A sub-letter looking to fill a spare room in her house has restricted the applicants to FIFO workers because deep down, the idea of someone living with her makes her feel deeply anguished.
In her ad she stated the applicant would be a FIFO worker (preferable 3/1 swing but 2/1 will be considered), clean, non-smoker, non-drinker, non-partier, and ideally someone who would devote themselves to the garden and her dogs while they are home.
Her ad drew criticism from some room seekers questioning why non-FIFO workers couldn’t apply. Some claim it was discriminatory while others were quick to call her out for wanting someone to pay the rent and remain out of sight.
The sub-letter told The Times,
“Look, I’ll level with you. I don’t want to live with someone. It’s purely to pay my mortgage off faster. So why not get someone who can pay their rent with the added bonus of never being home? It’s win-win for me”
A FIFO worker who applied for the house had no issue with the sub-letters criteria. Even adding that an impersonal living arrangement was just what he was after,
“When I get back from 2 weeks straight of work I’m not looking for some painful conversation with someone I’m forced to speak to through circumstances. I’ll be out getting obliterated at the Cas on me week back and just want to sleep it off in a room. I’m all for this”
A human behavioural expert who specialises in sharehouse dynamics told The Times that sometimes brutal honesty was the best policy,
“There is a lot of social pressure to befriend the people you live with. When in reality, running the operation more clinically can have great benefits. In this situation, the lines are drawn in the sand and there will be no confusion as to the nature of this cohabitation relationship”
According to the sub-letter, much of the criticism coming her way is from people jealous they don’t have their own property to pull this little move with. Adding,
“It’s the Western Australian dream, buy a house, move in a FIFO, get it paid off quicker and maybe get a bit of free tradie work done on the side when your hot water system shits itself. Don’t pretend you don’t want a big slice of that”
Whether she is trying to eat her cake and have it too or just playing the houseshare game with a straight bat remains to be seen.
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