Imagine renting a room in a house from your landlord who is also your roommate. What would you do if you accidentally broke something that belonged to her? Would you offer to replace it or hope an apology would be good enough?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he can’t afford to replace the board game he damaged. Now, he thinks his landlord is overreacting, and he’s not sure what to do.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for asking I pay less rent when my landlady locked me out one of the rooms in the house?

I (20m) am currently at university, because it’s expensive and I struggled to find a student place.

I rent a room off Jane (27f). She’s single and lives by herself so it’s just the two of us.

The rent is decent and before all this she was nice, so thought we had a good relationship. Jane is into a lot of nerdy stuff, she plays dungeons and dragons, warhammer and collects board games.

It’s a 3 bedroom house and the middle bedroom is the game room (I have the smallest, she has the biggest). It’s got the board games, and has the TV and console which she let me use.

He had some friends over for his birthday, and things got a little out of hand.

It was my birthday last week and had some friends over, Jane works shifts so she was out till late but she’s fine with other people over and has been in the past but is pretty shy.

We decided we would play some board games and Jane has always said it’s okay in the past and she’s taught me a few of them and I really enjoy them.

Anyway the game got a little heated and it’s a pretty complicated game but really good, we were also pretty drunk and ended up ripping the game board.

We stopped after that and realised I kind of messed up. We put it away and just sat and drank and chatted for the rest of the night.

He can’t afford to replace the game.

Jane came back and said hi before going to bed. She looked really tired and so I didn’t say anything and friends were still there.

I did talk to her the next day and she was annoyed and asked me and my friends to pay to replace the game.

I initially agreed but then found out the game is like £120 and I can’t afford that so said I was sorry but no.

She said fine but then the next day she had her “friend” round and has now put a lock on the game room. She said she can’t trust me in there anymore and that some of her games and miniatures are just too valuable for her to risk.

He wants a reduction in rent.

The game room is one of the things I like about the place and where I used to spend most of my time. Now I’ve basically been banished from it.

I said to Jane that I wasn’t happy and that if she was going to kick me out of it I should be paying less rent.

She said no and said I was being unreasonable to ask and this was my own fault and that I’m entitled and uncaring which really hurt because I do care about her but it was an accident and not entirely my fault.

He’s wondering if he really did mess up.

Now she just refuses to talk to me which is a bit of an overreaction.

I genuinely thought we got along well and hoped to stay at hers next year but don’t think she’ll renew extend the contract now.

She’s just been horrible to me and I still stand by that I should be paying less rent because I don’t have access to all the amenities I used to but can see why she’s upset. So AITA?

He destroyed her expensive board game. No, he should not get a reduction in rent. If anything, she should slightly increase his rent until the board game is paid for. Then maybe she could unlock the game room door.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Exactly!

This is what he should do.

He needs to pay her for the game.

Everyone thinks he messed up.

If he pays her back, their relationship might recover.

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.