Sister invited me to live in a shed in her backyard

Post Reply New Topic

My sister is a 44 year old physician. Her husband is an electrical engineer. They have 11 and 8 year olds. They live 15 miles away from me. I am 40 and work at any old monkeys job. Since our parents dropped dead, been living in their house. Parents left the house to my sister. My sister has been telling me that the house needs too much maintenance and she would rather just sell the house.

Two weeks ago, my sister told me that she and her family were going to move to a bigger house. She said she is going to build a shed in the backyard where I can live.

I don't want to move because, characteristic of autism, I am bad at dealing with change. Been living in the house for 16 years. Close to public transportation, grocery store, health clinic, library, everything I go to regularly. Also, it is not on a hill and I like living alone.

While she can't "make" me live in her backyard, I don't get much of a choice. Single and zero children. Nobody is willing to live with me. During undergrad, some roommates were a nightmare and coping with them was like a job. Minimum wage part time, not enough to pay for room and board, even without debt or kids or a car or anything like that. For room and board, have to work two full time, minimum wage jobs. Been applying for jobs for a long time and nobody will make the mistake of hiring my worthless corpse. Besides, too physically weak and emotionally fragile to work two jobs. Actually, still shocked, that was I still have not gotten made redundant. Been working there 2 years, 11 months, 2 weeks. The longest, ever held a job. The second longest term job: 5months, age 18, cashier.

My sister is emotionally stable and I am not. She is about as functional and emotionally healthy as it gets. Granted, sometimes people change personalities, but if I can't depend on her, I can't depend on anyone else either.

Right now, I still don't know when I have to move out or where to move to. I don't know if the "shed" will have running water, electricity, a litterbox or anything like that. But regardless of the conditions, I don't have recourse. Financially, I can't pay for room and board with one minimum wage job. My sister decides everything because she earns more cash than me.

Also I might have to change jobs if the new house is too far away from work. Get used to different coworkers. Hate coworkers, customers and day laborers.

I just feel so fragile, vulnerable and helpless. Constantly struggling. Outnumbered overpowered outsmarted.

I'm sorry to hear about this probable change in your life. That would be really stressful for me too, especially not being able to picture it ahead of time. I'd likely imagine the worst, but I tend to overexaggerate how bad things might be. What does she really mean by a shed? She might mean a separate little annex. It could be quite nice considering she and her husband make a lot of money. I'm sure she wouldn't put you somewhere without running water or a litter box.

Does she know how anxious you are? Would you be able to have some say in how it's designed?

Isabella

My sister knows me well enough to know that I am perpetually anxious

Generalized anxiety disorder

Unless I can pay for the "shed" financially, I don't have any power over what the shed is like. I only have one job. Minimum wage and part time. Any day now, I will get too old, injured, physically weak or disabled to do the job. Been applying for other jobs for a long time. None of them will hire me. Not even Target, Best buy, McDonald's, burger King, Taco Bell, food Maxx. Fast food and big box stores and grocery stores.

Plenty of jobs had the nerve to make my worthless corpse redundant. Zero job skills. Autistic and transsexual. Six out of ten officially diagnosed personality disorders. Exhausted all the time. Can't think straight. Too physically weak for manual labor.

One year ago, for one year, an assistant store manager at my job, said he was in jail for ten years. He was about 7 years older than me. He was married with children. Then he left home Depot when he got another job. Even a convicted felon has better job prospects than me. But he had a great personality. Emotional intelligence

She isn't functional and emotionally healthy if she is treating you badly.

This sounds like an awful situation. I hope the shed is better than it sounds i.e. it's actually a nice little house or something rather than an actual shed. Good luck

You need to talk to her about it. Find out if it is one of those tiny homes that people live in nowadays.
My brother asked if I wanted one built as it could be a cute little vacation home on an island in a very nice climate.
Not much to do there but play golf and go to the beach.

^ Tiny homes are actually quite nice to live in, if you are single of course. It might be an issue if there is more than one person in those things.

I have said it before here, I believe your sister is shirking her responsibility to her disabled sibling. It is fairly common. I've seen it a lot in my work.

She has the means to provide you with decent housing, ie to continue in your parents home. This is what she should be doing. I have little respect for this woman.

I know this doesn't solve your problem, but that is my opinion. If I were your caseworker, I would be telling her that.

Regardless if you have money to put into the "shed" or not, she should solicit and respect your opinions.

I am sorry your family doesn't respect their responsibility to you.

Blazing star

My sister is not my spouse. She doesn't have to pay me alimony

I am not my sister's minor child. She doesn't have to pay child support

"Should", "can", and "will" are three different things

Even parents don't legally have to pay for children over 18. Autism and clinical depression are disabilities, but that has nothing to do with it

Besides my sister has wasted a lot of time, cash and energy on the house that I live in. She has a right to sell the house. I don't have any "rights", except the "right to remain silent"

Could you keep us updated please shortfatbalduglyman about this situation? I am concerned and I'm sure other people are.

There is a difference between legal responsibility and moral responsibility. I believe families who have the means also have the obligation to assist disabled family members.

I have a similar problem as the OP. In addition to Autism Level 1, I also suffer from Bipolar 1, PTSD, Type 2 diabetes, Hypertension, Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 3, arthritis in my knees (knee replacement has been discussed, if the cortisone shots don’t work). I’m being threatened with eviction, since I can’t keep this apartment clean to county and HUD standards (I live in an apartment owned and managed by the county, that has a roach problem from the day I moved in (granted, I’ve been lax with cleaning, but the pest control company they hired resides to spray around my computer equipment or the TV in my bedroom.). I have a lot of clutter, which I’m trying to keep off the floor. My PACE provider does have people to assist in cleaning, but I haven’t seen them in almost 3 weeks, other than to provide transportation to whatever specialist I need to see. The provider does send a nurse to see me weekly, but I haven’t seen a cleaning crew in a few weeks. I’m tempted in setting off a roach bomb to take care of the roaches, but I suspect I’ll be evicted for doing that.


Like the OP, my brothers could care less. As far as they’re concerned, I NO LONGER EXIST

Kit lily

Thank you very much for your post

My sister did not specify when she is going to sell the house. It could be a couple of weeks or a couple of years

Moving houses: hectic, chaotic, disorganized. Wastes a lot of time, money and energy. Emotionally stressful. Manual labor. Have to interact with a lot of people, some of which might be angry at me for some reason (justified or otherwise). Heavy lifting. Have to clean house.

Moving houses is just a lot of work

Lived in 6 different apartments in undergrad. Got evicted twice. Finding an apartment that would let me live there took a lot of time, cash and energy. Emotional turmoil

As a result I could try to remember to post on wrong planet, but my executive processing is not that great and I often fail to do things. The failure to do things, is one of many reasons why I don't earn enough cash for room and board

But there could be a lot of different reasons

Not enough information to determine all the reasons

Plenty of factors and variables going on

Yes, we're moving house next year. I'm not looking forward to all those things you mention. But it has to be done or I'll go insane living here

Or you could have just said that, you didn't need to explain It's usually a good idea just to accept people's good wishes.

Why don't you ask her how the shed will be furnished before going off the deep end.

It's possible she misspoke when she was thinking of a tiny house setup.

Best of luck. I hope "the shed" actually turns out to be a small house that provides you with decent living conditions. I think you as soon as possible should ask her to elaborate what kind of "shed" she is refering to.