London flatmate has serious communication issues AND unreasonable cleaning expectation, how to stop the madness?
I am a 23 year old engineering student in London with a part-time job in hospitality that I work at full-time over the summer, so extremely busy throughout the year. Been in this 2-bed flat 10 months with no issues until my current flat-mate moved in. I keep my place tidy and very clean, however, my flatmate 50s-60s has moved in late June. And since then we have been having serious communication issues.
In one hand she does not speak English, so she uses ChatGPT for text-to-speach translation, which I have not had any issues with until she started raising her voice and lashing out unreasonably. I can tell she is frustrated and sometimes partially that is due to the language barrier, though this is not my burden to bear- her anger issues, I mean- so I am prepared to escalate.
In her first week in, I was woken up by police at midnight and it turned out she called them about her adult son who was with her in her room, who she showed up with from outside 10 minutes after the police left, and said to me on text that all is good, he smoked in-doors all night which is so disturbing in a small London flat, I sympathised with her and was concerned for my safety and hers, however her insisting that all is good the following day when he was gone, and refusing to communicate briefly really annoyed me. I was merely concerned for myself at this point as she seems to have an ongoing situation with him. I was the one who dealt with the officers past midnight on a weeknight. So I was not too happy, I told her to kindly make sure the indoor smoking does not happen again or I will need to escalate with the landlord, she apologies but became aggressive afterwards and kept mentioning that interaction. Basically she thinks I act like I am the only one living there.
On the other hand, she has unreasonable expectation for cleaning and her lack of common sense and politeness is so annoying. She does not seem to distinguish between cleaning, and deep cleaning or show-room shiny. Usually chooses the most inconvenient times to discuss her life-and-death suggestions and gets so upset when I politely set a boundary, especially if I am going to work or have just had a long shift, today, usually has her assumption about where I just came from and likes to decide if it is a good time based off of that too, women really lives in her own mind. she kept complaining that I did not dust the piano and that the living room is not clean AT ALL and pointed out a spot of tiny crumbs from my dinner with my gf last night (she knows I swept, hoovered, and mopped yesterday afternoon) but my partner left at 11 pm which is frankly too late to cause any noise besides wiping the table and what not, and so I grabbed the broom and swept up and she kept yelling about how I should hoover and this is not good enough. I ignored her and finished and she kept trying to apologise somehow. clown show. This is not the first time she does something similar.
I hope I am not too harsh to say she really needs to get a life because she is getting on my nerves. why would I be dusting the fucking piano and deep cleaning the living room shelves full of things belong to the landlord? even he did not ask for that.
truthfully, I am so over this. I don't have time to argue about this nonsense. and she seems to channel her frustration whenever I am around the flat. which she never seems to leave besides going to the shops. I know she does not work and is not very socially active so she seems to have drastically different priorities to the average Londoner.
I am trying to make a cleaning rota with a strict list of high and low priority tasks just not sure how to do that in an accessible way without giving myself more work and arguments with her.
please share your thoughts and be kind.
Any advice on how to manage and if I should involve the landlord? he is quite involved tbh.
I know this is a bit scattered but it is 4 am and I am lowkey pissed:) I know I can approach some things better but like.. this is maddens
Posted Sep 17, 2026, 3:35 AM UTC