If your roommate told you she was moving out, you’d probably immediately start looking for a new roommate. If you had a new roommate set up and ready to move in at an agreed upon date, would you consider asking the new roommate to delay moving in as a favor to the old roommate?

The woman in this story was in this exact situation, and it took her awhile to reach a decision about what to do. She’s still not sure she made the right decision.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not asking my new flatmate to delay their move-in when my old flatmate hadn’t found a place yet?

This happened about six months ago, but it came up again recently because my old flatmate (27f) and I (27f) have some mutual friends and she’s been telling people I’m inconsiderate.

A bit of backstory is I had to find a replacement flatmate because otherwise I would’ve been stuck covering the lease on my own.

Living with my old flatmate had already been exhausting – she left dirty dishes for days, wouldn’t empty out her old lunches, tossed loose trash around, and never cleaned up.

I’d end up cleaning every other day just to make the apartment livable.

Her old flatmate was moving out, but it didn’t go exactly as planned.

It felt unfair, but I let it slide toward the end because she was leaving soon and I didn’t want to add more fights to the tension already between us.

She gave her one-month notice, I found someone new, and everything seemed settled. but instead of finalizing her own place (which she kept saying she would), she left it until the last minute.

Then she suddenly asked me to see if the new flatmate could delay moving in potentially by a few weeks or a full month, her reasoning was that her new place wasn’t ready yet, and if I didn’t agree she might have to book a hotel or move back home temporarily.

There were multiple reasons this seemed like a bad idea.

The thing is, the new person had already planned their move around the agreed date. They’d booked it with the expectation that they could start fresh that month.

If I had suddenly asked them to wait, they might have just found another place altogether, which would’ve left me scrambling with no flatmate, plus all the stress of figuring out the other shared expenses on my own.

And to complicate things further, the landlord was waiting to renew the lease from that month onward, so pushing things back would have created even more uncertainty.

She had a hard time deciding what to do.

At first, I’ll admit I was annoyed and didn’t even want to consider it, because I felt like she was being inconsiderate of my situation while always expecting me to accommodate hers so she could save money.

But after sitting with it, I did think, “Okay, if she doesn’t have anywhere to go, maybe I should help.”

But remembering how she had treated me for the past two years – dismissive, messy, and passive-aggressive – I felt this wasn’t my problem to fix, maybe she didn’t find a place for some genuine reasons but she’d given notice, it was her responsibility to have a plan.

Eventually, she didn’t give in to the old flatmate’s request.

In the end, I didn’t ask the incoming tenant to change their plans.

I felt it wasn’t fair to dump uncertainty on someone who had already committed to moving in, just because my flatmate had been disorganized.

She ended up finding a temporary arrangement, but now she tells people I was unreasonable.

So, AITA for not stepping in and asking my new flatmate to postpone their move-in, even though it meant my old flatmate had to scramble?

I don’t think she did anything wrong. It wouldn’t have been fair to the new flatmate to ask her to wait to move in.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

All she did was follow through with the original agreement.

Another person explains why the old flatmate is badmouthing her.

This whole situation was the old flatmate’s fault.

Here’s a suggestion about how to respond to the old flatmate.

At least her old flatmate finally left!

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.