Fairness and respect are essential for living with roommates, but as is seen often on the AITA subreddit, these qualities are quite hard to come by.

So when one renter noticed his roommate kept dipping into his groceries without asking, he found a simple but controversial way to make it stop.

Read on for the full story!

AITA for not sharing my groceries just because we live together?

I (31M) rent a flat with two other guys. We all agreed we’d buy our own groceries and label stuff.

But his roommate quickly began breaking these rules.

One of them keeps “accidentally” using my stuff—milk, eggs, even my coffee. He always says, “I’ll replace it,” but rarely does.

I stopped saying anything and just started moving my stuff into my room mini fridge.

So his roommate freaks out and starts shifting the blame.

Now he’s calling me petty and says I’m “killing the vibe.” But I’m not his parent.

AITA for being territorial about my food in a shared house?

Food theft is one of the quickest ways to create conflict among roommates.

What did Reddit have to say?

Deep down, this dude knows full well that what he’s doing is wrong.

There’s a very big difference between roommates and living with your partner.

This commenter thinks this renter has already taken a good first step.

This user agrees it’s all on the selfish roommate for taking things that don’t belong to him.

Sure, it may not have been the most subtle solution, but it sure was effective.

If standing up for himself “killed the vibe”, then maybe the vibe wasn’t good to begin with.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.