Living with roommates in New York City is always a gamble. You’re rolling the dice, hoping you don’t end up with a passive-aggressive note-leaver, a plate-stacker, or a “what’s mine is yours” type. Our narrator, a 31-year-old woman, just hit the jackpot of bad roommates: the kind who believe private bedrooms are just suggestions.
Here’s the setup. She’s been living for three months with two women she met online. They’re strangers. This is a key fact. These are not her childhood besties; they are people she splits the ConEd bill with.
The roommates are now furious. Why? Because they found out she has a camera in her own private bedroom and she didn’t tell them. Oh, the audacity! The secrecy! How could she?
Well, let’s look at this “secret” camera. It’s not a tiny spy cam hidden in a teddy bear. It’s a black Blink Mini sitting in plain sight on her white windowsill. It’s in her room, a room she keeps closed, a room where no one is supposed to be. It’s motion-activated, records audio, and is turned off when she’s home. It’s a security camera. For her private space.
And why, you might ask, would she feel the need to install such a device? Oh, that’s right. Because her new roommates, these complete strangers, were not respecting this boundary and were entering her room without her permission. The camera wasn’t an act of aggression; it was a defense mechanism against their snoopiness.
So, how did this all come to light? Our hero got a motion alert on her phone. Who was in her room? A roommate in an emergency? Nope. It was one roommate’s friend, who had just waltzed into a stranger’s bedroom to use her private bathroom. The entitlement is absolutely staggering.
The narrator, who is a much, much nicer person than I am, didn’t even go nuclear. She sent a polite, almost apologetic text: “hey guys! can you please ask before entering my room/using my bathroom? there are times where I’d really prefer people don’t go in there (like today when my room is an absolute mess!)”
Now, the correct response from the roommates would be, “Oh my god, we are so, so sorry. That is a huge violation of your privacy and it will never happen again.” But that is not what happened.
Instead, they got mad. They got mad at her for the camera. They completely skipped over the part where they’re the ones trespassing and went straight to being offended that they got caught. This is the classic “how dare you lock your diary when I was just trying to read it” defense.
Their lame excuse? They had a “very friendly and open dynamic” with the girl who lived there before. So what? As the narrator so perfectly puts it, “I’m not her.” You don’t just assume a stranger is cool with you and your random friends using their private space as a public restroom.
So, is she the ahole for installing a camera in her own private bedroom to stop her disrespectful roommates from trespassing? Let me be as clear as humanly possible: N-T-A. You are not the ahole.
This isn’t about you keeping a secret. This is about them having zero boundaries. They didn’t just cross a line; they set up a picnic on the other side of it. They’re not “mad” about the camera. They are “embarrassed” they got caught. And they should be. Lock that door, girl.