I (21M) live with my roommate (22M) in a fairly small apartment, Shortly after he moved into the apartment he came home one day with a small cat he had found on the street, At first I didn’t have any problem with it, but like 3 weeks later he stopped caring about it, From time to time he would close the door to his room and leave the cat outside because the cat was supposedly too annoying. He also forgot to feed it often and I was the one doing it most of the time, The last straw was when one day while I was out he locked the poor cat in MY room because “it was bothering him” and when I came back the cat had scratched my desk and chair. I had enough, I didn’t sign up for this, so the next day I grabbed the cat went to the nearest animal shelter and gave it up for adoption. The NEXT DAY he asked about the cat (he hadn’t even noticed it was gone for a full day), and when I told him what I had done he got furious, now he won’t speak to me. Am I the asshole?
EDIT: Multiple times before I’ve told him that I should not be the one feeding the cat that HE brought home. Also, when he first brought the cat home I told him very clearly that I didn’t want a pet and that if he decided to keep it it would be his responsibility and his responsibility only.
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I (21M) live with my roommate (22M) in a fairly small apartment, Shortly after he moved into the apartment he came home one day with a small cat he had found on the street, At first I didn’t have any problem with it, but like 3 weeks later he stopped caring about it, From time to time he would close the door to his room and leave the cat outside because the cat was supposedly too annoying. He also forgot to feed it often and I was the one doing it most of the time, The last straw was when one day while I was out he locked the poor cat in MY room because “it was bothering him” and when I came back the cat had scratched my desk and chair. I had enough, I didn’t sign up for this, so the next day I grabbed the cat went to the nearest animal shelter and gave it up for adoption. The NEXT DAY he asked about the cat (he hadn’t even noticed it was gone for a full day), and when I told him what I had done he got furious, now he won’t speak to me. Am I the asshole?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1 I gave my roommates cat up for adoption
2 because I took this decision without consulting him
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Yikes, yes YTA.
It”s his cat. You could have moved out instead or if only you are on the lease you could have kicked him out.
YTA and honestly you are very lucky that all your roommate did was stop talking to you. I would have done far worse.
NTA on this one, it sounds like he was being neglectful, had he even taken it to get a checkup and see if it was neutered? An animal isnt just a decoration, it needs to be taken care of
There are two sides to this imo. For once, if he brought a cat and stopped caring about it like you described, it’s him being TA. But, simply taking the cat to a shelter is a little too much especially since it wasn’t yours. I would say it was the right choice only if you had a conversation about his neglect with him and he did not listen.
Yes, you absolutely are. No matter how negligent he was being as a pet owner you had absolutely no right to give his pet away like that.
YTA for doing it w/o consulting him. I think you did the right thing, just in the wrong way.
INFO: did you ever talk to him about this? Set ground rules for bringing an animal into the shared home? Tell him what was bothering you?
INFO: did you ever talk to him and tell him he needed to take care of his cat? This is a pretty extreme response if there was no previous conversation.
Real conflicted with this. YTA for not even talking to him about it, that cat was his so not even mentioning that it should be taken to an adoption centre is a no go. At the end of the day that was his cat.
But on the other side your roommate was TA for not even feeding the damn thing on most days and leaving it up to you.
Talk to him about it, maybe try and get information on why he rarely actually looked after the cat and I would highly suggest trying to get contact with the Adoption place before things escalate.
YTA.
You did the right thing and saved the kitten from neglect.
Not a valid judgement technically, but situation like this I tend to vote “justified asshole.” However, Y T A more for not knowing if the shelter would be able to find a good home for the cat or if the cat risked being put down. I don’t care as much about your roommate dealing with ‘consequences’ for being a shitty person. Def care more about where the cat ends up in all this and if they suffer as a consequence. 🥲
NTA. If he wants the cat back what’s stopping him from going to the shelter and adopting it?
ESH here. Him for neglecting his cat, you for rehoming someone’s pet without their permission. The things I would do to you aren’t suitable for posting on Reddit
Oh yeah, definitely YTA. I think your roommate is also TA for not taking care of the pet, leaving it to you to feed the cat, and locking the cat in your room (????). But in the end I think you skipped most of the appropriate steps of conflict resolution and went straight to rehoming someone else’s pet without even telling him about it, let alone gaining his consent.
I see in other comments that you mention that you did tell him you didn’t want a pet and that it would be his responsibility, but like…there are SO many things you could have tried before giving someone else’s pet up for adoption without their knowledge.
I think the fact you actually did that and thought it was okay is absolutely wild. I’m not really sure why you would expect your roommate to speak to you at all after that tbh.
Edit: typo
Bro…you nearly did everything right. You were patient, you laid out expectations, you even were supposedly amicable about this…but then ya went and stole his cat. You just can’t do that, if he’s chipped or anything you could face legal issues over this because pets are generally considered property by law. I understand it’s a tough situation for you, but what you did isn’t just morally wrong, it’s illegal.
ESH except the cat. I hope someone wonderful adopted it before it was euthanized.
Look, you did the right thing for this cat. It was experiencing neglect. He clearly didn’t understand what it takes to care for a living thing. However, just unilaterally taking the cat to the shelter was an AH move.
ESH except the cat.
Definitely NTA and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.
What a shitty roommate btw.
YTA. Roomate sounds stressful to live with, but you escalated to theft. This is not legal.
ESH, no doubt. There are better ways then the extreme.
I’m so surprised by the Y-T-A comments here. Are you guys for real? If OP is telling the story as it really happened, the flatmate was literally neglecting his cat?? Which is abuse! If he wasn’t feeding it and leaving OP to be responsible for it, we can’t even consider him to be an owner.
Someone even said that OP should have rather moved out — so that what, the cat could starve to death alone? OP did the right thing, and I don’t see the point in discussing it with the so-called “owner” beforehand when he didn’t even care enough to make sure his own cat was fed and didn’t even notice immediately when it was no longer in the apartment.
If people here are concerned about the legal ramifications of rehoming someone’s pet without their permission, that’s understandable, but it still doesn’t make OP TA. Morally, the only person who’s wrong here is the neglectful roommate.
YTA
ESH unless you took care to take that cat to a shelter where it wouldn’t be euthanized. Poor cat needs somebody to take care of it and if your roommate wasn’t doing the job, then rehoming it is the right next step – although you should’ve told him that was what you were going to do if he didn’t step up. But depending on where you live, you might’ve signed the cat’s death sentence.
YTA
ESH and if you didn’t think there was a chance of being TA, you wouldn’t have posted.
NTA
This is a young cat, this kitten needs to be able to trust humans to provide and take care of them.
If you waited it out, your roommate probably would have threw them out after a few years and then good luck rehabilitating them.
You warned multiple time, he made this your problem and you found a solution, its not your fault he doesn’t like it.
I just hope you found a nice shelter for them and not one of these shady ones. If you did then you provided a good life for this kitten, people prefer adopting young cats.
Good luck for the rest of your collocation tho its going to be a tough ride. Your roommate is not going to be happy with you.
ESH
Y T A for not telling them your intentions first and discarding somebody else’s property.
You can say do not put the cat in my room, and then you always keep your door shut. You can say, make sure the litter box is clean or is in your room with the door closed. You can say, make sure the cat doesn’t destroy any of the walls/baseboards/carpets/your furniture or you’ll be solely liable for fixing or replacing it. You can also say you’ll call animal control if he neglects or abuses his cat.
You can not do what you please with someone else’s property without them knowing. There is never any justification to what you did unless he moved out and abandoned it. You clearly overstepped in a very awful way.
He is the asshole because he’s being a horribly inconsiderate roommate. One with unreasonable expectations being forced on you. To add to this he is neglecting his cat as well. He should have tried to find it a new home and taken care of it in the meantime. He should have not taken it to the shelter imo, but at least at that point it’s his decision.
NTA I just hope the shelter isn’t a kill shelter . The cat would have serious harm if op didn’t feed it. The roommate sucks hard
My issue with this is in taking the cat to a shelter. Obviously the cat doesn’t deserve to be neglected, and something had to give, but taking this cat to a shelter could very much mean the poor thing was euthanized. Was it a no kill shelter? Unless you did the research and found out that it was no-kill, I’m going to go with YTA. There are other rehoming options, and those should have been discussed with the roommate.
You might have done what was best for you, but you absolutely did not act in the best interest of the cat.
YTA.
You should have removed just yourself from the situation and let him assume full responsibility. Eventually he’d decide that he’ll either decide that he needs to put the effort when he sees that you’re no longer doing his work or he’ll realize that he’s not ready for this and put her for adoption. You stripped back his right to decide for himself and grow. You had good intentions, but came from the position of a controlling parent and treated him like a child which isn’t okay.