingly go in there and spend hours down there. i don't that think anyone even utters a word referring to productivity or self improvement.

so yeah, when something happens like the internet going down due to a lack of payment, i automatically assume that he is unable to pay because he fucked off with his so called friends.

Mom Issues:

that sounds bad and like it's all on him, but mom should have at least half of the blame. if i'm not mistaken, she first became pregnant when she was 18 (with my oldest brother). she was studying at that time. so she spent all of her time studying, and then working and being a parent. she had no time to actually learn how to be a parent, so i assume that she attempted to just raise my eldest brother the way she was raised. she is in her late 50s and grew up in a third world country. my eldest brother was born in canada. she was trying to raise him for a world that no longer exists. she had no idea what the fuck she was doing, and even worse she became a single mother.

based on what i remember hearing, my eldest brother had an insane curfew, like mom had him go to bed at 6pm or some dumb shit like that. maybe i remember wrong and it was that he had to be in his room by 6pm. at that time he obviously didn't have his own tv, or any type of entertainment. i think he ended up leaving mom's home when he was 16 and just fucked around with a bunch of low lives. ever since then he's been in and out of jail.

mom was supposed to inspire him and teach him to be better. all she did was force him into a schedule and punish him if he fell out of line. that's not how you raise someone. she failed him. she failed all of us.

that may sound harsh, but i don't blame mom. everyone is a victim of circumstance. she simply didn't know any better, and she did the best that she could. fortunately, at least i was born with the ability to recognize mistakes and learn from them. when i think about being a parent in the future, i think about living a fulfilled life before having kids so that i actually have something to pass on to my offspring. mainly knowledge and a good upbringing. i mostly raised myself, which is why it took so damn long. my dad tried, and looking back, he could have done a better job than my mom. the problem is that i was too influenced by my mom and my brothers to listen to my father.

anyway, while i can't blame mom for her parenting skills, there are a plethora of other things that she can be blamed for.

before my brothers moved about 7-8 years ago (the first time they moved out, before one of them moved back in, which is what i was discussing a while ago), one of them bought two cats and brought them home. you guessed it, he asked mom for permission and mom denied permission, but he bought the cats anyway. these cats were probably about 4-7 months old, i can barely remember their size. it was the first time we had pets (we had two birds before that, but the birds don't count). i personally never wanted pets, but i was a kid so the idea of pets seemed fun at the time. anyway i will skip over the small details. one thing i do want to mention about the first two cats is that they were fucking champions. i actually trained them myself. they were siblings. one male, one female. i don't remember there being a difference in their potential or athletic performance despite the gender difference. they were able to climb trees with ease, like squirrels. i think that both my mom and my brothers were letting those cats outside. i personally never agreed with that. i trained them inside with homemade toys.

later on a third cat came in the picture because my brother's friend just brought the cat over here and left it here. soon after the third cat came, the first two cats left. i can't remember why, but i think i heard that they went missing. there is a fair chance that they were abducted because of how much potential they had. then soon after that is when my brothers moved out, and the third cat which was now the only cat stayed here, and mom took responsibility for it.

back then i really pitied that cat since i had absolutely no desire to look after it, and mom was out most of the time. so the cat just spent most of its time on its own. it was probably for this reason that mom started to let the cat out into the backyard more often than usual. i never agreed with the idea of letting the cats outside, but it wasn't my cat and i didn't want to look after it, so whatever. there were even times when i let the cat outside out of pity for it, but only on rare occasion. i was still a kid at the time so i didn't know any better. all i knew is that it wasn't a good idea.

eventually the cat got pregnant and had 8 kittens. after a while mom gave all of those kittens away. so the third cat was all alone again. soon after this happened is when i started to realize how incredibly illogical and irresponsible it is to let house cats outside without supervising them while they are outside, and cleaning them before brining them back inside is. i had to realize this for myself because my mom didn't have the knowledge to teach it to her son, and she was the one instigating and enabling this anyway. i didn't have to let the cat outside on those rare occasions anymore because mom was already letting the cat out so damn often at that point.

so about a few years ago mom brought home a new cat. it was like 2-3 months old. it was small enough to fit on my entire hand, but it was old enough to move around properly. if i remember correctly, mom said that the person giving it away was unable to take care of all of them which is why they were giving them away. so i guess that person is another idiot who is too stupid to keep their cat inside. it's a bullshit excuse anyway. the kittens can exclusively breastfeed for at least a few months, and then mostly breastfeed for a while after that. the first 5 months would barely cost much extra money than feeding the adult cat, and cat food is cheap as hell. that person is just an irresponsible fucking asshole idiot.

anyway, the big cat absolutely hated the small one and they never got along because of that. just one more problem caused by the stupidity and carelessness of my mom. i didn't care too much. since the big cat was no longer alone, there was no more need to let it outside. so from that point onwards i told my mom numerous times to stop letting the cat outside. to this day i have probably told her this more than one hundred times. of course she ignored me every single time. now we know where my brother gets it from. it's the gene that makes someone incapable of following rational, reasonable, and logical actions. thank goodness i wasn't born with it.

so the small cat eventually got pregnant too. she had 4 kittens. after a while she began to hate and attack the male ones. nice job, mom. very smart. i should mention that i've been absolutely done with those cats for more than a couple of years now. these days the most that i do for them is let in some fresh air for a while. they are not my cats, i do not want any pets, they will never be my pets, and i don't want anything to do with them. plain and simple.

mom gave away 2 of the kittens so far, and now we keep the 4 remaining cats in the living room downstairs in mom's area. it's a big room, but mom has a bunch of nonsense shit in there, so there isn't much space left. mom constantly lets the two biggest cats outside, and the two small ones are starting to show signs of minor trauma. obviously from being trapped down there. mom doesn't want them upstairs anymore because she claims that she doesn't want more cat fur upstairs. that's probably just a bullshit excuse because sometimes she lets the bigger cats upstairs. or she somehow convinced herself that it is okay to show favoritism to some of the cats. i don't want the cats upstairs because they are fucking annoying, but that mainly applies to the older cats. i wouldn't mind having the smaller cats upstairs for a certain period of time every day.

out of pity, there are many times when i open the door for the smaller cats to come upstairs, but they are terrified to even try coming upstairs because whenever they came upstairs before, mom always shouted like an idiot and chased them down to bring them back downstairs. also because one time mom randomly brought some guy over to take the cats. mom is so fucking stupid that she didn't even plan ahead, so what ended up happening is that the guy came over to take the cats, so mom just threw the small cats upstairs and let the guy chase them around trying to catch them. what an absolute fucking idiot. how did common sense not tell her to calmly bring the cats to a confined area before the guy comes over to take them, so at least he wouldn't have to chase them around like he is hunting them for food? she's stupid.

anyway the small cats literally cause less trouble than the older cats when they come upstairs because the small cats don't go outside, they are better suited to be house cats and they behave accordingly. even so, mom is more than willing to let the bigger cats upstairs sometimes while at the same time she acts like the house will explode if the small cats go upstairs. they are like 9 months old now and they never cause any trouble. again she is fucking stupid. they are not even my cats and their personalities and behaviors are obvious to me. even when the door is just open and the small cats aren't going upstairs because they are too scared to even try, she still freaks out and acts like the house is going to explode. they literally wouldn't go upstairs even if you spilled tuna all over the floor, and she is acting like the cats are plotting to destroy the house as soon as they get the opportunity to go upstairs. she has no idea what the fuck she's talking about, and just acts on her irrational impulses without thinking about anything.

so the signs of trauma i noticed are that obviously they are scared to come upstairs. also they often spend unnecessary amounts of time scratching in their litter bin for no reason. it's obvious to me that my mom doesn't actually care about cats, animals in general, or taking care of pets. she just likes the idea of having pets. but of course whenever i call her out on her bullshit it's always that i'm the stupid one who doesn't know what he's talking about. she doesn't actually call me stupid, and i would never let her get away with that, but she way she behaves when i'm talking and tries to ignore me is like she just sees me as a stupid 15 year old who doesn't know what he's talking about. based on everything, including the stupid and nonsensical gossip that she spews on the phone, i am confident that she believes i'm mentally retarded and that i don't say anything logical. she's fucking insane. in her mind she thinks that she is doing the best thing, and that she is being moral. 

speaking of being insane, for about 4 years she has constantly been complaining about being in pain whenever she moves. like having back pain, knee pain, wrist pain, etc. she has been going to the doctor for more than 4 years trying to deal with this issue. i obviously have not experienced what she is going through, and i think that she is more vulnerable because she is much older. even so, i have personally dealt with years of chronic knee pain and i have some experience with back pain too. going to the doctor is important, but i actually took the time to learn about my condition and researched different ways to deal with it. i came to the conclusion that my knee pain is caused as a result of muscle weakness and tightness. the back pain i was having was because of an old mattress that was worn out. so it was an easy solution. i am also eating healthier and living a much healthier lifestyle than i used to. everything i have done to improve myself has benefited me greatly.

mom on the other hand, is doing the exact same thing that she has been doing since her pain started. i will never understand why someone will blindly rely completely on the people who are paid to treat sick people. it is literally in their best interest that you remain sick. i experienced this for myself many times. the only times that i have ever went to the doctor for pain, they couldn't even help me. the first time i was just given drugs. the second time the doctor just fucked off and gave me a half assed explanation. i went to an acupuncturist for the same problem and he gave me invaluable information and went out of his way to set me on a path towards self improvement. obviously a professionals opinion is invaluable, but there are professionals everywhere. mom's mistake is that she keeps going to the people who are failing to help her.

i don't think things have improved for her at all, or not by a significant margin. when i look at her, i see someone who eats unhealthy shit all of the time, someone who does not ever exercise efficiently, and someone with terrible posture. tried. for years i have been showing her tons of information on the internet from credible sources that have benefited me. showing her studies, credentials, etc. i showed her ways to improve her health through a healthier diet, i showed her ways to improve her posture and muscle strength. that's all it would take to solve all of her problems. i'm willing to bet my life on that. but no. since she believes that i'm so stupid, she simply ignores everything that i say and all of the credible information that i show her.

not only does she not want my help, but she also doesn't understand that she needs help. she probably just thinks that everything happening to her is a result of her age, even though healthier people around her age are doing much better. eventually her health is going to start to decline more and more, and then it will be too late. whether she becomes clinically insane or dies, i will lose my mom. there's nothing that i can do to help her because she doesn't want my help, but i'm doing what i can to help myself. i'm taking lessons online to become a game developer and making good progress, until my idiot brother stopped paying the internet bill (i'm using different internet access to post this). i can't let myself go down with my mother's ship, and i can't get dragged into my brother's issues. i have a vision of a bright and meaningful future.

Some Guy Issues:

some guy moved in to rent a room here. i don't have any problems with him personally, but this is a vent thread, so whatever.

every single time i notice him wake up to use the bathroom, he never washes his fucking hands. that's an absolutely disgusting habit. maybe he washes his hands when he takes a shit, i don't know. i'm not paying attention to when he uses the bathroom, i can just hear what happens whenever i don't have my headphones on. he often doesn't flush the toilet in the morning too. he also often pisses all over the damn toilet when he pees. it's fucking disgusting.

like.... this guy has been going into my personal area in the kitchen and using my cinnamon powder for weeks without my permission. he knows for sure that he is not supposed to. i can't lock it, but i put tape on it to prevent people from randomly opening it. so he often opens my area without putting the take back, or he applies the tape in ways that i would never apply it. the most obvious tell is that the cinnamon bottle is sometimes placed in ways that i would never place it. one time he got careless and left peanut butter on the cinnamon bottle from his hand, another time it was breadcrumbs. he's the only person in the house who eats peanut butter sandwiches every single day.

i don't mind it as much as some people might think, but even if he asked for my permission i would prefer not to share. the main reason i would prefer not to share is because i want my things to be entirely my responsibility. i don't want it to ever be anyone else's fault that something of mine is finished, or something of mine broke, or something of mine is missing, etc. i want everything related to my things to be entirely my responsibility.
i am the kind of person who prefers not to take up any responsibilities that i cannot absolutely see through to the end, and i hate taking up responsibilities that i don't want. i am also the kind of person who enjoys taking on the responsibilities that i have an interest in.
the other reason why i would not want to share is because he probably wouldn't wash his hands before touching my stuff.

anyway, the solution to the cinnamon issue was simple. i've been taking care of paper towel in the house for a long time. i've noticed that whenever the paper towel is almost finished, mom and some guy do whatever they can to avoid using it, because they don't want to feel like they have to replace it when they finish it. they are also the kinds of people to leave coffee stains and breadcrumbs all over the counter for me to clean, because they know that i always wipe down the counter before i start preparing my food.

so all i had to do was siphon a good percentage of cinnamon daily from the bottle that he was taking from into a different bottle that i keep in a secret location and use for myself. eventually the bottle that he is taking from will reach a point where he can't take from it without it becoming noticeably more empty. he obviously doesn't want me to find out, so when that time comes he will stop taking my cinnamon and start buying his own again. if he tries to use any of my other seasonings then i will simply do the same thing with those ones.

hmmm. i can't think of anything else to vent about. i guess that's it?

let's discuss the contents of this thread. do you have any similar experiences or things that you can relate to? any opinions that you want to share? have at it.