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There’s an old saying that goes, ‘nothing in life is free.’ And it’s true, especially in our modern world where even things that used to be free or low-cost now come on subscription-based models, so that most of your wages have gone before they’ve even hit your bank account. In this cost of living crisis, everything seems to cost more and more, from rent and utilities to groceries – and that’s before you even think about vacations, day trips, or meals out.

The woman in this story lives with a roommate to cut costs, but things haven’t turned out quite the way that she expected. Because for months her roommate has been MIA, spending her life at her boyfriend’s house and not even bothering to return her roommate’s messages. But worst of all, she thinks that her lack of physical presence in the apartment is a good enough reason not to pay rent – even though all her belongings are still there.

Read on to find out what happened when the woman decided to take action.

AITA for donating my roommate’s family heirloom to goodwill?

I (22, female) have a roommate (24, female) who has always had issues contributing to the household, including buying things like toilet paper, dish soap, laundry detergent, etc. She also rarely does her dishes promptly or takes out the trash or other household chores, and struggles to pay utilities on time.

Sometimes I even have to hound her for the rent. I felt bad at first because clearly she wasn’t equipped to live alone, but I quickly got frustrated and became short with her. We were friends at first but not so much anymore after I’ve had to put up with her for this long.

Our year long lease ended and we have been living month to month since then. Eventually, she got a boyfriend.

He lives with his parents but that hasn’t stopped her from spending most of her time at their house. I started seeing her less and less.

And this is causing further problems between them.

A couple days into May I hadn’t seen her for maybe two weeks. I texted and called her to see when she was going to pay her share of rent (due on the 5th) but she basically ghosted me.

I got in contact with her mom and eventually my roommate reached out to say she’s staying with her boyfriend’s family “for now” and doesn’t think she should be expected to pay rent for somewhere she’s not staying. I kindly asked if that meant she would be moving out but she didn’t respond.

I paid rent myself, which was a huge unexpected expense. After that I decided I was done.

I texted her over the course of May and June asking her to move her stuff out but she didn’t respond to me. Her mom kept promising me that her daughter would take care of it, but she never once got back to me.

Eventually, she felt like she had no option but to take action.

After July started I recruited a couple friends to help me pack up the stuff in her room and donated most of it to Goodwill and the Salvation Army. I also asked the landlord to change the locks which he did.

The other evening she finally showed up and was mad that the locks had been changed. I told her she’s not living here and doesn’t pay rent so she has no reason to enter the apartment.

She got even more upset and said that she was never moving out, she was just staying with him for the time being. She told me the situation didn’t work out, so she planned to come back and live here again.

I told her that she was already off the lease and it’s my rental now.

But then, things got even worse.

She started crying and said she had nowhere else to go and I felt really bad. She asked if she could at least get some of her stuff, she needed some clean clothes and a shower.

I told her that because she never told me she was coming back or made plans to move her stuff out, I donated everything that was in her room unless it looked precious or expensive and stored the rest in her closet.

She completely freaked out and threatened to call the police on me. She was inconsolable.

She cried about how I even donated her dead grandmother’s wedding dress, which had been in a special box somewhere in her room. I apologised profusely because I did feel really bad, but it all could have been avoided if she had tried to communicate with me.

AITA?

Sure, it sucks that among the donated items was her grandma’s wedding dress.

But if she cared that much about her belongings, she shouldn’t have abandoned them for months in a place she wasn’t paying rent for.

The roommate gave her plenty of notice before she donated the items – she can’t have her cake and eat it too.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person agreed that she couldn’t expect the items to stay in an apartment she wasn’t paying for.

While others told the woman to stop apologising to her roommate for a problem she brought on herself.

Meanwhile, this Redditor explained how this works.

Sure, she wasn’t sleeping in the apartment, but this Redditor was right – all of her stuff was there, and you don’t get storage facilities for free. Instead, this young woman was saddled with the entirety of the rent because her roommate decided not to pay so that she could spend all her time and money on her boyfriend instead. And clearly that was a mistake, since she’s back and expecting to be able to act like nothing happened, all while her roommate foots the bill.

It’s not like she wasn’t given warning. The woman was communicating for months, trying to get hold of her roommate and warning the roommate’s mom plenty before she donated the belongings – and all of that came to nothing. So really, this woman is not at fault at all, because at the very least her roommate should have got in contact. Any kind of communication at all would have prevented this outcome, but instead this woman was saddled with her roommate’s belongings in a room she couldn’t find a new tenant for as a result – and why should she be footing the storage bill?