My best friend rents a room from me in my flat. We’re very close but I have noticed that she’s extremely oblivious when it comes to household stuff. After living together since November, I’m starting to feel like I don’t want to live with her anymore.
I’m quite tidy and like the communal areas kept nice. She has a much higher tolerance for mess and often seems not to notice things unless someone points them out.
Examples (bear with me, I know some of it will sound minor, but it compounds).
- She leaves dry laundry, on the clothes horse in our lounge, for days. Like 5 days until I move it or she does a new load of laundry. I consider this to be an eyesore, and my parents often ask why they have to look at her underwear hanging there when they come in.
- Empty glasses can sit around for days/a week, dishes sit in the sink for days, and she leaves rubbish, matcha powder and berry juice around the kitchen without cleaning it. She also creates small marks in the carpet with this stuff.
- She repeatedly removes the grate from the kitchen drain despite me explaining multiple times that it prevents blockages from food.
- Last winter she repeatedly dried wet laundry inside with no ventilation despite me explaining my concerns about moisture/mould. It took several reminders before she stopped.
- She leaves heaters, lights and TVs on unnecessarily. Last winter the electricity bill was very high, and I sometimes went without heating my own room because I was worried about the cost. She pays a flat rent including bills, so I absorb the extra cost. Last winter she left heaters on whilst out of the house, AND left her electric blanket on in her bed and left the house. Which is obviously a waste of money AND a fire hazard...
- She has taken my belongings out of the flat without asking (jacket, charger, bathroom products), used my alcohol with friends while I wasn't there, and two of my four wine glasses have disappeared while I was away. She admitted breaking one and said she'd replace it, but hasn't yet.
- Once, while I was away for 24 hours, she tidied the lounge before her birthday and threw away a box I had left on the sofa arm that same day. It contained a birthday present I'd bought for my sister, so I had to buy it again. It's comical that the only time she has really been seen to make an effort to tidy up, she puts my belongings in the bin.
- She repeatedly leaves hot styling tools, like straighteners and curlers, unattended. In the last week alone, she left an iron switched on for around 15 minutes while she went off to do other things, and another time after finished ironing, went into her bedroom and got into bed while it was still on and plugged in. When I asked if she'd finished with it 1 minute later, she said she'd unplugged it (spoiler alert: it hadn't been unplugged).
There are other things but these are the most repeating behaviours.
She did the same kind of thing at my boyfriend’s house, she made herself a drink, spilled a sticky drink on his counter, left it there and left the rubbish behind. He was so bothered by it that he no longer wants her at his house.
I genuinely think she doesn't notice these things or forgets conversations.
She has nowhere else to go at the moment, so moving out isn't really an option. And regarding the electricity bills, yes, I could ask her to contribute more, but it's difficult when you know your friend is broke.
Am I being unreasonable, or would most people find this exhausting to live with? And if someone is genuinely this oblivious rather than malicious, how do you actually get them to change when you've already explained the same things multiple times?