AITAH For telling my landlord about my secret third roommate?
I (23F) am living with a roommate (28F) and her friend (28F) is living in our living room. Before I moved in, I was made aware of this person. I was told she was getting back on her feet financially and she would be contributing to rent and helping cook and clean. She was living there before I moved in, and I moved in January.
It is now approaching the end of May, and this roommate has still not paid any rent. I have been growing resentful, as I have asked my roommate several times if she is able to pay rent and have not heard any clear answers and she has not helped. She has a car, an office job, and works full time. I have my personal stipulations about living with her like she probably has the loudest voice I have ever heard late at night too, she gossips nasty all the time and leaves for weeks at a time with her stuff still being in the living room.
She sleeps on a couch bed thing that takes up quite literally the entire living room and her stuff remains there and throughout the living room the weeks she is gone. One day she was telling me about her sugar daddy and followed up saying “I know it’s hard to be jealous of other people
who are doing well.” Because she knows I am struggling financially with my minimum wage job. Girl you’re in my living room rent free. That’s what really p*ssed me off.
Reddit user @lemonlimeperspective explained on the r/AITAH subreddit that their roommate’s friend had been living in the apartment’s living room rent-free for nearly five months despite originally agreeing to contribute financially and help around the apartment. According to the post, the situation became increasingly frustrating after the unofficial roommate repeatedly avoided paying rent while continuing to occupy the shared living space with her furniture, belongings, and temporary absences that still left the apartment cluttered.
I told my roommate I want her to start paying rent and I feel she is taking advantage of the situation. My roommate basically said she’d ask again and she’d try. Well the girl messaged me with a voice note saying that she lives on and off with her parents and they’re fighting and she’ll “do some numbers” because she could possibly help with rent and she’d be “happy to help.”
I said I do not want her to live there unless she is paying rent like was agreed. I told my roommate that too with vague responses. I then told my roommate I was going to involve the landlord. Our landlord is extremely kind and has made a plan with me to get back on track with rent, and I expressed that she will be kind and understanding about the situation- that she’d probably just want to add her to the lease or have us make a private agreement with her.
She told me she would pay money by the end of the month but I’m done. My roommate has told me multiple times she would do that. I expressed I don’t want to be the one to enforce things in an agreement I didn’t even make, and I shouldn’t have to get so serious for her to take paying rent seriously. They both were texting me saying oh we’re all going to get kicked out, but I know that won’t be the case. I explained the landlord will actually enforce these expectations so they aren’t just words. Even though I now have promises from them that she will pay, it’s too late. AITAH?
My roomie is extremely kind and lenient to an extreme degree- she expressed to me even that she’d like the roommate to help with rent and to be able to use the space but I know she’s going to back her friend. My roomie even threatened to find a new place to live. I feel like I’m arguing with children.
The post quickly sparked strong reactions from readers on r/AITAH, many of whom focused on how quickly a “temporary living situation” had evolved into a full-time unofficial roommate arrangement. Others were especially fixated on the growing tension inside the apartment, from the unpaid rent and living room takeover to the increasingly passive-aggressive conversations between everyone involved.
I want you out.
Four words, said to her face. That’s all you gotta do.
Your landlord may throw her out, your place may be too small for three in a legal sense.
Either way you need her and all her stuff out,
Can you look for another place to rent? That sounds really miserable besides taking up all the Living room space and her using all the utitilities she is costing you not only money but aggravation. It is completely unfair to the 2 of you that are paying the bills. She sounds like a professional grifter as she mentioned having a sugar daddy she thinks she should just get away with everyone else paying her share. Good luck, but seriously I would try and get out, find a more peaceful place with a roomie that promises not to allow anyone else to move in.
NTA. Mist anywhere you are in the US she has the legal protections of being a tenant. She needs to start paying for those protections. But also it wouldn't surprise me if your lease is worded in such a way that all tenants are responsible for the full rent. So even she gets put on it it doesn't guarantee your rent will be less if she still doesn't pay.
Stop engaging with them. Just contact the landlord. At some point, the landlord is going to assume that you knew about this and approved it.
Slight YTA
In the end, the situation became less about one missed rent payment and more about the growing frustration that comes from unclear boundaries, uneven financial expectations, and feeling trapped in someone else’s “temporary” arrangement. While @lemonlimeperspective insisted involving the landlord was simply a way to finally enforce accountability, the story highlighted how quickly roommate situations can spiral when nobody wants to have uncomfortable conversations until it’s already too late.
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