Letters to the Editor
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Is It The Extra Person or Is It Just Because It's Mom?
Suppose new roommate had brought her boyfriend with her. Otherwise it's the same situation - she says she needs the boyfriend for moral support or whatever, he's hanging around when roommate isn't there, etc. How would you handle it? I've never had a roommate with a live-in Mom, but I've had ones with boyfriends who never left and who drove me nuts, and that was just as annoying. (Personally, I'd rather deal with the mom. But I have vivid memories of walking into the living room and finding the slacker boyfriend laying on the sofa, naked and scratching his balls. Ewww.)
It seems like there are two issues here - you have two new roommates when you only expected one, and you think it's "weird and freaky" for a girl to bring her mom with her. I think you'll have better success if you deal with it in the same way you'd deal with a roommate with a live-in boyfriend, or live-in girlfriend, or a sister who has moved in. Her relationship with her mother really isn't your problem. If you don't want a perpetual guest, than frame it that way. Come up with rules about guests and how long they can stay.
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The mom angle is a red herring
I totally understand why this narrative is dominated by the fact that the intruder is the sublettor's mother. After all, it seems to hint at some very odd, codependent relationship that is uncomfortable-making. In addition, if, as I'm guessing, the people involved are all college-age or just post-college, it's hard to think of someone who's a generation older than you as a fellow adult; instead you tend to think them as someone like your own parents. (Heck, it's hard for me to think of them any other way, and I'm ten years out of college.)
But in fact the reality of the situation can be distilled very succinctly in a way that makes the mother-daughter relationship irrelevant:
You accepted one person as a sublettor in your apartment.
You got two people.
Seriously, what if the new roommate had shown up with her boyfriend, and announced that he'd be staying there until he found his own place, which would happen soon, they hoped? Or if she had a friend with her who would be "crashing for a few days", but who then never left? You'd probably be much quicker cracking the whip.
Your sublettor and her mother will try to argue that the mother-daughter relationship makes this different. It does not. You agreed to one sublettor; you got two of them, presumably paying one sublettor's rent. If you make it clear on those terms, and stick to that narrative, hopefully you can resolve the situation. Good luck.
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are the new roommate and mom of different culture or ethnicity
I ask because that can change expectations drastically. My mother --Guatemalan--and several of my friends' parents (I grew up in a very diverse community in New York City), would be extremely offended, and confused by the expectation that a parent or any family member stay in a hotel room. And I mean extremely offended, and/or extremely confused, it's an entirely foreign concept--for an adult child to need space. Or for a family member not to extend their hospitality.
To this day, after more than 40 years tin this country, I'm forty have been together with my husband for 14 years, my mother still thinks it's a sign of deep family dysfunction that my in-laws do not stay in our little apartment when they come to visit. I've tried to explain that the expectation of "space" and all that, but she was raised in a different part of the world, has different values...where closeness and hospitality are valued over suspicion or independence.
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Better to heed one's instincts
If it were just a matter of cultural expectations surely they wouldn't have come up with this story about the girl's "illness". I think the fact that the LW is actually questioning leaving these two alone in the house suggests that there's some sketchy vibe going on.
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I don't understand the problem
OK, so let me get this straight. The mom has been there for only a FEW DAYS, and you're bitching and Cary is comparing moms to con artists and suggesting you get all Fascist Government on them, demanding passports and whatnot? HUH?
Just be nice, ferchrissakes. I really don't see how it's so weird to have your mom stay for a few days when you move someplace new. I assume you guys are all rather young. So maybe they want to make sure YOU are not an axe murderer or a thief. Maybe she has epilepsy. Maybe she has some kind of phobia.
If it had been 2 weeks, I'd go along with the other posters who think something is weird. As it is, I think you are the weird one. I think that you and to an even bigger extent, Cary, are totally overreacting.
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I think the LW needs to calm down, get a life
I cannot believe the LW and the majority of the respondents here!
I've lived in this country for four years and I think now my rose-tinted glasses are starting to get dusty. Why in the United States are people so suspicious of each other, always quick to fear others and expect the worst? It seems that they are only too quick to describe others as 'sketchy' if they do not conform to their own narrow expectations. It's possible that the girl suffered a bad experience such as a rape, or that she is recovering from an emotional crisis. Did it occur to you that the mother might be doing this because she loves her and is trying to be responsible? And as for the girl being 'secretive and defensive'; why do you think she is obliged to give you her medical history anyway?
I'm with Amerigo (previous respondent) here; get to know the woman, cook her a meal or sit down and have a beer together instead of all this obsessing. It is only a matter of a few days so far, after all.
Another thing; if other people who are perhaps less fortunate than yourself are just too scary for you,you need to start thinking about buying or renting a place of your own where you can have things just the way you like them.