roommate drama - you be the judge

In My Humble Opinion
1

Up until this morning, I sincerely liked my roommate. We were friends in grad school, and when we found out that both of us were staying in Chicago after graduation, we thought it’d be nice to be roommates. Being roommates with her has been, at times, a trying experience:

  1. She was out of town the ENTIRE summer, so I was on my own when it came time to hunt for places and deal with the paperwork. When we finally found a place, she was lazy about keeping in touch (her cell phone had been cut off, so the only way to keep in touch with her was through her mother) AND lazy about sending the first month’s rent (which had to be paid ahead of time), and we came very close to losing the apartment AND the deposit we’d already put down.

  2. She moved in weeks after I did. This meant that I had to spend the money and the labor to clean the filthy place from top to bottom and make it inhabitable.

  3. She thinks it’s okay to pay the rent late, because the landlord’s a creep.

  4. She is content to leave half-eaten apples and dirty dishes out for extended periods of time, until I’m afraid they’ve started to grow some kind of rudimentary intelligence.

Now, none of this stuff has bothered me before. I’m pretty easy-going by nature, and I don’t mind doing the dishes or cleaning up by myself when it’s for a person I know and like.

Currently, my roommate lives in NY. She’s been there for the past few months, starting last December. She’s still been paying rent on the apartment, of course, since our lease isn’t over yet. For most of this past year she’s been unemployed and living with the help of her parents (she’s had plenty of job offers in the Chicago area, FTR) - recently she found a job in NY that she liked and has decided to stay there. It was always understood that she’d keep paying the rent here until the lease was over - or she found some alternative, like someone to take over her half of the lease. She was always adamant about the fact that she didn’t want to inconvenience me.

Today, she sent me an email saying that she’s “dejected” that I think it’s okay to treat her like a doormat, and that she’s refusing to pay the rent starting from next month.

Her basis for this accusation is this: a few months ago, a mutual guy friend of ours (we’ll call him Jim) was looking for a sublet. Jim is acutally more my friend than my roommate’s. He’d previously asked me if I wanted to sublet with him (before graduation) - I said no, because he’s just one of those friends you know you won’t be able to live with even though you love them dearly. My roommate, who at the time was already in NY, casually asked me if I’d mind Jim taking over half of the lease. I laughed, thinking she was joking, and said of course I minded, he’d probably molest me in my sleep! (He has a reputation for being kind of creepy at times.) I also said I’d rather find a roommate off craigslist than live with Jim (which I was serious about). She dropped the subject.

In her email today, she says that I should have been more considerate about her situation and insinuates that I refused to live with Jim just because I thought I could get away with it. She then apologizes for whatever it is she did that made me lose respect for her and consequently made me think it was okay to take advantage of her.

Nowhere does she apologize for pulling out of the lease premmaturely and leaving me with a monthly rent I have no resources to pay for. Her email, in short, is this: Hey, I’m pulling out of the lease, because you treated me like crap and I’m not standing for it anymore!

I am so furious right now my hands are shaking, but I’m also really, really confused, because we’ve been good friends (at least, I THOUGHT we were good friends) and she never brought up the roommate question after that one time. Perhaps there’s something justifiable in her complaint and I’m just too angry to see it right now.

So help me out here. I want to stay friends with her but right now I could cheerfuly wring her neck.

2

I don’t see anything justifiable in her complaint…that is a really shitty thing to do to you. There is no way that she should guilt you into living with someone you don’t want to live with because of HER decisions. Your choice was to live with her, and since she agreed to that, she needs to uphold her end of that bargain unless you find someone you feel as comfortable with as you do with her.

3

She knows she’s wrong, and she’s trying to justify to herself the awful thing she’s doing to you. You can’t be reasonable with her and expect her to just come around. Sorry. :frowning:

4

can you smack her through the computer?

5

I hate to ask, but do you have an agreement in writing about her paying the rent until the lease is up? Is her name on the lease? Either way, a politely-worded letter about legal ramifications might be in order.

6

She’s been acting like a horse’s ass and she knows it. And she’s trying to shrug off the guilt by manufacturing some little drama and blaming you for making her feel bad. She feels bad because she’s acting bad. I imagine you’re shafted on the rent side of things, but maybe you’ll be luckier than I was in the past - here’s hoping you are.

7

My roommate recently did something very similar and is now sticking me with the rent all on my own. I am looking for a new roommate to replace her when she moves out in June but I am hesitant to live with someone I don’t know. I can afford the place on my own (barely) so for a month or two while I am looking it will be okay, but honestly smothering her in her sleep doesn’t seem at all unreasonable.

I would really like to stay friends with my roommate after she moves but honestly I just don’t see it happening. When I asked for her share of the rent she told me she didn’t have it right now and it would take about a week. I reminded her she got almost $2000 back from the IRS and she said that she doesn’t want to spend that money, she wants to have it in her savings in case she needs it. (You know, for things like paying rent. :rolleyes: ) Sometimes people are just jerks, I guess.

8

Your problem’s in bold. How can you expect her to be happy about living there after you went out of your way to make it an unpleasant place to live?

d&r

Really, your problem sounds like so many relationships where one person can always rationalize anything they want in order to twist it in their favor. She probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it and it just makes it that much worse because there won’t be anything you can say or do to change her feelings.
It’ll just be a pissing match and you’ll end up on the short end.
Maybe you can work out a deal that she’ll at least pay a fraction of what she owes (like 1/2 or 2/3) so that you aren’t completely left out to dry.

9

ppbth, I remember reading your other threads about your roommate drama. Gah. And I was so relieved when I read those, thinking my roommate isn’t like that. Famous last words.

Both of our names are on the lease, but I dunno what happens if we don’t pay up. I’ll have to look it over, once I stop seeing red. I can’t decide whether I want to smoke my cigarettes or eat them.

I’m angry about the money, but I’m angrier about her accusations. I have never thought of her as anything less than a good friend and I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the back twice over.

ETA: Uncommon Sense. :smack: Considering my mood when I typed that it’s a wonder I was coherent at all.

10

To be honest, your description of events do not show her as being a good friend to you. I understand that she was probably good to you in the past, but at least since this roommate situation it sounds like she’s using you. I would strongly advise thinking over if you really want to stay friends with her.

Contact an attorney in your area about the lease issue, you can almost always get a free consultation.

Eta - and save the email as well as any other written communications regarding your living situation.

11

My suggestion: Send her an e-mail that says:

(1) You’re sorry for the misunderstanding about Jim, but you did not veto him for the sub-let in order to take advantage of her, but because you do not feel comfortable with him as a roommate. You’re sure she will understand how important it is to have a roommate that you can get along with and feel comfortable with. You’re not sure why she thinks that had anything to do with her; it didn’t.

(2) If she doesn’t want her half of the apartment anymore, you will do all you can to find someone to sub-let for her, including putting an ad on Craigslist (or whatever). But you frankly feel a bit irritated that she is going back on the agreement the two of you made and leaving you to both find a new roommate and live with a stranger. You understand that plans change, but you wish she had been clearer about hers from the beginning so that you could have made different arrangements then.

(3) Until you or she succeeds in sub-letting her half of the lease, she is responsible for her half of the rent, because that’s what the contract she signed says. You’re sorry, but you are not able to excuse her from that obligation because you don’t have the ability to pay the entire rent yourself. If she puts you in breach of the lease by her refusal to pay rent and you get evicted because of it, you will look to her to reimburse you for any penalties you have to pay. It would be much better for everyone concerned for her to continue to pay as she is obliged to do, and you promise you will try to find someone to sub-let ASAP.

The bottom line is that she’s trying to weasel out of the lease and is trying to camoflauge that by insinuating that the situation is your fault, when obviously it isn’t. You’re the injured party here, not her, because you’re the one who is going to be seriously inconvenienced by her changing her mind after she signed the lease. Be polite but firm, and clear in your expectations that she will continue to perform her legal obligation until other arrangements are made. As for friendship – frankly, she sounds like the kind of friend you can live without.

12

Here’s a vote for the wringing-her-neck option.

13

And once again, evidence that Jodi is one of the smartest and most sensible people on the entire planet. Excellent advice.

And I think Mosier hit the nail on the head as far as the reason she is acting like such an ass.

14

Most leases signed by more than one person include language that all parties on the lease are “jointly and severally liable” for the rent. In plain English, this means that if one party skips out on the rent, the other is still responsible for the whole thing. Which sucks for you.

In fact, it sounds like the whole thing sucks for you. Any chance you’d have better luck dealing with your roommate’s mom, as it sounds like your roommate is behaving like a small child?

15

I already did send her an email along those lines, but reading your post was reassuring. :slight_smile: (Although I did add, quite bluntly, that I was more upset of her accusations of screwing her over than I was about the money.)

There’s no point in looking for a subletter now; I’m moving out in June anyway, so I suppose she’s only skipping out on one month of rent. By the time I found someone I liked I’d have to move out. We’re in the process of looking for someone to take over the lease anyway so we can get our deposit back when I move out. That’s also what kills me - if she paid the rent for June, she’d be able to claim her deposit in July, and it’d be the same as her skipping out her rent in June and forfeiting her deposit for me to claim instead - except without all the unpleasantness. (Although if for whatever reason we don’t get our deposit back, I’m the only one that gets screwed over.)

I’ve tried to see things from her perspective, but I’ve always been scrupulous about money between friends. I’d rather take out a loan and pay it back with interest than owe a friend money. And she’s not even asking to BORROW the money - she’s flat out stated she’s backing out of the lease.

I really don’t want to resort to legal measures - that seems like it would be the final nail in the coffin in terms of our friendship. I suppose I need to decide whether those several hundred dollars are worth making this potentially more messy and unpleasant.

16

When she moved out in December, did you actively make a good faith effort to find someone to take over her part of the lease? Did she?

Technically, you had someone available to sublet, but you didn’t like him… so because of this she had to keep paying her portion of the rent, right?

I can see why she might feel a bit mad about this - if you had found a subletter right away, she wouldn’t have had to keep sending you the money. Now maybe it was her responsibility to find the subletter - and technically she did ask you to sublet to that guy but you said no. So should she have been let off the hook at this point? Or should she or you continued to actively look for subletters?

17

I really really REALLY feel for you. This is why I’ve not had a single roommate since I left McGill University 8 years ago. And my flatmate there was GREAT, wonderful, in fact.

That said, aforementioned friend (my oldest, in fact) currently owes me money. The bill has been outstanding for two years now, I haven’t heard a peep from her about it. I’ve decided to forget about it but when she was whining to me a few months ago about needing a few hundred dollars to make the move to a new city in which she’s doing her postdoc I kept my mouth shut. Not trustworthy!

The next time I share living space with someone, we’re going to have the same last name.

18

She didn’t move out in December - I suppose I didn’t make this clear in the OP. She left in December for a family holiday, so it was understood that she was returning after a few weeks. Somehow those weeks stretched into months. She wasn’t certain that she was going to settle down in in NY until about a month ago.

As I already stated, we never had a serious discussion about subletting. She suggested Jim; I said no, but expressed a willingness to look for a subletter elsewhere. She never took me up on that, so I assumed she wanted to keep her half of the lease in case she wanted to move back in Chicago. She never made any effort to look for a subletter - even in the case of Jim, he was the one who advertised that he was looking for a sublet, and it happened to coincide with her thinking about settling down in NY.

19

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking at this point. I’ve kind of lost a bit of faith in humanity at this point. I mean, roomie and I weren’t OMG BFF, but we were pretty good friends even before we moved in together. I never imagined she would do anything like this.

20

I’ll see you a dumbass former roomie and raise you a nasty note from her mom. The person who did it to me was a sophmore in college and had a teensy bit more excuse for being so damn immature. Her mom leaving me a nasty note calling me a bitch and demanding that I pay for a broken clock in the dining room (which was mine to begin with :rolleyes: ) she didn’t really have an excuse for.

I put up flyers advertising the place and showed a few potential roomies around. None of them took the room. I specifically put “male or female roommate wanted,” and I would have been comfortable living with a guy as long as I got along with him. I got one call from this 32 year old man who just saw my ad in the college’s library, and I turned him down because the idea of that did skeeve me out a bit at the time. Not a student, not even affiliated with the university, and 32 looking for a roomate on a bulletin board? No. Now, I made the mistake of mentioning this to my ex-roommate when she asked if I’d had any luck with the flyers.

(Mind you, all this while she’d contacted one person on craigslist, who I spoke to, but the person didn’t take the room. After that, she didn’t lift a fucking finger.)

A few weeks later cue her mom’s nasty note, including a mention of me turning down perfectly acceptable applicants. Applicants–plural. Perfectly acceptable? Sure, I bet she’d have been real happy with her 19 year old daughter agreeing to room with some 32 year old guy she’d never met.

You’ve got my sympathy, but no real advice. sorry.