hi all, yesterday I came home from work and opened our outside garbage and saw that some of my clothes, a hat from my grandma, some towels, my weighted blanket, and some random items like a photo booth picture and a tool of mine were in there. I took out the picture and tool but everything else was covered in flies or maggots.
I texted my roommate asking what happened and they said those things were in a basket on our porch and they thought it was trash, and outside cats had peed on them so they threw them out. The basket had been on the porch for maybe a few weeks to a month, but it wasn’t trash and it wasn’t anywhere near in the way. It was clothes I had been planning to rework/donate with some random items that got thrown in.
For context I had covid 3 weeks ago and then was out of town last week for my grandfathers funeral which is when it was put in the trash. I also work 6 days/week so I don’t really have much spare time, otherwise I might have moved it or put it elsewhere, but honestly I didn’t think the basket was in the way or bothering anyone, my roommate never goes out to the porch anyway. My weighted blanket was also NOT in this basket and I didn’t put it on the porch, I had set it aside to be washed and I am pretty sure roommate put it on the porch at some point, it got peed on, so they lumped it in with my “garbage” and tossed it
I got pretty upset (but was being pretty straightforward over text) and said that it wasn’t garbage, those were my things, and if they’re going to throw things away in the future that are not theirs I would just appreciate if they checked with me before tossing it. I could have washed them if they were just dirty. We’ve had an issue with our other roommate ruining or breaking or somehow losing my favorite mugs and they know this upset me, so I vocalized that I would at least like to KNOW what happens to MY belongings.
They didn’t really seem apologetic and only said they could do that but we can’t leave stuff on the porch. I said that’s fine, I won’t obviously if it’s getting peed on, but I don’t want my stuff being tossed without my knowledge. In my mind they should have set it aside or left it there and said hey, this stuff is here, I’m not sure what to do with it, and then I would have said I can wash it or toss it if it’s actually ruined. I don’t think I’ve ever thrown out anyone else’s stuff, even if it looks like it’s trash. I set it aside and let them know. At least tell me it’s in the garbage so I don’t wonder where my stuff is ya know
We are friends and we spend a lot of time together usually hanging out, smoking, watching tv, etc so it isn’t just like it’s a passive aggressive housemate. It’s hurtful and I feel like I don’t matter to them and my things are just in the way, even though everyone uses my things and they pick and choose when to be messy or obsessively clean but no one else is allowed to be too busy to clean minor stuff. It just feels really unfair.
There’s some other context and things I’ll just throw in the comments so this isn’t super long
At the end of our text convo they asked to talk when they got home but then they came home with one of their friends? and went right to their room, and it was late so we didn’t talk. Now I just don’t really know how to address all of this with them because obviously there are many issues coming to the surface now and I’m trying to collect my thoughts and feelings. How do I vocalize these feelings of disrespect and condescension to them?
tldr: My roommate with a history of weird condescending behavior over the house threw away my things while I was gone claiming they were ruined and were garbage without saying anything. It’s bringing up a lot of resentment about the way they act regarding our house and the way the space is shared. Trying to figure out how to address these feelings productively with them
12 comments
Am I reading this wrong or you wanted to keep a basket full of things covered in cat pee, flies, and maggots?
I’d buy your roommate a beer for throwing it out for you.
This isn’t the first time they’ve exhibited this type of behavior, they are a freelancer so they work from home on their own hours own time own rates etc. I’d guess they’re busy maybe 25 hours out of the week. So they’re always home and always rearranging furniture, decorations, etc. Which normally I don’t mind because it looks nice, but they’ll take down my things and just set them aside.
They’ll text passive aggressive things in the house group text about cleaning, dishes, litter boxes, while knowing that all three of us (the other people in the house) work full time jobs and often work overtime. Like I said I work 6 days a week at about 50hrs/week. They made a chore board in the kitchen of daily chores, even underlining “throw away rotted food” for some reason, even though they regularly buy produce and it molds in the fridge – no one else really has that issue. Conveniently though if they have a friend from out of town staying with us and they’re “busy” they will leave the house and kitchen an insane mess for days, worse than anyone else, but god forbid someone leaves a basket of clothes on the porch.
We had a shared basket of clothes to donate/sell in the house but we noticed our cat had peed on some of them, so my roommate bagged it up and put it in the garbage. It seems like they just don’t really care about waste or using the things we own because they just throw stuff out without even trying to fix or clean it. I got the bag out of the trash and washed everything myself.
Every single bill is also in my name, including rent, electric, water, internet, all of them. So I’m responsible for knowing when they’re due, paying for them, and collecting everyone’s shares which are sometimes late. Our electric bill has been getting insanely high so I’ve asked politely multiple times to make sure everyone turns off lights, TV, fans, etc when not being used to save money, and I regularly come home to find roommate chilling on the couch with most the lights on during daylight hours.
Most of the items in the house are also mine. Almost all of the furniture, most of the decorations, 100% of the kitchen wares, almost all the towels, even the tv in THEIR ROOM etc etc etc is mine – I’m happy to share and let everyone use them of course but I really don’t think their sense of entitlement over the home is fair given that technically most of the house does belong to me and I am paying for everything.
They just act like this is their house and we all just live here and my stuff being on the porch is in the way, so they threw it out. I would not do that to them or any of my roommates and if I mistakenly did I would apologize profusely. In my mind we all live here and are equals, we don’t own this house, so we should coexist and if someone’s things are somewhere they shouldn’t be, just put them aside or ask them to be moved. I would have taken the basket and washed everything but now it’s all ruined and covered in bugs. My mom got me the blanket and now it’s ruined, it was expensive. I don’t really care about the clothes that were in there but my grandmas hat, my weighed blanket, and the non-fabric items are really
upsetting me. If they dumped it and saw my picture and tool on top they could have deduced that it wasn’t trash or at least second guessed to maybe text me and confirm. But instead it feels extremely passive aggressive.
Also, they travel for work sometimes and every time they’re coming home they make sure to ask if the house is clean for their return – but when I come back home after my grandpas funeral I find my stuff in the trash.
They’ve had me, my partner, even my sister who lives almost an hour away take them to/pick them up from the airport on several occasions, but they bailed on taking me to the airport 10 minutes away because they needed to “sleep in” for an appointment they had that day. At noon
You can’t leave possessions outside on the porch and expect for them not to get stolen, destroyed, or thrown out.
So you’re upset that your roommate threw away a basket full of junk that you left on the porch for a month and that had been pissed on?
It sounds like that stuff needed to be thrown away. I’m curious as to why the cats are peeing on everything all the time. I have 3 cats and the only time this was a problem was for about a month before we got the oldest one neutered. If the stuff had been covered in cat pee for awhile, it should have definitely been thrown out. Cat pee is disgusting and getting it out isn’t as simple as washing it. Also, the basket was left of the porch for weeks?? It doesn’t matter how busy you are, it takes 2 seconds to bring it inside. It seems like you didn’t care about that stuff until it was thrown away.
I understand how you feel, at the same time if you’d cleaned up after yourself, he wouldn’t have.
They are entitled mean girls. Look for a new place.
She was 100% wrong. She should have texted you and asked you . And then you could have texted that if the stuff bothered her, as soon as you got home, you’d remove it or trash it.
Why do you have any attachment to these things? You sound like my husband’s grandmother when she was hoarding.
Jeeeez…..It was her stuff….
So, you were wrong. Everything about this post is filled with entitlement, immaturity and lack of accountability for your own actions. Just because you wouldn’t throw away their pee soaked items doesn’t mean they should have held onto them too.
The only leg you have to stand on would have been, “I would have appreciated you letting me know so I at least didn’t wonder where it had gone if the trash was taken out before I had seen it”. You don’t get to complain that they threw it out. If you’re mad that you lost your stuff, you need to be mad at yourself. They didn’t make the cats pee on your things. They didn’t break your legs and make you unable to remove the things from the porch. They didn’t make you leave to go on vacation. You put these items on the porch. You left them there for over a month. You left the home and didn’t bother to notice a smelly basket of your own clothes on the porch. They are under absolutely no obligation to deal with cat pee, which mind you, is something feral cats do to mark their territory and if not dealt with IMMEDIATELY would have caused your porch to be taken over by feral cats.
Apologize for being an entitled little brat, apologize for leaving your things unattended for so long, and then ask if in the future if someone throws out anything that isn’t theirs, they send a message in the group chat to give whomever the owner is a heads up and why.