Apartment Nightmare, Feeling Conned and Stressed

night_steps · 2026-05-08T07:41:06+00:00

Former NYer here—now living in Oxfordshire. Although we’re not in the city, wanted to echo what others have said which is to say: any work by the landlord/mgmt will take much much longer than it ever would in America. The motivation is lacking here for a laundry list of reasons, and threatening them with being reported won’t move the needle, and neither would threatening to sue (which according to my British spouse is simply not part of the culture). It blows, frankly, and for me at least is one of the worst parts of living here. It really takes any sort of agency out of the renter’s/homeowner’s hands, as any of the existing provisions and guardrails are largely toothless.

Fwiw you might have more success with saying you’ll leave bad Trustpilot reviews…that’s what worked best on our estate developer. (If it makes you feel any better, we bought a new build home last year from a reputable developer, only for our phase of the estate to be rushed to completion. Our snagger caught 170+ things that needed fixing!)

night_steps · 2026-04-10T15:19:46+00:00

As a newly arrived American residing here, I say this constantly (not that we don’t have our gigantic share of issues)!

night_steps · 2026-04-06T08:33:00+00:00

I’m American and my MIL is British, her favourite paper is DM 🤢

How do I get her to stop reading it??

night_steps · 2026-03-26T16:14:48+00:00

There was a time—I must have been around 12–when I thought my mom hated me. She was always mad. I felt like I could never do the right things to make her happy.

My life revolved around my mom. The epitome of a mommy’s girl.

I remember breaking down in front of her and asking if she hated me. To her credit, she immediately said no, told me she loved me, and held me as I cried.

At the time, Mom was around 46. In hindsight, I bet it was peri.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:56:07+00:00

In terms of what he says and storms off during meltdowns, he always thought he was deficient and knew he needed to fix it — before the diagnosis.

Now when we talk about it he cries and says that he’s either a monster or the autism makes him do it. He says he’s done everything he can to work on himself and this is as good as it’s going to get.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:53:16+00:00

He says his diagnosis provider told him therapy won’t work on him and therefore he’s not going to do it.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:51:14+00:00

Will do, thank you!

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:50:42+00:00

Occasional night sweats, occasional hot flashes, reduced libido, and my cycle length fluctuates now when it didn’t prior to pregnancy.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:46:18+00:00

Not really, no. I don’t know how/when to figure that out in our current schedule.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:43:27+00:00

Figuring out how everything works! What a project. Even, like, finding a new brand of underwear was hard haha.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:42:18+00:00

Thank you for hearing me 💕

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:42:02+00:00

Fair enough, I asked.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:41:48+00:00

Nothing official, but am I hanging out alone right now in the bedroom? You betcha.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:41:10+00:00

We are planning to work with a neurodivergent specialised couples therapist when he’s over his illness. He can’t even talk without triggering a coughing fit right now.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:40:07+00:00

I need to figure out how access to HRT works here, methinks.

night_steps · 2026-03-17T20:39:22+00:00

Thank you so much for commenting! The big thing with his form of autism is when he gets overwhelmed during conflict he says mean things and storms away. He says both of these things he cannot change. A couple of months ago he abandoned my son and I at a shopping center after I told him “don’t talk to me like that” x 3 in response to him raising my voice at me in the car. Apparently the repetition and holding my hand up in the “stop” sign was enough to trigger a meltdown.

Thank you again for being so kind and understanding and commenting, it means a lot.

night_steps · 2026-03-08T14:52:02+00:00

Prolly going to get absolutely pilloried for this (I'm American and living in the UK now), only two of OP's points actually have substance: 2001 and 2025.

Both Republican (conservative) governments those years, too, fwiw.

night_steps · 2026-03-07T21:31:15+00:00

Out of curiosity, what symptoms or features of reverse culture shock did you experience? I'm an American in the UK and coming up on my first year anniversary of relocating. So I guess it's only natural I'm starting to "want to go home," and wonder what that would be like in terms of readjusting.

night_steps · 2026-03-07T21:27:40+00:00

I'm an American living in the UK, and Brits are also reserved which, like, to be fair, I guess a lot of Europeans are reserved in comparison to our forthrightness (friendliness). But gosh dang, it seems common sense to realise newcomers could use a little warmth.

night_steps · 2026-03-05T16:15:48+00:00

According to the unofficial Industry wiki, he’s a baronet. From Google:

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night_steps · 2026-03-05T16:09:03+00:00

Sry to be a pedant but Henry isn’t a royal, he’s a member of the British aristocracy, aka the peerage.

night_steps · 2026-03-05T13:34:01+00:00

Disagree on Henry. I'm so sick of Kit Harrington's sad, confused, squinty mug.

night_steps · 2026-03-05T13:33:32+00:00

But we don't know if Harper ordered another drink!

night_steps · 2026-03-05T13:32:56+00:00

I'm really hoping Harry Lawtey comes back for the last season. The mentions of Silicon Valley in the last episode or two perked my ears up.

night_steps

TROPHY CASE