She Returned Home to Rotting Food in the Sink and $700 Missing from Her Drawer—So She Called the Police and the Landlord at the Same Time
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When you’re living with roommates – especially if they’re strangers – there’s a whole set of unspoken rules that it’s best to abide by. These are alongside the boundaries that you and your roommates put in place, because really they’re basic human decency.
Firstly, clean up after yourself. Whether that’s keeping the bathroom in a hygienic state, washing your dishes, or wiping down that big mess you just made in the kitchen, cleaning up your own messes is respectful and one of the basic things you can do to keep on good terms with the folk you live with.
Second, don’t take stuff that isn’t yours. This means don’t use their utensils and appliances without asking, and certainly don’t be stealing their food, their toiletries, or their clothes. Sure, you can borrow things with permission – but even then you should be making sure to return their things promptly, with sincere gratitude.
And generally, be respectful. Parties and socialising are fair parts of living together, but these should be agreed in advance, with enough warning that your roommates can find somewhere else to be if they don’t want to be around. But yeah, don’t be yelling and slamming doors in the night, and generally give them the respect that you’d like to receive.
The roommate of the sister and brother in this story though? He does not seem to have got the memo about all this.
Read on to find out why.
Am I overreacting by cutting my roommate’s WiFi?
So I (21, female) live with my brother (24, male) and roommate (23, male). My brother – lets call him Bryce for the story – and I recently went on a weeklong trip to see family, leaving our roommate (Monte, fake name) home alone.
On the last day of my trip I got a notification about my card being used for the electric. All the utilities, electric and wifi were in my name but we rotated who paid and it was not my turn so I was confused.
I texted Monte to which I got no response.
I returned home a day before Bryce and when I opened the door I was immediately hit by a smell. A short investigation led to the pile of dirty dishes in the sink complete with soaking food in them. This was a regular occurrence for Monte to leave dishes in the sink but it had never produced such a smell before.
Yikes. Let’s see what happened when she confronted Monte.
When I texted Monte about it the conversation went something like this: “I just got home and the house smells awful,” to which he replied, “Well it wasn’t me so idk what to tell you.”
I said, “No one else has been here the past few days,” and he replied, “Well theres no soap or dish washer tablets.”
I told him, “There is a little soap in there also I didn’t appreciate you using my card for electric without asking. you still haven’t made plans to pay me back from when I paid your half of rent and wifi, so I’m cutting the wifi for your devices.”
He said, “You know thats not enough soap,” and I said, “So you cant go to the store?”
Then she decided to go along with her intention to cut his wifi.
He was not apologetic or remorseful so I cut off his devices right after I said I was going to, but he wasn’t home yet so I guess he didn’t believe me. When he got home later that night, I was out with my girlfriend and Monte started blowing up my phone with messages and calls.
He said, “Did you disconnect my playstation? You’re weird af, whats the point of wifi if you can’t use it?”
He went back and forth with me for a while but I still kept it off because he hadn’t payed his share of it and was now refusing to pay unless he was reconnected.
I tried to tell him how I felt like he was taking advantage of me because he knew I saved a lot of money so I could afford to pay his share if necessary, but he told me that he wasn’t taking advantage of me and that I was being dramatic.
But that wasn’t the end of Monte’s bad roommate etiquette.
I stood my ground and for the next few days he started to do petty things.
He would randomly unplug the wifi especially at night when he knew I was home. So in return I locked up all the dishes, pots and pans since they didn’t belong to him and he obviously had no intention of cleaning them.
He was mad and I didn’t care and now he’s telling me I’m trying to push him out and how he knew me and my brother would try to do this.
I just want my money back and if anyone was curious he owes upwards of $700. So am I overreacting by cutting my roommate’s wifi?
If it was Monte’s turn to pay for the WiFi, there’s no way that he should just be putting it on his roommate’s card – that’s actually theft and she’s being relatively cool about it.
If he wants to be a child about it then by all means carry on, but expect to find yourself somewhere to live.
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Otherwise apologise and pay back the money, then try to be a little more mature going forward.
Let’s see how folks on Reddit reacted to this.
This person thought that everything she was doing was right.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a home buyer who was surprised to learn his neighbors were upset about him removing a fence.
While others thought that it was important she takes further action.
Meanwhile, this Redditor believed that her actions were a bit much.
The truth is, her roommate committed credit card fraud, stole her money, and left the house in a disgusting state when this woman and her brother weren’t home. After all this chaos happened during one short trip away during which he was home alone, how will they be able to trust him again? It’s ridiculous that he’s being so defensive about it too, as if he’d done nothing wrong – if you’re going to live with other humans, behaviour like this is never acceptable.
And sure, he might not love having his wifi cut off – but if he just reimbursed her, apologised, and tried a little harder to be a better roommate in future, all of this drama could be avoided. As it is, he’s putting himself in a really tough situation – people on the internet are encouraging her to take him to small claims court and push for his eviction. If she does, surely she’ll win, and he’s going to be left in a much worse state, something that he brought upon himself.
Would it kill him to just apologise?
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