Roommate leaves for summer internship, subleases room for $1,650 without consulting housemates, leaves 2-week gap at end of contract and expects them to cover the rent: 'I'm subsidizing your rent'

Author image for Inés Soubrie
Inés Soubrie • Writer and Editor
Jun 22, 2026 9:45 AM EDT

Having roommates usually means having them into consideration when making important housing decisions. 

One roommate handled an entire sublease arrangement without consulting anyone, then expected his housemates to help cover the cost when part of his plan didn't work out.

Advertisement
  • 01
    Three men sitting on a couch with laptops.
    via Toa Heftiba

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

  • Living with roommates requires a certain amount of trust. Not a huge amount, necessarily. You don't need to become best friends. But you do need to trust that everyone is operating under the same understanding of how things work. That's why stories like this are so frustrating to read. And although the money part it's quite important, well, really important. What's even moreshocking is the fact that this roommate seems to have made every single decision completely on his own and then acted surprised when everyone else wasn't thrilled about it.

    He got an internship and needed to sublease his room. Fair enough. That's a pretty normal thing to do. But instead of treating it like a shared housing situation where other people might deserve some input, he apparently decided to play landlord for the summer. He picked the tenant, set the terms, chose the end date, and signed the agreement before even showing the contract to the people who would still be living there. That's the part that would annoy me. There's a certain type of person who mistakes making decisions alone for being helpful. They create a plan, execute it without consulting anyone, and then expect praise for all their hard work. Meanwhile everyone else is left dealing with the consequences.

  • 02
    My roommate (let's call him X) arranged a sublease for his room while he's away for a summer internship. He chose the tenant, set the terms, and picked an end date of August 15 none of which he ran by me or my other roommate beforehand. He didn't even send us the sublease contract until June 14th,
    via Fantastic_Handle_709
  • 03
    after everything was already signed. He subleased the single room for $1,650/month significantly more than his $1,117 share― meaning he's profiting off the arrangement.
    via Fantastic_Handle_709
  • 04
    Two men cooking in the kitchen.
    via Getty Images

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

  • 05
    In June, me and my other roommate each paid a full third of the rent despite only occupying the double room. Our understanding was that by overpaying in June, we'd effectively be paying the double room rate for July and August, with the June overpayment covering the difference. X is now saying that since
    via Fantastic_Handle_709
  • 06
    he won't be physically present those two weeks, it's not his responsibility to cover his share of rent - and that since we have access to the single room during that time, we're essentially getting a bonus and
    via Fantastic_Handle_709
  • 07
    should pay for it. We never asked for the single room. It's vacant because he left and chose an end date that didn't cover the full lease period. Having access to an empty room we're not using isn't a perk.
    via Fantastic_Handle_709

  • The irony is that he wasn't exactly making sacrifices here. He was charging $1,650 for a room that was costing him around $1,117. Good for him, honestly. If someone is willing to pay that amount, that's his business. But the second you start making money from an arrangement, it becomes a lot harder to frame yourself as the generous one who's "subsidizing" everyone else. That's where his argument completely falls apart for me. The vacancy at the end of the sublease didn't happen by accident. It wasn't caused by the roommates. It wasn't caused by the landlord. It was created by the person who chose the dates in the first place. If I book a hotel room for the wrong week, I don't get to send my friends a bill because the room ended up empty.

    I think that's why so many people reading this story are siding with the roommates. It's not really about two weeks of rent. It's about accountability. If you make a decision entirely on your own, you generally own the outcome, both the good parts and the inconvenient parts. The roommate seems perfectly happy to claim ownership of the profits. It only feels fair that he takes ownership of the gap, too.

  • 08
    Man writing in a notebook besides other man sitting next to him.
    via Kaleidico

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

  • 09
    To top it off, me and my other roommate physically moved all of his belongings into the single (since my other roommate was finishing out his quarter with the single) to facilitate the sublease after he left.
    via Fantastic_Handle_709
  • 10
    We'll have to do it again when the sublease tenant moves out. Despite this, he keeps framing the situation as him "subsidizing our rent" and doing us a favor.
    via Fantastic_Handle_709
  • 11
    A furnished clean bedroom with bed and tv.
    via Lisa Anna

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

  • 12
    He's been asking his friends and they all agree with him. Curious what strangers on the internet think. Are we wrong?
    via Fantastic_Handle_709

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

unfair entitled money entitled people Mean People
Scroll Down For The Next Article