Living rent free sounds like a dream!

In today’s story, it’s one woman’s reality.

All she has to do in exchange for room and board is cook and clean, but she made a big mistake by thinking of the home owners are her housemates instead of her bosses.

Let’s see how the story unfolds.

AITA for telling my housemate she can’t give me unsolicited advice?

I (27F) have a strange living situation.

I live with a family (Chris, 65M, Danielle, 59F, and their daughter) and do household chores in exchange for rent.

I’ve lived here for 19 months; it’s mostly smooth sailing.

The only problem seems to be a boundaries issue.

I work full-time and am applying to law school.

Danielle has some issues with boundaries (she doesn’t understand why she can’t enter my room w/o permission, for example), and I know it’s both due to age differences and the fact that they allow me to live in their house for free.

I have to be very careful when enforcing boundaries.

She realizes she probably said the wrong thing.

Yesterday, I made dinner for everyone after a full day of chores.

Around 10 pm, as I was finishing the dishes, Danielle told me I needed to steam clean the carpet in the living room because the cats had peed all over it.

I did, and as I was putting the steam cleaner away, Danielle entered and said she wanted me to do another room.

Because it was 10:30 at this point and I still wanted to work on an application before bed, I politely but firmly said, “I’m not going to do that.”

I probably should have said, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” but I was exhausted, so I just said no. I put the machine away, submitted my application, and went to bed.

Danielle confronted her about what she said.

Tonight, as I was finishing up my meal prep for the week, Danielle cornered me in the kitchen.

“I don’t want to fight about this,” she said, “But I wanted to mention something. Last night when you told me you weren’t going to clean the other room, I found it rude. You should be careful when you say things like that at work so that you don’t get fired.”

I was floored.

Does she realize that Danielle is her employer, because she’s not acting like it!

I snapped, “Danielle, you haven’t had a job since before I was born. You don’t get to give me advice about how to act in the workplace.”

Danielle rolled her eyes and huffed, “See, I didn’t want to fight about this,” and walked out of the room.

I called after her, “Then maybe don’t bring it up?!?”

Danielle hasn’t spoken to me since, and I don’t know what’s coming.

Here’s the background on her work history and Danielle’s work history.

For context, Danielle has only had one job in her whole life, from age 22 to age 25.

After that, she quit to raise kids.

I grew up very poor.

I have been working since I was 14 and supporting myself since I turned 18.

They offered to start our arrangement in 2023 because they needed help around the house and I was struggling financially.

She thinks Danielle was out of line.

As for Danielle’s work advice, I currently work as a Regional Manager at a small firm.

Not only is her advice outdated, but I can’t take it.

I’m a people manager; a lot of my day-to-day job involves being polite but unyielding.

I think she was frustrated by my setting a boundary and that’s why she brought it up.

She’s really upset with Danielle.

I know part of my frustration is that I feel powerless to protest most of the time.

I will be moving out in August of this year when I go to law school (hopefully!), and my goal is just to make it until then.

I’m also really frustrated that Danielle felt like she could say whatever she wanted and then walk away as if I had no right to feel anything.

AITA for what I said?

She doesn’t seem to realize that this is Danielle’s home, not her home, and Danielle is basically her boss.

She needs to treat Danielle with respect if she doesn’t want to get kicked out.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Exactly, she needs to stop thinking of Danielle as her housemate.

They all need to get on the same page.

Danielle’s point was valid.

Surely she makes enough money to move out.

This outlier takes her side.

If I were Danielle, I’d kick her out.

But I bet her house will be super messy if she does.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.