Tenant hides neighbor's clothes after watching neighbor repeatedly take out residents' clothes from the communal washing machine: ‘She's never coming back to our laundry room’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Mar 21, 2026 10:00 AM EDT

The silent battle over a washing machine is something no one knows how to prepare for, yet everyone must face.

If you have never lived in a place where you had to share a washing machine with total strangers, you might not be familiar with the struggle it usually invokes, and you might not even be aware that a struggle like this even exists. But boy, does it exist.

When you share a laundry room with your neighbors, you quickly learn about all the small battles you have to partake in in order to achieve a clean basket of clothes. For example, every laundry room has at least one washing machine and dryer that are better than all the others. The kinds that don't stain your clothes or don't shrink anything you put in them, and everyone who walks into the room wants to be the one to use them. So you have to be clever about it, you have to know exactly when you have to go into the laundry room in order to find these machines empty, and then use them for everything you own. 

This usually invokes another battle, the battle to actually keep your clothes in the machine, and preventing others from taking them out before the cycle is over. Some people even stay in the room throughout the entire cycle to ensure no one touches their clothes. Yet every communal laundry room has at least one person who has no problem disregarding others' belongings in order to make room for themselves.

That is exactly the kind of person described in the story below, and the funny thing is, she is not even supposed to be using the laundry room. She is a resident in one apartment complex, yet she uses the laundry room of another. Not only that, she constantly takes other residents' clothes out of the washing machine, and refuses to apologise for the mess she makes. She managed to annoy every single person who lives there until one resident finally decided to teach her a lesson. Hopefully, after that, she will never use a laundry room she doesn't belong in ever again.

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  • Woman standing in a laundromat with washing machine
    via Clara Beatriz

    Woman standing in a laundromat with washing machine

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • AITAH for hiding my neighbors clothes in another apartment complex

    I'm a 24 year old woman, and my neighbor (around 50-60) lives right across the street in a different complex.
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  • Each complex has 2 washers, and 2 dryers. I usually do mine early enough to where I wouldn't have to wait, because each complex has 8 units, so it can sometimes be hard to balance laundry day when you have to share with so many people...
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  • But I have no problem waiting as long as others are considerate for other people's time.
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  • So far, the people in MY complex are pretty good about taking their laundry out the washer, leaving little notes of apology that their laundry may be an all day thing.
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  • It's cool, things happen, and at least we know (even though, notes are unnecessary, it's a great gesture we use.) For the past year, I keep running into a neighbor from across the street at a different complex using our laundry room.
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  • I didn't mind it for a bit, but then she started doing weird stuff like waiting in the laundry room, and the moment someone's clothes stop washing, she takes them out herself and put everything on the laundry table, sometimes dropping stuff on the floor and just leaving it while basically guarding the washing machine, knowing someone may do it back to her.
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  • First encounter wasn't with me, but it was with another younger neighbor in the unit across from me.
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  • Very young, probably 19 or 20 just standing there looking absolutely appalled at the lady guarding her clothes while she looks down at her underwear just laying flat on the floor.
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  • I didn't know what was happening so I began making my way out, thinking it must've been a long wait before hearing the young woman say "why would you just throw my underwear on the floor like that?
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  • I need to wash it all over again. That's disgusting." The woman didn't answer nor flinched, and just kept scrolling through her phone, leaning on the washing machine.
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  • I gave the young woman a sympathetic look before turning to leave, so I don't know how the rest of that conversation went, because, well, not my monkey, not my circus.
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  • Second encounter, I had woken up really early to do some laundry. Soon as I walk downstairs to take my clothes out the washer, there she is.
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  • Leaning against the washing machine, all my clothes had been thrown out on to the table with a few on the floor as she continues to scroll through her phone.
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  • I didn't want to accuse her of something that I obviously know, so I wanted her to tell the truth.
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  • I asked, "Did you throw my clothes out the washer?..." No response. I repeat myself, a little louder.
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  • "Ma'am, did you throw my clothes out the washer?" Again, no response. The crazy thing is, the dryer wasn't being used and another neighbor who had HIS clothes in the dryer had his clothes thrown out right next to mine to where our clothes were almost on top of each other.
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  • In order to collect MY clothes, I had to dig through my neighbors! I stayed and waited patiently for her to get her clothes out so I could wash my clothes again.
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  • She ignored me the entire time. Not even turning, and looking back at me or anything.
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  • Eventually the guy did come to get his clothes, but he definitely looked at the UNUSED dryer, and his clothes just sitting on the counter.
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  • We exchange looks, and he just collects his clothes and goes back to his unit. As the year went on, it's obvious a lot of people kept running into that same lady, because instead of leaving the laundry room and continuing on with laundry, a lot of people stayed in the laundry room, basically GUARDING their clothes, me included.
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  • Whole time I'm thinking, "this isn't even her din complex?" "Why won't she use her washing machine?" I went to walk my dog and realized, WOW.
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  • Woman loading laundry into washing machine
    via Clara Beatriz

    Woman loading laundry into washing machine.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Her washing machine and dryer machine works perfectly fine. Yes, the laundry room itself looks a little rough compared to ours, but it's still a way to wash your clothes and not have to walk over two parking lots.
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  • Eventually, I noticed the older lady went from guarding the washing machine, to sitting outside on the steps awaiting, to leaving her clothes in the washing machine and going back to her unit.
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  • Now... Here's where I may be the ahle. Mind you, I've had 4 other encounters with her the whole year that had to do with the laundry room.
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  • (One where she even complained that I had "too many loads.") Again... Okay? Use your own din laundry room?
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  • On a perfectly, unprovoked day where I didn't have to do laundry, but I heard the washing machines going.
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  • I walked by with my dog to see her doing her laundry. I walked my dog around the neighborhood, and saw her go from sitting on the steps a bit to walking back to her complex across the street.
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  • Immediately... I went back to my complex, unlocked the laundry room and took all her clothes out, putting them in a trash bag.
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  • The laundry room has 2 doors. One where 4 units can enter through, and another where the other 4 units can enter through.
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  • I went through the opposite door just in case she was watching the front door that she goes in so I wouldn't get caught doing this.
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  • Now, I could've thrown her clothes away. I could've ruined them. What I did was I went to the furthest apartment complex from her and I, and put her bag of clothes on top of the counter.
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  • I could've dumped it out on the floor, but man, I wanted to. I went back to my apartment complex, and walked in through the other side, making my way through the laundry room and run upstairs to my apartment.
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  • Since she's so comfortable doing to another apartment complex to use our dryer and washer, and be disrespectful to our clothes and our time, then she can spend her time looking for her clothes.
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  • I called my mom about it, because she's known that I've been having an issue with this lady removing my clothes for a while, but my dad thinks I went overboard, because she's an "old lady and has to walk the bag of clothes back to where she lives." | just don't feel bad about it.
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  • I don't know if she ever found her clothes since this happened literally last month, but I know for a fact she's never coming back to our laundry room again.
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  • I may have done a bit too much, especially unprovoked, but I know that if I was provoked, she would've never left the laundry room and continued guarding her clothes, so AITAH?
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  • (Also, yes I've reported it to our leasing office, and for the most part, all they said at first was if I knew where she lived so they could send out a letter telling her not to do so.
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  • I told them that the issue is, she somehow has a KEY to the laundry room.
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  • They stated "oh yeah, well all of our apartment complexes have the same key." Yes I know what you're thinking.
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  • That is stupid. I had that conversation with them maybe 6 months ago, because I really didn't want to be THAT person to have to call the office like a tattling teenager, but it was getting disrespectful at that point.
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  • 6 months later, locks still haven't changed sooo, yeah. I did what I did.)
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laundry dryer neighbors woman neighborhood tenant washing machine entitled clothes resident entitled people apartment
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