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Shared apartments stop feeling shared when one roommate’s hobby begins photosynthesizing across every available surface.

More than twenty plants now occupy the tables, shelves, windowsills, and even dictate whether anyone opens a window.

Thaaaat’s not very considerate…

Meanwhile, this young woman and her belongings keep getting moved while soil, clutter, and unilateral decorating decisions continue spreading.

Has this home officially become a greenhouse?

AITA for asking my roommate to stop propagating more plants because the apartment no longer feels shared?

I live in a three-bedroom apartment with two roommates. We just re-signed our lease for another year, partly because the market is competitive and partly because we all like the place. Over the past year, we’ve experienced minor tensions when it comes to cleaning standards, but nothing major.

One ongoing issue has been how changes to the common space are handled. My belongings have been rearranged or replaced multiple times without notice, such as when a baker’s table I liked was removed and replaced with a shelf. I’ve tried to be flexible and not make a fuss.

But one roommate’s plant collection has slowly taken over the living space. She started with about five or six plants in the living room, but now there are over twenty. Every table, shelf, and windowsill is packed. She’s even hanging plants from the closet doorknobs.

The plants take up too much space and cause messes.

They’re mostly propagations of the same two species, and the quantity has made it feel like there’s no room left for anyone else. I can’t even use the coffee table or watch TV without having to move plants.

It also affects how the apartment functions. She repots plants frequently, and dirt ends up on surfaces and windowsills, which she doesn’t try to clean thoroughly after. One sill is so coated that my attempts at cleaning it haven’t helped, and I’m worried we’ll be charged for it.

She’s also moved some of my plants, including one in a sentimental pot I’d previously said was important, to areas without sun. She insists we leave the blinds open at all times and says I can’t open the windows because it would damage her plants.

Fed up, she confronted her about it.

I finally snapped and told her we needed to stop adding more plants and actually talk about how we use the shared space. She was upset and said she just wanted the apartment to feel lived-in. I said I understood that, but it doesn’t feel like our apartment anymore; it feels like hers.

She responded that the space hadn’t really been decorated before, and I told her I’d be happy to help make it feel more like home, but I want to do that collaboratively and blend our styles. It’s not that our tastes are different; it’s that I haven’t been included in any of the decisions.

I wasn’t trying to be mean, and I get that plants bring her joy. However, I feel that there has been no real collaboration, and I’m constantly expected to adapt without any room for compromise.

AITA?

Yikes! It’s easy to see why she’s so frustrated, but snapping might not have been the right strategy.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit have to say about this situation.

As this person points out, she can buy grow lights for her bedroom.

Here’s someone who thinks the plants should go in her bedroom.

For this reader, the wrong move was relocating an established plant.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a landlord who took action after a resident refused to respect an assigned parking spot.

Yet another reader who thinks the plants should move to her bedroom.

OP was reasonable to demand a collaborative plan after the plants overtook common surfaces and limited how everyone used the apartment.

Her roommate could confine the hobby to agreed areas, clean properly, and ask before moving anyone else’s belongings.

Twenty plants entered the living room, and suddenly the lease came with a jungle clause.