I (25F) live in a house with three other girls, and we're all around the same age. We generally get along well. We all work and go to school, just trying to survive this economy.  One of the girls, whom I’ll call Emily, has a boyfriend who is addicted to video games. One of the house rules was no overnight guests, but Emily doesn’t seem to care. She wants him over all the time. He practically lives here, eats our food, and spends more time in the house than I or the other girls do. No one has really said anything about it yet. I’m not sure what he does for a living, but he claims to be an entrepreneur, while Emily seems to be the one paying for most of their dates and trips. She complains about it to us often, saying he never pays for anything.

To provide some context, I’m an artist. For years, I’ve been buying art supplies and saving them, building my own little collection. I had about 20 gallery-wrapped canvases, which are much more expensive, along with a lot of acrylic paint and other materials that took me years to gather. The owner of the house allowed me to have a small space in the attic to paint and store my easel and art supplies. Everyone in the house knows that this is my space, and I pay a little extra to have it.

Recently, I’ve been painting more frequently to build a portfolio and start selling my art. As a result, the space got a little messy, but I had no time to clean up because I was painting every day. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working extra hours to save for a medical procedure. I’ve been working about 15 hours a day and just went straight to my room to sleep, not having the energy or time to paint until yesterday.

When I woke up early yesterday and went upstairs, I found ALL of my art supplies gone. In their place were a gaming computer, a TV, and a PS5 (I think, since I’m not into gaming). I freaked out. I was so confused. I went downstairs to ask everyone what happened, and one of the girls said she saw Emily’s boyfriend moving all my stuff to the trash on Thursday. They thought I knew because I hadn’t said anything. I woke Emily up and asked her about it, but she got mad for waking her up and refused to answer.

I was furious. I had lost all the art materials I had worked so hard to afford—materials I was going to use to pay for my treatment. It was all gone. I called the owner of the house, who came over within 30 minutes, and she was just as confused as I was. Emily’s boyfriend came over shortly after, using his own key to the house. The owner was livid. She confronted him, and he said he just cleaned the area because it looked dirty. When asked about my stuff, he claimed he threw it away, and it was no longer recoverable because trash pick-up was that Friday morning. I started crying. The owner told Emily she needed to replace everything or find a new place to live by the end of the month.

A few hours later, Emily returned with two packs of five canvases from Five Below and some paint. I started crying again because this was nowhere near the quality of the supplies I had lost. She told me I was being ungrateful, claiming she had done all she could and didn’t have the money to replace everything. I called the owner to update her, and she suggested I call the police for destruction of property or consider suing them to get at least some of my belongings back. However, the owner decided to give Emily until the end of the month to move out because her actions violated the house rules.

Since then, Emily and the other girls have said that I’m a terrible person for getting her kicked out over art supplies. They say I’ll eventually be able to buy everything back little by little and that it’s just a hobby, not like I was selling anything anyway. They also said my art “sucks” and doubted I would be selling anything. They told me that we all have our little hobbies, but I shouldn’t let it affect someone else’s livelihood. No one is talking to me anymore, and when I walk into the room where they are, they walk away. I feel conflicted. Should I apologize and ask the owner not to kick Emily out?  Part of me is still angry because I feel they held me back from all the work I had put in, and everything went to waste. I also found out that Emily wanted her boyfriend closer because she found out he was cheating on her, so maybe this was her way of making sure he wouldn’t do it again.

Anyway, I would really appreciate your honest opinion on this situation.

Apologize for the grammar, I haven't slept in days.