I (20s F) moved out of home about a few months ago and now live with my friend and her partner.
Before moving in, I was very upfront about one thing: I have **bad** allergies and I like to keep my *room* extremely clean. I also made it clear that I didn’t expect the shared spaces of the house to be at my level of clean, because that wouldn’t be fair and I don’t expect the world to be bubble wrapped because of my health issues.
The **one** exception we discussed was dirty dishes. I specifically said that dishes being left in the sink is a major issue for me (hygiene, pests, flies, etc.), and my friend agreed that she wouldn’t leave dirty dishes sitting in the sink.
Everything was fine until I went away for a few weeks. When I came back, I started waking up to dirty dishes in the sink every morning sometimes full of water, sometimes just sitting there dirty, full of milk and crawling with flies. I’d see them at 7am before work, and they’d still be there at 5pm when I got home. This started happening almost daily.
I brought it up yesterday in what I thought was a calm way. My frined got defensive and said it shouldn’t be an issue because the dishes aren’t mine and they’re “out of my way” in the sink. She later apologised for being defensive and said she’d do better.
This morning, I woke up to multiple dirty dishes in the sink again, plus cooking mess from the night before. At this point I was really frustrated, so I left my own dirty dishes out (not in the sink) before work. My friend then texted me saying she was planning to do the dishes after her morning walk and what my problem was.
From my perspective, the issue isn’t whether she *intends* to do them later, it’s that they’re being left overnight and for long periods during the day, which is exactly what we agreed wouldn’t happen.
I feel like I communicated early, clearly, and reasonably, but nothing has changed, and it’s starting to affect how I feel about the friendship.
So, AITA for being upset and planning to bring it up again, or am I being too controlling about shared space?
NTA, They probably got used to being lazy/not washing dishes while you were gone. How did you bring this up with them? If it was passive aggressive that’s probably why they got defensive and angry. But regardless if you clearly and truly emphasized the significance of having a clean kitchen prior to moving in and they agreed to it then they’re being assholes
Kinda ESH for me. Personally, if I’ve had a long day or I’m not feeling great, I’ll cook dinner and leave the dishes for the morning. In a shared space, I probably wouldn’t be doing that if I could avoid it, but it’s easy enough to do.
Your level of clean is almost never going to be anyone else’s level of clean, and you seem to be unable to accept that your roommates have different priorities. They kinda suck because they agreed to not leave dishes and they are on a regular basis. It’s entirely possible they’re just more busy than they were previously and dishes are a low priority for them.
I’m also super curious what kind of slum you live in that there are flies and the like after leaving dishes overnight. To me, that would be a far bigger issue than the dishes themselves.
This living situation doesn’t seem like a good fit for you if this is a major issue.
I have the worst fucking allergies. Nobody has “fly” allergies. So, even if the dishes were crawling with flies (doubtful), it’s gross but not going to harm OP.
Leaving dishes overnight is a normal thing many, many people do. This is OP’s hang up, and if it really bothers her this much, she should bite the bullet and just do the dishes herself.
I can totally agree with that, long work days suck. I just feel keeping a communal space clean is just common decency and respect for your other house mates.
We are long term very close friends, so unfortunately I can see this coming off as lazy rather than a reassessment of priorities; as she works from home for about 6 hours a day. Doing the dishes takes 10 minutes out of your day. It’s just a hard situation because I can’t point fingers and call a spade a spade as it’s seen as rude.
As for the slum, it’s called early January in Australia. Also a low set house.
I’m a bit torn on this one. You moved into her space, so in a way, you need to be more flexible because it sounds like when you were away, they started living the way they always had before your requests. It IS their place. But she did agree to keep the dishes clean and out of the sink, so that’s not fair to you, since she agreed not to. But my issue is, why in the world does one night of dirty dishes get to be “crawling with flies”? I don’t like dirty dishes lying around, either, but I’m an entomologist, and house flies carry diseases, or if they’re fruit flies, someone is letting produce rot. Either way, find out how the flies are getting into the kitchen (if house flies) or have everyone pay attention to fruit that’s left out (if fruit flies). Either way, it’s clearly unsanitary and that bothers me more than some dishes sitting around waiting to be washed.
I probably should have clarified more, but I didn’t want to post a nagging novel nobody would read. I was already living within my own space, when said friend asked me to move in with her partner to assist them with rent. This worked for me as I was sick of apartment living, and they were planning to move into a 4 bedroom house. I live in Australia so the rental situation is beyond appalling here, so it was a mutually beneficial agreement. The only terms I had, were the dishes and keeping common areas somewhat decent. As for the fly issue, it is the middle of summer in Australia and we have neighbouring dogs whose owners aren’t the best with picking up after them. It’s a very common annoyance, not much you can do about it other than keep food away unfortunately.
She is somewhat lazy but well within normal roommate behavior. You have different standards because of your allergies and that’s understandable but to me the Takeaway here is don’t get a roommate. Never in my life have I known people to be successful even when they moved in with their best friends. If you can’t afford to live on your own then try to go back to your family and save up money. Roommates suck and they affect your mental health.
NTA – wanting it is fine. But you have to lead people to agreement. You can’t just expect people to do what you want.
I’m going to say NTA, because you discussed these issues before moving in and they agreed to them, and they also understand why they are important.
Living with other people involves compromises and you all worked through discussions to come up with the compromises. They’re pretty reasonable compromises.
Having said that, it sounds to me as though your friend and her partner have gone back to their old patterns while you were away. It might take them a bit of time to readjust.
Also, can you afford a dishwasher? The thing I love most about dishwashers is not that they wash dishes, but that you can stack dirty dishes out of the way. This might genuinely be a solution for all of you.
What I was going to suggest, too. We got a dishwasher pretty late in our lives (about ten years ago) and I’m not exaggerating in saying it’s changed our lives. Also, it uses less water than washing the dishes.
I can totally understand need sometime to readjust, I was super lenient for the first two weeks since I’ve gotten back. But things just haven’t improved, hence why I said something in what I felt was an appropriate manner. Unfortunately, even after a chat/borderline argument it happened again the following morning.
Funny you say that, we do have a dishwasher (quite small). But as my friend works from home and her partner gets home significantly earlier than me, that dishwasher is typically full by the time dinner has been finished on their end with dishes still to wash (hence why there was dirty stuff from cooking left in the sink the night before). I mainly have to hand wash my dishes, which isn’t a complaint by any means. That “dishwasher” is a nightmare.