Hi, I'm at my wits' end and need some advice on how to handle my roommate.
For context, we live in a 3-person apartment: me (22F), my younger sister (19F), and our third roommate (22F).
At first, things were okay, but we quickly realized with my sister that she does absolutely nothing around the house. And by nothing, I mean nothing:
- She has never mopped or dusted since she moved in.
- She sheds long hair everywhere: the shower drain is constantly clogged, and I literally have to take scissors to cut her hair out of the vacuum cleaner brush every single time.
- We set up a board to split chores. She completely ignored it.
- She's at the apartment 6 days a week, but conveniently leaves for the gym on Sundays when my sister and I do the deep cleaning. The other day, she walked right past us scrubbing the floors without even a "hello" or "thank you" and just left.
- We've also caught her leaving the fridge door open overnight on 3 separate occasions.
The Bizarre Avoidant Behavior:
What’s crazy is that even before we ever said anything to her about the cleaning, her behavior changed literally overnight for no apparent reason.
She became completely avoidant. She basically skulks around the apartment.
She literally waits for the exact second we close our bedroom doors to finally come out of her room and do her things in the apartment, just so she doesn't have to cross paths with us.
The First Attempt (Face-to-face):
A while ago, I tried to address the chores gently.
I asked her face-to-face if we could start rotating chores because my sister and I were always doing the exact same things and she had never even mopped.
She literally just stared at me, didn't answer a single word, turned around, walked out of the apartment, and closed the front door behind her. She never brought it up again and made zero effort after that.
The Second Attempt:
Since talking didn't work, I recently sent a firm but polite message in our roommate group chat saying we couldn't keep doing all the work.
The result? She left us on "read".
But the very next day, while still ignoring my serious message, she had the nerve to add an expense to our Splitwise/Tricount app for hand soap... even though we had just bought new soap two days prior.
She pays so little attention to the apartment that she bought something we already had, and then expected us to pay her for it while ignoring her responsibilities.
I don't know how to move forward with someone who literally refuses to speak.
My questions for you guys:
- Have you ever dealt with a roommate who acts like a mute ghost to avoid accountability? How did you handle it?
- Any petty/creative solutions to make her realize she can't treat us like her personal maids?
Thanks for reading, I really needed to vent!