Are we the bad roommates? Me and my sister have been roommates with our friend for about 7 weeks. We are all adults and uni students at the same university staying in the uni halls. Recently it’s the second time we have had tension or like a feud ? We really want to know if we truly did do something wrong or if we’re bad roommates because we feel guilty for feeling unwelcome in our own home.

When we were first living together everything was ok. She was eating our food but we didn’t say anything. I mean she also shared some of her food and we shared ours as well when we cooked meals together. But we never ate more food of hers other than the stuff she let us use to cook together. She did not let us know before hand that we were supposed to cook together we just accepted it since she shared some of her food as well. We were a bit annoyed we were the only ones planning what we would eat and one of the meals we did make she contributed no food to. She did not ask us if it was ok to eat our eggs, noodles, and bread but we didn’t say anything. She eventually stopped that week and bought her own things so then we were like ok it was just for that first week. She did leave her dishes in the sink and my sister washed them when she saw them in the morning because she just wanted to make breakfast. I told her not to wash them but she probably needed the sink and dishes used. So we were just living together peacefully for a few weeks until she blew up at me.

She blew up at me while I was having lunch in the common area. She did the rubbish angrily like stomping and shit. And then had a go at me saying “that’s the third time I’ve done rubbish this week just so you know cause apparently I don’t do anything around here.” I just didn’t say anything back, she made a drink went to her room and slammed the door. I didn’t say anything or just ignored her because I was a bit shocked but also dumbfounded? Keep in mind this was the first week she ever did rubbish and we would know if she had before because we only saw the bins empty when we did the rubbish. I’m also not sure if she actually did the rubbish three times that week but even if she did we did the rubbish the same amount of times that week and every week. I just also didn’t understand why she was angry she had to do rubbish? Like I understand if she felt that she was the only one doing it but did she just not notice when we did it? Did she think the bins emptied themselves? Btw at this time we had a tiny rubbish bin which explains why we had to take the rubbish out multiple times. I mean at the time I did feel bad and that we must’ve done something wrong. But the more I thought about it the more I thought what she did was just shitty. I mean did she want a cookie for taking the rubbish out? But I also want to know was she valid for doing that? We didn’t even blow up at her for not doing the rubbish.

Well I still felt bad the next day and thought we should talk so I messaged her letting her know that we’re sorry and want to be honest and talk about what happened. So I scheduled a flat meeting for that night. In the meeting we let her tell us what had been bothering her especially cause when people blow up like that it’s usually because of a build up of things. She said she felt threatened by us and that she wanted to move and was asking what other rooms were available. She didn’t move because she didn’t want to pay the fee. We know she could afford it because she liked telling us how much money she had in the bank. But either way she chose not to move but she felt threatened.

Keep in mind the day before this meeting my sister had a seizure and I stayed at the hospital with her till 6 in the morning the day of the flat meeting. My sister and I felt bad the whole time at the hospital and talked it out. We both felt bad and I said I would message her about having a meeting. So if we didn’t use this chance to express our concerns or question her problems it’s because we were still a bit slow because 1) I only got two hours of sleep at the hospital so I literally had just gotten sleep when I came home that morning. 2) My sister was also very slow because she JUST had a seizure 3) we were the ones that felt bad so when she was expressing her feelings and concerns we thought we were the bad roommates and the things we complained about her to each other was us just being mean.

Why did she feel threatened?

1)she thought we were telling her to wash the tea towels because we had taken them out of the washing basket and put them in a pile. She realised she was wrong because we pulled them out so that we could wash them with our clothes.

2)she was angry about doing rubbish because she didn’t realise we were doing it as well.

3)we left our dishes to dry on the rack after we made dinner a couple times. She said it was annoying because she didn’t have space to chop vegetables. We said sorry for this and stopped doing it. We understood how that might be annoying. However, we later realised she did the same thing and we just put her dishes away since they were dry. I mean I remember the rack always being pulled out so everyone could put their dishes on to dry during the day. Me and my sister would just put the dishes away once they were dry or if we had to use the kitchen space. We only realised this after our meeting but it was ok since everyone just did their own dishes by now. We were just a bit confused as to why it was ok for her to do that but not us?

Anyway these were the reasons she felt threatened and wanted to move out. After hearing her concerns we apologised and said it would be good if we could just communicate these things so people don’t blow up like she did. She agreed and that was that.

Until the next month she went weird again. We realised and recognised from last time that she acts a certain way when she isn’t happy and probably mad at us. She shuts herself away locking her door while she’s in her room. She doesn’t use the common area if we’re in it and only comes out to use the bathroom. She was acting like this again and we knew something was off. At first we were worried because she also hadn’t been going to class so we thought there must be something wrong or going on. Again just before she started acting like this she would talk to us and use the kitchen if we were in there. But it almost felt like she was acting like we didn’t exist.

Anyway this day we noticed something was up and it was either the same day or the next day that we went and did our groceries. And when we got home She was sitting on the couch and didn’t look happy. She didn’t even say hi and just said “there’s egg and onion in the sink. It’s been there for two days. Whos is it just wondering. Just wondering. My friend is coming over by the way” so my sister just rinsed the two crumbs down the sink. I felt bad it annoyed her but also knew that probably wasn’t it. That she was blowing up at us for a list of things. Me and my sister felt really bad and like we were horrible roommates. But then I was talking to my sister and asked why she couldn’t rinse the two crumbs down the sink (it was just a little piece of eggshell and two pieces of onion) when we have no problem rinsing crumbs down the sink even when we know it’s not our food because it takes zero effort to turn a tap on. We also thought it was unfair for her to be pissy about crumbs in the sink but leave crumbs on the couch, floor, and coffee table which we vacuum and wipe everyday. I mean I know we told her to communicate any problems she had but she can’t even tell us what’s wrong or even say hi to us before letting us know about crumbs in the sink.

So that just made us feel shitty and paranoid about leaving any mess. So we tried to be even more clean when we used the common areas. And trust me we did not leave a mess after we used the kitchen or bathroom before she got shitty about two crumbs. So now we made sure we left no crumbs and vacuumed any she left just so we don’t piss her off or blame us for her mess.

Also my sister had communicated with her to let us know in advance if she’s having guests over because we would like to know who’s in our house but also let her know if we’re doing anything or don’t want people over for whatever reason. Yet when she told us in advance her friend literally knocked on the door 10secs later. Which btw I got up and opened the door for them because she couldn’t be bothered. But that was ok because I guess they didn’t want to be in the house when we’re there and left.

This just pissed us off but we also felt bad because she didn’t even want to talk to us or acknowledge we exist unless it’s about two crumbs in the sink. Since we didn’t feel welcome in our home and thought that maybe some space between us would be good because we were honestly starting to get a bit sick of her my sister contacted her counsellor who contacted the halls manager who let us stay in an empty apartment or a respite room until we could solve the issue. We felt grateful and very lucky that the uni had this available.

The next day in the afternoon we went home after being at school all day (we stayed at school all day to avoid her or just make sure we couldn’t do anything to annoy her) to collect some things. We also decided to move OUR stuff around since we thought maybe she was annoyed that our things took up space? Btw she used that stuff too. That was ok because we were fine sharing things. She let us use her pan when we cook butter chicken, she bought the rubbish bin and bags, and some of the cleaning products were hers (I think spray and scrub daddies and jif). Anyways we weren’t going to be staying in our apartment that night. We had put some of our things in our room like our mirror, dehumidifier, fan, air fryer, pressure cooker, and separated our stuff like tea towels from hers. We also put our salt and pepper in our shelf. This probably seemed petty? But we also didn’t know what we did wrong. We had moved our things because we realised they took a lot of room. We also didn’t mind if she used our things but she never asked she just used our things because she assumed she could. We didn’t mind sharing because we grew up sharing everything. And I mean she did share a few of her things. We also had to take some things that were ours from the apartment because the respite room was empty. We took our hand soap and our vacuum (the room was pretty dirty). Btw she was allowed to use this stuff too. We took one roll of toilet paper because there was also no toilet paper in the room. This was hers as her mum had done her groceries the week before. I told my sister we could just go to a convenience store across the road and get a four pack of toilet paper. She said it was fine because it was just one roll and we had bought the toilet paper every week except that one (only because her mum did her shopping).

We cleaned the whole apartment to make sure we didn’t leave any crumbs even if they were hers so she wouldn’t get pissed off or blame us for her mess. My sister cleaned the bathroom which had just been cleaned by me a few days prior. She had found pubic hairs not rinsed down the drain. She just rinsed them down but she knew they couldn’t be ours because they were next to her razor and on her shelf. I vacuumed the common area floor as there were some crumbs from us the night before when we made dinner. I also vacuumed the crumbs on the floor by the couch and on the couch. I know these crumbs were hers because me and my sister never sit and eat on the couch. We have done it maybe once a few weeks ago because we were eating apples. Anyways I know they weren’t ours. I wiped every surface and realised there were some butter chicken splatters on the wall. They were small but we must have missed them because the light on the kitchen fan wasn’t working so it was pretty dark. I also wiped any other crumbs that were probably hers. I wiped the kettle, the hob, the walls, even the dust at the bottom. I couldn’t tell what she was mad about so I just made sure anything we could’ve done was fixed. After cleaning the whole apartment we brought some things down to the respite room. We had to go back up to get that one roll of toilet paper and when we were waiting for the elevator the doors opened and we saw her and her boyfriend inside. She just froze and looked a bit shocked and said “oh, fuck” to us. She didn’t say hi and neither did her bf. They just rushed past to the apartment. That made us feel even more like shit and that we must’ve done something but she won’t tell us. We also know her boyfriend and have had some good conversations and hung out with him. She was there of course. Yet he didn’t want to say hi to us either. Me and my sister definitely didn’t want to say hi after she did that either so we just went on our way to the respite room.

Later that night she messaged the gc and asked us if we’re all good. I read it but didn’t know what to say. I just left it on read. This I felt bad about and knew I should’ve said something even if I just said we were ok. She messaged again about an hour later asking why we moved our tea towels and that we took some of her ones and to give them back if we’re not going to talk to her. She was also asking what she did wrong and she honestly didn’t know what she did. I replied to those messages and said that we didn’t know they were hers (we have the same tea towels) and that she can take her ones and that I’m sorry. She messaged a couple more times asking why we even moved our tea towels and what’s going on. I saw these messages but fell asleep not long after as I was pretty exhausted. (My sister and I had been waking up at 5am to get ready and go to school for study break and stay there all day as to not annoy her). But the next morning I replied telling her we were moving things around because they took too much space and we took things because we weren’t staying there. She hadn’t seen these messages all day or maybe she was purposely ignoring us?

Anyway we got ready and left to go and see my sister’s counsellor. We wanted to talk to her because we wanted to know if we had done anything wrong and if she was in the right to act the way she was. Her counsellor basically said we aren’t bad people she was just raised differently and isn’t used to sharing her space with other people. And that she’s probably used to getting her way because she’s an only child. This made us feel a bit better but not completely. Throughout this whole thing we always felt guilty for something we didn’t even know we did. Anyways her counsellor sent us on our way to the halls manager.

We met with the halls manager and told her we just wanted to move because it obviously wasn’t working out. We didn’t say anything that she had done to us except that I mentioned how she doesn’t flush the toilet some times but that was probably immature and out of pocket. We also told her how her boyfriend was supposed to stay the whole break which also made us uncomfortable. The halls manager looked shocked when we said that probably because guests are only allowed to stay two nights. Those are the rules for the uni halls. She had warned us in advance about her bf coming over but we felt like we had no choice but to accept that because he had already booked the flights and she said he can stay the whole break because he would have nowhere else to go. At this time we were gonna help her with the whole two night rule because we were still trying to be nice to her. But we also felt we had to help because we felt guilty if he had nowhere to go.

Before I move onto the last part where she finally told us what her problem was when the halls manager made us all meet together and have an adult conversation I want to list all the things we tolerated while living with her. We probably should have just confronted her but we don’t like confrontation especially when we know how she gets. We also probably have a better tolerance with living with others because we have grown up with siblings and other family staying over. And sometimes the house was so full we would sleep in tents. We grew with family having parties all night and sharing literally everything with others. So some things we can handle but that doesn’t mean we should have to. Anyways here’s the list of the shit we put up with

1. Eating all our food and relying on us to make meal plans(first week)
2. She also waited for us to do our washing so she could put hers in with ours and hang her things on our washing line(first week)
3. Left her dishes out and egg shells overnight (my sister cleaned it up so she could use the kitchen)
4. Never took the rubbish out it was always up to us and if she did it was only if she had a friend over and wanted to pretend like she was doing something or one time she did it when it wasn’t even full because her bf was coming over and also missed the scraps
5. Stay up all night on call with people usually her boyfriend which we can hear clearly because our room walls are paper thin. She also knows she was being loud because she would make jokes about it
6. Would have guests over quite often without telling us. They would drink and play loud music or just be loud in general late at night
7. My sister told me one time when she was hanging with her friends in the lounge she purposely turned her music all the way up because she knew I was in my room and that would annoy me
8. She leaves crumbs everywhere she eats and we always clean it up
9. She left pubes in the shower which my sister cleaned
10. Her guests acted like we didn’t exist and wouldn’t say hi to us in our own home or just not even look at us and go to her room but apparently we’re the rude ones for not greeting her guests?
11. She would leave hair in the hair catcher even though apparently her hair doesn’t fall out. We know it’s hers because we all have different hair and also me and my sister put our hair in the bin
12. She’s just a big hypocrite because she can get shitty at us for two crumbs in the sink but she leaves hers all over the coffee table and couch and on the ground and we clean it
13. We have a chore chart where we basically rotate doing a deep clean of the bathroom once a week. When it was her turn one week she left it till 2 in the morning keep in mind we had an inspection the day after it was her turn to clean the bathroom. My sister ended up cleaning it way before her that day because she was worried our roommate wouldn’t clean the bathroom and we may have gotten a bad score.
14. So basically me and my sister were the reason we even won the inspection competition and got a $100 prezzy card since that morning we also cleaned the common area. However for some reason she thought it was ok to keep the prezzy card in her room and tried to insinuate that me and my sister should get half because we already share shit. However she stopped herself cause obviously that’s a bit shitty.
15. She leaves shit stains in the toilet which me and my sister clean. And of course sometimes she doesn’t even flush.
16. She is also just generally not that considerate of other neighbours and on one of our first days staying here she was playing really loud music. I didn’t really have a problem but also thought that the neighbours might be able to hear it too. So I went into the lounge and asked if it was too loud. She turned it down a bit I guess but this was also probably a reason she wanted to purposely annoy me and turn her music up that one time.
17. Basically we just felt like we were tolerating a lot and were even cleaning up after her which to us felt unfair but are we allowed to feel that way or are we bad roommates ?
18. She also one time only did her recycling instead of all the rubbish. Like you’re already going downstairs to the rubbish bins why can’t you take it all? And of course we ended up doing the rest of the rubbish.
19. She also thought it was okay to move all OUR things around like our food. Which we felt was unfair because she was able to choose how much space we got and where we could put our food. We barely had space in the freezer. We only got the back half of the bottom section. She got the front half, the top shelf, all the freezer door(we could fit two bananas) and she also got most of the fridge space. She got the top shelf, middle shelf(the biggest), top half of the fridge door(which turned into most of it and we could only fit milk), and the bottom shelf on the fridge door. We got the bottom drawer, the middle shelf in the fridge door (the smallest) and the smallest shelf and half of another shelf. Keep in mind she has food for ONE person. Me and my sister are TWO people and buy for TWO people. Most of our things ended up shoved in that bottom drawer because our food couldn’t fit on the small shelves.

In our adult conversation that the halls manager witnessed she finally told us what her problem was. She said 1)we didn’t communicate enough 2) we kept her up because we used the bathroom at night 3) we didn’t greet her guests

She said we didn’t communicate properly because we would text her instead of having a face to face conversation. We didn’t really understand this because we have communicated with her face to face about things like if it’s okay that a family member is coming over in a couple months or if she could let us know when she has guests. We would text her most of the time though because we weren’t all home at the same time and some things would be really small and we didn’t think that need a full on face to face conversation. She also never told us she preferred face to face communication. Like if she thinks communication is so important why couldn’t she tell us that?

She also said WE were the loud ones because we always slam doors and stomp and keep her up when we go to the bathroom at night. We tried to explain that we don’t slam or stomp and if it seems that way it’s not on purpose to annoy her and that she’s just not used to living in a tiny apartment where you can hear everything. She tried to say that she’s super quiet when she uses the bathroom but she’s not. She video calls people in there and we can hear her close and open the door and using the sink. We tried to explain that people just naturally make noise when they live. We also hear her walking across the hall but don’t assume it’s stomping because it’s not. It’s just really loud in that apartment. It’s also loud when people close their bedroom doors because our rooms are literally right next to each other so the sound is really close. It also may sound like slamming when the room doors are locked because the locks make noise when the doors close. We thought that this was stupid how she can’t handle people just living in the same space. SHE EVEN ASKED FOR PROOF THAT WE DIDNT SLAM DOORS AND SHIT. My sister said “and do YOU have proof you didn’t do that either?”.

And the thing about greeting her guests was just weird. Maybe she’s was raised differently because usually the person hosting guests in the house is supposed to introduce them to the other people living there. But even if we didn’t say hi they didn’t acknowledge us or even say hi to us in our own home. Like why are we supposed to greet YOUR guests and open the door for them. We’re not the ones who invited them over.

She also said SHE was the one that felt unsafe in her own home. But how? We weren’t even living there anymore. We moved to a fucking respite room just to not be in your way. How do you feel unsafe from people who aren’t even there?

Oh and apparently it should be us to move out because we already moved our stuff (we only moved some things and that’s just because we had nothing in the respite room). And also she was angry we took OUR hand soap cuz she couldn’t use it anymore and we should’ve communicated that she should buy her own. Even though I had literally messaged her that morning and if she read them she would have realised. But also she could use her soap in the shower or the dish liquid in the kitchen? Like was it really that big of a deal.

She also said we took her peg thing (we all have the same one) that’s used for laundry. Because one of ours has a peg broken off. We said ok that’s fair we’ll give it back (but also if you’re so big on communication why didn’t you just tell us instead of waiting till this meeting). But it doesn’t matter because that wasn’t even our one. She used the peg that broke off to hang something to dry and then we don’t know what happened to that peg. She must’ve lost it and tried to blame it on us.

We ended up not even getting to say what our problems were with her. We were instead stuck trying to defend ourselves from things that never happened or were fucking stupid. She even lied and said she didn’t even say oh fuck when she saw us in the elevator. And I literally tried to explain how why would we even want to say hi to your boyfriend or you after you said that? Like are we always the ones that are supposed to greet people or something? People we didn’t even invite? Anyways we ended up just being really pissed off but glad we decided to move. We just want to know if anything she said was valid or if we did anything that was wrong and is proof we were bad roommates. Like to us it felt like she was just pulling this shit out of her ass because we didn’t really do anything but live with her. Anyways please help us and let us know if we were the bad roommates.