How Other People Spent My Monday Night at Work!

[Krysalis]

This is a mixed rant-advice topic. I hope it's okay here.

Long introduction time...

I work swing-shifts for a charity thrift store now. It means I'm not home until 11, and that my sister and my BF spend three hours in the apartment without me around, after they come home from work.

We're all, at some level, disabled. All three of us are Aspies, though my sister has anxiety issues and a superiority complex, and my BF has temper issues. No, it wasn't my idea to rent out an apartment with both my sister and my BF-- that's my parent's interference.

Thing is, I've been with my BF for 10 years, and my sister and I were always close. Just that they have never exactly gotten along with each other, what with my BF sometimes being a moron Aspie, and my sister taking everything way the heck too literally, and snapping at people. She's also convinced that my BF should lay off eating, because he is a little bit plump, and tends to eat a lot, but it's not like he's anywhere close to devouring all of our food supplies. We've got tons of stuff from the parents, and a previous trip where I stocked up on things like flour, sugar, peanut butter, and jelly, plus tons of soups.

Just she hates soup.

So, on my Monday night...

I get a call at the end of my last break, around 9:40. My BF's on the line, and screaming about how my sister broke his computer, an old, but still pricey, laptop. Well, ffs. I tell him I'll talk to him when I get home, that I was at the end of my break.

I get a call from my mum 20 minutes later, and thankfully my awesome boss let's me take it after hearing what the last one was about. BF decided to spend the night at his parents, and took the broken laptop with him. Probably just to show it to them, but at this point, I have, and still have, no idea exactly what went down.

I got to see it next day, though. Screen's busted to heck, and I think the harddrive might've gotten scoured; when I booted it, HDMI out to our TV, it didn't show the Win 7 Logo, and a disk error scan shows a 13.6 percent damaged block total. Running CHKDSK didn't reduce this by an inch.

Also means I can back up most, but not, all of his important files. At least Firefox's profile is safe, but our Dwarf Fortress games...

At best, I've gotten trickles of different stories that can, in no way, shape, or form, be allowed to happen in the same reality. One person is accusing the other of breaking the laptop. That is, each one swears the other one threw the laptop. See how this is a downright impossibility?

I also heard that my BF got mad at my sister and locked her out of the apartment, and she had to walk home. I hear before that, my sister got after my BF for heating up his portion of a bag french fries our mum got us as a treat. BF says she yelled at him about, "Why aren't you ever nice to me? Why can't you ever be nice to me?" Which sounds really insane, but is perfectly in-character with stuff my slightly nutso sister would say.

BF admits that he threw the plate of french fries out of the over (plate's okay, came home to french fries all over the floor. Yay more cleaning...)

But then my sister tells me she was making the french fries for herself, and BF tried taking them out of the over. Which is a mundo WTF, as he would have no motivation to. I'm more likely to believe his side of the story, because he's been ranting to me about how my sister has been getting after him for eating so much. But still, I wasn't there to see it myself, so I really can't say.

So, the only solid facts I have right now are that my sister was tossed out of the apartment at one point, where she walked home to my parents, and that one laptop got broken beyond repair.

Any advice with how to deal with this? I mean, this isn't our first argument here, just the first one where a very expensive piece of electronics got broken. Two of the three people living here are making below minimum wage. This won't be fixed for a while, I suspect.

[patiokitty]

I'd say that the sister has to go, even if your parents don't like it. From what you've said in your post I'd say it's pretty clear that she started whatever went down. It does not matter what you were there to see - the facts are what they are, and you know yourself that your sister is 'slightly nutso' and has been getting on your BF's case about how much he eats. I think that what happened is that your BF decided to make himself some fries, your sister flipped out and started giving him shit for eating, and when she didn't get enough of a reaction she destroyed your BF's computer. If she has a superiority complex then it definitely makes sense for it to have happened that way.

I would be telling your parents that your sister will be moving back in with them. Why should you and your BF have to deal with her breaking things or giving anybody shit about how much they eat? Do not let them bully you into allowing her to stay because you do not need her bullshit around any longer. It's time for her to get out, end of story.

[protege]

I think that what happened is that your BF decided to make himself some fries, your sister flipped out and started giving him shit for eating, and when she didn't get enough of a reaction she destroyed your BF's computer. If she has a superiority complex then it definitely makes sense for it to have happened that way.

That's what I think happened too. I have a feeling that she started shit, got ignored (or got told to "fuck off"), so she smashed the computer. I don't know about the rest of you, but if that was *my* computer, she'd have been ejected from the building.

[Gilhelmi]

I am confused as to why your parents insisted on you, your BF, and your sister living together.

Might make for a good comedy on NBC, but not in reality. I know I would not want to live (long term) with my brother and his wife.

[Krysalis]

That's what I think happened too. I have a feeling that she started shit, got ignored (or got told to "fuck off"), so she smashed the computer. I don't know about the rest of you, but if that was *my* computer, she'd have been ejected from the building.

From what I understand, he did. Of course, since he made her walk back to my parent's house at 10 PM at night- in smalltown terms, over the course of a mile- my parents are pissed.

And it's not like we haven't told her to just move out and find somewhere else to rent, either. I've even offered to start looking.

But now you know why my parents have offloaded her onto us. They've gotten really sick of her...

I'm seriously considering talking to her SLS worker about alternative housing. She, her SLS worker, has seen her yelling at us, too, so we might have some solid ground there.

She's been nothing but a PITA since the end of the first month here. I don't want to get the cops called on us for fighting, but she's screamed quite a bit of names at us. She's even tried to get my BF in deep shit for not helping her clean the apartment, and between her and my BF, it's my BF. She's my past, he's my future, and if it means a Cut Direct (an Etiquette Hell term for a hard and total goodbye), then I will do it.

I just don't have any reasonable place to send her, at the moment. If and when that happens, I'll take it like a dog taking steak.

[patiokitty]

That's what I think happened too. I have a feeling that she started shit, got ignored (or got told to "fuck off"), so she smashed the computer. I don't know about the rest of you, but if that was *my* computer, she'd have been ejected from the building.

I'd be the same way, and if I was truly pissed off I wouldn't even bother opening the door first.

I made the mistake once of allowing my brother to live with my son and I. At the time it made sense because I was working 2pm-11pm shifts which meant I would not be home when my son got home from school, and at 11 yo there was no way I was comfortable with leaving him home alone for 7-8 hours each night. My brother was attending college during the day and had agreed that it made sense for us to share a place and he'd look after my son, make dinner, etc.

Big mistake.

It caused a lot of problems, not just between the two of us, but between me and our parents. They took his side when I had enough and kicked him out, and even argued to try to make me let him stay. Nope, wasn't happening ever again.

[Krysalis]

Well, the parents are keeping her at their house for a week or two, starting last Saturday. It's been kind of peaceful and nice, to be honest.

They also replaced my BF's computer with my dad's old laptop, which isn't a terrible tradeoff. It's a pretty decent Lenovo Ideapad with Win 7, just little harddisk space.

They've also started paying us the money she owes back from rent, I.E. last month, where she ended up getting a bad cold, and instead of asking us to loan her money to buy the medicine she was prescribed, decided to spend a part of her rent money.

We only asked her for a 90 out of the 229 she really owes us, to be nice, and the check bounced. Against our joint account, which didn't have any money in it.

So mum paid us 140 back yesterday, she originally wanted to do 300 in one go, but that's unreasonable for anyone. I talked her down to 100, and she still gave me an extra 40. That's great, as we had an extremely skimpy payday yesterday.

[EricKei]

On the computer end - if you still have the old HD, look into free file recovery utilities; you may be surprised at what can be made usable again (meaning, hook it up to a desktop comp). Chkdsk can sometimes repair HD clusters that are iffy, but its primary purpose is to determine where the bad clusters are in order to prevent Windows from using them in the future.

[Gravekeeper]

Recuva can work miracles as far as file recovery goes and is freeware.

As for your situation to be completely honest: The last time I saw that sort of scenario unfold it ended up with the sister getting spayed and spending a week by herself in the basement till she started to behave.