My fiancée (F21) and I (NB22) have a roommate (F20) who enjoys cooking and baking. I have no issue with that, my issue is the fact that she doesn’t clean up after herself, ever. Yesterday my fiancée spent a few hours deep cleaning the kitchen, and later that evening our roomie decided she wanted to make some sourdough loafs, great, right? That’s what I thought, until she left her crumbs all over the kitchen/dining room counter tops… I sent a message in our group chat with photos of the mess left and a text that said “If we could wipe down surfaces after using them, fiancées name spent a long time cleaning yesterday so let’s be respect of her hard work:)” which got no response, and my fiancée thinks I overreacted, but I am just so sick of cleaning up after someone else who has the ability to do so themselves.
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My fiancée (F21) and I (NB22) have a roommate (F19) who enjoys cooking and baking. I have no issue with that, my issue is the fact that she doesn’t clean up after herself, ever. Yesterday my fiancée spent a few hours deep cleaning the kitchen, and later that evening our roomie decided she wanted to make some sourdough loafs, great, right? That’s what I thought, until she left her crumbs all over the kitchen/dining room counter tops… I sent a message in our group chat with photos of the mess left and a text that said “If we could wipe down surfaces after using them, fiancées name spent a long time cleaning yesterday so let’s be respect of her hard work:)” which got no response, and my fiancée thinks I overreacted, but I am just so sick of cleaning up after someone else who has the ability to do so themselves.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1. I sent photos of the mess to the groupchat and asked for my roommate to wipe up surfaces that are dirtied
2. I could’ve spoken to her directly but she doesn’t take criticism well, so I thought a text was better
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA
If you live with roommates/housemates, the rule is always clean up after yourself in the common areas, meaning if you are going to cook, clean up when you are done.
Nta. Everyone needs to leave kitchen the way they find it. That’s all you all need to agree on, and do. Common courtesy.
NTA. Roommates who don’t respect the common areas should be called out. Unfortunately, you’re going to be limited in what you can actually do about this, but calling it out calmy and civilly is the way to go.
Stop being polite and be to the point. When you’re polite, you’re enabling her bullshit. You’re leaving a window of opportunity for her to say nah I’m good.
You need to be saying “ clean up after yourself or find another place to live”
NTA. And I like your style with the photos 😂
NTA. I’ve lived in a few house shares. If you’re living with people you all need to leave the kitchen as good as, or better than, you found it. It is courtesy and common sense. You may need to set this as a house rule you all need to agree to, then moving forward expect that to be the case.
I personally would have done it face to face rather than text.
Clean up after yourself. Especially if you’re making something that isn’t a meal for everyone, when maybe the contribution of your cooking can be answered by their contribution of cleaning up.
NTA Leaving crumbs is very “crummy” of her, especially when your fiancée just deep cleaned the kitchen.
Crumbs? You’re freaking out over crumbs? Not dirty dishes? You literally said crumbs. Not chunks of food?
NAH – You should clean up after yourself, especially if you live in a shared space. Everyone has their acceptable level of mess, and that bar should be raised when it places a burden on others.
Obviously she should clean up after herself, but I went NAH because this might be more of a “have a conversation to set expectations” moment than assholery. Not knowing how messy this is exactly, you two might simply not be on the same page as to what warrants immediate clean-up vs taking care of it during a more general cleaning, which you might also need a talk about.
You are NTA for having expectations that she clean up after herself but have you had an actual conversation with her? If I got a text like that I would wonder why you just didn’t talk to me. The tone of your text would 100% piss me off and put me on the defensive. I have observed on reddit there are a lot of people her age that have no clue how to clean because mommy & daddy did EVERYTHING.
NTA it’s not difficult to clean up after yourself
Your fiancée is probably just trying to avoid drama, but this isn’t overreacting. You’ve asked politely, and she’s still leaving a mess? That’s on her, not you.
NTA STOP cleaning up after her. ONLY CLEAN up your mess. She is an adult. Inform she is not allowed to use your kitchen stuff.
This triggered a funny memory of mine: I had a roommate who was messy, but we were pretty good about keeping the common areas clean. I worked two jobs and was usually gone for 12-14 hours every day. One day, I came home early because I was sick. She had a dude in MY bedroom on MY bed and was carnally engaged. I was shocked. “What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?” She jumped up. “What do you mean…YOUR bedroom?” Her back was to her naked boyfriend, and her face was pleading with me to lie. Had I felt better, I might have done so.
Her bedroom was a nasty pit. She had dirty laundry, old pizza boxes, molding pop cans, and a stained mattress. First time she brought her boyfriend to our home, he saw the bedroom and did the OMG thing. She claimed it was MY bedroom not hers. They’d been dating for a few weeks, and she never did anything about it. Apparently, he even went in there and took pictures to show his coworkers about how messy “I” was.
He dumped her.
NTA – I feel so sorry for you & I don’t think it’s an overreaction. I hate when people make a mess and don’t clean it.
NTA, you shouldn’t have to ask adult roommates to clean up after themselves.