Roommate fails to pay her share of rent and ghosts her housemate for over 2 months, so the housemate donates her belongings and mistakenly gets rid of a family heirloom: ‘It all could have been avoided if she had tried to communicate with me’

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Jul 14, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

Living with an entitled, inconsiderate roommate is a rite of passage for any twenty-something trying to find their footing in this world. If you're just starting out in your career or are currently in college away from home, you're probably going to be living with a bunch of roommates. This is what primes you for the real world; roommates teach you exactly who you do and don't want to be around. Sure, the one-off dirty dish left in the sink is annoying, but the story you're about to read makes everyday tiffs feel like child's play.

If you're taking a "leave of absence" from your current living situation for whatever reason, you can't expect your roommates to pay your share of rent—that's not what was agreed upon when you signed a lease together. They are responsible for their share only and can probably sue you if you try any funny business.

But, if you ghost them completely, what do you expect them to do? Pay your rent like nothing's wrong? Take care of their cat that they selfishly left behind for a backpacking trip to Thailand? No, you donate their belongings to Goodwill. Scroll below to read the full story.

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  • DONATION "I told her by July I would start getting rid of things if she didn't make plans to do it herself."|
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "AITA for donating my roommate’s family heirloom to goodwill?"

    I've (22f) posted here about my roommate (24f) before. She has always had issues contributing to the household, including buying things like toilet paper, dish soap, laundry detergent, etc. She also
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  • rarely does her dishes promptly or takes out the trash or other household chores, and struggles to pay utilities on time. Sometimes I even have to hound
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  • her for the rent. I felt bad at first because clearly she wasn't equipped to live alone but I quickly got frustrated and
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  • became short with her. We were friends at first but not so much anymore after I've had to put up with her for this long.
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  • Our year long lease ended and we have been living month to month since then. Eventually she got a boyfriend. He lives with his
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  • parents but that hasn't stopped her from spending most of her time at their house. I started seeing her less and less.
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  • A couple days into May I hadn't seen her for maybe two weeks. I texted and called her to see when she was going to pay her share of rent (due on the 5th) but she
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  • basically ghosted me. I got in contact with her mom and eventually my roommate reached out to say she's staying with her boyfriend's family "for now" and
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  • doesn't think she should be expected to pay rent for somewhere she's not staying. I kindly asked if that meant she would be moving out but she didn't respond.
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  • I paid rent myself, which was a huge unexpected expense. After that I decided I was done. I texted her over the course of May and June asking her to move her stuff
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  • out but she didn't respond to me. Her mom kept promising me that her daughter would take care of it but she never once got back to me.
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  • After July started I recruited a couple friends to help me pack up the stuff in her room and donated most of it to Goodwill and the Salvation Army. I also asked the landlord to change the locks which he did.
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  • The other evening she finally shows up and is mad that the locks have been changed. I told her she's not living here and doesn't pay rent so she has no reason to enter the apartment.
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  • She got even more upset and said that she was never moving out, she was just staying with him for the time being. She told me the situation didn't work out so
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  • she planned to come back and live here again. I told her that she was already off the lease and it's my rental now. She started crying
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  • and said she had nowhere else to go and I felt really bad. She asked if she could at least get some of her stuff, she needed some clean clothes and a shower. I told her
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  • that because she never told me she was coming back or made plans to move her stuff out, I donated everything that was in her room unless it looked precious or expensive and stored the rest in her closet.
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  • She completely freaked out and threatened to call the police on me. She was inconsolable. She cried about how I even donated her de d grandmother's wedding
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  • dress, which had been in a special box somewhere in her room. I apologized profusely because I did feel really bad but it all could have been avoided if she had tried to communicate with me. AITA?
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  • EDIT: I didn't give her a specific deadline but I did tell her that in July I would start getting rid of things if she didn't make plans to do it herself.
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  • E ict NTA. If she cared so much about her things, she would have acted like an adult and communicated with you. You are not a storage facility and that's what she treated you as. It's sad some of her things may have been heirlooms, but that's on her, not you.
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  • StormyKitten0 NTA. You contacted her to get her stuff but she basically abandoned the apartment and her belongs. I would have given her a strict deadline to get her stuff before donating them but you had every right since she failed to pay rent or even respond. Document the convo, especially where you told her to get her stuff.
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roommate drama landlord aita bad roommate rental house tenants bad roommates tenant landlords apartments reddit story renting reddit thread Reddit roommates entitled people apartment
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