Entitled roommate moved their mom into shared office without warning despite splitting household expenses 50/50: 'We feel very disrespected'

Author image for Cata Holmes
Cata Holmes • Writer
Aug 26, 2026 7:45 AM EDT

If you're sharing a home and you split every cost 50/50, shouldn't you also get a say before someone else moves in?

Let me answer that for you: of course you have a say in that!

Living with roommates can get very tricky from time to time, and it requires a lot of patience when it comes to sharing a house with someone who's nothing but a stranger. Although it can work fine and maybe you'll end up with a very good friend, sometimes it can be the other way around and turn out to be the worst thing ever.

Because, let's face it: we're talking about living together. That's the deepest form of privacy and intimacy someone has, and suddently start living with a random person can get weird. We all come from different backgrounds, and we all have been raised differently, so it's normal to have some friction from time to time. There's nothing that can't be sorted out by talking calmly.

That being said… There's a huge problem with the roommate's attitude shared in the story posted in r/badroommates.

One thing is to have a problem caused by sharing a common space, cleaning disputes, maybe eating each other's food… those things come from living together, and setting up a few rules usually fixes the issue. Now, moving someone new into the apartment and never consulting the other roommates about it, it's a whole other game. 

If everyone is paying the same amount of money to live in that house, everyone has a say when it comes to letting someone new move in, or things like that. But deciding that your mother is going to be taking the only empty room that is used by everyone is not okay. I understand why the couple feels disrespected, especially because they are understanding, and if they had been presented with the mother's situation, maybe they could've agreed to let her stay for a while… but they suddenly found out that someone new is moving in, and they all have to make room for her.

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  • Woman in a blue sweatshirt working on her computer in shared office space.
    via Unsplash+ (via Jan Baborák)

    Woman in a blue sweatshirt working on her computer in shared office space.

    Photo is a representation of scenes.

  • TL;DR - Roommates moved their mom into the one room in the house girlfriend and I frequently get to use daily without any discussion on incredibly short notice.
    via MezSmokee
  • Some long background: Myself (M24) and my girlfriend (F24) moved in with her close friend of about a decade or so and their partner (both just a couple years older than us, if thats relevant at all) at the very
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  • beginning of this year. They bought the house late last year and the agreement was that both couples would split expenses halfway, and as such, all four of us
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  • have equal stake in the way things are around the house, including furniture, chores, space, etc.
    via MezSmokee
  • Things have been mostly ok, but it had become increasingly evident that they were far less willing to cohabitate than my partner and I were. Meaning, they made very little effort to change
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  • their habits or compromise on certain things (for example, did NOT want our microwave to go on the kitchen counter in place of some plants, for some reason. Still like that to this day. But they can buy new patio furniture and a
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  • brand new couch without talking to us at all.) to accommodate the fact that they now live with 2 extra bodies in the house. We have all talked about these issues more than a couple times now, and there is always a level of
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  • understanding that change is needed. These discussions are typically followed by a period where they do make some effort to change things and accommodate us and our needs more (specifically in regards to
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  • space.) However, that quickly falls apart and they slip back into old habits which leaves us feeling frustrated.
    via MezSmokee
  • Moving boxes fill a room after an unexpected move-in situation.
    via Unsplash+ (via Michal Balog)

    Moving boxes fill a room after an unexpected move-in situation.

    Representative only.

  • My girlfriend and I also feel a bit cramped in the sense that we don't get to use the living room much if our roommates are home. They have their shoes under the couch, their dogs
    via MezSmokee
  • (which i love to d th) are always out there, and theres a general unspoken rule that the couch is their place to relax after a workday. As a result, my girlfriend and I often spend a lot of our free
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  • time in the office, which is also a shared space. However, the natural time share in there ends up being 90% us, 10% them, if that. This all works out as my
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  • girlfriend and I are both gamers and spend a lot of time on our PCs anyways.
    via MezSmokee
  • Now, this past Saturday, we get a text in our group chat from one of our roommates essentially saying their mom was going to be moving into the office effective immediately. This took
    via MezSmokee
  • us completely by surprise and there was absolutely no discussion beforehand about this. While being very sympathetic to the circumstances on their side, especially the mom that needs to
    via MezSmokee
  • stay here, we feel very disrespected by the fact that the room we use most often is just up for grabs whenever without any kind of discussion to be had about it. We cannot access a lot
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  • of our daily used things freely for our hobbies (my girlfriend does a lot of crafting as well as gaming in there, I have an entire home network project I've had to
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  • abandon abruptly due to this, as well as our entire bookshelf.) After a half assed apology from ONE of our roommates, their solution was letting us move
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  • some of our stuff to the den, an area with absolutely no privacy from pets or people or noise. Lucky us!
    via MezSmokee
  • As a result of all of this, my girlfriend and I have decided to bite the bullet and find our own place at the end of this year. The 9 months of inconsideration for us has been enough to show us
    via MezSmokee
  • that these people, who we consider very close friends, will not change and have no interest in changing. However, we know they will absolutely not be able to
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  • afford this place without other roommates, so we want to give them some time to arrange that before we leave.
    via MezSmokee
  • Are we wrong to feel very slighted by this? This has absolutely nothing to do with the poor mom who has had to move in and everything to do with how it was handled by our roommates
    via MezSmokee
  • and how inconsiderate they've been to us with this whole thing. They've really shown, to me, that they couldn't care less if we can't access our stuff, let alone use it, so long as their lives and comfort are undisturbed.
    via MezSmokee
  • A frustrated couple discusses a stressful situation at home after a big argument with roommates over household decisions.
    via Unsplash+ (via Getty Images)

    A frustrated couple discusses a stressful situation at home after a big argument with roommates over household decisions.

    Models for explanatory purposes only.  

  • spctwt They're not your roomates. They're the home owners (unless you share ownership). You're not even protected as tenants, if it's their house, you're lodgers. You shouldn't be paying half. of everything. You're being taken for a ride and should seek other housing immediately and not even bother with notice.
    via MezSmokee
  • lexiexmarie Put ur microwave in the kitchen and use the whole house just like they do, if you pay 50% you definitely have that right. And if they have an issue with that they can lower ur rent price because you're paying for 50% of a house that you can't use
    via MezSmokee
  • leomff NOR, they s k as roommates. rules for thee but not for me, as they say. i've lost friendships after living with friends and they turned out to be inconsiderate a h les when cohabitating
    via MezSmokee
  • Talk_to_strangers You're getting taken advantage of First off they are using your rent to pay their mortgage. Do you know if the price is truly fair? They are also treating you like their guest, not a roommate, based on what you said.
    via MezSmokee
  • Quixotic_Faerie I wouldn't be concerned in the least about whether or not they can afford a place they are blatantly over- charging you for on their own. No one in their right mind would pay 50/50 on property they have no stake in with the owners. They are not your friends. They are predators.
    via MezSmokee
  • Junior-Knee9964 You're renting a room. Why are you paying half the expenses? Their mother moving in is going to make things worse. She will probably always be home so you will have even less time in the "shared" space. Do they have you on a lease? Give your notice and get out ASAP! Even renting a small studio will give you more space.
    via MezSmokee

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mother living together bad roommates moving in
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