being vs having been

Question

Which one is correct here?

1 Having been disturbed, he left the house. OR

Being disturbed, he left the house .

2 Being disturbed by the children, the old man left the park. OR

Having been disturbed by the children, the old man left the park.

3. Having been deprived of their homes in the recent earthquake they had no other option but to take shelter in a school. OR

   Being deprived of their homes in the recent earthquake they had no other option but to take shelter in a school.

Rule I follow : when we talk about things of past, we use "having been", and for conditions which still exist we use "being". I don't know if it is entirely correct or not. But "being" and "having been" always confuse me. There may be cases when both are correct. So I need more explanation.

Thank you

Answer 1

To simplify things, consider the more usual way of communicating these ideas, using the proposition "because". Your sentences become:

1. He left the house because he had been disturbed or because he was disturbed.

2. (Similar)

3. They had no other option but to take shelter in a school because they have been deprived of their homes in the recent earthquake or because they were deprived of their homes in the recent earthquake.

Notice that the initial "being" becomes past simple, and the initial "having been" becomes past perfect (had been), since the original form implies causality and the cause is prior to the effect.

The question now becomes: should you use simple or perfect? The simple answer in this case is: you should use the perfect (pun intended) because there is a clear order of events, and a complete state of things that cause other things.

But in practice you can often use past simple instead of past people, and the meaning of the text would be almost identical. In this case the order is established even without using the perfect.

When would you have to use just "being"? When you talk about a present situation. For example:

Being a non-native speaker, I sometime find myself looking for the right way to express my ideas.

Answer 2

What point do you want to make about the subject of the sentence? In all the examples the situation is "because of x, y did something". If the x was a single event, "having been " is likely to be what you want to say. But if the x you want to write about is some continuing situation, such as the old man disliking children's noise in general, or the family still homeless after the earthquake, "being" would express that more clearly.