24-year-old woman refuses to follow roomie's unfair guests policy and wonders whether she should bring it up or stay silent to keep the peace: 'She wants rules that only apply to me'

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Olivia Arocena • Writer and Editor
Jun 29, 2026 9:45 AM EDT

When rules apply to everyone except the one who's making them

I highly recommend skipping the roommates phase if you can. The fantasy is wonderful, you get to live with a friend your age, and everything is fun and games, until it isn't. With my experience, I've come to realize that when you get to know people through living together, you find the weirdest stuff about them. Everyone has quirks, and it's very hard to find someone whose quirks match yours immediately. The woman who shared this story realized way too late that she was obeying a set of rules that nobody else was, and now she doesn't know how to keep going without initiating chaos. What would you do?

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  • two women laughing sitting on a white couch
    via Ninthgrid

    Two models representing the friends living together at first

  • AITAH for refusing to follow my roommate's guest policy?

    when i (24f) moved in with my roommate (25f) she told me these house rules about having guests over. no overnight guests on weekdays, give 24 hours notice before having someone over, keep
    via That-Bend-1986
  • common areas clear when the other person is home. i thought okay that's fair i can work with that. for the first few months i followed everything to the letter. gave her notice every single time, never
    via That-Bend-1986
  • had anyone stay over on a weekday, kept things clean and quiet. not once did i break the rules. but she's been breaking them constantly since basically month two. her boyfriend is over four or
    via That-Bend-1986
  • five nights a week.no notice ever. they take over the living room every night. his stuff is in our bathroom. he's eating my food. at this point he basically lives here and isn't paying rent. i didn't say anything for a
    via That-Bend-1986
  • while because i didn't want drama but last month i had a friend visit from out of town and she stayed over on a wednesday night. my roommate lost it. said i broke the rules, said i was being disrespectful to the shared space, and told.
    via That-Bend-1986
  • me i needed to ask permission before having overnight guests on weekdays. i told her that's insane considering her boyfriend has been here almost every night for months
    via That-Bend-1986
  • A person signing a contract
    via Cython Photography

    A picture representing her unknowingly signing an unfair rule contract 

  • I remember I used to live with a roomie who pulled the exact same technique with me. We paid the same amount of money to live in the house, but I couldn’t use the common spaces without notifying him 24 hours in advance, and there couldn’t be any trace of me in the house while he regularly rehearsed with his band at 10 in the morning without telling anyone, and used the living room as an office without any restrictions. I was young back then, and by the time I realized how the dynamic was, it was too late. When I pointed out to him, he didn’t listen, and he probably wouldn’t have if I had brought it up earlier, but at least I would’ve been able to escape the situation sooner.

  • without any notice and she said that's different because he's her partner not just some random friend and partners don't count the same way. so basically she wants rules that only apply to me.
    via That-Bend-1986
  • i told her i'm done following a policy she doesn't follow herself and she called me difficult and said i'm ruining the living. situation.
    via That-Bend-1986
  • our mutual friends are split but a couple of them told me i should just s k it up to keep the peace. AITAH?
    via That-Bend-1986
  • woman sitting in a moving truck
    via kam Myers

    A depiction of the friend moving out of the house

  • Having said all that, I obviously think that if she can, she should try to find another roomie or get a place to herself. I know that’s hard; I’ve been through it, but sometimes it’s better to rent a room in a student's residency than to live with a roommate with awkward, unfair rules. I don’t think this situation has a solution; if the roomie were empathetic enough, things would’ve been different from the start. So she definitely should run for the hills, I think!

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