My roommate won’t let me keep my plants
I have a new roommate who just moved into a 3-bed apartment with me (along with one other new roommate who neither of us knew beforehand, she’s chill and not involved)
For background: I live in Ontario, Canada. I’ve been in this apartment for a year, my old roommates both broke the lease early to move out and live with their new bfs (nothing to do with me, I’m a great and easygoing roommate and they both vouched this fact) but I wasn’t prepared to leave on such short notice so was forced to find new roommates very quickly. I was under pressure by both landlord and moving-out roommates, there wasn’t much interest in the apartment so I was a bit desperate by the end. FTR I met both new roommates and they both separately toured the place in-person before signing the lease.
For context: it’s a basement apartment and the only room that actually gets sunlight is the living room. My bedroom gets like -1000 sunlight. My plant collection isn’t insane, I have maybe 15 plants total: one medium monstera with 3 large leaves (pot is larger so is a bit heavy), two small-sized young monsteras with 4-5 small leaves, two medium-sized pothos (not trailing), a tiny heart-leaf philodendron, two tiny snake plants, a prayer plant with about 5 leaves, two baby potted cacti, and and a couple little propagations. Altogether they took up less than the top of a dresser in space.
The issue: my roommate is concerned about her cat so says I can’t keep them in the living room anymore. I’m a plant person, the apartment listing specifically said this, the apartment listing photos had my plants in them, and all my plants were present for the in-person tours. One of the roommates who toured has a cat and expressed that the cat may be interested in the plants if she moved in, but that if the plants were high up/on a bookshelf, the cat probably wouldn’t care (based on the cat’s past behaviour with her old roommates plants). I have never lived with a cat before so I took her word for it, agreed to storing them higher up/getting a bookshelf, and she seemed happy with that.
Anyway, she moved in, I got a bookshelf for all the plants (the largest plant, monstera w/heavier pot, was too large to store on the shelf so it’s on a set of drawers) but when she saw the new shelf she sent me 3 paragraph texts about how she’s worried her cat is going to get poisoned by the plants while she’s not home. She says now she’s worried he’s going to jump onto the bookshelf, even though she initially said the plants would be fine as long as they were off the ground/high up, which they now are. BTW I put the most toxic plants (pothos, philodendron) on the top of the bookshelf about 8 feet off the ground and I also got rid of my two lilies (very toxic to cats), but she’s sending me paragraphs about how she’s worried her cat will get poisoned by the plants because she works long shifts and can’t watch him. She is asking me to keep the toxic ones in my room, even though most houseplants are very mildly toxic to cats.
I don’t think this is fair because I was very upfront from the start about my plants needing to be in the living room, and she agreed they could stay there but now she’s asking me to keep them in my bedroom. I didn’t know this would be such an issue, I’ve never had a cat and I was honestly just desperate to fill the lease so I took her at her word that a bookshelf would solve the issue. She’s asking me to keep the plants in my room, but they won’t survive in there, it’s too dark. Also it’s my apartment too, and I care about these plants a lot, I’ve had most of them longer than she’s had her cat so I hoped she would understand that they’re meaningful to me.
She offered to split the cost of the bookshelf with me (~$70 from Ikea) which I was fine with and seemed reasonable. After I set that up and she wasn’t okay with it, she mentioned getting glass-sided greenhouse-type shelves so the cat can’t get at them, but those are ~$200 each at Ikea and I’d need two, and she already said she barely has enough money to split the bookshelf I already got.
TL;DR, my roommate said my plants were fine if they were on a bookshelf where her cat couldn’t reach, now she says that’s not good enough and her cat will still get poisoned by eating them and I have to remove them.
To add: since moving in she has COMPLETELY taken over the apartment with her personal belongings, knickknacks, boxes, etc to the point where the only things I have in the common areas are my plants. Like her stuff is blocking cupboards, overflowing closets, and just generally everywhere. I haven’t said anything about this because I can only handle one battle at a time, but this is just to show I don’t have a monopoly over what’s allowed/not allowed in common spaces, all I want is for my plants to survive in my own home. How do we meet halfway and solve this issue?
While I do feel I was mislead/lied to a bit, I think this roommate is really nice and kind and I have nothing against her as a person, this is just affecting my living situation. I know she just cares for her cat and I understand that, which is why I to find a mutual solution.