Title: I moved in with a friend to get back on my feet, but now I feel trapped in a house with no rules and one roommate’s stuff taking over everything.
I’m J30M. About four months ago, I moved in with my friend, J39M. He knew my living situation at home was unhealthy and unhappy, so he offered to let me stay with him while I got back on my feet. He told me I didn’t have to pay rent, which I’m grateful for.
Before moving in, I had met the other people living here: C41F and her 13-year-old son. I knew it was a shared house, but I didn’t realize how chaotic the living situation actually was until I moved in.
There are basically no house rules. The downstairs feels like the wild west.
When you walk through the front door, you’re immediately surrounded by junk, boxes, trash, random keepsakes, and piles of stuff. To the right, there’s a hallway leading toward C’s room, but it’s almost completely blocked by stacks of clothes. The stacks are so high that they block access to the garage. To the left is what is supposed to be the living room. Instead, it has the dog’s crate, clothing racks full of C’s old clothes, a couch, and two lamps that are basically hidden behind all the clothes.
Those clothing racks have been there since I moved in.
The kitchen is the only area that sometimes looks usable, but even that gets bad. Dishes pile up and overflow. There are stains and spills on the floor that were left so long they hardened into the floorboards. Long story short, almost the entire downstairs is filled with C’s belongings, mess, or things other people are expected to clean up.
At first, I tried to mind my business because I knew I was being helped. I wasn’t paying rent, and I didn’t want to come into someone else’s home and immediately start complaining. But after living here for months, I started noticing a pattern that really bothers me.
C and her son do not clean up after themselves. I was told that the old “rule” was that C cooks and J cleans. But I cook now too, and I clean up after myself. Also, J doesn’t even really eat most of what she makes anymore. I’ve been cooking healthier, more nourishing meals for him, and he eats those. So now it feels like J is still cleaning up after C and her son out of habit, even though the original agreement doesn’t really make sense anymore.
There’s also a financial issue. C bakes either because she says it helps her mental health or because she has cravings, but a lot of the time the food doesn’t turn out. The problem is that the ingredients are coming out of J’s money, not hers. So money meant for the household gets spent, the baking often fails, and then J is still expected to clean up the mess.
I want to be clear: I know everyone has habits that annoy other people. I know shared living is never perfect. But this feels bigger than normal roommate irritation. It feels like one person’s stuff, mess, food habits, and emotional needs have taken over the entire downstairs, and everyone else is just expected to work around it.
About three months into living here, I started bringing up issues. I was told it needed to wait until the end of May, so I waited. In the meantime, I started asking ChatGPT for advice because I wanted to handle this in a mature way instead of just blowing up.
Now that it’s June, I feel like something actually needs to change.
I’m grateful to J for letting me stay here. I don’t want to disrespect him or act like I own the house. But living in this level of clutter and mess is seriously affecting my mental health. It’s hard to feel stable when the common areas don’t function like common areas, the living room is basically storage, the garage is blocked, and the same people keep creating messes they don’t clean.
I also feel uncomfortable watching J be taken advantage of. He keeps saying he’s going to address things, but then nothing really changes. Meanwhile, he pays for things, cleans up after people, and seems to accept being uncomfortable so other people don’t have to be.
I don’t want to turn this into a fight. I don’t want to shame anyone. I just want basic house rules, shared chores, and common areas that everyone can actually use.
At this point, I’m wondering: how do I bring this up without sounding ungrateful, controlling, or cruel? And what is fair for me to ask for when I’m not paying rent, but I am living here, and the environment is affecting me? So I talked with chat and here are the receipts lol
Let Me Know what you think