Roommate problems – who hasn't had them? According to Georgetown University, one-third of college students report having problems with their roommates. Sometimes it's not doing the dishes, other times it's listening to loud music at night, but most roommates are able to end things with civility.
What's not cool is when your friends and roommates start stealing from you, and then they have the gall to gaslight you about it. That's what happened to this woman when she offered a friend to stay at her place for free. And when she confronted the friend about it, all he had to say was that she's "Really messing up [his] day."
Bored Panda reached out to the woman who shared this story, u/RoommateMovingOut. She kindly agreed to share more details about the whole situation and why she won't let anyone stay at her place, at least for a little while.
A friend's stay at her apartment became quite a headache for a woman when some personal things disappeared after his stay
Image credits: davidgyung / Envato (not the actual photo)
The woman shared the story with the Internet, asking if she's overreacting
Image credits: RoommateMovingOut
This is what the woman's correspondence with her friend looked like
Image credits: RoommateMovingOut
The author said she finds it hard to understand why they would steal the hard drive, as it was mostly just personal stuff
People said the woman is under-reacting and needs to involve the authorities ASAP
After she filed a police report, the friend finally got in touch: "This is really messing up my day"
Image credits: RoommateMovingOut
A couple of days later, the woman got her stuff back, but not without a few hiccups
Image credits: MikeShots / Envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Joyseulay / Envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: RoommateMovingOut
The woman tells us she only knew her "friend" for a couple of years, but felt a strong connection
As she only posted her update yesterday, the Redditor is still grappling with her decision to get the authorities involved. She's also not sure about what to do in the future, whether to pursue legal action against her former friend or not. "I am still feeling very conflicted – more so than I put in my update post," u/RoommateMovingOut revealed to Bored Panda.
She also told us the friend's name, but asked us not to publicize it. "I've known [him] since I moved to Toronto in 2022," the Redditor gives some background about her and her ex-friend's relationship.
"We are both graduate students but at different universities. I met him through a mutual friend – she has known him since elementary school. We weren't so close that we would hang out on our own, but we saw each other regularly with my close friend (and other friends): potlucks, trips to the bar, the movies."
"I don't have many friends in Toronto, so I was grateful to be part of a small group of people who welcomed me," the Redditor goes on. "I found him in particular funny. He had a self-deprecating sense of humor, but he was also sweet and quick with compliments. He was often down on himself or down on his luck, but he was not an attention-seeker."
The man's friends knew he was struggling financially, and now the OP sees some red flags she might have missed
Image credits: kues1 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Their financial situations, however, were very different. Whereas the "friend" was struggling, the OP was in a better boat when it came to money. "He had a lot of debt from student loans, and I was fortunate in that my parents helped me pay for my education," she tells Bored Panda.
"Starting in September, four friends (including him) and I had been doing a weekly potluck," she adds. "He hosted in October, and I really felt the high stress of his living situation. That night ended with him shutting down and shutting us out. Because it was someone I knew so well I didn't think twice when it came to offering him my place for the month," the OP says.
However, she now sees the red flags she might've missed when he was staying in her apartment back in November. She says he wouldn't communicate as well as she' would have liked. "I would have to follow up multiple times and would rarely get a response," u/RoommateMovingOut recalls. "And the few times I tried calling him, he made an excuse that he couldn't talk."
The Redditor doesn't feel like revenge is the best course of action here, and she feels conflicted about what to do next
Image credits: cookie_studio / Freepik (not the actual)
We asked the Redditor how she felt when she got the call from a stranger claiming to have her stuff. "The call really stressed me out," she admits. "I thought at first I was being pranked. I had shared the post with my fiancé and I know he told some friends, and I thought maybe someone was messing with me. I almost hung up the phone right away."
"The caller was very matter-of-fact and no nonsense. She seemed annoyed by the situation. She basically outlined what they could return and what they sold and said if I want it back, I could have it, and we could forget it happened. I think, because she sounded so emotionless about it, that I was more annoyed with her than angry. I called my dad right away afterwards," the OP says.
However, she is still very conflicted about taking legal action. "I talked to my sister who said it's basically weaponizing the justice system, which feels really unfair too, especially now that I got a lot of the stuff back," u/RoommateMovingOut says.
"To be completely honest, it doesn't feel balanced. I feel a giant pit in my stomach when I think about being lied to by someone I trusted. But I'm not convinced that my own hurt is enough to justify ruining his life. Half the time I feel like 'He can go to hell!' and the other half I feel like I just want this all to go away."
Luckily, support and kind words from other netizens is helping u/RoommateMovingOut to stay level-headed. "A lot of people shared their experience with me through comments and messages. Many said that experiences like mine have led them to have less trust in others."
"I don't know if I am there personally, but I can empathize with their pain," she admits. "I think the only concrete lesson so far for me is that there is often a lot more going on in a person's life than they are willing to share. I can at least say with certainty that I won't let anyone stay at my place for a while," she adds.
"This person was never your friend," people passed their verdicts in the comments
