If you move out and leave furniture and other items behind, is it fair game for your roommates to take these items as their own?

That’s the question in today’s story.

One man wants his stuff back, but the other man thinks he has no reason to give it back. Who is right?

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for taking my roommates couch?

In March, my roommate got expelled from our university for using ChatGPT on three finals from the fall.

He is international and had several weeks to clean out his stuff before leaving.

So it seemed there was only one explanation.

He left behind silverware, a lamp, a nice sofa, and other things.

I asked him several times what he wanted to do with his stuff and he never gave an answer so I took it upon myself and claimed it as mine, as everything had to be out by the move out day in May.

He left behind a mess in his room which took us an hour to clean up, and moving and storing the couch took another several hours.

But it was a problem after all.

Now he is calling me saying that I stole his stuff and he is moving back to the US and would like it back.

I feel like he made his problem mine and I had to deal with what he left behind.

I am thinking I could meet him halfway and charge him a reasonable amount for all the work we had to do for him to clean his stuff up?

Does this former roommate deserve to get his stuff back? Here is what people are saying on Reddit.

I’m not sure that’s legal, but I think it’s a reasonable assumption.

Great advice. Know your rights.

I’m skeptical this would work.

Sounds fair.

Something tells me he either doesn’t have the means or his property isn’t valuable enough to warrant the cost.

I can’t stand jerks who are like this.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.