Sharing a room with someone you just met is rarely easy. But what would you do if it were endangering your life?

In today’s story, a young adult shares how her roommate put styrofoam in her microwave (that she won at a giveaway) like it was no biggie.

She doesn’t want her to use the microwave anymore. Is she being petty or just safe?

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for telling roommate that she can no longer use my microwave?

I (18f) have a roommate (also 18f) who, to put it nicely, is lacking in what I would consider to be common sense.

There are several things I had to explain to her when we moved in.

Like how to do laundry (how to use her detergent, how much, which buttons to press on the machine).

She feels as if she’s babysitting.

How to use the space-saving hangers she got, she didn’t know how to iron her clothes, and I had to do it for her.

She constantly complains about not knowing how to do things because her mom did it for her, and no, she’s not an only child.

When we first moved in neither of us had a microwave. I ended up getting mine at a giveaway on campus, I couldn’t really afford to get one.

When she first asked to use my microwave, I was kind of hesitant but said yes at the time because I didn’t have a solid reason to say no.

But it proved to be a bad decision.

Now, whenever anyone borrows or uses my stuff, I want them to ask each time so I can keep track of who has used it and when.

I guess she assumed that when I said yes that first time it meant yes for whenever (it did not).

She’s used it several times without asking and always in the middle of the night, around 2-3 am, when I’m sleeping.

I have 8 am classes all week so I usually try to sleep before 11.

Every time she uses it the sound, smell and noise wake me up, and I have a hard time going back to sleep.

But what really made me put my foot down was about a week ago.

Things reached a boiling point, literally.

She comes in around 2 am in the middle of the week and uses my microwave, waking me up. I try to go back to sleep but I start to smell something god awful.

Imagine burning gasoline.

Not only was the smell horrible but it was hard to breathe too. I turned my fan on to no avail.

The whole room smelled like that for 2-3 hours, even under my blankets, I was struggling to breathe and fall asleep.

Yet the whole time roommate was unfazed.

She was baffled at the situation.

Just when I thought the ordeal was behind me, I went to use my microwave the next day, and lo and behold, the smell came back, except it was in my food that I ended up having to throw away.

Turned out roommate had microwaved her food in its styrofoam container.

If you don’t know, heating styrofoam is VERY dangerous.

Not only is it highly flammable, it releases several toxic gases when heated including methane which is probably what I ended up smelling.

Because my microwave is small and the container she heated it in went wall to wall, some of the styrofoam is probably still in the vents.

Her roommate continues being unfazed.

Even though the smell had gone when I went to heat my food again, the gases came back and got in my food.

Before I realized where the smell was coming from I ended up eating my food and getting very sick as a result.

This also prevents me from using my microwave until I can get it cleaned.

I told roommate she can no longer use my stuff and when I explained, she again said she didn’t know she couldn’t microwave styrofoam and that she’s done it before.

She didn’t really apologize for poisoning the both of us, and now I don’t really want her to use any of my other stuff either.

AITA?

Her roommate is a liability.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Maybe she needs consequences to learn… that her actions have consequences.

Yup.

Sound advice.

Another reader agrees.

This person has a different take.

The fact that her roommate didn’t even notice something was wrong makes me nervous for both of them.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.