Dear Aunt Acid,
My roommate and I have been friends for going on ten years now — we’ve been fairly close intermittently throughout that time, if not always confidantes. We’ve only been roommates for a few months. Her job had odd hours and often a commute over an hour long, so I’d been cutting her some slack on some household chores. When she told me she’d accepted a job at a different company, I was thrilled for her, and asked when she was going to resign her bad-hours post. She told me, laughing awkwardly, “Oh, I quit my old job a month ago; I figured I should wait till I had a new one to tell you.”
At the time, I managed to say, “You should have told me that, I knew you were good for the money,” but in an equally breezy way. Both of us are from households that don’t communicate well, and one of her frequent excuses for her not doing chores is her depression, so I’m very wary of how to express my concerns to her without exacerbating the root of the problem. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely believe it’s valid that depression impacts functionality. I know everyone’s mental illness is different, but I also have depression and anxiety; unlike her I am not in therapy or on medication, and have a 9-hour workday. I don’t think its ableist to hold her accountable for her actions, particularly when my primary household issue with her is that she neglects her cat, forcing me to take care of him for her.
How do I confront my roommate/friend in a way that will result in her changing her behavior, instead of sending her into an unproductive guilt spiral? How do I manage my own anxiety enough to even bring up my concerns (let alone express my anger?)
Thanks,
Anxious Ado Annie
Oh Annie.
Leave.
A functional roommate meets only two criteria: she is at least a decent communicator, and she is at least moderately considerate of you, your time, and your space. Your roommate is 0 for 2. Being that other people do not change – unless or until high-stakes circumstances force them into a serious reckoning with themselves – your only real options are A) accept this unhappy state of affairs as the status quo, or B) make like Nancy Sinatra, lace up your boots, and get to walking.
You talk a lot about mental illness here, and believe me, I understand. I’ve wrestled with debilitating anxiety my whole life like it’s some kind of vengeful angel. Various close friends of mine have been smothered by depression. Both conditions can make life significantly harder in ways that seem opaque, even mystifying, to outsiders.
In this case, though, it feels like the depression is a red herring. You know, like communism in Clue.
Moreover, you know it. You say yourself: It is not able-ist to hold her accountable for her actions. It is her actions, not her brain chemistry, with which you are at your wit’s end. That’s because you are sharing space with someone whose primary relevant characteristic is not that she’s depressed, but that she’s selfish. She is taking advantage of you, because you are nice and also because you are scared of giving offense; and you, for the same reasons, are letting her. As you have discovered, that sucks. It’s exhausting to be imposed upon, to be the always responsible party – to be, in essence, the parent in what is supposed to be a household of grown-ups.
Is that what you signed up for? Do you want to be the mom here? Or, like, the constantly annoyed and put-upon roommate in The Girl On The Train, that unsatisfying drink of pulpy fiction? I do not think you do. Your letter implies that you don’t. Your mission, then, is clear: for your own sake, for your own mental health, GTFO. Be a protagonist in a better story.
That said. Her mental health may not be the paramount issue here, but it’s still relevant. (Like in Clue!) Even if it weren’t, you would be, by virtue of longstanding friendship if not the codes of human behavior, required to be kind. But the fact that you’re familiar with her various struggles means you can and should be additionally sensitive.
Break it to her in a gentle, straightforward way that you don’t feel like you two are a great fit as roommates. You can still be friends, of course; you would simply do better to find different living arrangements. You can even offer to help her find a new situation, whether in the form of a new roommate or a different sublet, if you think she’ll have a difficult time and you need a release valve for your guilt.
Then, though, please let it go. After all, your job is not to make or keep her happy, to circumnavigate what you perceive to be her issues or to manage her moods. Really! None of that is, or ever was, your job. You’re not compensated for it; it doesn’t even sound like a rewarding volunteer position. If, after parting ways, you still feel compelled to martyr yourself for a high-maintenance fellow creature, perhaps you can adopt your own cat.
Love,
Aunt Acid
PS – You mention that you are not in therapy for your anxiety and not on medication. That’s fine! But your implication seemed to be that you were a bit superior to your roommate because you are able to be high-functioning and untreated at the same time. For all I know that’s the case – your roommate doesn’t exactly seem to be the prize pumpkin at the fair – but I would caution you against that mentality in general.
Even if you don’t need to hear it, maybe other readers do, and for that reason I will say: Seeking help isn’t a confession of weakness; it’s an expression of strength. And self-care isn’t indulgent. It’s essential. We cannot in good conscience ask other people to deal with our shit until we have done some work getting our shit together. For many, many people, therapy and medication, especially in tandem, are an indispensable part of that process.
Are you in need of advice? Feel free to ask Aunt Acid a variety of questions at [email protected] at any time.
Thank you for that P.S. down there. One of the sneaky ways my depression manifests is in trying to occasionally convince me that needing medication & therapy are just more signs of my weakness and utter failure as a human being; that if I was worth anything, I wouldn’t need them. Which makes as much sense as telling myself I don’t /need/ my glasses, that a worthwhile person would squint her way through life and stop complaining. But I digress.
I’m sorry you’re in this situation, LW. I’m in agreement with Aunt Acid here- roommate is putting you in a shitty situation. Being her friend shouldn’t mean you have to be her mom too. Best of luck to you.
Thank you for the reply! I will let your advice sink in before responding, but just as a clarification re: your P.S.: the implication I meant to convey was that ‘she has more resources than I do to cope than I do’, not that having therapy was something to be frowned upon. I certainly would never want to imply such a thing, and apologize for not being clearer.
So I and like, five of my good friends have asthma. One has to take a daily steroid, one carries a rescue inhaler, another simply avoids smoky rooms and other irritants. We all have asthma, and I think it would be crazy to differentiate “degree of needed care” as “level of implied REAL asthma”.
“How do I confront my roommate/friend in a way that [won’t send] her into an unproductive guilt spiral?”
Keep in mind that it’s her brain sending her into guilt spirals, not you. You could be the kindest, best-communicating person out there, with a Master’s degree in Making People Comfortable, and she might still go into a guilt spiral, because brains are assholes. All you can do is be as kind as you can. (And probably not live with her, unless she can pay you to be her live-in therapist).
As a perpetually messy, chore hating person who has managed to successfully live with very anal people and stay friends with them there are ways to make it work. Obviously communication is the biggest and most important one, but here are a few specific things that worked for me.
For the messy person:
1) Contain: clothes, books, blankets, movies. If it’s yours leave it in a glorious mess in your own room and shut the door.
2) Own less stuff: If you only own one or two bowls/plates/cups/silverware, you have to do your own dishes at least once a day and they don’t stack up.
3) Be sensitive to special occasions: if someone’s mom/ visiting best friend/visiting significant other etc is coming, do a clean.
4) Be honest about the fact that you will never in a million years remember to vacuum once a week, and maybe instead agree to do a more time consuming but single afternoon chore once a month.
5) Don’t beat yourself up. You’ve got lots of other lovely qualities and talents, and your more loose attitude probably brings some fun and joy to your apartment in other ways. Feeling guilty about never remembering to take out the garbage until it’s too late and your already running out the door is just going to make you resent the people you live with, and you have way better things to do with that energy.
For the neat person:
1) Realize that people are different, and that your roommate isn’t personally trying to annoy you.
2) Figure out a system that makes you feel your roommate is contributing equally in other ways, even if the chore distribution is unequal. Whether its them being in charge of dealing with the landlord, doing all the cooking, or appreciating all the emotional labor they do to keep the apartment at peace.
3) Have clear communication about what are the 1-3 specific dealbreakers that drive you crazy, and accept that more than that probably isn’t realistic.
enjoy each other’s lovely company!
Oh goodness you have no idea how much I appreciate your comment here. I’m indefinitely the messy person and it’s stressed me out so. much.
This is gold.
Honestly , the thing that I found most helpful and stress relieving is being super honest with yourself and not having false hopes that “for sure this week/this situation is the time that I will permanently turn into a super clean person who automatically picks them things up +folds their laundry the minute it gets out of the dryer + vacuums + scrubs the whole bathroom once a week + makes their bed + folds their blanket they leave on the couch + mops the floor”, because that will literally never happen. I actually got sad typing all those chores out. But you can be the person who once a night dumps all your own shit in your own room.
And honestly, take a moment to appreciate the fact that a bit of mess doesn’t derail your life and mental health. One of my roommates in college left her bed to go sleep on the couch the night before I moved out because seeing the boxes on our floor stressed her out to much so she couldn’t sleep. A different apartment mate washed her entire bedding every time someone sat on her bed and would miss dinner plans to complete said washing. You will never have to deal with that and I personally find that to be a bit of a relief, even if I do swing to far to the other side.
This is so true. I’m also a messy person, and I do wish I were a little cleaner, but I’ve known people who are very particular about how clean their space is, and I would just rather spend that time doing anything else.
This is 100% how my husband (who is a very, very tidy person) and I (who am… not, so much) have figured out how to live together.
These are such great tips! I’ve also had to figure out how to share a space, now studio apartment, with a tidy person. Rule #1 has been a life saver, and if you haven’t got a room of your own then I recommend pretty boxes with lids. Some of my messiness comes from wanting everything to be handy always. So having a box that has my yoga pants, slippers, um iPhone charger, things that were in my pocket at the moment, gives me the same effect as having it strewn about, but doesn’t bother my tidy partner, who is soothed by clear surfaces. We have a jumble box for every space except the kitchen. I find it very comforting to have some parameters and a few places to let my mess run wild.
My ex used to use his mental illness as an excuse for not being a nominally functioning human who has to live with other people, and honestly it is bull. If you are going to live with people, you have to do the bare minimum, which includes doing your damn chores. Like, if chores were fun they would be called “super awesome clean times” but they aren’t. No one likes doing them. You do them anyway.
And honestly my own depression feels better when I’m actually not being a disgusting loaf living in my own filth all the time, which is what I would and sometimes do actually do when it gets really bad. But I live alone so it’s my own perogative if I want to do that. (It’s part of why I do live alone.)
No, it’s not bull, it just means that the problem needs a solution that isn’t “disabled person becomes able” or “able-bodied person does everything even though they hate it”. I don’t know your ex, obviously, but I do know disability. Sometimes, we miss that “disability” literally means that your abilities to do things are reduced. Now, depression is tricky, because while it’s obvious that you can’t do the dishes if your hands are fractured, it’s less obvious that cleaning would be hard for a depressed person. The cleaning ability is not disabled, right?
Right! But we have invisible, underlying abilities that make us able to get our heads together and get things done, and THOSE abilities (the executive functions) actually ARE disabled by depression. And also in schizophrenia, ADD, old age, young age, physical illnesses and what have you, they’re really finicky. “Stick-to-it-iveness”, memory, mental energy and concentration get shot to hell in many disorders, and some people get more impacted than others, just like other symptoms can vary. Cleaning house, doing chores, keeping up with routines, withstand pain and frustration, pushing yourself through the day, etc, all require these abilities. Basically, executive functioning is what enables us to manage tasks – to start, stay with and finish them. This roommate is able to keep up with her job, but it’s not strange that she’s less able on the home front.
You might have really awesome, robust executive functioning, and that’s an amazing thing to have! Especially when we’re ill. It helps us recover better and protects our lives from upheaval.
I actually am not particularly high functioning NOR am I able bodied, but I also don’t impose that on a roommate.
But neither does anyone else. Nobody “imposes” their disability on others (except for really abusive people). If you are able to keep your disability in check in a way that never annoys other people, that’s great, but it’s not because you’re making a moral choice that other disabled people aren’t making. (I’m disabled too, for the record)
Everybody’s making that choice. Because everyone who’s not actually a psychopath needs to be liked by others. We’re a social species. We all choose to participate in life, keep our homes at a base level of cleanliness, share workloads reasonably fairly and get along with others at least moderately well, you know? And most people succeed with their choices most of the time, and some people fail a lot. But failing at something is not the same thing as choosing to not do it, and we can’t take failure as the proof that they didn’t really try.
If somebody is generally selfish in other ways, like, they won’t share stuff, don’t care about other people’s feelings, etc, they might skip out on household chores because they’re genuinely selfish. But simply being disabled and failing to keep the disability contained or failing to perform like an able-bodied person isn’t selfish. For many people, it’s just an inevitable fact of life. And you can definitely be disabled in many ways and still have the executive functioning (which most people think of as “discipline” and “self-control”) to be able to carry out plans. Conversely, you can be super able in many ways but still have really lousy executive functioning. Bad executive functioning is many people’s only disability, but it can be totally life-destroying.
So, really, this is kind of like saying that people who can’t see very well should just look closer and squint harder. That works for a lot of people with bad vision (I could manage daily life like that, despite being pretty near-sighted and really needing to use my glasses), but not for everybody.
I don’t think they have do Do The Chore, I just think they shouldn’t let their lack of ability to do The Chore affect others. Example: when I am incapable of folding and putting away my laundry for days, it lives in my room, not on the sofa, preventing anyone from sitting. When housemate is incapable of washing hir dishes for days, they live in hir room or tucked away on the counter, not on the hob, preventing anyone from cooking.
Yes and no? I mean, I get where you are coming from (and as someone with ADHD, lack of executive functioning is basically my main issue- depression and anxiety are more just side notes.) Obviously, people who have mental health problems and/or other disabilities aren’t going to be able to always to function in the way that is expected, but I don’t think it’s so much about keeping your disability in check as it is dealing with it responsibly.
However, as an adult I am responsible for my actions, regardless of how these mental health/learning disabilities may make things more difficult. Now, responsibility can take a lot of different forms- it could be putting systems in place that help me do the thing, or help make it so that I don’t have to do the thing (automatic bill payments have changed my life!), it could be expressing that you are going to be unable to do the thing and that you need to be able to rely on the other person to do it (my sister remembers our parents’ birthdays and makes sure we have presents on time), it could be choosing to extend the timeline for things, divide chores/responsibilities in a way that works for me, do without things all together (can’t handle cleaning your plates? It’s OK to use paper plates while things are really rough), etc. etc. etc.
It isn’t a problem to fail, but it also isn’t fair to make someone else responsible for whatever you are struggling with, that’s exhausting and ineffective and unproductive. I hope that makes sense!
Oof, you could replace all the words about mental illness in this article with “celiac disease” and you’ve got my old roommate.
I lived with a very messy roommate who had celiac disease and when we moved in together, we had this specific plan about separate dishes and separate sponges so that she wouldn’t get sick from gluten contamination. (This is a known model that works fine for celiac/non-celiac people living together to avoid causing harm to the celiac sufferer.)
The problem was that my roommate never cleaned any of her dishes and would leave them out all over the apartment, or clean them and not put them away, so they would get stray gluten contaminants on them. It also prevented me from using the sink to clean my dishes (which were so full of hers that they would spill out onto the floor). Contamination EVERYWHERE! She would then get sick and get very angry with me because it was technically my fault. I felt really bad and took to cleaning her dishes for her, because otherwise she would get sick. DON’T BE ME, ANXIOUS ANNIE!
All this is to say: what Aunt Acid has to say regarding, “…you are sharing space with someone whose primary relevant characteristic is not that she’s depressed, but that she’s selfish,” is absolutely correct. You shouldn’t have to be the “mom” roommate. It sucks and it’s not your job.
For real? There is no way that was even *technically* your fault, it was full on hers. You took the time to put together a plan with her so she wouldn’t get sick, and she didn’t follow it and then blamed her sickness on you. What an arsehole. That’s so enraging.
Ugh, thanks. I know that it wasn’t my fault now with 6+ years of hindsight and several great roommates after her. But at the time it was horrifying because I was like, “I’m causing someone else to be sick! I don’t want someone to be sick because of me! That’s horrible! Aaaah!”
That’s why I saw something similar between my situation and the LW’s situation, because she’s also dealing with a roommate who has a medical issue that isn’t the root cause of the roommate problem, but is still involved.
I don’t know if I’d immediately jump to “bad roommate” (bad petowner, maybe) because I don’t get the sense from the letter that AAA has ever once talked to her about the household issues. That could be as simple as sitting down together at dinner and saying “now that you have a less time-consuming job, I’d appreciate if we had a more equitable division of chores. For example, while I love [cat] I can’t be his/her primary caretaker.”
It’s always awkward having to say “hey, can we talk?” but sometimes you have to.
A petowner that knowingly abdicates responsibility to a roommate (and of course she knows, because the pet isn’t dead), without any kind of verbal arrangement to make sure this is cool, is a bad roommate.
Also, I think just being an adult means you need to shoulder up your share of home maintenance without being asked. You can’t just assume the other person is cool doing more.
Ideally these things would be hammered out before anyone moved in together, but there’s not always a clear division of home maintenance – people have different standards of cleanliness, for one.
Especially because this is a friend of ten years, I think it’s better to say “this isn’t working for me, what are you capable of doing?” and then to decide from there whether you’re compatible roommates, rather then stewing for months because roommate can’t read your mind.
I’ve spoken with her about a few specific things, but it sort of demonstrates to me a larger issue of her not considering things from my perspective. Like, we’re both bad at doing dishes, and this week she volunteered to do them, which is great. However, I’ll ask for her hours for the week so I know if I need to feed her cat for her, and she’ll say she doesn’t know (and doesn’t realize until I specifically ask that telling me the three days of the week she DOES know would be helpful, so more emotional work for me by having to think “maybe I’ll get an answer if I’m more literal”), or she gets off at that time but doesn’t get home for 2 more hours without texting me for a head’s up.
Also, not specific to this thread, but I feel like it’d be conducive to specify: while most of the cleanliness issue is stuff like chores (which are kind of negotiable in terms of stuff like how often, to what extent, etc) she has done things indisputably unhygenic that I should not have to tell her about: these include not noticing that the cat vomited on the floor in the kitchen for two days (she did move the litter box into her room when I requested, since she also wasn’t noticing turds on the floor.)
(I’m gonna be quiet now bc again, I feel like the best way to absorb advice/critique is to take it all in, but this felt like an important clarification)
Just to be clear, my comment above was in no way aimed at your particular situation just general advice for people for people living as part of an odd couple situation, since it sounds like your roommate has more issues going on than simple clean person/messy person conundrums.
I appreciate the clarification (and your comment was helpful to my particular situation, tbh!)
I’m starting to believe that your roommate might be too ill to live with roommates, honestly. She can’t do even the most basic household chores – that’s a HUGE problem when you live with roommates. It’s great that she’s able to work, but she’s pretty much not able to do anything else. She needs to see her doctor about this. I’m sorry that this is happening.
Is there a reason the cat has to be fed only at a certain time? I have high-quality kibble out for mine at all times, and I give them wet food once a day, but if I’m delayed or otherwise engaged, they always have food and water available until the Good Stuff shows up in their bowls. That might be a way to remove one source of tension.
It’s not so much a specific time so much as hours in between feedings– and he’ll meow, loudly, nonstop, until he gets fed once he’s hungry. He also does this when understimulated (he’s a kitten), so if I want peace while she’s not home (and even sometimes when she is– she wears headphones in her room a lot) I have to play with him. A friend who works at the ASPCA said it’s symptomatic of separation anxiety, and since I’m not his Person, I don’t always do the trick for him (she has a tendency to visit friends out of town on weekends.)
ALTHO in addition to my other comment (I’d reply to myself but Toast hasn’t approve it yet)I’ve been thinking of asking her to get him one of those automatic food dispenser things. I don’t know if she’ll say yes, since he’s overweight already and she’s said “money’s tight” for stuff like that before, but I won’t know til I try.
Yeah, if you haven’t had a direct, completely unambiguous discussion about a) what work needs to be done to make the apartment acceptable to everyone’s standards and b) who will do this work c) when, that would be really worthwhile. I’ve been both the messier and the tidier anxiety-ridden roommate, and I’ve found that pushing through my initial dread of any kind of conflict has eventually made everyone’s lives so much less stressful. (IDK if you’ve already talked to her, it’s totally possible she’s just a jerk roomie.)
What do you do if the messier roommate bursts into tears and leaves the apartment for days if you so much as suggest having a direct discussion about the cleaning, let alone actually try to have that discussion?
LW, I agree that you should try to not live with this person anymore, but I can also see how figuring out how to end your housing situation could be stressful and overwhelming. Even if you can’t move right away, can you start coming up with a plan of how to move by X months from now, for some manageable X? Can you break it down into small, concrete steps?
I hate confrontation so so much, and have ended up staying in bad roommate situations for far too long rather than say, “hey, I don’t want to live with you anymore.” also, I live in a rental market that is very seasonal, and it’s very hard to find a place or a roommate in the off season, so maybe I’m projecting a bit here, but if I were in your shoes, I might start with something like, “hey, when the semester ends in January, I’m going to be looking for a new place.”
that way, at least, there’s a concrete end-date in sight.
The roommate would probably follow up with a, “but why?”
and my instinct would be to sort of lie to make her feel better. something like: “I wasn’t prepared for the responsibility of having a cat in the apartment, and I’d prefer to live without one.” (It is true in that you’re resentful of having to care for her cat, after all, but of course that’s not really the main issue.)
maybe that’s not the best instinct, though.
I am usually the messy person in roommate situations, but I have also lived with someone so messy that it triggered my own anxiety to spend time in the apartment, so my other thought is, if it feels honest, could you frame the issue around your own mental health?
Something like, “our mental health issues aren’t compatible. yours make it hard for you to keep a tidy home environment, mine make it hard for me to function without a tidy home environment”?
Also, I agree with SarcasticFringehead. There’s no script for stopping the guilt spiral, because the guilt spiral is a symptom of the disease. If you are like me, you will feel better knowing you did whatever you could to be kind, but ultimately, you can’t control your roommate’s reaction.
Luckily, your roommate is in therapy. If she does react badly to you talking to her, hopefully she can work through her emotions with her therapist.
That assumes that the LW moved into the current apartment after her roommate, not the other way around. If it’s a place she likes, she may not want to move out, which brings up another set of difficulties involving informing the roommate she needs to find somewhere else to live. And I haven’t had roommates out of college, so yeah, not sure how to navigate that one.
this is true, but sometimes it’s worth it to move, even if you shouldn’t be the person who has to.
I’ve done it before (roommate had been in the apartment for 8 months, I’d been there for 4 years) and I am so glad I did. It was like a weight I didn’t even realize was there had been lifted off my chest.
Oh yeah, I would never advocate standing your ground out of principle, or for what are ultimately superficial preferences, at the cost of your own peace of mind.
Yeah, whether or not it’s worth it to move is kind of where I’m at now (I moved in with her, after her previous roommate moved out…because she was too irresponsible. That I only found out, from the previous roommate, after I moved in.) The rent is ridiculously cheap, within walking distance of my work place, and while technically part of the problem, my roommate never being home definitely has its perks as well. I’ve spoken to her a bit since I sent this letter, little by little, and she is improving slightly, if at a rate that depends on me doing more emotional work (from my perspective, anyway). Is It Worth It To Move Out and try to find another queer-friendly roommate who won’t mind ME only cleaning every week and a half, who lives within walking distance of my work since a car isn’t an option for me, is the million dollar question.
Trust me, you want to move. In my situation, it would get better for a bit only to get much worse.
I don’t know if you’ve found Unfuck Your Habitat, but she has a whole set of posts & worksheets and all sorts of stuff on roommates (and other sections on cleaning and dealing with depression/ anxiety/ etc.) – in case you fall on the staying side and need more resources (or if you leave and want some techniques for keeping your space clean without it being a big THING). Plus the author introduced me to Bar Keeper’s Friend, which is great stuff.
I used to be about as much of a mess as it sounds like your roommate is. It took me about four years and plenty of help, care, and money to really get better. (I lived on my own for a number of years to try to avoid making life unpleasant for others.) So it could be like this for a while. In my unscientific opinion, your best shot of getting her to change her behavior is to help initiate better habits for the whole household. You could try initiating one regular time when you both do a chore, perhaps together. This is not your job but it may still be worth a shot.
Okay, between this comment and your other one above, your situation is sounding a LOT like one I was once in. I don’t have any particular advice beyond what other people have given (and the way I ended up dealing with it is not one I would recommend), but if you’re on Twitter and ever feel like trading stories, you should totally DM me.
Is your twitter name the same as your Toast name? I might take you up on that.
Wherever you go now (working on the assumption you do leave) will be different. It won’t be worse, because you will have learnt from this experience and you now have a clearer understanding of what you can and can’t deal with. Make a kind of contract with your new housemate (verbal is fine) about how you’ll clean etc, and check in with eachother regularly to make sure it’s still working.
Living with (relative) strangers can be quite liberating after living with friends, because you can just be roommates without the pain and pressure of trying to separate your living and your feelings. I had a housemate nightmare last year – there were six of us which made the whole thing very intense, and I ended up moving out early because my anxiety was out of control. We aren’t really friends now, and that’s sad, but perhaps with time apart we can get to know eachother again on different terms.
I hope you find something that works for you. Lots of love x
FWIW, I moved out of a situation not unlike this into a less-ideal housing situation (longer commute, more money) and it was 100% worth it for me to not live with roommates who I had major issues with.
Something like, “our mental health issues aren’t compatible. yours make it hard for you to keep a tidy home environment, mine make it hard for me to function without a tidy home environment”
This is great! It’s considerate and doesn’t make assumptions, while being completely honest about the actual issue. No sugarcoating, but also no blaming – just the facts. This is what I would say.
Oh Toast, you know my soul. Just got out of this exact situation, and this is exactly what I needed to hear
Oh Toast, you always know my soul. Just got out of this exact situation and this is exactly what I needed to hear before moving on
Oh man, this hit close to home. I literally JUST got out of a situation like this. I thought it would be a lot of fun to be roommates with my friend, but, especially once an animal gets involved, things can get hairy fast. One of our major issues was that we had very different ideas about how the dog should be looked after, and most times when I tried to work with her figure how to best care for her dog (whom we were both living with, so it was very difficult for me NOT to be involved) she would behave as though I was prying into her life and trying to control her. It took me a long time to realize this was HER problem, that the situation with her being shit at communicating and assuming that I was judging and criticizing everything she did was not going to change no matter how hard I tried, and that she had walls up that genuinely hurt me. The dog made all of this way worse, and I’ll say that living with animals puking or peeing and not being looked after properly when their not yours sucks.
Ultimately, as someone who is sensitive and also suffers from depression, this entire situation was an incredible emotional drain. Your mental health is no joke, and I would say try a bit more, but if you’re hitting walls, get out. I was exhausted for a very long time. I got lucky and found a good living situation, but depending on where you live and how much money you make, it can be very difficult to move. I would say at least start explore other options now.
I strongly disagree with this advice. It leaps to conclusions unsupported by the letter, it’s judgemental in tone and, yes, ableist. I’m going to assume that Aunt Acid means well and just can’t imagine that a depression could impact someone badly enough to make them be unable to keep up with chores, but I’m here to say that it totally can. We have ZERO evidence that the LW’s friend is being selfish. We see her neglect to tell her roommate an important thing (that’s what I reacted to the most!), not do her chores, be in treatment for depression and quitting and finding a job. That tells us nothing of her motivations or abilities. Depression really is a credible explanation for all of this. It’s just not justifiable to not give her the benefit of the doubt. She’s sick. We can’t just ignore the illness, assume that the illness can’t be the real explanation and jump to the conclusion that it must be selfishness. That’s ableist. It really is.
But, if the roommate had instead become disabled by another illness/injury/pain, that wouldn’t mean that it wouldn’t be hard to live with a roommate who can’t do chores. It’s still just as hard for the LW to have to do all the chores, it doesn’t matter WHY the roommate can’t do her share. So, we don’t have to invalidate her illness or integrity to validate the LW’s feelings.
You can decide that you can’t live with a disabled roommate, even if it’s your friend. I get that this feels heartless, and that it would feel less heartless if it’s the roommate’s own fault. But, really, LW, you can tell your friend gently that she needs to move out because it’s just too hard. You can tell her that you still respect her, and that you don’t believe she’s slacking off.
Because, you do respect her still, right? You wouldn’t ACTUALLY compare her illness to yours and assume she’s not trying? I mean, there really is such a thing as a depression so disabling that you can’t do ANYTHING. Some people are so high-functioning you can’t even tell they’re sick, you are able to work and mostly keep up with the household chores but not more, your roommate was (WITH treatment) able to quit a bad job and find a better one but not do any chores, some people have to go on sick leave for depression because they can’t work, and some depressed people have to go to the hospital because they can’t even feed themselves. It’s a spectrum, it’s different for everybody.
If you don’t want her to move out, if you still like living with her, you both need to sit down together and decide what to do. And that discussion needs to be REALISTIC. Neither of you should assume an ability level you don’t have right now, you should plan based on the abilities you actually have. Don’t promise each other to be “better” or to “try harder”, work with what you have. Take lordpuddleglum’s advice! And/or look into what it would cost to hire a cleaning person.
Don’t forget getting treatment for yourself! YOUR illness must be a huge burden on you, and you deserve to have it lifted.
Story time.
On Roommates Not Caring for Their Pets: or, How to Be an Inhumane Monster to Dogs
Last year I moved out of a place where one of my two roommates decided to get a Boxer – one of the nicest, friendliest, but neediest breeds around. They have to have companionship, no ifs, ands, or buts. You just can’t leave them alone for more than a couple hours at a time, so it’s recommended to have more than one if you’re frequently gone for long stretches of time.
None of us worked from home and all of us had predictable, normal-hours office jobs Monday through Friday, so that applied to us. But my roommate didn’t want two dogs, only one. And she couldn’t afford doggy daycare or a dogwalker, and frankly I’m not sure I and the other roommate would have been comfortable with giving someone else keys to our house.
The dog loved her, because she was a huge dog person (theoretically, at least) and took him everywhere with her on the weekends and gave him constant attention – when she was home.
But for 8+ hours of the day, five days a week, this poor dog sat at home all by himself, completely alone from the last moment she left for work until the person who got off work earliest got back. Which, of *course*, was me. So I had an angel of guilt hanging over my head every day telling me not to run any errands after work or spend any extra time finishing a task because if I didn’t get home ASAP, that dog would be alone for another 1-2 hours before my roommate got back.
It was a cascading series of increasingly terrible situations for this dog. First he stayed in the house, but then he started getting so anxious to follow her to *wherever* she disappeared to each day that he clawed the shit out of the front door, just stripped all the paint off and left chinks in the wood several inches long. The other roommate, who owned the house, was not having that.
So she started leaving him in the backyard. Predictably, the back door got the same treatment. Plus, he’d run around in the yard whining, then moaning, and then howling, as he realized she was gone for good and the Torture Hours were starting. The noise frequently woke me up before my alarm and did not stop the entire hour+ it took me to get ready for work.
Part 2
One morning, after she’d left but I and the other roommate were still home, he was so frantic to get back inside that when I opened the blinds on my window, he spotted me and LUNGED through the flower bed to try to break his way into the house through my window. He cracked the windowpane and ripped the screen off the wall. My other roommate (who didn’t like him breaking stuff but didn’t really give a shit about the dog’s wellbeing) told the first roommate that he couldn’t stay in the yard, either.
We both wanted her to take him back to the Boxer shelter because clearly she wasn’t prepared to take care of an animal with anxiety, who was supposed to have constant companionship but who was being left alone for 8 hours straight every goddamn day.
Instead, she decided to lock him into the garage. So he started clawing up the garage. Then, one day, he tore the screen off the exhaust vent on the garage door and wormed his way out into the driveway while everyone was at work. For hours, he ran around the neighborhood off his leash, including during the early afternoon when the middle school less than 500 feet away was letting out and kids were everywhere. We learned he spent the whole day howling himself hoarse until our neighbor collared him (luckily the neighbor didn’t call animal control!) and called my roommate’s number.
She did, at least, leave work early to come get him. The neighbor gave her an absolutely 100% deserved strongly-worded talking to about leaving the dog cooped up alone all day. This, by the way, was the next-door neighbor, and we lived on narrow lots, so if the howling woke me up in the morning, I’m sure it was waking this guy up, too.
Finally she had no choice but to lock this dog that she didn’t want to deal with or care for properly in a crate. In a crate. In the garage. For eight straight hours. Five days a week.
God, that poor dog. It was inhumane. I literally couldn’t bring myself to so much as stop by the grocery store on the way home from work, because every second was another second he had to spend in his torture cage.
If I’d worked longer days or had a more erratic schedule, and hadn’t been ina position to go home right away and let him out, not to mention be physically present with him in the house while we waited for everyone else to get home so he didn’t destroy anything, those eight hours would be more like ten or eleven. The thought of what happened when I was out of town occasionally was heartbreaking.
I could not stand to hear him moaning when I woke up every morning and hear his collar jingling with excitement when I opened the garage door, only to see him droop in disappointment when he realized it was me, not my roommate. I’d let him out and he would just stand in the front entryway, staring at the door, motionless, waiting for her. Sometimes he’d get tired and lie down but he’d always get nervous and stand up again, like if he wasn’t standing up, he’d miss it if she came home.
It was horrible and eventually I couldn’t take it and moved out.
I can honestly say I hate almost no one, but I really, really hate her.
(p.s. for if this ever happens again, is there a way to report animal abuse other than literally calling the cops? which seems dangerous for everyone involved, but also the only way to really get the situation to change? does aspca actually have the ability to do anything in situations like this?)
Holy shit!
I mean, I thought one of my previous housemates was neglectful (tip: don’t get a border collie/kelpie cross if you a) are 19, b) study full-time and work long hours, and c) don’t really like going for long walks. Nothing against 19-year-olds in general, this one was just immature)
But seriously, fucking wow. In Australia, I’d call the RSPCA? If you make a report, they come out and inspect the animal and I think they can make recommendations for care, or that the animal be removed.
Oh no, that poor dog. Like snani I’m not a USian, so I don’t know what the protocol would be for reporting something like this, but there HAS to be one, right? Regardless: people like that should not keep pets.
Do you know what happened to the dog after you moved out? Please tell me he now lives with a big happy family, with a dad to train him and give him treats, a mom to take him on extra-long hikes on Sunday, two smaller humans who will chase him around the huge yard and squeal with glee when he licks their faces, and another, younger boxer to dog around with while the humans are at work and school. Please. Lie if necessary.
and this is why there are whole cities where it’s nearly impossible to find pet friendly housing. JESUS.
I’d have been tempted to try to rehome the dog and pretend it must have escaped. Or to try to return it to the original adoption agency. And hidden doggie treats in her fav shoes. But probably I would have done what you did and taken on way too much responsibility and guilt for a problem that shouldn’t have been mine.
Story time.
On Roommates Not Caring for Their Pets: or, How to Be an Inhumane Monster to Dogs
Last year I moved out of a place where one of my two roommates decided to get a Boxer – one of the nicest, friendliest, but neediest breeds around. They have to have companionship, no ifs, ands, or buts. You just can't leave them alone for more than a couple hours at a time, so it's recommended to have more than one if you're frequently gone for long stretches of time.
None of us worked from home and all of us had predictable, normal-hours office jobs Monday through Friday, so that applied to us. But my roommate didn't want two dogs, only one. And she couldn't afford doggy daycare or a dogwalker, and frankly I'm not sure I and the other roommate would have been comfortable with giving someone else keys to our house.
The dog loved her, because she was a huge dog person (theoretically, at least) and took him everywhere with her on the weekends and gave him constant attention – when she was home.
But for 8+ hours of the day, five days a week, this poor dog sat at home all by himself, completely alone from the last moment she left for work until the person who got off work earliest got back. Which, of *course*, was me. So I had an angel of guilt hanging over my head every day telling me not to run any errands after work or spend any extra time finishing a task because if I didn't get home ASAP, that dog would be alone for another 1-2 hours before my roommate got back.
It was a cascading series of increasingly terrible situations for this dog. First he stayed in the house, but then he started getting so anxious to follow her to *wherever* she disappeared to each day that he clawed the shit out of the front door, just stripped all the paint off and left chinks in the wood several inches long. The other roommate, who owned the house, was not having that.
So she started leaving him in the backyard. Predictably, the back door got the same treatment. Plus, he'd run around in the yard whining, then moaning, and then howling, as he realized she was gone for good and the Torture Hours were starting. The noise frequently woke me up before my alarm and did not stop the entire hour+ it took me to get ready for work.
Part 2
One morning, after she'd left but I and the other roommate were still home, he was so frantic to get back inside that when I opened the blinds on my window, he spotted me and LUNGED through the flower bed to try to break his way into the house through my window. He cracked the windowpane and ripped the screen off the wall. My other roommate (who didn't like him breaking stuff but didn't really give a shit about the dog's wellbeing) told the first roommate that he couldn't stay in the yard, either.
We both wanted her to take him back to the Boxer shelter because clearly she wasn't prepared to take care of an animal with anxiety, who was supposed to have constant companionship but who was being left alone for 8 hours straight every goddamn day.
Instead, she decided to lock him into the garage. So he started clawing up the garage. Then, one day, he tore the screen off the exhaust vent on the garage door and wormed his way out into the driveway while everyone was at work. For hours, he ran around the neighborhood off his leash, including during the early afternoon when the middle school less than 500 feet away was letting out and kids were everywhere. We learned he spent the whole day howling himself hoarse until our neighbor collared him (luckily the neighbor didn't call animal control!) and called my roommate's number.
She did, at least, leave work early to come get him. The neighbor gave her an absolutely 100% deserved strongly-worded talking to about leaving the dog cooped up alone all day. This, by the way, was the next-door neighbor, and we lived on narrow lots, so if the howling woke me up in the morning, I'm sure it was waking this guy up, too.
Finally she had no choice but to lock this dog that she didn't want to deal with or care for properly in a crate. In a crate. In the garage. For eight straight hours. Five days a week.
God, that poor dog. It was inhumane. I literally couldn't bring myself to so much as stop by the grocery store on the way home from work, because every second was another second he had to spend in his torture cage.
If I'd worked longer days or had a more erratic schedule, and hadn't been ina position to go home right away and let him out, not to mention be physically present with him in the house while we waited for everyone else to get home so he didn't destroy anything, those eight hours would be more like ten or eleven. The thought of what happened when I was out of town occasionally was heartbreaking.
I could not stand to hear him moaning when I woke up every morning and hear his collar jingling with excitement when I opened the garage door, only to see him droop in disappointment when he realized it was me, not my roommate. I'd let him out and he would just stand in the front entryway, staring at the door, motionless, waiting for her. Sometimes he'd get tired and lie down but he'd always get nervous and stand up again, like if he wasn't standing up, he'd miss it if she came home.
It was horrible and eventually I couldn't take it and moved out.
I can honestly say I hate almost no one, but I really, really hate her.
(p.s. for if this ever happens again, is there a way to report animal abuse other than literally calling the cops? which seems dangerous for everyone involved, but also the only way to really get the situation to change? does aspca actually have the ability to do anything in situations like this?)
One possible solution for people who live with or are slobs: chip in to hire a housekeeper twice a month and everyone does light upkeep in between. It will pay for itself in the lowering of tension in the house and freeing up of time. However, that won’t help this LW much as it appears the roommate has so many issues that go beyond chores.
Even here, I think it might help. It sounds like the biggest day to day issue is that the roommate isn’t caring for her cat, but I wonder if some sort of trade off might be possible where the roommate hired someone to clean a couple times a month, taking some other burdens off of Annie, and in turn Annie agreed that she’d feed the cat when the roommate wasn’t around or was preoccupied. This seems like it might depend on Annie’s tolerance for pet care compared to other tasks, though.
If I was living with a roommate that previously did their chores and then stopped because they broke their leg (or whatever "acceptable" physical cause for disability), I wouldn't assume I would take over their chores. We're roommates – not parent/child. They would hire a maid, order in more delivery (to cut down on dishes), adjust their own expectations to accommodate the change in their lifestyle – but placing the expectation that the *roommate* would just do more because they can is an odd idea. The only exception I could see is if the suddenly disabled roommate had always gone above and beyond and put more "deposits" into the roommate bank – vs the situation here where one person has been pretty heavy on the "withdrawals" and has put their account into overdraft.