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27-year-old tenant pays extra rent to keep her home office private, stands her ground when her roommate tries to give it away to guests: ‘That was the deal from day one’

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  • Three women sit closely together with serious, slightly tense expressions, as if reacting to an awkward or frustrating situation.
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  • I (27F) rent a house with 2 other girls Tessa (26F) and Charlie (31F). It's a 5 bed 3 bath with a finished basement, it's in a pretty nice neighborhood and we got it for a steal so we've been here a couple years.
  • Onto the issue, I work from home and Tessa has a hybrid schedule. When we all moved in Charlie wanted us to pay more rent since we would be setting up offices in the 2 spare rooms.
  • The basement is finished so we offered for her to set up a space just for her down there, but she didn't like the idea of being banished to the basement (her words).
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  • So Tessa and I both agreed to pay a little more rent. However, my condition was my office was not to be a shared space.
  • Tessa didnt care about if other people use her room, but this p ed off Charlie. Charlie started arguing with me about what if she has guests and what if she needs to use an office space for something.
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  • Tessa tried to diffuse and said her office could be a mixed use room but that wasn't good enough for Charlie.
  • After a little back and forth she agreed to the terms and it wasn't really brought up again for over a year.
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  • Well Charlie now has 2 friends coming in from Europe to stay for a couple weeks.
  • Two women look surprised and focused while reacting to something on a laptop.
  • She gave Tessa and me a heads up the other morning, fine with us we love having people come stay at the house sometimes too.
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  • She then slipped in that they'll need to stay in both our offices since she doesn't want them to have to put up with staying in the same room.
  • I reminded her of my conditions of paying the extra rent and all hl broke loose.
  • She called me self centered and a possessive weirdo and stormed off huffing. Even without the boundary, I can't just give up my office for a couple weeks.
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  • I would have to move my whole set up to my bedroom, and I have a job that requires me to have multiple screens going with the type of work I do.
  • Tessa is wanting to keep the peace and offered to help me set up something in my bedroom and that maybe I should just drop it.
  • This is really the only issue we've ever had, it's been a great roommate experience otherwise.
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  • That has me wondering if maybe I'm not being adaptable enough? So, AITA? Edit: okay I really didn't think this was gonna be a popular post since it's just a roommate squabble.
  • Im seeing a lot of the same questions so: Total rent is 1800, Charlie pays 500, Tessa and I each pay 650.
  • Three women smile and share popcorn while watching something entertaining.
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  • We split all utilities 3 ways except internet, Tessa and I split that since we need it to be high speed.
  • The house is about 1600 sq ft without the basement, i cant remember the exact square footage of the basement.
  • The offices are the smallest rooms, and I could technically move my desk into my bedroom.
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  • However moving my setup to the basement would take extra work as my desk wouldn't fit down the stairs.
  • Charlie does not want her guests in the basement because it's not as nice as the rest of the house, and I think it might be because my office and Tessa's offices are pretty cute, we've decorated them pretty well.

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