Never rent from family
Me and my (now) wife moved in together at the age of 17. Finding a place to live was the first challenge.

Her aunt and 'lesbian life partner' agreed that we could rent their house, since they were moving anyway and I can only presume they had enough money to chuck around that they could afford not to sell.

Everything was pretty much fine for the most part, but things came to a head about 2 years later when they decided they wanted to sell the place. We couldn't get a mortgage at the time so we had to move out and rent somewhere else. This is where the problem began.

~~~~~~~Bit of back story~~~~~~~

When we'd originally moved in, Auntie wanted the living room carpet changed. It was old, worn down and it was blue (didn't go nicely with beige walls). But with them on the process of a move and money being tight, they asked us to pay for a new one. At the time we were a little miffed but thought "Hey, we've got to live with it, why not?" and so the old carpet was pulled up and stored in the loft/attic and a nice new thick brown one put down, lovely.

~~~~~~~End of back story~~~~~~~

So, having seen the new place we decided we wanted to replace the carpet in the main hallway and decided between us that we were entitled to take the brown carpet from Auntie's house.

*Please note that I accept we may be wrong about this, but that's not the point of the story. In my opinion, we had paid for the carpet at her request and they still had the old blue carpet (which was still usable, just a bit worn) so they should be able to put that down*

I argued the point with her partner in a calm and composed manner, giving my reasons and backing them up. She claimed that we had to leave the place as it was when we moved in, which is when I suggested they put the blue carpet back down. She said they had given it away to a friend and no longer had it.

Anyway, the conversation fizzled out, I told her I wasn't happy, but there was no way to resolve the problem amicably.

At this point the missus realised something. About 10 months prior they had increased our rent by £20 per month for 'gardening costs' (another family member de-weeding once a month) because said family member had gone past 1 day and noticed we hadn't de-weeded the garden in the freezing, wet winter months. The garden was basically all shingle, no grass, but of course some weeds did poke through. 1 month after the rent increase the other half and I relaid the garden, which meant shovelling up the existing gravel, raking the soil, laying another plastic sheet (to stop the weeds) and covering with several bags of stones. Total cost was about £100 and it meant there no more weeds. But of course, the rent never went back down, despite us no longer needing a 'gardener'.

After we'd moved into the new place we waited for the return of our £350 deposit, of which we received a meagre £75 and an itemised list of what they had deducted. The list included:
- Repairing items which were already damaged when we moved in
- £1.32 (or something similarly ridiculous) for 2 light bulbs
- 8 hours labour (!) plus cleaning equipment (which we had already left) to clean the oven, which we had already done
- 1 hours labour to move a box from the attic which we forgot (1 hour? Seriously? It was pretty much empty except for a few broken Xmas decorations)

Anyway, it was completely ludicrous, some of the items were necessary, but only about £100 worth, so we felt we were out by about £175.

So when everything was said and done, we felt cheated out of:
£200 for the carpet
£100 for the cost of weed-proofing the garden
£180 for the continued 'gardening costs' after we'd weed-proofed the garden
£175 loss of deposit

A total loss of £655.00

To top things off, they thought I'd been very rude when trying to claim back the carpet, which I hadn't. I had merely stated my case the same way she had stated hers. As such, they stopped speaking to me and the missus, they never even contacted us to say congratulations when we got married in private (everyone else was over the moon).

Rant over, sorry. Length etc
(porkinator is a Rock n Roll nerd!, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 14:13, 10 replies)

Dyson.
My dad is James Dyson. We had a falling out when I was a teenager which lead me to move out. You try living in a house where your dad is inventing hoovers and hand dryers.

Not a moments fucking peace.

And when he wasn't doing that, he was in the back garden pissing about with his wheelbarrow which had a ball instead of a wheel.

What a dickhead my old man was.
(Spaff_Quaffer Wise fwom your gwave., Thu 12 Nov 2009, 14:05, Reply)

Every sunday, bang on 1pm
me mam does a stunning cooked dinner. A different meat every week to keep some variety going too. Utterly love me family food.

I'M DOING IT ALL WRONG!!!!!!
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 14:04, 6 replies)

The problem with having a very large extended family
Is that they don't all know each other, especially when they're from different parts of the country....

My older brother and my Dad share the same birthday, and when I was 15, my Bro was 25, and my dad 50, so a large shindig was planned. We'd hired out the top room of a local pub, all the family were there, Aunts and Uncles and Cousins from Exeter, where we lived (most of whom I didn't even know), and Aunt, Uncle and cousins from Kent came down as well. Chris, my cousin from Kent, who's a couple of years older than me, went into the toilets and opened the door onto the head of one of my Exeter cousins - he apologised, and that was that. We thought.

The end of the evening came, and I started walking home with my brother and some of his mates who'd come down for the party. There were a couple of coppers the other side of the road, who asked us not to sing quite so loudly at 1 in the morning, when we heard screaming back towards the pub. Turning around, we saw a massive brawl kicking off between two halves of the family - our group and the coppers all legged it back to the pub and started pulling people off others, until Exeter's full complement of Saturday night town patrols was dealing with my family......

Next morning, a copper comes to my Mum's house to take statements. I haven't mentioned yet how many people were staying at our house. It was so full there was a guy asleep on the stairs.... Just as the guy came down the path, 8 people were on their way out climbing on Dartmoor for the day (they'd missed all the action teh night before), but there were still about 25 people to take statements from. He called for another 2 officers, and it still took them about 4 hours to get all the statements.

In the end, 2 of my Exeter cousins were found guilty of assault, and my Nan blamed it squarely on my Kent cousins, even though they were the ones beaten up. My Nan's funeral was the first time we'd seen any of them since then (was something like 10 years later). It was a bit tense, and all the blokes in my immediate family were expecting trouble, but thankfully in the end nothing happened. We still don't speak to them though.

My mother-in-law though, seems to have an ongoing feud with *all* of her family, which no-one seems to know the reason for, probably not even her. At least we do things properly in my family.....

Are we still doing length jokes at the end? The statements must have come to about 50 sheets of A4...
(vinny, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 14:01, Reply)

Too old for a dad....
Yup, these are the words my father told me when I was 14, just so he could please his new wife, who incidentally was only 6 years older than me.

She wanted me and my sister gone, so they could play happy families together.

3 kids with her later, she's the size of a house and she kicked him out.
Now he lives in a shitty flat in a really shitty part of Glasgow.

Now aged 39, I found out where he lived, drove over in my nice brand new car and made sure he knew who I was before I laughed in his face at his sad life.

I'm planning on finding my step siblings and telling them who I am, just so they know what kind of a father they have.
(Andy-Bhoy I'm here all week, try the veal., Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:51, 15 replies)

Haven't really spoken to my great grandma in a few years
could be because she's 96, and forgets that I've spoken to her. It could also be because the last time she stayed with us she spent the whole time in the lounge doing crochet and yelling at my brother and I for taking up her space and being too noisy.

The crowning glory was when, her having taken up all the sofa space with cloth, I flopped down on the floor to watch The Simpsons. She looks up and says, quite calmly,
"You know, Sivvus, your brother is more ladylike than you'll ever be."
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:47, 5 replies)

Stepmother #2
Fans will remember my stepmother is an awful, self-righteous, worthy loon.

Fresh off the back of telling a 12yo me that my father A: had never loved my mother (despite him and my mum having been married for 14 years and had three children together), and telling me that her and my father had been together "forever, because time is just a concept, actually", when my half brother was still in a tiny, tiny cot, she decided to go into town. My father was working that day, and thus they'd agreed that he'd take the car.

When she'd done her chores in town, she then proceeded to 'phone my dad at work, and request that he come and pick her up, as she didn't want to get the 'bus back.

My dad pointed out that, er ... he was at work, so, er ... no.

She left my half-brother in his carry cot, at the 'bus station, and got the 'bus home, to, er ... to prove her point that my dad should have come and picked her up.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:40, 13 replies)

Not a close family...
My grandad was the youngest of seven, born in Yorkshire in 1930. When I was growing up, and when my Mum was too - so ever since the Fifties - we never, ever met any of his brothers or sisters, despite all of them apparently being alive.

Was there some sort of massive reason for the falling out, I always wondered? My mum wasn't sure, so I decided one day when I was a kid to just ask Grandad why he never saw them.

He thought hard for a moment, sucked on his pipe, and said 'Because they're boring bastards.'

Different values back in them days...
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:35, 3 replies)

Mums side
I havn't seen any one from my mums side of the family since her cousin hit me and screamed at me for knocking over and not even breaking a picture.

I was about 3 or 4 at the time.

and now one of them has got the big C they want to reconcile
(NuffMuff fucks shrubbery, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:33, 7 replies)

Draughts
While on holiday in Ireland when I was ten or so, I challenged my uncle who’s house we were staying at to a game of draughts. He rather got the hump following a minor dispute over the rules of the game, him not taking too kindly to being put right by a ten year old, and stormed off to bed after my mum and dad backed me up. The rest of the holiday was a little icy after that.

Over a game of fucking draughts. With a child.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:33, 3 replies)

A Pig
Until I was about 30 I thought my Mum's dad (my Grandad) was dead.

Then I found out the truth.

Apparently he had kept pigs (I did have vague recollections of being very small and at someone's house where there was a pig sty, but I didn't know it was my Grandad's house) and when his favourite pig died he wanted to bury it - I can understand why he might not want to eat it I suppose.

Now he only had a small garden, but my parents had a massive garden, so a solution to his problem was at hand.

However, my Mum had other ideas. Me and my brothers were all under 5 years old so, on the basis that a fucking enormous great dead pig might just present a health hazard to 3 small boys in the height of summer, she said no.

He got the hump and they didn't speak for 25 years.

There was a deathbed reconciliation I believe but I don't know the details as I wasn't speaking to my parents at the time - I'd had to throw them out of my son's christening for getting drunk and being rude to all my friends - but that's another story.
( Blackdogmanguitar is out with Fat Larry's Jazz Band on, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:11, 2 replies)

We don't
have much contact with extended family for various reasons.

However one of the reasons we haven't seen a much older uncle in some time, maybe because when I was a young child, fresh from watching Beauty and the Beast, and wrongly identifying with Gaston, I may have walked up to him and told him 'we'll help you out old man,'
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:08, 1 reply)

Wedding from HELL - A Pearost also from HELL
"You are cordially invited to the wedding of Uncle Pete to Brenda Grabber. Bring bottle and bird"

So, that was it. Uncle Pete (50-something) had managed to impregnate 20-year-old Brenda in an office knee-trembler, and we was forced to make a decent fat girl of her.

We arrived at the church, and were immediately struck by the barely disguised threats from both sides as he walked with her up the aisle:

"Cradle-snatcher"
"Slag"
"Dirty old man"
"Money grabber"

And so on to the reception, a hastily-arranged affair at the local youth club, complete with one-light-flashing-in-a-box disco, and a buffet lunch that was barely enough to suppress the enormous appetites of the top table.

The rest of us scrambled for the single remaining celery stick, before disappearing in dribs and drabs to Greasy Joe's chip shop round the corner.

The lights went down, and the serious business started: Wedding Disco. And it only took about ten minutes for it all to kick off.

Uncle Billy and his son Mark had turned up late, having spent the afternoon playing football. Mark had been sent off for decking the referee, and was not in much of a mood for a wedding party.

Somebody, coming back from the makeshift bar with a tray full of fizzy keg lager accidentally trod on his favourite aunt's foot. Mark refused to back down until a full, frank apology was issued for the slight, and when this was not forthcoming, he decked Man-With-Tray with his best referee-flattening haymaker.

Revenge was not slow in coming, and another punch was thrown that caught a passing granny square in the face, and it all went downhill from there.

"You fooker!" shouted granny and let fly with her handbag. It caught Uncle Billy on the nose in an eruption of blood and snot, leaving granny a fetching shade of red.

"You bitch!" shouted Uncle Billy, spraying blood and snot over everybody in a six foot radius, managing to get in a hefty kick at the handbag swinger, but only connecting with a table leg, hurling drinks across the room in a pissy yellow shower.

Then, like that famous film of the Siege of Stalingrad, the two armies came together in a rain of blows, kicks, scratches and a rain of cheap keg beer.

The disco played on. "Karma-karma-karma-karma karma chameleon..."

The police arrived to break it up, the disco man went home in a huff, and hours later people were still coming back from the chip shop wondering where the hell everybody had gone. It was my best night out ever, and even now certain family members can only talk to each other if a solicitor is present. Pete and Brenda are still married, bless 'em.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:01, 5 replies)

My brother was a low level cunt to me for many of my formative years
he would still be now if I wasn't taller and harder than him. We get on ok now, but I have distinct memories of him waking me up by grabbing my head and repeatedly smashing it into the bed, or me having a nosebleed over the sink in the kitchen, and him squirting me in the nose with a super soaker from the side, spraying my blood across the room.

He doesn't remember being a twat all those years.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 13:01, 8 replies)

Brotherly hate.
Me and my brother used to fight all the time when we were kids.
The worst incident occured when my brother, chasing me in a fury, threw a hammer at me which connected with the back of my head. It hurt and I hit the deck but I was mostly feigning death so he would come over and check that I was still breathing and thus I could grab his ankle and beat the living daylights out of him.

The plan worked.... too well!

As he approached I jumped up, he leapt out of reach and ran into the house. I caught up with him as he was about to dive into the sanctuary of the livingroom and managed to land an awesome punch on the top of his arm. He was lifted off his feet, his head hit the door frame and he fell like into the livingroom like a slab, unconscious.

Both my parents, who had been reading their newspapers when their youngest son collapsed into the room, went ballistic. I was the almighty bastard and the hammer thrower was the poor innocent.

It took a few weeks for the air to clear that time I can tell you.

p.s. We get on great guns these days.
( Hitler's Barber Soylent Green is high in saturated fat, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:59, 1 reply)

My mother and my ex-wife
never used to get on. My mother always thought she wasn't good enough for me, and after we split up and she started dating this other fella she had them both killed in a car crash and made it look like an accident.
( the pink chicken sniffer sniffs pink chickens., Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:51, 2 replies)

Pinno
My Dad's cousin went a bit hippy, and got into loads of new age stuff. She ended up having a kid with a bloke from nearby in South Wales who was part of the same odd religious cult. He'd actually decided to change his name to represent his new direction in life, and re-christened himself Pinno, Fuck knows why...

Anyway, big family dinner for her mum's birthday round at my Gran's house back in about 1995. We're all there, Caroline and Pinno turn up, and sure enough, it being a small town, my Grandad recognises.him.

'Hello, aren't you Maggie's boy from over by Church St.'
'That's right.'
'Gavin, isn't it?'
'Pinno.'
Oh, right.' Could have sworn it was Gavin.'
'It was, but I'm not that person any more.'
[Pause]
'You look a lot like him...'
'I mean, spiritually, like, I'm not the same person...'
'Right then, well nice of you to come round. Go sit down and we'll have the roast ready in a minute.'
'Not sure if Caroline mentioned it, but we're veggie.'
'Oh, she didn't,. Will beef be alright just this once?.'
'No, I don't want anything dying to feed me...'
'Don't worry, Gav, it's dead already, I've checked.'

They left, and didn't come round again to see Gran till after Grandad died 6 years later.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:49, 14 replies)

I've been involved in some absolute classics (as far as my family's concerned at least).
There was the time I gave a small badge in the shape of Rudolph with flashing lights for eyes to my nan for Christmas. My mother's sister then decided to tell said nan that what I was actually doing was making a statment about her mental health (which was failing)...somehow. Not that I was a piss-poor student and couldn't actually afford to eat at the time, no, I was being an insensitive cunt. This caused a poop-storm of epic proportions and led to me not speaking to either of them for around four years. The only reason I spoke to them was at nan's funeral and that was to say the words 'Excuse me' when trying to get past. I hate that bitch (mother's sister) with every ounce of my being for the way she poisoned her parents against me. I also live in sadness that things were never resolved between the old dear and myself.

Other legendary bust-ups include the time my brother performed a'Pile-driver' type wrestling move on me and was caught by our dad. That beating was brilliant and still warms my heart to this day. Ok it wasn't so much a bust up as a smiting of my brother but he went off in a huff afterwards and refused to speak to me for a bit. So it sort of counts. One I've just recalled being told by my dad was that, at some point in the 18th-ish century some of our ancestors were annoyed with each other to the opint were they not only stopped talking but changed the spelling of their name (still pronounced it the same though) and moved to a different part of the country. Awesome says I.

I'll see if I get permission to tell you good people about some of the stuff that my girlfriend's family get up to. I swear they're like a Deep South Hillbilly clan with the way theu're 'A fussin' and a feudin'.
( Funkenschlag still likes dogs more than cats, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:47, Reply)

University
My sister and me had a falling out when i decided i wasn't happy at Edinburgh university and decided to move. In her opinion any university outside of Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge is useless. I graduated with a 1.1 in Geology from the University of Aberdeen last summer. Im now working in Calgary Canada and loving every moment of it. Her 2.1 from Edinburgh in Biology means she is now doing consultancy work for a company in Swindon.

Does this mean i won...... I think so.
(redman89, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:43, 9 replies)

crazy gran
my gran on my dads side once told me i was evil. then she wondered why she wasnt invited to my wedding. Nuts!
(cardiosurgeon ...not a real surgeon since, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:43, 1 reply)

I don't have a story
I just wanted to be one of the first ten. Now my brother is going to kick my butt for posting first. That can be my family feud.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:41, Reply)

Well here it is , sorry for delay, it won't be worth it anyway!
No Funnies I'm afraid.

Anyhoo, 50 or so yrs ago my Granddad and his brother started a engineering business in the sleepy village of Widnes did quite well by all accounts and was sold to an American company for a tidy profit, they had written in the sale that the two of them couldn't start another company doing anything similar for 10yrs, so after that time that's what they did.

They started another Engineering Company in Widnes which made stainless steel pipe fittings which was the bread and butter for my Granddads family inc my mother.

Time rolls on and the business is doing really well so well in fact that Granddad buys my Uncle (his son) a Marcos car and a fucking Hotel in Wales for his 21st birthday, well the hotel was bust within a year, god knows what happened to the car though.

So in his infinite wisdom GD decides to let him take over the day to day running of a engineering company, wise plan!

Time rolls on my Mum marries my Dad and was pretty much cajoled into selling the 4 (I think) newsagents in Liverpool he had and putting the money into the company for a nice amount of shares, things are rosy for several years, I had the best education (not that I actually made an effort to use it) grew up in a beautiful house with landscaped gardens to play in etc etc...
that was until I was 15 anyway, that was when my Uncle and GD decided that the business wasn't going as well as it was and asked Dad to sell our house and put it into the business to prop it up, 'no chance' said Dad and that was that really, the business went into receivership and everyone involved lost a lot of money, luckily we still had the house which was sold just before the crash in 1989 (ish?) they then bought the house they live in now and potter around doing jobs they actually enjoy and have never been happier...

The point to this story is my mother had to chose between her family and her husband, obviously she chose my Dad but she or my dad didn't speak to GD etc for several years, luckily for my Uncle et al my Mum is a very forgiving person so they all talk to each other now (except GD - He's dead), well it is 20yrs ago.


WAKE UP - told you it wasn't gonna be funny!

Length, errr.. my tongue's really flexible.
(Kip, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:34, Reply)

My uncle
Comes to weddings, is charming and funny for a few hours, then gets drunk when you're not looking and flips out and chases someone down the road threatening to kick their arse.

We don't invite him anymore, but no one has told my aunt what's happening, so she just thinks we're being rude when we don't go to their parties, and when she doesn't get invited to ours.

I wouldn't mind, but I'm getting married next year. I'd like her to come, and not him. How can I possibly play it? Suggestions please.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:33, 17 replies)

t-shirt trouble
My sister bought my 15 year old son a t-shirt for his birthday that said "Underachiever, Plain Lazy". I plan to send her 3 year old a birthday t-shirt that says "Spoilt Brat" and perhaps her husband one that says "boring, middle aged".
(themothers, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:33, 3 replies)

On holiday
Me and my parents had a blazing row while we were on holiday a while back.

Me and my twin brothers were upset that the kept leaving us to get drunk so we decided to play a game of mega hide and seek. They're never going to find me.

M x

(Sorry there's always got to be one )
(NuffMuff fucks shrubbery, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:30, 4 replies)

I fell out with my cat
called her a 'bitch'. Damn right that's a female dog, take that.
(ignoramusaurus, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:30, Reply)

Third!
I fell out with my sister as she told my cat hes an idiot.

Well, he is really.
(Soutiejie Is a happy lady on, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:29, Reply)

Second?
?

Edit: Oh Yes!! Story later.....
(mattmatt, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:25, Reply)

First
woo
(ThePick Nevermind the length, feel the thickness, Thu 12 Nov 2009, 12:25, 2 replies)