Moving in with a good friend always seems like a great idea, but all too often it ends in disaster.

That is what happened in this story when she moved in with her best friend, who had never lived with other people before, and things quickly went downhill.

Her friend didn’t clean well, was often loud, and had guests over that got annoying. So, she was trying to ‘train’ her to be a better roommate, but that only seems to have increased the conflict.

Now she is thinking about ending the friendship and moving out, but isn’t sure if she is doing the right thing. Read through the full story and see what you think.

House full of screaming kids for 24 hours

I’m here to try and gain an idea if I’m overreacting or being unreasonable and would love some insight.

Shared living is a big adjustment for many people.

Me (25M) and my housemate (24F) moved into our small 2 bedroom apartment about 2 years ago. Before moving in we were best friends for almost 10 years, I had lived in sharehouses before, but this was her first ever sharehouse.

For the first year and a bit we lived together I pretty much had to try and gentle parent her, teaching her all the things about living in a share house; (keeping shared spaces cleaned, doing equal amounts of cleaning, how to use the washing machine, not being super loud ect).

Conflict can be very difficult.

I have a chronic illness and developed pretty bad anxiety and agoraphobia for the first chunk we lived here and pretty much spent most of my time at home.

Because of this, and because of my anxiety, I didn’t even really say anything to her about things she was doing that was upsetting me, I know that it’s my problem and I’m well aware that I was doing a disservice to both her and I by not speaking up when things were not working.

Dishes should be done daily. Not weekly.

When we first moved in, we both agreed that Sunday was our house cleaning day, I’d clean the bathroom and the loungeroom and vacuum the house and she would do the dishes (yes I know I was automatically doing more but she’s not very clean and not very good at doing those jobs).

A few months ago she just stoped doing the Sunday cleans? I let it go, because didn’t know what her situation was, but last Sunday I sent her a text asking when she was going to be home to help me clean, which she responded with a pretty rude message saying, and I quote; “I’ll be home soon! I’ve been doing dishes all the time and taking out the bins but I’m happy to help with other things too, just been cleaning slowly.”

Having visitors can be nice.

As you can imagine that kind of made me mad, and I’ve only just started saying when things are upsetting me, so I get that she’s probably thinking I’m switching up on her, but like? Come on… your chronically ill housemate shouldn’t be doing 95% of the housework.

So, this week she lets me know that her nieces are coming over (3M, 7F, 11F, 15F) on Saturday and staying the night, which I was fine with because last time they stayed over, it wrapped up pretty early and they were all gone by like 11am the next morning.

Kids can be loud, but this seems inconsiderate.

Have you know, our place is TINY, basically 3 bedrooms made into a house, with a kitchen and bathroom. This time the kids were all sleeping in the loungeroom, and they were up with her, playing video games until around 1:30am, screaming, slamming doors and using the air mattress vacuum pump.

We got a text from our neighbours, even though our apartment is soundproof, so you can imagine how loud it was for me. I sent her multiple texts and finally at 1:30 she saw them and tried to get everyone to stop screaming. (I took a clonidine at around 1:15 so I actually don’t know if they were up later screaming because I Michael Jacksoned myself).

There is nothing wrong with having guests over all day as long as she deals with the mess (and keeps them quiet).

This morning I shoot her a text saying “hey bae, what time do you think the girls will be heading home because I want to try and get the Sunday clean done before I had to leave at 2).

And she responds; “we’re all going to our uncles dinner at 7pm so they’re going to be here until about 6:30, but we will tidy the mess we made don’t worry.”

She is clearly trying to word her response carefully. But she is acting like she is in charge.

I’m going to send her a text saying:

“Hey bae, I don’t mind you having your nieces over, but I didn’t realise they’d be up screaming until 1:30am or staying most of today too, last time was fine but there was only 3 of them and it was a pretty chill night and most people were asleep by like midnight, but everyone was pretty loud this time with screaming and slamming doors and stuff pretty late.

Since we live in an apartment and the place is pretty small, it’s a bit much to have them all here for almost 24 hours, and I’m not sure if having that many kids over that late is okay with the neighbours either.

What does the roommate agreement say about guests?

I would’ve just appreciated a bit more consideration. I think maybe in the future the sleepovers should be at their house, just because a bunch of kids taking up the shared spaces for almost 24 hours just feels a bit slack and inconsiderate”.

Am I being unreasonable for:

Some of this is unreasonable and makes it seem like she is the boss of the situation. Other items, like being friends or moving out, are completely reasonable.

A) not really wanting to be friends with her anymore.
B) saying she can’t have her nieces stay over anymore and sending a message like that
C) wanting to move out as soon as our lease ends and cut ties with her.

Maybe she shouldn’t be treating her like she is 14 years old.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated because I feel like I’m going crazy with how often I have to speak to her like she’s 14 years old and I’m the parent 🙃

This is a difficult situation, and it seems like both parties are acting poorly. The roommate should be holding up her end of the cleaning, and she should be more considerate. This woman, however, acts like she has the final decision on things like guests, cleaning schedule, and more, which is not the case.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about the situation.

She does sound awful to live with.

This person says to end the friendship and the rental agreement.

These two are simply not compatible as roommates. It would be a shame to end the friendship over this as well, but it may be necessary.