TL;DR: WIBTAH if I called the city on my friends roommate because of his 20 or so cats and how uncomfortable he makes me?
Context: I (19F) am a full time student couch surfing. I’ve been couch surfing for a couple of months on and off at my friend Ray’s (fake name, 28M) house. I pay rent to him on time and I do chores around the house when I have a bit of downtime from school.
For some context; a couple weeks ago, Ray’s friend, Thomas (26M) moved into the attached garage of Ray’a home. Along with that he brought 11 cats and currently has anywhere between 15-20 cats in the garage as of 1/22/2026. The only thing I know is that he was evicted from his apartment and rescued near a dozen cats, thus keeping them and continuing to catch and take them with him. He has plans to move to another place but that won’t be until 3 months from now. This has gotten to be a huge issue for me as I constantly smell weed which I will stop breathing after prolonged exposure. He also like to walk around half naked around the house at times, and no not from the waist up. Despite all that Thomas has been making me uncomfortable overall. This includes buying me gifts and telling me that I could ask him for money and even adopt one of his cats despite me telling him no multiple times and never accepted any gifts he’s given me. I’ve been getting a gut feeling he’ll do something and am sometimes nervous to sleep at night.
This is where I might be the asshole. I plan on reporting him to the city as soon as I can. I cannot take the level of noise while trying to sleep or study and overall feel very uncomfortable in a place where I should be able to rest my head peacefully. My boyfriend is friends with Ray and has questioned him as to why he’s allowing this but hasn’t been straightforward and is constantly worried about my safety. He hasn’t talk to Thomas yet as he also feels the same way I do. Both my boyfriend and I are thinking it’s for the money. As much as I would like to stay with my boyfriend he currently doesn’t have the space to keep me there long term and I don’t have a job to currently pay half for a place for him and I to stay.
If anything the city will investigate the incident and might even consider those animals to be in danger or in poor conditions, and I’m not too worried about the other cats in the house as they each have owners. But I’m wondering if I would be the asshole for I report him to the city?
Nta he sounds like an animal hoarder
Nta sounds like a creep and an animal hoarder and I can’t stand the thought of an animal hoarder report him
NTA – Over a dozen cats is insane and the whole place will stink of cat piss before long. If they’re rescues, they may also have fleas and God knows what else. I feel like I can fully picture this cretin sitting there in his ammonia box, stinking to high heaven. Gross.
Esh. Sounds like hoarder level of cat ownership, so yeah, call animal control on that part. It’s not fair to the cats.
The rest of it is none of your business. If the homeowner is ok with the actual tenant (not you) living there, you have no say as a “couch surfer”. If you don’t feel safe with the given situation, you need to find other accommodations.
FWIW police won’t do anything for any of this. Guy can walk around naked all her wants in his place of residence. He can also technically say anything to you (he hasn’t actually done anything illegal), and smoke as much weed as he wants because, again, it’s his place of residence not yours.
Mind your own business unless the animals are being abused or malnourished. You will cause more problems for yourself. Someone else will report him prob but you dont want crazy energy coming your way.
Have you talked to Ray? Because he’s the one who would get in trouble if you report the roommate making you the asshole.
Having that many animals is likely in violation of local animal ordinances at your municipality or county level.
Based on your other posts about this couch surfing situation, sounds like it’s a less than ideal situation.
Sadly, unless you have a signed lease, I don’t really think throwing some money to someone for couch surfing gives you much leverage to have any say about it.
Time to move in with the boyfriend or find a new couch.
Nta the guys behaviour is not acceptable for shared housing and the large number of cats is a massive deal breaker, I would also be pretty unhappy with the landlord as its really not a reasonable situation to ask other people to have to live with
YWBTA
Have you actually talked with Ray about this? Calling the city and having an investigation is likely to get YOU removed as they won’t care about the rude roommate, but will go after the home owner for fines.
Considering you’re couch crashing as a favor, don’t blow up your own stay either. Have an actual adult conversation about how you’re uncomfortable, but also plan to find other accommodations if needed
Weed? Nudity? Cats? Count me in!
You won’t just be reporting Thomas; since Ray is the property owner and is present in the house, he’ll may well face some legal consequences as well.
YWBTA if you used a legal pretext to deal with your discomfort.
It’s probably time to find a different couch.
YTA. Thomas did you a favor. You’re surfing his couch. Be a good guest and don’t call the cops on your housing provider.
You don’t care about kittens and the dryer. You care that this guy is weird, makes you uncomfortable and you’d like to do it back to him to see if it fixes the situation or gets rid of him faster. It won’t. Be a reent evictee he will have a very hard time obtaining new housing. Especially with the pets. It will take a while.
Learn to live with this or find a new couch to sleep on.