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Well, the title says it.

The sentence is from a manga, where a boy lives together with his very lazy aunt, so the boy has to take care of laundry, cleaning, dishes, cooking etc. while she's drinking beer.
He gets angry and she explains that it's a pain to do all that stuff (cooking, cleaning etc) on her own.
Then he replies "僕が来る前からこーだったんですが?"

Does it mean "Then how did you manage it before I came here?" or does it rather mean "So were you like this even before I came here?"

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    Hello there :) We generally frown on pure translation questions, so this may be closed. If you can break down the sentence and find what specifically you don't understand (for example "my dictionary says X means A, but in this context I still don't understand what it means"), that's more within the scope of JLU. Another option is coming to the chat-room with translation questions, we're always happy to help if we can! Mar 30, 2013 at 16:40
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    Although this is a pure translation question, I kind of like it, because the OP made the effort to give the full context, plus two ways he was thinking of translating it.
    – Earthliŋ
    Mar 30, 2013 at 18:26

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This sentence ending with が is suspicious. I wonder if it ended in か.

With か, it's an informal form of "僕が来る前からこうだったんですか?", which means "Has it been like this before I came [here]?"

With が, it'd have to be "But it has been like this before I came here", and for this to make sense, the boy would first have to complain, his lazy aunt would then need to respond back blaming him of making the mess, before this sentence makes sense.

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