I (19M) am a sophomore in college who lives on campus during the week. A lot of the dorms here are apartment style, so we each have our own bedroom, share a bathroom with only one other person, have a kitchen, all that jazz.
For context, I bought a trashcan for the kitchen for us to share, but I don’t use that one anymore since my roommates fill it up rather quickly and I don’t want to take out someone else’s trash. I also have a light trap that catches flies. Well, recently, I noticed that the light trap has been filling up with flies rather quickly.
I was going to figure out where the source has been coming from, but as I went to throw out the old fly trap cartridge, I opened the trash can to find a SWARM of flies inside. Literally flew out right at me. Turns out, they haven’t been taking out their trash as often as they should. Also, they left a cup of coffee on the table and let it mold. It’s been sitting there for weeks.
Later, my roommate came back and I confronted him about the infestation, but he dismissed me and went straight to his bedroom.
At this point I had enough, and I made a group chat and let them know that since it’s their trash, one of them needed to take out the garbage and clean out the can, as well as getting rid of the moldy coffee today or tomorrow since the flies made their way to the fridge. I didn’t think it was fair for me to clean up someone else’s mess.
Then one of the roommates hit me with “we were already planning on a clean before Thanksgiving Break” and I was about to say that this couldn’t wait any longer, but then the other roommate said they would do it.
I told my mom this story, and she kind of implied I should’ve just cleaned it up from the get go. I don’t know, I just don’t think it’s fair that I should be obligated to clean up a kitchen I don’t use and fix a fly infestation I didn’t create.
So, Am I The Asshole?
NTA. It is normal and reasonable to expect adults to clean up after themselves in the common areas. Good for you for speaking up.
NTA. You had ever right to speak up, common areas need to be clean
As someone whos constantly picking up after her 25f roommate, you were NTA to ask them to clean.
NTA, but this isn’t going to become functional just because you’re annoyed. You need to call a house meeting. You guys need to come up with a chore wheel/chart for the shared spaces. Everyone puts in their fair share. If you dont want to do this at all because you dont want to do something like take out the trash that you contribute to because others also throw away things, you need to live alone. Working together to figure out how to make this work would be the best way to do things. Not only for your current living situation but also for helping you learn how to live with others. Unless of course you plan to never live with anyone (roomies, friends, family, SO, anyone) for your entire life.
Since this is a dorm and you’re stuck living with people, you’re going to need to figure something out. If you really want to refuse to do any communal cleaning of shared spaces, then you need to set up an individual system. Each person gets their own trash can, each person gets a color and all their dishes are that color and that color only. Divide the fridge up so everyone has their own section. Everyone gets their own cabinets or shelf on cabinets if there isn’t enough for everyone to have one. You personally need to do full cleans anytime you use the kitchen, living area, or bathroom. If you dont want to work out how to split up chores for shared living areas, look into an officer campus apartment that you can live in by yourself for next semester or year or whatever.
This is one of the dilemmas that you have when you live with roommates. You are going to have to learn to compromise, and since you feel so strongly about the garbage being taken out, take the garbage out. I would rather take the garbage out even if it is not mine then have an infestation of flies. You cannot make people do anything, and the garbage thing may not be as big a deal to your roommate is it is to you. For your own sanity, take the garbage out even if it’s not yours.
Part of college is learning to do stuff on your own. Your roommates should share cleaning duties because it’s what grownups do. Call a roommate meeting after the break, determine how often tasks should happen and assign tasks to individuals. If they don’t improve, move out. You aren’t their mother. NTA.