Apartment laundry rooms can feel like battlegrounds when everyone wants a machine at the same time.

That very tension boiled over when one resident ignored unspoken laundry roles, making a neighbor spiral into sarcasm and a shouting match.

Read on for the full story!

AITA Laundry Room Conflict

I live in an apartment with a shared laundry room. The room has 10 washers and 10 dryers.

The other day I had one load in the dryer, and one in the washer.

When they went back down there, they found out there was someone waiting.

I came down a few minutes before my drying was finished (I had set a timer), and when I walked in, someone was down there waiting for a dryer to open.

All of them were being used, and mine was the next one about to finish.

It was immediately clear this person was already ticked.

The person noticed I was going to open that one and sarcastically said, “Oohh! Two minutes left, you couldn’t open it early could you? Daaang…”

They did the kind of “Oh snap, what are you gonna do?” gesture, snapping their fingers and swinging their arm, if you know what I mean.

The resident just tried to ignore it and move on with their chores.

I smiled awkwardly and said nothing.

Once it finished, I opened the dryer I was using and put the clothes in my basket. Then I went over to grab my wet clothes from the washer.

But that’s when the conflict started.

As I did that, they very quickly started throwing their clothes in the dryer I had just opened. Although I hate conflict, I really needed to get my laundry done.

So as I walked back over to the dryer with my second load, I said to them, “Uhh, I was kind of using that one. I just opened it.”

They stared at me for a moment, then said, “Oh sorry what?”

I said again, “I was using that dryer.”

They stared for another moment and said “sorry,” and then slowly started to keep loading the dryer.

The resident insists they take out their clothes, which only angers their neighbor even more.

Then I said, “Could you take yours out please actually?”

Finally, they said, flustered, “Oh you want me to take it out? Yeah why not,” sarcastically, as they began to unload it.

While they did so, they muttered to themselves, “Today’s just gonna be great I can already tell.”

The passive aggression continues.

When they finished pulling it out, they also grabbed a piece of gum out of the dryer and some lint from the trap.

They said passive-aggressively, “I grabbed your gum for you and cleaned the lint trap.”

So I just said, “Thank you.” (I don’t chew gum nor do I have the habit of putting it in my pockets.)

This neighbor was buzzing mad.

Anyway, then I just put my load in the dryer and left. As I did, they stood there waiting again, with a very disgruntled look on their face, staring at me as I walked to the door.

Right before I was gone, they shouted a rude name at me.

Now the resident questions whether they did the right thing.

The way I see it, the washer is “mine” until my loads are dry. I don’t want to hog the machines, that’s why I always set a timer, so I only use them as long as I have to.

At the same time, it could be argued that the other person technically got to the dryer first, and I kind of cut the line for the dryers when I came back from grabbing my second load.

(I say this figuratively, the machines are 5 feet apart.)

AITA?

Sharing laundry facilities with random strangers is never ideal, but it’s not supposed to turn out like this.

What did Reddit think?

Next time, this person could do a better job of not sending a rude stranger the wrong idea.

This user thinks maybe this person really did jump their place in the laundry line.

Better communication would have really helped here.

This commenter agrees that bad communication was this person’s downfall.

A simple Sunday chore left two neighbors walking away annoyed for no real reason.

Nobody really “won” in this laundry room standoff.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.