Roommate misunderstandings get expensive when one person disappears and the other starts making permanent decisions.

One woman leaves for two months calling it a temporary break, then ignores every message asking whether she plans to return.

Her roommate eventually assumes she has moved out and completely redesigns the apartment around finally living there alone.

Let’s see how this colorful story unfolded.

AITA for redecorating my apartment while my roommate was away?

So my roommate was struggling with work stress and said she needed to get away for a while. She told me she was taking a “temporary break” from our living situation and going to stay with her sister across the country.

When I asked what she meant by temporary break, she said she needed space to figure things out and asked me to give her that.

After she left, I sent her a few messages checking if she made it there okay and asking how she was doing.

Radio silence.

She gave up on her roommate coming back.

I called once and left a voicemail asking if she was planning to come back at all.

Nothing.

I figured she’d basically moved out without telling me, and my coworkers agreed when I vented about it at lunch.

I was frustrated about being stuck with full rent, so my manager suggested I do something positive to reclaim the space and make it feel like mine again.

This sounds like a really refreshing makeover!

My roommate has severe light sensitivity and migraines, so we’d always kept the apartment really dim with heavy curtains and soft lighting. But since she’d apparently bailed on me, I decided to completely redecorate.

I painted the walls bright white, hung sheer curtains, added several large mirrors, and installed new overhead LED fixtures.

The place went from a cave to feeling like a sunny studio apartment.

Then the roommate finally texted.

Two months later, my roommate texted saying she was flying back next week and we needed to discuss “resuming our arrangement.”

I was confused and asked what arrangement she meant.

She said she was ready to move back in and had worked through her issues. She wanted to talk about getting a bigger place together.

I texted back asking what she was talking about since she’d moved out.

No response.

The next conversation happened in person.

Last week she showed up with her suitcases talking about how much personal growth she’d done and how excited she was about our future as roommates.

Then she walked into the living room and completely lost it.

She asked how I could redecorate everything when I know bright lights trigger her migraines.

I told her that since she’d moved out, I didn’t think her preferences mattered anymore.

They seem to disagree about the definition of moving out.

She said she never moved out.

I said abandoning me with no communication for two months was moving out.

She said she told me it was temporary and she was staying with family.

I said ignoring all my messages was abandoning the situation.

Her roommate left again.

We went in circles until she said she had to leave because the lighting was already giving her a headache.

I think she moved out and I had every right to redecorate my own place.

She thinks she was just taking a break and I deliberately made the apartment unlivable for her.

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Aita?

Hopefully the roommate has moved out for good this time. She sounds exhausting, and I’d much rather live in a sunny studio than a dark cave.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person has a lot of good quetions.

If she didn’t pay rent, they’re no longer roommates.

Here’s another vote for changing the locks.

The roommate messed up by not staying in touch.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who is thinking of alerting the city to their neighbor’s campers being lived-in while parked on the street.

Nobody thinks this roommate is still her roommate.

She returned expecting to resume the old arrangement, only to find the apartment transformed in ways that directly triggered her light sensitivity.

Both roommates were working from completely different assumptions, and the two months of silence did not help that situation.

A single “yes, I’m coming back” text could have saved everyone a lot of paint.