Unruly House Guests!

Chuck and I are magnets to lazy people that just want to live off of someone! How do we always encounter such "friends"? Let me start off telling you about the oldest incident to the most current.

The first one was a couple named Jason and Melissa. This was years ago...when I first got pregnant with my 14 almost 15 year old daughter Amber. They lived with us for 3 months without working. Jason would work now and then for like one or two days, for his foster dad, painting. So he'd get a little pocket change, so to speak. I actually didn't work at that time either. My husband was the only one that worked. Chuck did not make a lot of money at that time. We could barely afford to pay our bills and I also had 2 other kids. I would have found a job but since I was pregnant, I didn't feel it was the right time to start looking. Jason and Melissa would eat our food and not contribute to replenishing it. Then we found hidden food stashed in the far back corner of one of my cabinets, with the dishes I rarely used. They bought the food and soda then hid it from us. So Chuck started drinking the soda, lol! After all, they had no problems eating our food.

I must admit, I started using them as babysitters since they couldn't seem to contribute any other way. I think they felt obligated, lol! That was only for a couple of weeks. They also used our car because theirs was broke down at the time. They said that they put gas in it but when we went to use it, it was almost on empty. I don't believe gas was ever put in there by them.

One time, I was doing laundry, and I always went out my bedroom door to the laundry room. We lived in an apartment at the time and I had to use the apartments washers and dryers. My bedroom had an arcadia door to my patio. The laundry facilities were behind my bedroom so it was easier to go out the back door than to go out the front and go all the way around the building. So, I'm on my last load of laundry, late at night, and they come home. I heard them talking but didn't think anything of it. So, I went out to get my last load and I smell something good, like some sort of hot food. I just happened to look down and, much to my surprise, there was a pizza from Streets of New York, and a veggie platter, on top of it. At first I thought "Who would put pizza on my patio" and no sooner did that thought go through my brain, I realized who would do it. I woke my husband up and told him what I found. We debated on bringing it in and eating it, but I figured they might smell it, lol! We also thought about taking it to the car and eating it but we were both too tired and weren't really hungry anyway.

So I just decided to go out and tell them that they could bring their pizza in and eat it. That Chuck and I weren't hungry so they didn't have to share it. Melissa tried saying that Jason's foster parents gave them their left over pizza. When I called her on it about it being a hot pizza, she said Joanna heated it up before they left. I told her that I wasn't stupid and I knew that they just got it, then turned around and went to my bedroom.

I could go on about this couple, but I have other ones to talk about.

Next came Garth. My husband went to school with him and he went to church with us from time to time. We knew him when he worked and had his own place. We just kept running in to him at different places, like the mall, a pizza place, walking down the street, etc...I noticed he was in the same outfit every single time we saw him. I also noticed that he didn't smell too good when we got close to him. I talked to my husband and told him to tell Garth that he could shower at our house if he wanted to. He was greatful, and went on his way, coming back the next day to visit. We felt sorry for him because we knew that this wasn't the Garth we were used to. We eventually offered him to stay with us. He took us up on the offer. He never would ask us for anything but when we offered him things, he took it. I waited a couple of weeks and he didn't even act like he was going to find a job. In my mind, I thought he was just down on his luck and became homeless. It's hard to find a job when you have no address, phone, and shower. So we provided him with all of that. And still, there was no motivation for job hunting. I was confused about it and didn't know how to approach the subject since he never even asked us for any help at all. Chuck and I were stumped as to how to handle everything.

When I finally asked him if he was out looking for a job, his response was "I've been thinking about it". A little more time went on and more questions came up with "I've been thinking about it" as an answer. I started noticing a pattern. Oh yeah, He was very religious too. Nothing wrong with that but he was practically the Holy Roller type. Just about all conversations with him would end up turning into a religious one. Way more than the average person. I spoke with one of the Social Workers at my job and after describing him to her, she told me that he sounded schizophrenic. There was nothing we could do about it because he was not a harm to himself or others.

Evntually, he ended up at another friends house and he had the job of getting him out. It was really tough and the police had to be called. Garth just would not leave, even when asked. That was 3 and a half years ago and we haven't seen him since.

Then came an old friend of mine name Billie Jean. Down on her luck with literally nowhere to go. Her daughter had to go live with one of her friends. So I let Billie Jean stay with us. Once again, things were fine at first and quickly went down hill. She used Chuck's car and would stay out so late (or early) that we didn't know if she was going to be here in time for Chuck to go to work at 5 am. She would say, Oh sorry, I fell asleep at so and so's house. So then we had to say that we want the car back by Midnight. So she did just that....most of the time.

This house guest, ate our food, used our water, electricity, and gasoline for the car, without replacing it. She brought her dog over too, a pit bull named Brownie. Brownie ate my dog's food, even when she had her own. Billie Jean just let her do it. I hated it because then Angel would have to go to Brownie's bowl and occasionally, a fight broke out. Angel is older than Brownie and has hip and knee problems too so I was afraid that she would get really hurt, but surprisingly, Angel usually ended up on top!

She got a job cleaning houses for a small company. After 3 weeks, she was fired. Then she got another job, after one week, she was fired. That's pretty bad. She always was the victim, of course. Then she decided to get a job as a maintenance person for an apartment complex so she could get free rent. No calls came, and she would call them, nothing! She kept trying, everyday. Still, nothing. I told her to go get a job anywhere, even if it were McDonalds, but she refused because "she couldn't live on that". I told her that something is better than nothing and since I was buying everything for her and her dog, that she need a job, even if it paid minimum wage. Then she used the excuse that she would have a hard time finding something else while working. Nice try...I didn't let her use that! I told her that she could use our computer, like she had been doing already, to put in applications. I also told her that people find other jobs all the time while working another one (well, maybe not in out economy now but at this time, they did). She just said, "well, I don't know how other people do it".

Then there were issues with her daughter Jessie. Jessie came to live with us during this time. Billie Jean let her 16 year old daughter go to kick backs, where all they do is listen to music, drink, and smoke pot. She said that it was better that she let her go and know where Jessie was than to have her sneak out like she did before and not know where she was. That is not how I raise my kids and I wouldn't tolerate that. I told her that I didn't like the way she was raising Jessie. I don't let my kids do that and I don't have any problems with my kids.

Jessie finally got a job at Peter Piper Pizza. Then someone (turns out to be a little girl) left their cell phone there. Jessie and her friend that worked with her, took it and brought it home. Jessie told me all about it and that the owner was trying to call and text the phone. I told her to answer it and tell her that she had it. No...that wasn't an option because Jessie and the friend were going to sell it. I told her that selling it was wrong because it wasn't hers to sell. After a few minutes, she left my house with the phone. I talked to Chuck about it and he said that we don't do stuff like that and that she has 2 choices. #1 was to give the phone back to the owner and #2 was to leave our house and would not be aloud to come back. When Jessie returned, I told her what we decided and a fight broke out with her. She called us every name in the book. We were being unreasonable. The phone was hers now because it's finders keepers. Billie Jean was nowhere that we could reach her. I ended up getting the cell phone and calling the owners. I gave it back to them 2 days later. I would have given it back sooner but they couldn't come get it before then. So after that, we were horrible people.

It still didn't make Billie Jean leave. I had to kick her out. I gave her 2 months warning that I was going to make her leave. She still didn't have a place to live or a job but after living with us off of us for 5 months, I couldn't take it anymore and didn't care if she had a job or not. It wasn't my problem, I had to make sure that my own family came first, then my sanity, lol!

So the most recent is Andrew. I'm going to leave this part of my blog to being a part 2. This blog is already long and Andrew's story will be long by itself so his will be the part 2 tomorrow. I have to tell about his background first before I tell about his story with us. I promise this story to you.