Help Me Escape a Toxic Housing Situation
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.If you know me, you know I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t highly necessary.
Last year, I was accepted into a grad program at Umass Boston and in need of a place to stay while I went to school. A former classmate and good friend of mine who was already in Boston was looking for someone to move-in with them or to find a new place together. I took his offer up and started to search.
In the midst of the search he came in contact with a couple who was also in need of a new place to live. One of them had graduated from our university a little earlier so we felt that we could trust them.
There were small instances of warning signs: claiming to consider our opinion and yet pressing their considerations, pressuring us to spend money on items that we never consented to purchasing, passive aggressive text messages, etc., but things only got worse.
One of them, a chef who occasionally hosts cooking class has been the harbinger of toxicity. He has had no empathy or consideration toward any situation or circumstance that may have disallowed me or my friend to do things the way that he has wanted. He had lead me and my housemate to resolving to cooking early in the mornings while he is asleep and to spending hundreds of dollars eating out to avoid his emotional abuse if we did not restore the space exactly as he wanted.
This behavior among other situations has led to my housemate moving out early for his mental health. However, recent interactions have revealed an uglier side of out housemates. It has been revealed to us that they resent us as people and cannot find any redeeming quality in us despite all of the emotional, physical, and mental effort we have put into staying out of their way the past five months.
The combination of this revelation and the fact that my only emotional support is moving out has lead me to realize that I cannot stay here any longer without jeopardizing my mental health and academic career.
I am hoping to raise enough money to be able to move which usually requires paying first + last rent, and a deposit.
Last year, I was accepted into a grad program at Umass Boston and in need of a place to stay while I went to school. A former classmate and good friend of mine who was already in Boston was looking for someone to move-in with them or to find a new place together. I took his offer up and started to search.
In the midst of the search he came in contact with a couple who was also in need of a new place to live. One of them had graduated from our university a little earlier so we felt that we could trust them.
There were small instances of warning signs: claiming to consider our opinion and yet pressing their considerations, pressuring us to spend money on items that we never consented to purchasing, passive aggressive text messages, etc., but things only got worse.
One of them, a chef who occasionally hosts cooking class has been the harbinger of toxicity. He has had no empathy or consideration toward any situation or circumstance that may have disallowed me or my friend to do things the way that he has wanted. He had lead me and my housemate to resolving to cooking early in the mornings while he is asleep and to spending hundreds of dollars eating out to avoid his emotional abuse if we did not restore the space exactly as he wanted.
This behavior among other situations has led to my housemate moving out early for his mental health. However, recent interactions have revealed an uglier side of out housemates. It has been revealed to us that they resent us as people and cannot find any redeeming quality in us despite all of the emotional, physical, and mental effort we have put into staying out of their way the past five months.
The combination of this revelation and the fact that my only emotional support is moving out has lead me to realize that I cannot stay here any longer without jeopardizing my mental health and academic career.
I am hoping to raise enough money to be able to move which usually requires paying first + last rent, and a deposit.
Organizer
Rémy Hatfield-Gardner
Organizer
Jamaica Plain, MA
