This is six months worth of stress and frustration that I am finally letting out, so this is going to be very long.

As some of you may recall, back at the end of September on the same weekend my Nana went into the hospital, my best friend Rebecca moved in with Joshua and I. At first, it was great having my best friend living with me, but now our friendship has greatly diminished. Allow me to explain.

About a year ago, Becca and her boyfriend of two years had gotten themselves so deep in financial messy-ness, that they decided their only option was to move in with his parents in Colusa. Their relationship was rocky already, and everyone knew her following him there wasn’t a good idea. Afterall, Dick’s mother was playing games with them financially and because Dick is a mama’s boy (he’s 29 years old), she made the relationship turbulent.

Turns out we all were right. In addition to butting heads with Dick’s mother, Becca got into an accident in a car Dick’s family had helped her finance – her license also got suspended because of this. After the accident Dick’s mother threw her out and her relationship with Dick was at its end. He took her to some friends that happened to live right down the street from my parents so it was only a matter of time before I saw her again.

Prior to moving to Colusa we offered her a place here, which she declined. After everything that happened in Colusa, she took us up on our offer because the people she was living with apparently fought too much. She moved in with us and also brought along her black lab, Rosie.

Just a side note about her dog: she got her dog when she was living in her old apartment where a pet deposit was $500 a pet. The reason I got her cat Bella was because she couldn’t afford this deposit. I can’t tell you how many times she called me telling me how stressed she was because she was barely making rent or couldn’t afford groceries, but somehow she was able to afford a dog. And this dog is unlicensed, not fixed, and hasn’t seen any medical attention whatsoever except when we took her to the emergency pet hospital for her scraped leg! She thinks that taking her dog to the vet is pointless because apparently vets just rip people off. And then she wondered why the lady came off quite snooty when she inquired about pet insurance.

Anyway, the first week of her stay we worked quickly to get her established on her own. I helped her get set up with her own bank account, changed her address, took her to the nearby shopping center to look for a job, and even got her set up with an iPhone. Because her credit was screwed up (mainly thanks to her time with Dick and her financial irresponsibility) a $300 credit deposit was required in addition to the cost of the phone. Needless to say after helping her get on her feet, I had spent quite a bit of money on her, which I had hoped would be paid back once she got a job.

The week before my surgery she got hired at the Lucky supermarket right down the street from our house. When she first started working she had me take her to work and Joshua pick her up in the evening for awhile, even though her work is a block down the street and she had a bike. I eventually said something about it, and of course I was greeted with attitude (“UH! Fine! Whatever!”). She also quite frequently forgets to lock the house up when no one’s home. Cuz you know, none of us have anything valuable in our house!

During the weekend I was up at my parents house for my surgery Joshua rented a trailer and took Becca to Colusa to get the rest of her belongings; then he had to take her to her parents house so she could drop her stuff off there. So, obviously Joshua did a LOT of driving and was also hoping to be reimbursed for the fuel. It cost him $177 with the fuel and trailer, not to mention the extra $195 to get his trailer hitch and wiring rush delivered and $25 in food. Let’s not forgot she still owes him $98 for paying for the campsite for her 21st birthday; everyone was suppose to chip in to pay Joshua back and he has yet to see that money.

Once Becca had money coming in from her job, we sat down and went through how much money she owed me and Joshua; she had also agreed to help pay the bills around here (since November her share of the bills is $614.20). However she danced her way around paying the bills and Joshua back claiming he didn’t need it and other such excuses. I ended up taking money from selling the Corolla and paid Joshua on behalf of her. We figured she wasn’t going to pay him back so the least I could do was pay him since I was responsible for my friend. She did pay me back for the phone, etc. and things were fine, money-wise; however she didn’t pay me back for the $300 deposit for her phone figuring after 6 months of no late phone payments we’d get it back. This month made month 6 and she was a day late, so the cycle starts all over again. This is also the ONLY bill she has paid for since living with us.

She is very irresponsible with saving money. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up loose change that she’s left all over the place. She also impulse buys on things she doesn’t need and always comes home from work having bought something. She pretty much lives from paycheck to paycheck and doesn’t deposit money into her bank account unless it’s time to pay her cell phone bill. And when she uses up all the minutes on her phone, she uses our home line and racks up long-distance charges to her family and friends. I packed the home phone up today since we don’t use it.

In November when I got my new laptop, I sold her my old one for $500, and we agreed on a payment plan where she’d pay me $25 a week. In February she held off on paying me since she was trying to save up for a place she’d possibly be moving into. That fell through, but she still held off on paying me claiming she needed to save for a place regardless. She managed to get hired to clean for a lady once a week so I asked her to start paying me again, to which she did but with an attitude. Right now she only had $100 left to pay me, and when I asked her to just give me the remainder straight up and that would be the last of any money she owes me, she instead gave the laptop back to me and said I could sell it and the money from that would make us even.

Now, where she’s moving she’s going to be paying $500 a month for rent plus $100+ she tends to rack up for her cell phone. She’s been trying to pay me $500 back since November of 2008, how the heck will she save up each month? The only reason she hasn’t moved out already is she claims she wants to have more than $500 saved up so she won’t be living paycheck to paycheck.

Aside from money there were other things that weren’t going too well with Becca living with us. Her habit of smoking pot became an issue when she did it in the garage right before I hosted Thanksgiving. We fought about her doing it near the house – mainly because it’s ILLEGAL, it smells beyond nasty, and I’d get in the DEEPEST of trouble if my grandparents knew – so if she wanted to do it she had to walk down the street. There have been a few times where we believe she has snuck a few puffs in the house while we were gone. Let’s not forget that she’s paying $40-$50 for her pot and yet she’s playing money games with us.

She also was trying to reconnect with Dick and had him over at our house to spend the night one weekend when Joshua and I were out of town. She had done this without asking our permission, and what was more infuriating was that they were suppose to be over. One night she’d be fighting with him on the phone, the next she’d convince me they were together and such nonsense. They talked all the time; it was back and forth between them and only last week were things officially over between them. She had a habit of being on the phone with him and then trying to talk to me like I was part of their conversation (she still does this when she’s on the phone with her parents) and it ticked me off to no end. It was ridiculous, and I finally got to a point where I told her I didn’t want to hear anything about him anymore.

Another stressful factor is that she is a sloppy person. I constantly have to pick up after her and it seems only recently that the only thing she does do is her dishes. Other than that she barely picks up after her dog when she poops in the backyard (when it rained her dog would crap in our garage and I constantly had to tell Becca to clean it up), she leaves her clothes and shoes EVERYWHERE, and has a hard time in general putting anything back where she found it. She leaves garbage, plates, forks, cups, empty soda bottles, cigarette butts (yes she smokes pot and cigarettes), paperclips (uses them to clean her pipe), loose change, and other random things all over the floor in her room. It’s absolutely disgusting. On her days off she either goes and cleans for another lady or sits around watching TV. Never mind keeping her own living area clean!

I feel sorry for her dog because it’s gotten so messy a few times that her dog doesn’t have anywhere to lie. Her own dog is cleaner than she is!

I’ve had to hide things, pack things away, etc. in order to prevent Becca from using my things because she’d lose stuff or borrow stuff (like one of my necklaces) every single day and night. I finally had to get her to buy her own stuff because she was still using mine well after she had money coming in. I was fine sharing at first until she had money to buy her own things, but when she continued to use my good stuff that I buy at Sephora and whatnot, I had enough! After all, I pay good money for the beauty products I do, and I don’t need them running out any quicker.

In other words, to sum this ALL up, since Becca has been living with us she has been nothing but a sloppy, lazy, irresponsible, freeloader. I know I should have kicked her out, it’s just it was really difficult because she was my best friend. It’s not easy at all. Plus I feel kinda bad at the fact that here I am not having to work, getting money from my grandparents, buying nice things, while she’s had to start from the bottom. Yet, she’s very irresponsible with her money so… I dunno.

Whenever I’ve confronted her about any of her behaviors, she freaks out on me! She’s a very loud, emotional, immature person and CONSTANTLY swears like a sailor; every other word is a four-letter word. I’ve held back a lot of things because of how defensive and snippy she gets. Holding this back has been very stressful for me. I feel like I can’t tell her anything, and that has really put a strain on the friendship. Ever since we had our first major fallout back in 2006 I feel like I’ve been walking on eggshells with our friendship ever since, that I’m not allowed to say anything because it’ll blow up in my face.

I gave this whole thing a second chance, but I should have learned the first time around. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I’ll have you know that I am paying deeply for giving her a second chance when I know I shouldn’t have. I have learned my lesson. I’m done with helping her.

Anyone who has made it this far with reading all of this, thank you!