The woman gave her roommates a taste of their own medicine when she got blamed for messes.
Living with roommates can be tough when they aren't cooperative. A young woman, u/6cheddar6, shared her experience living in an apartment with three other roommates and how they blamed her for all the messes in the house. She decided to give her roommates a taste of their own medicine after she left the apartment with all her belongings.
She wrote that she had been staying with three roommates for about eight months, during which she rarely interacted with the others due to their varied schedules with jobs and classes. The woman thought she co-existed well with her roommates, Vicky and Caraand. They never argued about anything except minor issues. "Those two were friends and Vicky was definitely the messiest of the four of us living there. She would leave her clothes in the dryer for days, pile dishes in the sink for more than a week before cleaning them and often forget food in the fridge until it would rot," the woman revealed.
The woman shared that sometimes she would get a message on the group chat from Cara saying, "Hey, I talked to the others and they said the dishes in the sink aren't their's, so please clean them." Though she found it annoying, she didn't retaliate as this only happened about five times. She added, "I figured Vicky lied to Cara about messes since it was just easier to throw me under the bus rather than own up to it herself."
On May 4, the day before the woman was to move out of the apartment to live with her fiancé, she received a "very long and scathing" text from Cara on the group chat. "She went on and on about how she is tired of 'my' messes, hates all 'my' stuff strewn about the apartment and also personally attacked me, calling me disgusting and inconsiderate," u/6cheddar6 shared. "Since I was leaving literally the next day, I didn't see any reason to start a fight, so I just said it was her lucky day and I was actually moving out the next morning."
Cara responded to her by saying, "Whatever you say, you just take all your stuff and leave." After receiving this text, the woman decided to comply with it maliciously. She had earlier thought of leaving behind some communal items worth $400. "These communal items included: all trash cans in the whole apartment ($100) - the wifi router ($150), a large metal shelving rack (probably the one that hurt the most) ($150)," the woman revealed.
She continued, "The shelving rack was likely the most devastating loss for them since they had tons of stuff. For reference, the kitchen had 10 cupboards and eight drawers, of which I used two cupboards and one drawer to store my items. The cupboards I used were also the ones above the microwave and the fridge since I am the tallest and wanted to be considerate. All the rest of the cupboards, drawers, and the entire metal rack (which had five large shelves) were filled to the brim with my roommates' stuff. Essentially, there was absolutely no way they'd be able to fit it in the amount of space I left behind without buying another rack or putting it on the counter and floor."
She then shared that she left the apartment with all her belongings and has been happily living with her fiancé in their new apartment. However, a few days later, she got a text from Vicky on the group chat that read, "FYI, the wifi isn't working anymore" and at that point, she left the chat. She concluded the post by saying, "I've wondered how long it took Cara to realize that it actually was never me that was making messes in the apartment, but I guess I'll never know."
People could resonate with this woman's situation. u/mommaquilter-ab commented, "My son was sharing a place and when he moved, he took all his stuff. Roommates kept going, 'Where's the toaster?' 'Where's the cutting board?' Where's the coffee maker?" u/brap01 wrote, "I had something similar where I got a passive-aggressive message about cleaning my dishes. So I went and cleaned the one plate, cup, knife and fork I'd used that day and left the rest of the pile of dishes as they were, and messaged back with a picture and text, 'Can whoever used these please clean up after themselves?'"
u/levelwhile6923 shared, "It's easy to blame the roommate that's hardly there for the mess, until that roommate leaves and the mess persists. Good on you. I'm 40+ years old and love a good roommate malicious compliance." u/Confusedat63 said, "Good story! Excellent malicious compliance and the best part is they have to talk to the internet people and get all set up for themselves, usually takes a few days!"