"My house, my rules. Maybe you should move out if you can't handle it?": Friend-turned-landlord tightens house rules and keeps dangling removal, pushing his roommate to move out without warning

A flatshare friendship turns into a one-man homeowners association where chores become fines, the TV becomes a toll road, and every disagreement ends with a slogan about house and rules. The landlord hat arrives with a personality transplant, guests get treated like trespassers, and an aunt appears with the frequency of a utility bill. The lesson is simple and unglamorous: when a buddy buys a mortgage, not everyone gets promoted to tenant relations, and many discover they only liked camaraderie when it came split four ways.

Power plus proximity equals petty. The moment one person controls the roof, every spoon in the sink becomes a referendum and every bill becomes leverage disguised as responsibility. Shared spaces work like alliances, not monarchies, once decisions rely on slogans, the kitchen has already seceded. General theme two: boundaries beat debates.

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  • Flatmate turned landlord kept threatening to make me move out, so I moved out without telling him...

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  • This goes back a long time, around 2004. I had moved away from home at 18 to go to University back in 2001.
    via [deleted]
  • One of my roommates in student halls, Donald, ended up becoming a good buddy so when we moved out of halls after first year,
    via [deleted]

  • Document expectations, divide chores, and price add-ons before the installer arrives, because surprise subscriptions turn friends into customers with no customer service. General theme three: exits are cleaner than fixes when respect is underwater. People rarely reverse a control habit mid-lease, they double down and call it standards. Efficiency lives in the calendar, not the confrontation.

  • we ended up in a 4 bedroom houseshare with two other friends. The yearly lease ran its course so when that tenancy was up,
    via [deleted]
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  • Cheezburger Image 10549987072
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  • my friend who had quit University and was now working in a bank, decided to buy his own place and said I could rent his spare room.
    via [deleted]
  • Initially things were fine, at this point we'd been friends nearly 3 years but things soon started to change. Donald became antisocial and snidey.
    via [deleted]
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  • Mutual friends stopped visiting because of how unwelcome he would make them feel and he would actively insult people and say "its a joke!"
    via [deleted]
  • when called out. He wouldn't go on nights out with us anymore and his annoying as f Aunt was popping round for visits every other day.
    via [deleted]
  • Cheezburger Image 10549987328
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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  • A few months into the tenancy, my roommate announced that he was getting Sky TV (or cable TV) and I would have to pay for half.
    via [deleted]
  • I was working a part time retail job and paying my own way through Uni and told him I couldn't really afford it.
    via [deleted]
  • "Then you don't get a say on what I watch on MY TV." he smugly replied. He got lazier and lazier and would gaslight me into thinking it was always my turn to do chores
    via [deleted]
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  • and he would fly off the handle and get angry if he came home and there was any dishes or the bins hadn't been taken out.
    via [deleted]
  • When I pointed out I did everything he said "My house, my rules. Maybe we should rethink you living here if you don't want to live by them."
    via [deleted]
  • His excuse was that he worked all day and I was only at University, even though I was also working 4 days a week at my shop job on top of three full 9-5 ays at Uni.
    via [deleted]
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  • That started to become the mantra for everything. "My house, my rules. Maybe you should move out if you can't handle it?"
    via [deleted]
  • I spent more and more time in my room and though I was polite, barely engaged with him anymore.
    via [deleted]
  • One of my friends told me a friend of theirs was looking for a roommate so I went to meet with them,
    via [deleted]
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  • saw the room and decided to accept and move. My parents knew I was having a bad time and they said they would drive up and help me pack up and move home.
    via [deleted]
  • Within two weeks I had organised the move and had booked time off work one weekend to do it.
    via [deleted]
  • I decided not to bother telling my flatmate so he was surprised when my parents showed up that Saturday morning.
    via [deleted]
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  • Donald was suddenly nice as pie, sucking up to my folks and acting like we were big buds.
    via [deleted]
  • When he said to my Mum "I didn't know you were coming to visit." I replied: "They're not, they're here to move me out.
    via [deleted]
  • I have a new flat. I decided I didn't want to live by your rules after all and found somewhere else like you kept suggesting."
    via [deleted]
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  • Donald's face fell and he just stared like he was waiting for it to be a prank.
    via [deleted]
  • Then he skulked off to his bedroom and avoided us when no one laughed.
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  • My folks were able to get me moved in just two car trips, so it took maybe an hour to get all moved out.
    via [deleted]
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  • I didn't even say bye, just left my keys on the coffe table and walked out the door.
    via [deleted]
  • A few hours later, now in my new home, I got a text from Donald reading "I'm really sorry for the way I behaved.
    via [deleted]
  • I hope we can still be friends." I sent him back "HAHAHAHAHA!" and never heard from him again.
    via [deleted]
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  • My new roommate ended up becoming one of my best friends and we're still good friends over 20 years later.
    via [deleted]
  • I never spoke to Donald again but a mutual friend told me he couldn't afford the mortgage on his flat without me, no one else would move in with him
    via [deleted]
  • as he'd burned his bridges and they knew how he'd acted with me and he had to move back in with his Mum, quit his job and sell the flat.
    via [deleted]
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  • The most satisfying part was blindsiding him and the look of shock on his face.
    via [deleted]
  • you're reading this, Donald, you sk and your Aunt S is an annoying, overbearing, ride too.
    via [deleted]

  • Applied lightly to the specifics, the roommate/tenant lined up a new room, scheduled a stealth weekend extraction, and returned the keys with all the ceremony of a library book. The apology arrived only after the leverage evaporated, as apologies often do. The epilogue writes itself: the new flatmate becomes a lasting friend, the amateur landlord learns that bridges burn faster than interest rates drop, and the quiet victory is leaving before the next slogan

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friendship bad friend living with friends best friends friends public school 20-year-old private school friend mean girls housemate renting roommates apartment
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