Imagine having a roommate whose mother visits several times a month. If you wanted to set boundaries about how often she can visit, would you talk to your roommate about it or stay quiet and keep your feelings to yourself?

In this story, one woman is in this exact situation, and so far she hasn’t said anything to her roommate. She has a long list of complaints and is thinking about talking to her roommate.

Should she?

Let’s read the whole story.

WIBTA Asking my roommates mother not to cook in my kitchen

I (23) have my first good roommate situation…mostly.

I live with one of my best friends, we are generally the same level of organized, we make each other dinner, and altogether have good boundaries…that is, between the two of us.

Not with her mother.

Here’s some context about why she doesn’t like her roommate’s mother.

Her mom is, admittedly, probably struggling with mental illness.

She swoops in twice a month to “bond” with her daughter, and is hard to get out of the house.

The way the two of them communicate stresses me out–even the type of hand soap in the bathroom turns into raised voices, and she doesn’t listen when her daughter asks her to leave (she often puts her laundry in right before asked to leave so she has to stay).

It’s pretty clear, without going into details, that she financially exploits her kid, and is paranoid and AirBnb hops around the state so she can’t do this at home…I live here too. And I am fed up with her wreaking havoc on my home.

There are more issues.

Granted, it’s gotten better-last time she did the dishes she used… and left them on every surface on half a roll of paper towels to dry.

She makes massive portions of food that only two people eat, so we end up losing half our freezer space to meals we did not make or plan for. A good third of my fridge and freezer is HERS, not things we eat, but foods she brings for when she shows up. We do not have the space for this.

Whenever she leaves there are trash bags all over the floor, I am out a few ingredients because she liked my equivalents better, and it takes days to get the kitchen clean again because somehow every surface and “clean” dish feels buttery.

But there’s an even bigger problem.

More importantly, we have very different ideas of food safety.

I am quickly to refrigerate leftovers when my roommate cooks because she’s prone to leaving things out, but this is a whole other story.

Leaves things for hours just above room temperature, places mail on my clean cutting boards after she’s seen me wash them, open unsealed food in the fridge drying out and smelling, loose frozen veggies and fries spilling in the freezer, unsealed meat on my ice cube trays…am I just germaphobic?

Altogether, every time she comes for 9-12 hours on average uninvited, it’s incredibly draining to listen to them argue for hours and then clean up after her, and while I understand she doesn’t want me to feel left out, I am uncomfortable being included in the family bickering(and no, she does not pay any of our rent or bills).

But there’s still one more very big issue.

One other thing–I work from home.

I have two jobs, and my WFH is days she is often here. She does not understand that hiding in my bedroom on my pc is MY JOB.

I find myself staying up on late hours because I don’t want to lose money when I lose billable hours to yapping and interruptions.

She says she’s teaching us how to cook, but her daughter is much better and I just wish they’d find another activity.

Would I be a jerk if I politely asked my roommate to set boundaries on how long her mother is here, and encourage her mom to get her own place?

Her roommate’s mother sounds like a nightmare. She really needs to stay somewhere else.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s a suggestion to move out.

Another person has some good advice.

Here’s another vote for moving out.

This person suggests what her roommate could say to her mom.

She needs to think this through.

Her roommate’s mother is almost like a third roommate.

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.