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As a young adult moving out of your parents’ home for the first time, there is undoubtedly a lot you need to learn. Because while some parents teach – and even expect – their kids to do the chores, there are plenty who don’t learn to cook, clean, or do laundry until they’re living as independent adults. And the mistakes you make while learning to get these things right can be quite an education in themselves – anyone who has turned a machine of white laundry into pink or grey laundry will know that quite well.

The guys in this story are both soldiers in the army, and are rooming together in the barracks. They live in close quarters with very little privacy, meaning that understandably they get on one another’s nerves every once in a while. But the worst part is that they have very different standards for cleanliness and courtesy, and it’s starting to really divide them.

Read on to find out why.

AITA with my nightmare roommate?

So I’m in the US Army and share a barracks room with another soldier, this soldier will be named “Will” (not real name).

For context the room is combined, so we share the same everything basically, no walls between us, no doors, nothing.

Will is a messy person. He’ll often stack trash on top of a full can instead of taking it out, or just leave it on the side of the can and rarely takes out the trash.

He doesn’t clean up after leaving crumbs or powder on the counter, he leaves the fridge open, he leaves his bowls in the sink for ages, and his dresser is constantly open because he simply throws his clothes in there and doesn’t fold and close it.

But there was a lot more to Will’s status as a terrible roommate.

He doesn’t use a hamper, just makes a pile of nasty clothes, and he snores extremely loud every night (not his fault he’s sleeping, I know).

He talks very loudly to the point every conversation is picked up by my mic which barely picks up my own voice at times even with it right next to my face.

And the worst I’ve seen him do is shaving his “nether regions” in the shower and leaving the hair everywhere.

I have asked him time and time again to “clean the shower after”, “use your hamper”, “ensure the fridge closes”, etc.

And now, things are getting even worse.

Recently he’s gotten a girlfriend. He brought her here to the open room once before and I just left and went to the gym to give them privacy.

But he brought her here again tonight and I’d had a long day so I was in bed with headphones trying to sleep – I had succeeded in doing so and maybe fifteen mins after I fell asleep he wakes me up and asked if he could have the room for 30mins.

I agreed because I don’t wanna be an *******. I grabbed my keys and went out to get something to eat and something for lunch for the next day even though it was around 10pm.

I get my stuff and returned thirty minutes later but I hadn’t gotten a text from him yet, so I texted him “?” to ask if he was done – I then decided to eat in my car and pass the time with TikTok and YouTube.

But this was the longest thirty minutes of this guy’s life.

I finished eating and finished my YouTube video and now it was about 11pm – well past the thirty minutes agreed upon time. I sent him another text and continued to play on my phone.

About another twenty minutes later I called him and he declined the call. I got up out of my car and threw my trash away and then walk to the room and knocked loudly.

He answered the door with no shirt on, buttoning his pants, and said “oh hey man, yeah you’re good”.

I don’t say a word but simply walked in and grabbed my dirty laundry and slammed the door hard on my way out.

And this is leaving this guy in a really tricky place.

I started my laundry and walked back in and turned off all the lights and hopped into bed. He turned one of the lights back on and then they left after about ten minutes.

I don’t want to be known as a bad roommate, but I’m at my breaking point and can’t stand this guy anymore. I’m trying to be a good roommate but I can’t keep cleaning up after this child of a soldier roommate.

I want to try and talk to him about it, but he’s so stupid and brain dead it seems like anything I say to him gets muted in his brain. Am I wrong for potentially ruining his moment? Maybe just trying to be too nice?

AITA?

Given the close quarters they’re living in, these two roommates need to both be respectful of one another, and give each other some grace every once in a while.

But that can’t be one sided, and currently it is.

He’s letting everything slide while his roommate is living like a slob – and behaving really inconsiderately as well.

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

This person thought the roommate’s behaviour was really immature.

While others thought he should see if he could move rooms.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who documented times of noise spikes and turned their neighbor into a model tenant.

Meanwhile, this Redditor came up with a possible interim solution.

These two are living in such close confines that they really need to reach some agreements. And honestly, some quality communication is the only way to achieve this. Both of them need to feel heard, and they both need to make some concessions for one another. Because it’s clear that in many areas of their lifestyles, these two guys are a real mismatch. Neither of them means anything bad by it, they’re just very different people. But that doesn’t mean things can go on like this.

They need to come to some agreement about the cleanliness of their room, as well as how long and how often they grant one another some alone time. And ideally, this won’t happen after a certain time, or at a moment’s notice, either. They need to agree on how the chores will be divided, and then stick to that. Because otherwise, they are going to start resenting one another – and that will make for a really horrible roommate situation.