If you’re struggling with your mental health, it’s helpful to have other people around, like friends and family who can help you, be there for you, and try to protect you.

In this story, one young man is in this situation, and when his parents go out of town, he has some friends stay with him so that he doesn’t have to be alone. He doesn’t feel safe being alone.

His friends really do sound great. One of them even stands up for him when his landlord is really rude.

Let’s read all about it.

Helicopter Landlord

I (m21 at the time) was living with my parents. My mental health was not great and I used self harm as a coping mechanism.

I once went too far and needing to go to the ER.

Fast forward a few months. I hadn’t cut since but my parents and my sister were going to Europe for a month.

I didn’t super love the idea of being home alone for an extended period of time while I was still working on myself.

This was a good idea.

I cleared with my parents and essentially had 3 friends move in for the month.

Even before my parents were gone my friends often used my house for gatherings. This made it even easier.

This gatherings were not parties or raves mind you. It typically involved a bunch of nerds like playing board games.

He made sure the landlord knew the plan as well.

My parents have a great relationship with their Landlord. He loves the house and is always happy to do work on it.

At the beginning of the month I explained to him I had a few friends staying with me and he explained to me that he’d be around a lot. To take advantage of my parents being gone (no problem)

One night we had around 4 other friends also spend the night. I had to work at 6:00 am so I left my friends sleeping in the living room.

This seems pretty rude and intrusive.

The last two there are cleaning up and getting ready to leave when the Landlord comes in with a plumber and starts working on the bathroom.

He starts talking with the plumber. “Oh it’s a great family, never had issues” things like that.

Then he gets to me “but they have a lazy son who wont get his own place. He’s here alone this month and he’s having parties every day. He never cleans anything (my room does have a tendency to get cluttered but that’s it.)”

It’s goes like this while my friends keep cleaning.

The landlord questioned OP’s friend.

These friends are two of my biggest supporters in breaking the self harm behavior.

My friend Paul then begins marching past the bathroom.

The Landlord then says “Now who are you and why are you in my house without a resident”

Paul was very specific about why he was there.

He responds in the most passive aggressive, petty, obnoxious tone ever saying “Oh I’m sorry, I’m Paul. You see I was asked to stay with my friend for a few weeks while his parents are gone. You see he’s been really struggling with self harm and is scared that if he’s here by himself for too long he might end up in the hospital again. Sorry for any inconvenience we cause”

He then did not wait for a response and paraded his way out….

The Landlord has been much kinder to me in the 5 years since lol

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It seems that the landlord was trying to help, but he was pretty rude. Maybe he didn’t know the whole story about OP, but OP’s friends are truly awesome for staying with him and helping him out.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This is true.

Paul is the hero of the story!

This person has a question.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a community who realizes their mistake after restricting parking to residents only gets guests and delivery drivers towed.

Another person sends well wishes.

It sounds like he has really great friends. He was smart to surround himself with his friends while his parents were out of town.

The landlord was really rude, but maybe now that he knows the whole story, he’ll be more understanding.