“AITA for moving my roommate’s dirty dishes outside her room and embarrassing her in front of her friends?”
I (22F) live with my university roommate (21F). We’ve been living together for about 7 months. We aren’t super close, but things were fine when we first started living together. The ongoing issue has been cleanliness in our shared spaces. I’m not a clean freak, but I like the kitchen and bathroom to be usable.
My roommate regularly leaves dishes in the sink for days, sometimes close to a week and they begin to smell. Food gets left on the counter overnight, the trash overflows, and I’ve had to clean hair out of the shower drain multiple times because it just doesn’t get done unless I do it. I’ve brought it up several times and have even suggested a cleaning schedule.
I asked if she could at least rinse dishes and take out the trash when it’s full to help me out since we’re both studying and working part-time. She apologises every time and says she’ll try harder, but it goes back to the same old pattern within a few days. Last week, there were dishes in the sink again for almost a week.
They smelled, and I’d already cleaned up after her more than once that week because I couldn’t stand it. I was frustrated and didn’t want to wash them again, but I also didn’t want them sitting in the kitchen. So instead of cleaning them, I stacked all of her dirty dishes and placed them on the small wooden stand outside her bedroom door.
I didn’t go into her room or touch anything of hers, I just moved them out of the shared space. Now comes the part I feel bad about. I didn’t know she was planning to have friends over that evening, so when they arrived, the dishes were still there outside her room. She was visibly embarrassed and ended up cleaning them immediately, telling her friends she would just quickly clean up before hanging out.
Later that evening, she told me I humiliated her on purpose and that it was passive aggressive and invasive. She’s now telling mutual friends that I’m a nightmare roommate and says she’s considering moving out because she doesn’t feel comfortable living with someone who would do that.
I’ll admit it was petty. I was frustrated and wanted to stop cleaning up after her. But I also feel like I’ve tried communicating multiple times and nothing changed. I felt that nothing I was saying was getting through to her, and that I was only repeating myself without seeing any change.
Of course, I didn’t expect it to impact how her friends saw her, it was unfortunate timing, and probably bad on my part. AITA for moving the dishes instead of just continuing to deal with the mess?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
KitchenLow3231 wrote:
NTA. It’s highkey a classic move for messy roommates to cry “passive aggressive” the second they have to face the physical reality of their own mess. If she’s so embarrassed that her friends saw her dirty dishes, she should probably just…wash them?
FamiliarStatement446 wrote:
NTA dishes would have been there anyways, but she would have told her friends they were yours. She needs to buy disposable (as bad as that sounds) if she can’t handle cleaning them. Is she on the lease? She can move out if she wants to but she’s going to be responsible (legally) for paying her share. Maybe not a bad thing if she does move out.
ETA: when having house guests, maybe mention to her to make sure to clean the day before, if you’re on speaking terms.
Fair-Play4567 wrote:
NTA!!! She humiliated herself, would she be equally as humiliated if her friends walked into the kitchen and saw this too? You simply highlighted that this mess was hers. You pay to use a kitchen and can’t because of her.
You tried being cordial, now the foot goes down. She isn’t humiliated because you left a mess outside her bedroom door, she’s humiliated because her friends saw her for the disgusting, pig she is 🤷♀️
paul_rudds_drag_race wrote:
NTA some people only respond to more extreme measures. I know some people will probably say “just communicate!” but you did. Repeatedly. And you’ll probably get some comments about suggesting that she simply could be neurodivergent or have some sort of trauma from washing a dish one time when she was a kid.
In any case, you’ve been plenty patient and as an adult she has to work on getting her shit together. And if she can’t, you can’t do that for her. Pigpen is free to move out and be her gross self elsewhere.
AblePhilosopher76 wrote:
NTA, I would have also left a note telling them how long the dishes have been waiting to be washed, because it’s really disgusting that they’ve been there for a week. It’s not your fault that your flatmate doesn’t have good hygiene habits and that her friends found out about it that way.
If she wants to move somewhere else, it would be better for you, but talk to the new person beforehand to organise the cleaning situation. Personally, I couldn’t live with someone so dirty.
RepublicFancy1372 wrote:
Do it again until she learns, I had a roommate like that. Would make an entire 6-course meal. Take a bite outnog each item and then put those food covered pots and pans and stick them right into the sink…think beans, Mac and cheese, 3 chicken bones, like a scoop of each with a bite taken out of them, so full of food…he would put left overs in the fridge completley uncovered and let them sit til they rott.
I was TA every time I mentioned it too, so no, you’re fine, embarrass them…maybe they need to be embarrassed once in a while so they stop doing crap that’s disgusting. How do you learn the stove is hot? Mf’in touch it. Good luck OP!
hubertburnette wrote:
“Later that evening she told me I humiliated her on purpose and that it was passive-aggressive and invasive. She’s now telling mutual friends that I’m a nightmare roommate and says she’s considering moving out because she doesn’t feel comfortable living with someone who would do that.” She’s threatening you with a good time. Take her up on it. NTA.
