He Rented a Room to His Buddy at Below-Market Rent—Only for the Friend to Trash the House and Annex the Basement
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It’s quite likely that if you own your own sizeable home as a single person, that you’ll be interested in letting a bedroom out to someone as a way to recoup some of the costs of paying the mortgage and utilities. Because let’s be real, houses are expensive, maintaining them is expensive, and running them even more so. It’s tough enough on two incomes, but if you don’t have a partner who is paying half the bill, things can feel super pricey. And even though you have to sacrifice some of your independence, a roommate can help mitigate that.
So naturally the guy in this story decided to rent a room of his house out – and when a long-term friend was looking for a place to live, it was a no-brainer. But because he was such a good friend, he didn’t seek to make a profit out of him at all, giving the guy a great deal with low rent, and the pleasure of living together. But little did the homeowner know what a slob his friend was, and how eventually he’d be taking advantage of his friend’s generosity.
Read on to find out how.
AITA for telling my roommate he can’t turn my basement into his man cave?
I own a three bedroom, two bathroom house, and I have a roommate who I have been good friends with for years.
I charge him $475 per month, and he has his own room and bathroom and access to all common areas of the house whenever he wants.
That includes the basement, where I have one finished room that I decorated and set up with a futon, two couches, and an entertainment setup.
It’s used as a guest room for when we have people visit and also a social area if we have parties.
Let’s see how his roommate has started overstepping.
He is a gamer and spends all his time in his room and honestly his room is kind of trashed because he doesn’t clean it.
He just told me last night that he plans on moving his TV and Xbox into the basement room, and claims it is for my benefit in case he is too loud playing COD in his room when I’m trying to sleep.
I told him no because that is essentially making that social room his second bedroom.
I said he might as well pay me twice the rent if he plans on taking over another room, because I know how much time he spends on his Xbox and I don’t want that room to be his “man cave” or whatever.
Read on to find out how this guy is feeling about this.
For the rent I charge him, he is already getting a great deal that barely covers his share of the bills so I am not even getting much of a profit.
Not to mention I already end up cleaning up the basement room myself after he has people over because he doesn’t do it.
So am I wrong for refusing?
AITA?
Given the low amount of rent his friend is paying, he has no business making these demands.
He is a tenant living in this guy’s house. That means his stuff needs to stay in his room.
He can’t just take over another room of the house like this.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.
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This person thought his ‘friend’ was taking him for granted.
While others thought it was time to get rid.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an artist who made sure to leave the walls of her home blank and boring before moving out, even though they were covered with gorgeous murals before then.
Meanwhile, this Redditor thought his ‘friend’ seemed incredible immature.
His friend seemingly doesn’t understand what a great deal he’s got. His rent is super low for everything he’s getting out of the situation, and he gets to live with his buddy at the same time. And that buddy is working hard to ensure that the house is super nice for himself, his roommate, and their guests – all with little to no help from his roommate who is supposed to be a friend. Really, all the roommate does is make a mess, so why on earth would he want him to move his stuff into another room of the house? Doing so would just be accepting that the basement was going to become a massive mess too.
The roommate needs a big reality check. Because even though he seems to think he owns the place, this is not his house, it’s merely the place where he rents a room. And he needs to figure that out quick, otherwise he’s going to find that he doesn’t rent a room there any more either. Then, when he tries to rent somewhere else and it costs significantly more, he’s going to realise what a great friend this guy was to him – yes, even if he didn’t let him move his Xbox downstairs.
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