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Imagine living in a house with multiple roommates. If you had to share a bathroom with one of the roommates, would you jump at the chance to have your own bathroom if another bathroom became available?

In this story, one man is in this situation. He has to share a bathroom with one of his roommates, and he really dislikes it. When another roommate moves out, he decides to start using her old bathroom instead. But when the homeowner, who is also one of his roommates and his landlord, finds out, she’s really upset.

Now, he’s wondering if he actually did something wrong or if his landlord overreacted.

Keep reading for the whole story.

AITAH for not asking my landlord/roommate if I can use a now vacated ensuite?

I live in a house with Jane and Tom. Another roommate Beth moved out a few days ago. I also am moving out of the house in a few days.

Jane is the owner who has a bedroom, bathroom and office on the top floor. I share a Jack and Jill ensuite with Tom and Beth had an ensuite in her room, all on the ground floor.

Jane mentioned that she was not planning on relisting for Beth’s room, the day before I secured the lease on my new property and informed Jane I was moving out.

He really doesn’t like sharing a bathroom with Tom.

Part of the reason I am moving out is because of the difficulties with the shared ensuite, Tom takes long showers twice a day and there is also no soundproofing for either of us when taking #2s. I’ve recently had to go in the garden because of this.

So last night, after Beth left, I placed a hand towel and some soap in her now empty ensuite so I could use that bathroom over the next few days if the bathroom I share with Tom was occupied or I needed some privacy to go do my business. I was also going to clean it alongside the rest of my room/the shared bathroom before I moved out.

Jane goes into the ensuite this morning, takes the hand towel and soap out and starts yelling at me that ‘I shouldn’t be using that bathroom because it’s not included in my rent’ and ‘It was extremely rude for me not to ask her if I could use that bathroom.’

Here’s his reasoning about why he thinks he should be able to use the bathroom.

My perspective is that I pay market rent for this room, and contribute to power/water/internet.

My view is this is a shared house, where Jane happens to be the owner – but it’s not a boarding house where we should only have access to our rooms and the kitchen.

She herself said before I moved in that she doesn’t want it to feel like a boarding house.

He thinks she’s being unreasonable.

I said that I felt that she was being unreasonable for expecting people to not have access to a spare toilet when one was available, and that she needs to rethink her expectations of flatmates before they move in and make it clear that this she intends to run her house as a lodging situation, not as a house-share.

Part of the reason I didn’t ask her, is because she is incredibly controlling about the house and I feel like, as I am paying market rent (not discounted) then unoccupied spaces should be fair game for all of us to use in a reasonable manner, as opposed to exclusively belonging to her.

AITH for both using the bathroom and not asking her before I left soap and toilet paper in there?

Here’s how I thought it was going to go. I thought maybe OP would see if he could take over Beth’s room and bathroom so he no longer had to share a bathroom with Tom. Then maybe he wouldn’t even need to move out.

I definitely don’t think anything is wrong with wanting to use an empty bathroom, but it wouldn’t have hurt if he talked to Jane about it before putting his stuff in there.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks Jane overreacted.

Another person doesn’t think he did anything wrong.

But this person thinks he knows he messed up.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a couple who is sick and tired of their neighbor’s kids dumping trash on their patio.

And another person thinks he didn’t have the right to use that bathroom.

It’s probably a good thing that he’s moving out so he doesn’t have to share a bathroom with Tom or deal with Jane. Maybe it would’ve been different if he had talked to Jane about it before putting his stuff in the bathroom, but maybe not.

I hope he has his own bathroom at his next place.