AITA for not wanting my roommate to work out of the living room
Okay, so I (F25) live with one roommate (F33).
I have been struggling to determine what is reasonable to request as far as living arrangements go.
I moved into an apartment with a roommate whom I didn’t know a few months back and have been incredibly distressed by the experience. 2 weeks into me moving in, she said she got offered a job working from home full time. Good for her. She asked if she could set up her desk in the living room and I agreed, because I know it would be hard to work in the same space I sleep. Our apartment is small, so the only place to put her desk happens to be on the opposite side of my bedroom wall. She starts taking calls early in the morning. I’m talking 6:45 am. I can’t really ask her to not take work calls. And even if she was in her room, I would still be woken up because she doesn’t have the best volume control. This is just petty, but I’ve even recorded the decibels of her talking before to see if I was exaggerating or if she was actually talking loudly. She is.
She has also mentioned that she doesn’t think she could handle working from home if she had to do it from her room, so that made me nervous about discussing some kind of change.
The constant noise stimulation, whether it be phone calls, rolling around in her chair, dropping(not placing) her phone on her desk, is so grating. She also stomps to the point where it literally shakes the floor.
She is always home, which would be no big deal if I didn’t feel like I was constantly being monitored throughout the day. If I leave my room, she is talking to me. Regardless of if I have headphones on or show zero interest of communication. Where am I going? How am I doing? Did you see this thing? Oh I wanted to talk to you about something. I will literally go to my room and shut my door and she’ll keep talking to me.
When I do actually want to engage, she doesn’t seem interested. I think maybe she just wants someone to talk at.
I should add that I met her off of a roommate site, so she was/is a stranger. She doesn’t know anyone in the area and doesn’t have any friends so I think she’s trying to do that with me, but I already resent her too much to open up in a friendly way. I also just wanted a roommate not a BFF.
I was in between jobs and had no reason to really request quiet at certain times, but I started working and my sleep is being disrupted by her home office situation. Plus, I didn’t sign a lease to live in someone’s office. I need to have some peace in my home.
Should I just work towards live alone and keep my head down or is this unreasonable?
Am I the asshole for wanting to ask her to move her set up back to her room?
(I also know that she doesn’t take very good care of her cat and her litter box is in her room and her room is filthy, so that might make it harder to work out of her room, but is that my situation to figure out? No.)