Imagine living in an apartment with roommates, and a kitchen cabinet crashes to the floor with all of your dishes inside. If the landlord gave you a rent cut to make up for the price of replacing the broken dishes, would you split up the rent cut equally among the roommates, or would you think the person whose dishes got broken should get the entire rent cut?

In this story, one renter is in this exact situation, and the roommates disagree about what to do.

Keep reading for all the details.

AITA for using the $200 credit from my landlord to replace my broken dishes

Three weeks ago my kitchen cabinet fell off the wall (due to poor attachment by my landlord) and shattered all of the dishes inside—all of which were mine.

After asking my roommates and googling for a bit, I settled on asking my landlord for $200, as I lost more than a full set of dishes.

My landlord said he would take $200 off of our rent.

But the rent cut is causing an argument among the roommates.

My roommate Mark (fake name) saw this and got extremely excited about a rent cut because he has to pay his share of rent and utilities all by himself by working part time at a minimum wage job.

I tried to have a conversation with Mark about who was getting the $200, but he immediately talked over me and ended the conversation, asking “why are you the only one who gets a rent cut?”

I then asked my other roommates Julia and Tanner what they thought, and they both said it should go to whomever’s dishes they were.

Tanner claimed that after the dishes were bought if any money was leftover we could split it evenly. Mark strongly disagreed.

She tried to explain her point of view.

When rent was due, and I assertively told Mark he had to pay in full, as none of the dishes that broke were his.

He told me he “didn’t like my tone” and walked away from the conversation.

I approached him again a few hours later, and I apologized for my tone, and once again established that the money for the broken dishes wasn’t his.

But Mark didn’t listen.

He refused to listen, and told me that “we are all inconvenienced by not being able to use [my] dishes, so we should all get money for it.” He also told me that “I don’t understand how privileged I am that I don’t have to work every week to pay rent” (because my parents pay my share of rent) and that “I have no idea how important that money is.”

He eventually ended the conversation by playing video games and ignoring me, and has been giving me the silent treatment for the past four days.

All of my roommates agree with me, but none of them have said anything to him. AITA?

The landlord took $200 off the rent instead of giving OP $200 to buy new dishes. That rent cut is intended to allow OP to buy new dishes. End of story.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

The money is a credit not a rent cut.

Again, it’s a reimbursement not a rent cut.

The $200 was not intended for Mark.

Everyone agrees with OP.

The landlord could probably clarify if necessary.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.