Letting your best friend stay at your place is one thing, but finding out they’ve been shopping your closet is another.

What started as a casual favor slowly unraveled into something way messier: Missing items. “Borrowed” pieces. And then…a full bag of clothes she didn’t even know were gone.

At that point, it wasn’t about leggings anymore, it was about trust. Read on for the story.

AITA for sending this text after my friend returned clothing she took from my apartment?

my best friend of 10 years, we’ll call her Lucy, has been cat sitting for my husband and me for around year and a half. we pay her and let her / her partner stay in our apartment. most recently, she stayed for 2 weeks.

additional context: while she was there I left her 3 bags of clothes to keep which we talked about beforehand. these bags had the same type of clothing she later returned (pants, tops, pjs, etc.) so she had plenty she was welcome to take.

2 weeks after getting back from vacation, when Lucy and I were hanging out, she mentioned she had borrowed my Alo sweatpants while staying over and needed to return them. I didn’t know she had taken them, and she wouldn’t have known this, but they were a gift I’d only worn once.

Um, is she going to give them back?

A few days later I asked to get the sweatpants back and a pair of lulu leggings I knew she had from a few months earlier.

when I got the clothes back another 2 weeks later, she brought out a huge bag of clothes, far more than I knew she had. some things were missing since last summer, some were new and never washed/worn, some were sentimental/vintage.

they were clearly from multiple drawers and cabinets in my bedroom and closet, not things I willingly lent her.

Wowwww.

since I also had left the 3 donate bags, I worried everything had gotten mixed together and it would be a guessing game to figure out what’s mine.

she apologized and told me to let her know if I could think of anything else I’m missing.

over the next few weeks I asked about some specific items, including pants that went missing around the first time she cat sat (she had those too). she said next time i’m over I can look through her closet to see if she missed anything. at this point I had been trying to get my stuff back for around 6 weeks.

That’s a little much/

this was the message i sent: “i need to be honest about how serious this feels to me it doesn’t sit right that i would have to come search through your closet to figure out what of mine you took.

over the past year and a half, you went through multiple drawers and cabinets in my home and took so many items without ever asking or telling me. some of these were things i had never worn/washed. some were gifts. some were sentimental or vintage and irreplaceable.

i’ve also spent time thinking i lost certain items at yoga or in my building’s laundry, never once imagining that my friend, someone i trusted in my home, had taken them from me

Right on.

Continued: “i need the rest of my belongings returned. if you’re unsure if something is mine, send me a picture and I can let you know.

i just need space to process everything because i didn’t expect this at all while you were staying here.

i am at a complete loss because i never thought you would be someone to violate my privacy in such a big way.”

*Cue slow clap.*

she apologized and has since returned more items. the total is now around 25 pieces of clothing.

AITA for sending that message?

Im worried that I should have worded it more nicely and that my directness could make me the A in this situation.

Most people on Reddit agreed that after months of trying to politely recover her items, a direct message was not only justified but necessary.

This person says the friend took full advantage and that wasn’t right.

This person says that’s SUPER inappropriate.

And this person says this is a total violation and not okay.

At some point it stops being borrowing, and starts looking a lot like a free closet with no return policy.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.