There are a lot of bonuses to living in a community with shared facilities.

Not having to own and maintain your own washing machine, for example, can be a huge benefit – especially if you live in a small apartment.

But there is a trade-off for this convenience: having to vie with your neighbors for use of these.

So when the woman in this story got up early to do her laundry, she didn’t expect there to be an issue.

Unfortunately, the people she ran into made an issue where there really wasn’t one.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA For using a “reserved” washer in our apartment’s shared laundromat?

This morning I woke up early to launder my work uniform.

My boyfriend came over to take me out to have breakfast and asked him to wait until I do my laundry.

He agreed and said he would help carry my basket of clothes.

There are three laundromat rooms in my apartment complex, so we walked into the closest shared laundromat.

Let’s see how things were when they got to the laundromat.

There are two washing machines and three dryers on one side of the wall. On the opposite side there’s a long counter to fold clothes.

One of the washers had nine minutes left on it, and the other was not in use.

There was a small white trash bag sitting on the folding counter tucked in a corner, with what appeared to be clothes, not sure. The size looked to be about two to three t-shirts stuffed in there, and a small detergent.

I decided to use the empty washing machine to do my laundry.

But what happened next left this woman reeling.

As I am putting detergent in, my neighbor walks in and my boyfriend says good morning. She scuffs and I look up to see her staring me down hard. She looked angry and walked out.

I ignored it and was also about to walk out, but her husband walked in and started yelling at me.

I was in shock and didn’t quite process what was happening. All I heard was “Can’t you see we were doing laundry here, our bag is over there!” “You guys are so rude and disrespectful, we were here first!” And some other things I didn’t catch.

My boyfriend argued back and the guy backed off and asked us what apartment number we live in – I think he was insinuating how he was gonna report us to the office or something. I told him that where I live is none of his business and he stormed out.

Yikes! Let’s see what happened next.

We waited a little bit and then proceed to walk out as I didn’t want to be followed back to my unit. I have heard stories of a neighbor that complains to the complex all the time and even sued another neighbor.

I talked to my cousin about them and he explained how they do anything to get the neighbors they don’t like in trouble.

Should I have apologized and given them the washer and gone to next shared laundromat, since they “Reserved” with their clothes on the counter?

Their clothes were nowhere near the empty washer, but maybe I am naive and don’t get social clues or something.

AITA?

In shared facilities, ‘reserving’ things in this way is not a thing.

Sure, the washer that was already going with people’s belongings inside is reserved – it’s already being used. They would’ve been wrong to try to use that one.

But an empty washer, with nothing even nearby? That’s an empty washer that’s open for anyone to use.

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

This person agreed that there’s no way the machine was reserved.

While others thought the other couple were being entirely unreasonable.

Meanwhile, this Redditor encouraged her to turn the table on these serial complainers.

If you’re going to live in a community with shared facilities, you have to extend your neighbors a certain amount of courtesy.

Expecting them to read your mind is far beyond that – in fact, it’s wholly unreasonable.

They have nothing to complain about, and yet they’ve made her feel terrible.

They’re quite simply horrible people.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.