I am not a family man

The passive aggressive tension in my house has reached a boiling point.

I'm living in my aunt's house while here at school. It's a large 3 bedroom place in Brooklyn. My aunt and I keep very different schedules and in fact she doesn't even come home most nights. Which is fine with me. I basically feel like I live here on my own. Which aside from being a bit lonely during the week is also pretty great. Sometimes I won't see her for 3 or 4 weeks at a time.

I enjoyed my privacy and freedom until my cousin moved in that is....

About 3 months ago around memorial day my aunt informed me that my cousin needed to stay with us for a "couple weeks" because there was some family trouble that she couldn't get into over the phone. Now, I have a very small family. And i'm certainly not used to being around any of them but my mom, brother and aunt. So this was very unsettling news.

I knew that my cousin was odd. She's sort of like a 12 year old trapped in a 21 year old's body. My uncle has been so protective of her and not allowed her to socialize her entire life so now the poor girl can barely hold a conversation. It's like talking to a goldfish. I knew this was going to suck.

The first few days I felt a need to be sociable with her. Offering her dinner and sitting around with her. But that quickly wore off. Her dad started to come around the house also. Bringing her food and just hanging out. So that killed my theory that the two of them had gotten into a big fight or something. It turned out that she was staying with us for a much stranger reason...

Her brother, my other cousin had gone crazy apparently. He threatened his whole family and ended up in a mental hospital which he quickly released himself from after refusing meds. He scared my uncle and his kids so badly that they moved out of the family house with nowhere to go and all split up to stay with different friends and family until finding a new place. That's the story I was told anyway.

Which leaves my cousin here indefinetely. For what was supposed to be 2 weeks and is now 3 months. It would have been one thing if he admitted that he had no plan for a new house and that her stay was going to be this long. But my uncle always made it sound like it would be just a short while. There's nothing I hate more than house guests who lie about their intentions.

Even more pissed off about this than me is my aunt. She's furious about her brother dumping his kid on us. And the fact that my uncle and his son will come over here and barbeque and hang out while neither me or my aunt is around makes her crazy. But sadly, my aunt is being a giant baby about the whole thing and won't confront the situation head on. Instead she has just been avoiding the house more than ever and shuffling all the problems onto me.

The other week all the electricity upstairs went out thanks to 3 air conditioners being run nonstop. Not having AC on a sweltering hot night is torturous. But then, to add onto that, the upstairs toilet broke and began leaking into the walls. A couple days after that the water started spilling down and leaking from the upstairs ceiling. When I told my aunt about these problems via text message she informed me that she was "starting to feel like a landlord" and that I should tell my cousin to have her dad get things fixed.

Needless to say, I was pissed. How did this become my responsibility?? I'm busy too, y'know? And suddenly i'm the middle man for the whole situation? My aunt blames my cousin for the problems here and blames my uncle even more for creating the problem. It's crazy.

So after a week of having to constantly switch out towels and change the buckets catching the ceiling leakage things seem to be fixed. The plumber came today, (I say "plumber" but it's just an illegal immigrant my aunt pays peanuts to do everything around the house) So hopefully that problem is fixed. And the upstairs power was rewired from the basement by some guy my uncle hired. It's a real makeshift job that I doubt will last too long. It's all just ridiculous.

Now the walls are all filthy and dripping from under the bathroom. I'm sure that my aunt's unwillingness to fix the problem earlier caused thousands of dollars in damage to the walls. And above all else, my cousin still remains. Giggling like a moron on the phone all night (Literally. I've woken up for school at 6:30 and she's still been on the phone!) Sitting around watching Spongebob squarepants. And just today...leaving me a present of what I can only assume was period blood on the chair in front of the computer....

Yes...I said it...

It's awful...

My house used to be a sanctuary after school and work but now I find myself having to escape to Bay's or Casey's all weekend. I usually leave friday afternoon and come back home sunday night. I can't deal with this much longer. Am I overreacting?? How would you deal with this situation? Comments are welcome. Here's a little gift for having made it through this whole rant...

Arcade Fire in an elevator...