<p>Hi, so I live in a 2 bdrm and 2 bathroom apartment with just one other roommate. One of the bedrooms has a bathroom attached to it and I live in that one. The other bedroom doesn't have a bathroom attached to it, but since their is no other roommates living with us, my one roommate (we'll call him Bob) has it pretty much to himself. The only time his bathroom is used by others is when we have guests over, which is pretty rare. </p>
<p>Anyways, we also have a garage spot, and since I had the slightly bigger room (literally like 2 ft x 2ft larger), I said I'll take the spot, and pay the PGE bill. </p>
<p>However, after living here for a while, I realized that this isn't a really fair deal. Our complex has TONS of parking and it has never been an issue. The garage spot is so small that I don't even park in it. I offered it to my roommate, but he doesn't want it either.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I realized that I've been paying a bill, that I really shouldn't be having to pay for. Recently though, I broke one of Bob's guitars, which was almost about $100. I told him that I don't have the money to pay him back because my budget is already stringent enough (can't find any job here because I go to school at a small town where 15,000 other students hunt for jobs). </p>
<p>Overall, its been a while since the incident, but now that I think about it. Should I really be paying Bob back for his guitar, when I'm paying for the PGE, for no freaking reason. Yes, I know I made the agreement with Bob that I would pay for it, but it really makes no sense why I am, especially once I found out about this whole parking situation. Why do I have to pay an extra $20-30 each month when I have literally no advantage over Bob with our living situation. In fact, his bathroom is larger than mine.</p>
<p>In my opinion parking/PGE and guitar are two separate and unrelated issues. </p>
<p>If you broke your roommate’s belongings, you need to replace them. There’s absolutely nothing negotiable about that. </p>
<p>You can renegotiate the PGE agreement if you find it unfair, but I don’t see that deal warranting retro-active adjustments. You agreed to pay an extra $30/month for the larger room and a parking spot (which you are not using, but that’s not your roommate’s fault). You did get the benefits you agreed to pay for, so I don’t see how you could go back and say, “Let’s deduct the cost of the guitar from the utility payments I made on behalf of both of us.”</p>
<p>
Do you mean that each wall is 2 feet longer? That would make a HUGE difference in terms of area. For example, if one room was 10ft x 10ft and the other 12ft x 12ft, the larger room would have 44% more area!!! </p>
<p>My roommate’s room and my room differ by about that amount and our rooms feel quite different. I barely noticed the difference when I first entered the rooms, but it’s quite apparent when you try to rearrange the furniture or use the empty floor space.</p>
<p>Agree with the above, two entirely separate issues. You can’t retroactively decide something you agreed to was unfair and use that as a basis to stiff your roommate. Not to mention the fact that you volunteered to pay for the garage spot, which in my opinion seemed like it was doing yourself a favor more than your roommate and now you want to turn it around because you’ve realized it wasn’t as good as you thought it was. </p>
<p>You have a larger room, a private en suite bathroom that you don’t have to share with guests which is VASTLY superior to having a separate bathroom that has to be ready for company all the time, and you have the parking spot that you asked for. And now you’re breaking your roommates stuff and hemming and hawing about paying for it. You are going to find yourself without a roommate in short order if you don’t adjust your attitude. You’re being incredibly self-centered.</p>
<p>But you probably didn’t listen to what I said. WE RARELY have guests. My guests I tell them to use my bathroom on top of it, I think only two of my friends have used his bathroom in the past 7 months. THERE IS NO VAST SUPERIORITY. In fact, HE has the vast superiority, since his restroom is way larger than mine and has a closet for storage space. The size difference of my room is barely 1.5 sq ft is what I was saying.</p>
<p>But yes, I know I can’t backout on this agreement like that, but I feel like he should at least discount the price of the guitar I broke as it was used. However, he is giving me what is seems to be an inflated price. On top of that, he won’t let me replace his guitar with the same type I found on craigslist that is also used (which is at a used price). He wants me to just pay him the money for a new one…</p>
<p>btw, I spent $200 so far on his behalf on the PGE.</p>
<p>Me and my roommate on top of that, didn’t know about this area, he didn’t do ANY of the house searching. I had to find this place on my own and convince him to move with me by offering to pay for the PGE as he acted like he was broke. However, that is FAR from the case as I’ve observed his living style. He spends money like a crazy person. He buys new clothes every week, he eats out consistently, he doesn’t save money at all. The reason I even offered to pay for the PGE was so that he can afford this place, but now I AM THE ONE who is suffering because I tried to accommodate him. I see him go out now every weekend while I sit at home cooking spaghetti watching torrented TV shows.</p>
<p>Overall, he tricked me. He gets financial aid because his parents are divorced and the school pays for his tuition and gives him money on top of that. He was able to get a job because he worked at in-n-out and just simply transferred to a branch up here. On top of that, his parents send him money. He pretty much lied to me about not being able to afford the rent we have, and me feeling bad, I offered to pay for the PGE. I didn’t want the stupid slightly freaking bigger room or the stupid garage spot that is meaningless, I just wanted to find a place on time so I can attend my university. He took advantage of my kindness and I feel that he is to stubborn to forgive me about a stupid guitar that broke in a way that I’ve never seen a guitar break before</p>
<p>Still unrelated. There’s not point in dragging in old stuff about house searching. And as long as he’s paying the rent, his spending habits are none of your business. If you questioned how he’d afford the place, you should have picked somewhere else. You broke one of his belongings. Pay for it and be done with it. The one you found on Craigslist, while being used, may not be the same quality of the one your broke.</p>
<p>I can see why you’re frustrated. All of those things would annoy the crap out of me too. </p>
<p>Tell him that since neither of you are using the PGE spot, and you’ve been paying for it for quite a while (over a year?), and EVEN though you said you would pay for it, you should at least split the cost. Especially since it would only be $15 a poece.</p>
<p>alright well I give up. I came here to see if I was right or wrong and apparently my logic and ethics are askew. </p>
<p>However, I still don’t agree that if you break something used you should replace it with something more new. *** That’s like me breaking a friends 08’ Honda Accord and then replacing it with a brand new Honda Accord***.</p>
<p>Can anyone at least agree with me that the replacement price should be below the value of the item broken if it has been used for a while? </p>
<p>@astults thanks for making me feel not completely insane</p>
<p>Still not issue. You set terms of agreement. If after a year, just like lease renewal, you want to renegotiate do it then, but what he has as financial resources is irrelevant…you set the agreement. In the real world of apartment dwelling whether or not you have frequent visitors is not really issue…the master suite is a prize. If it really doesn’t matter because you don’t have visitors, offer to switch to smaller room next year and save money.</p>
<p>Right now you seem frustrated more than anything else. </p>
<p>I bet that at the time you negotiated your deal, you thought you were getting the better end of things…the larger bedroom, the completely private bathroom, the parking space. You probably envisioned having people over more often, and relished the idea of your larger and more private personal space, and the fact that roomie would have to keep his bathroom more presentable for company. You liked the idea of having convenient parking and never having to hunt for a space.</p>
<p>All this for about only $15/month! (assuming that is approximately 1/2 of the monthly PGE bill).</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about his financial aid situation, but that’s not your business either. Your school is entitled to give anyone any amount of money it chooses. Have you or your family applied for financial aid? Of course, that is between you/your family, and your school.</p>
<p>Of course you can re-negotiate your financial deal with your roomie for the upcoming school year, if you still want to live with him. Maybe he would like to trade spaces with you for the upcoming year and take on the PGE bill. Maybe you could split the PGE bill and he could have the parking space while you keep the larger room. </p>
<p>And he did not "cheat’ by being able to get a fast food job near campus…he earned the opportunity by working before he came to campus. Maybe that is why he has some funds to spend…because he is working and receiving a paycheck?</p>
<p>As far as the broken guitar, look at it from his perspective. He either earned the money to buy the guitar for himself, or received it as a gift…it has meaning to him. You have not said how the guitar came to be broken or what the surrounding circumstances were, but I have a feeling that this might have something to do with why your roomie wants you to replace his guitar. Did you have his permission to be using his guitar at the time it broke? Were you using it appropriately at the time it was broken? It sounds like the damage is more than a broken string or two.</p>
<p>You asked for opinions, and people are giving them. What you really seem to want is for us to justify your own opinion. Aint gonna happen. You have the better room and you wanted the parking space. And you broke his guitar.</p>
<p>@KKmama: Yes, you’re right, I was looking for opinions, but some people are not getting what I addressed. I wanted to know if I can combine my two issues since they both involved finances. It has come to my attention that I cannot. I also now understand that I can’t renegotiate my PGE and I have come to terms with this now reading up on these opinions. What bugs me though is the case of this guitar which if you read below maybe you’ll know why.</p>
<p>@boysx3: Yes, my roommate plays MY electric guitar and has broke its strings from overplaying it. I never complained about it and I bought new strings and replaced it (although he denies that it was him that broke it). His guitar had a slight pre-existing crack, but he was ok with me playing with it. The one time I played his acoustic guitar, it slipped from my grasp, and fell on the floor and made a hole at the bottom of its base. USUALLY when you drop a guitar 3-4 feet from the floor ITS FINE. This is why it bothers me that he wants me to pay full price for the guitar.</p>
I do agree with you on that point. If you can find his brand guitar in a similar condition as the one he’s had, it would be sufficient to get him that one or pay him the cash equivalent.</p>
<p>On th housing side, you struck a deal and you have to live with it. You are getting a private bathroom, a larger room, and a parking spot for 15/mon, that’s chump change. Your roommate is not living in high style because of $15, get real here.</p>
<p>As far as with the guitar, you either get another guitar exactly like the one you broke, or you give him money to replace it. </p>
<p>When we moved, our moving company “misplaced” our flat screen TV. They wanted to give me 75% of the value of TV because it was used. I asked, “What could I do with 75% of value? Could I buy 75% of TV? If you are not going to give me enough money to replace the TV, then go out and get another TV for me. All I want is to be able to watch TV”</p>
<p>I completely agree with boysx3’s assessment of the situation.</p>
<p>I do understand why you’re frustrated, and I admire that you’ve taken everybody’s opinions to heart. That isn’t easy to do!</p>
<p>I can see why you’d like to replace the guitar with a used one that’s seemingly of equal value… but imo, replacing something you broke with new is just what you do, out of common courtesy-- you can think of the “new” factor as compensation for the emotional distress and stress of having the guitar broken. If you buy him a used guitar, there’s no telling what that guitar might have wrong with it, or if it’s really going to be as good or have the longevity of his old guitar-- you never TRULY know what you’re getting with used. To use your car analogy, if you wrecked his 08 accord and replaced it with a different used car, that different used car could have transmission issues or something that’s going to break down in a month-- and maybe if you hadn’t wrecked his accord he wouldn’t be out a car. That’s why it can be difficult to really assign a value to something you broke for someone, other than to assess the value of what it would cost to replace it-- and to insist on assessing that value at a “used” value isn’t really fair, there’s a big difference between acquiring something that is used and possibly mistreated by someone else and wearing something out yourself. I can understand and follow your logic, but I just don’t think that’s how these situations are normally handled. It’s a show of goodwill and remorse for what has happened to just put up for the new guitar. You DID drop it. It’s not really nice to count pennies and keep score when you damage somebody else’s property and are in the wrong, which you are… it feels like not taking full responsibility for what you did, and you don’t want to create more ill will with the roommate.</p>
<p>It especially feels like not taking responsibility when you try to combine it with your rent complaints, which we’ve agreed are separate, or your broken strings. If you have a problem with him breaking your strings and not owning up to it, you address that with him separately-- tell him to replace them, or agree not to use each others guitars. You can’t throw it back in his face now that you’ve messed up one of his instruments. Especially given the difference in cost of strings versus a new guitar… don’t you think you’re being a little unreasonable just because you’re frustrated? You seem really hellbent on throwing this back onto your roommate, one way or the other, and that’s just not something you can do whether you like the guy or not. You don’t get to only be beholden to people you like when you break their stuff.</p>
<p>I can understand why the OP is angry about the financial situation. Yes, a roommate’s money is not your business, and it isn’t that he doesn’t deserve the financial aid, job opportunities, ect. But in this case, it sounds like the OP’s roommate tried to make his financial situation look worse than it was so he wouldn’t have to pay as much. And while fifteen bucks isn’t a lot by itself, it does add up over time. </p>
<p>That being said, I don’t think there’s much that can be done at this point. If you made an agreement about who gets and pays for what, it should be honored, even if you are getting a raw deal. I would search for a new apartment and/or roommate once the lease is up and put more thought into what is a fair agreement. Until then, replace the guitar, keep the financial arrangement as it is, and just accept it. At least you’ll know better next time.</p>