Living with pets can be a really fulfilling experience, and is proven – in the right circumstances – to have a positive effect on your mental health.

But it goes without saying that pet ownership is a big commitment. As an owner, you are your pet’s whole world, they depend on you for everything.

The woman in this story knows this, which is why she has just one pet – a cat.

Her roommate, however, has four cats, and takes a very different approach to pet ownership.

Read on to find out how this is causing problems for them.

Roommate keeps leaving me responsible for her four cats.

I moved in with my best friend last year.

She has four cats: two long-haired and two short-haired. The long-haired ones have constant problems with hairballs and frequently throw up.

Last year, a couple months after I moved in, she told me she wouldn’t be renewing the lease because she and her girlfriend plan to move outside the US.

Since the move was still a year away, I helped find someone else to take over the lease when the time came. This new person agreed to stay on the couch and pay partial rent in the interim, and both my friend and I agreed.

But all is not going smoothly in this household.

Unfortunately, she has not been able to make any real movement on an international move and she’s been staying at her girlfriend’s place for three to four days at a time without any communication, leaving me stuck taking care of her cats.

She doesn’t often warn me before she does this, and so I end up as default caretaker to ensure her cats are taken care of.

She recently said that once the new roommate signs the lease, she’ll be at her girlfriend’s most of the time because her girlfriend’s lease runs through October—but her girlfriend’s roommates don’t want the cats there.

So she told me she’d just leave them with me for those few months because they’re “low maintenance” (they’re not, and they get major separation anxiety, vomit constantly, and once the new roommate has moved into the bedroom, they will be pretty much sequestered to the living room and kitchen, which is a very small space).

Yikes! Let’s see how the accidental cat sitter is feeling about this.

I feel really taken advantage of. She doesn’t want to board them because it’s expensive and she’s unemployed, but I never agreed to be a full-time caretaker for four extra cats.

She said she’d “come by about once a week to clean the litter box,” but that still leaves me with the daily responsibility for them. For context, I do have one cat of my own, but I chose to only have one because I knew that’s all I could handle.

When I expressed concern about her cats not having much space, she said that me and the new roommate would just need to get used to them howling – which seems both cruel to the cats and also completely unfair to me and the new roommate.

Am I overreacting in feeling taken advantage of? This person has been my friend for a decade but didn’t even ask if I’d be okay with this, just said that this was her plan. I feel like I am being cornered into being an unpaid full-time pet sitter with no option to say no.

This is totally unfair – not just for the friend who is being forced to take care of four additional cats, but for the cats themselves too.

They need grooming, love, feeding and attention, and their owner isn’t giving that to them. In fact, it seems like she’s not interested in their care at all.

Whatever plans she has for them when she moves abroad, she needs to enact right away.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person confirmed that she was right to be frustrated.

While others were suspicious of the roommate’s plans going forward.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought the cats deserved homes where they would be loved, not cast aside.

Pets are a lifelong commitment, and it’s important to know that however your life circumstances may change, they will be there regardless.

So it’s only appropriate to get a pet if you commit to this lifelong care – after all, you are taking on the responsibility for another living being, and that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

This woman’s roommate is being totally irresponsible – and the cats (and the woman she’s forced them on) are paying the price.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a cat-lover who said a friend couldn’t come over with their dog to keep the kitties comfortable.