Dear Prudence: My roommate wants to move into my bedroom with me

[movingfinger]

Q. Can’t move in: I share a house with three roommates: “Andy,” “Kia,” and “Lynn.” Kia and Lynn are lesbians, while I am a straight girl and Andy is a straight guy. Andy and I have the two upstairs bedrooms and share a bathroom. Lynn and Kia shared the master bedroom and there’s a half-bath downstairs. Kia and Lynn have broken up and basically can’t be around each other without breaking out into an argument. Lynn is on the lease, so Kia is the one who got kicked out of the bedroom. Kia is camped out in the living room, and we all hate it because her stuff is everywhere and we cannot use the space. She is also using our bathroom to shower in. Kia has nowhere else to go and got laid off because of the pandemic. She has a few side hustles but can’t afford to move out. None of us, even Lynn, want to kick her out, but the tension in the house is high.

Kia thinks the solution is to move into my bedroom with me, since I only have a twin bed and another one can fit in easily. I don’t want that—I had to share a room growing up and it was hell. I want my privacy. I think Kia can move into the dining room we rarely use and put up curtains to make it private and use the half-bath. She and Lynn can grow up and arrange a shower schedule. Kia doesn’t want that because the noise from the stairs and kitchen will keep her up (Andy and I work nights and cook when we get home). Lynn told me to be more accommodating, and I told her she doesn’t get to drag me into her drama. She broke up with Kia, not me. This is her fault and her responsibility.

Kia and Lynn are now fighting with me. Andy has declared himself Switzerland, and I can’t afford to break the lease. I can get out in February. How do I handle this until then?

A: Frankly, if you only have to get through December, January, and February before you can get out, I’d be inclined to suggest letting Kia move her bed into your room. I can understand why you’re frustrated—it’s a very frustrating situation—but surely you don’t think putting up curtains in the dining room is enough privacy for Kia, when you insist having a roommate would be insufficiently private for you. The living room is already unusable as it is, and Kia doesn’t seem inclined to want to move her setup from the living room to the dining room (which wouldn’t really be an improvement for her, I don’t think), so in some ways I think you’d discover you had more peace and quiet even with a short-term roommate. Especially since you work nights, which means you probably won’t see too much of Kia anyways. That’s an obviously imperfect solution, and of course the bigger problem is that Kia and Lynn have expanded their breakup to include every room of the house. But if all you want to do is keep your head down, minimize conflict where you can, and find a better living situation in February, then I think that’s the easiest compromise.

If you just can’t bring yourself to share your room, wear noise-canceling headphones around the house, avoid the living room, keep to yourself as much as you can, and get out in February anyway.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Is it just me, or is "hey, just let her move into your private bedroom, it will be fine" awful, terrible advice? For one thing, I assume LW and Andy are paying a little extra for their rooms with the shared bathroom that Kia is now using also although the downstairs bathroom is available to her. For another thing, it sounds as though Kia has already filled the house with drama and the LW's bedroom is a respite from that.

(also, a half-bath does not have a shower or bath---do they really have a 3/4 bath with a shower downstairs?)

I frequently stare and say WHAT reading Dear Prudence these days, and this is one of those days.

[xenacryst]

"Hi, I have a problem that is being pretty ugly, emotionally, and here are a couple of things we've thought of to try to fix it, but I really don't like one of them."

"Sure, that's easy - do the thing you said you didn't want to do. Nah, sorry, I have fuck all to give you about navigating the emotional hellscape you're going through - just suck it up and deal. I certainly have no advice on how to approach this like a grown person, or how to get other people to do so too."

[conuly]

There is no solution here that is going to make anyone happy, especially since nobody wants to kick Kia out because they're not quite willing to put her on the street.

With that in mind, since nobody is going to be happy no matter what, if LW's not wiling to share then she needs to take Andy's approach and refuse to discuss the matter.

(Though in her place, I'd be tempted to suggest that Gay Kia and Straight Andy ought to share. Not because I think anybody would go for the solution, but because Andy deserves to be dragged in as much as LW does. He doesn't get an ought just because he randomly has a penis.)

[movingfinger]

The dining room option outlined by LW sounds to me like what normal, sane people would do.

[conuly]

I don't quite disagree, but it's possible that the layout is really unworkable if it's right off the kitchen.

[sara]

Earplugs and a pillow over the head. Honestly Kia is in no position to make demands and should be glad she's not moving into a shelter.

[conuly]

Telling LW that is unlikely to improve things either. "Kia, you're being unreasonable!"

Everybody else: No, YOU!

[sara]

If it were a choice between telling her something she didn't want to hear and sharing a room with someone like this, I'd use my words.

[conuly]

I'm sure LW already has. There's a reason it hasn't helped.

I maintain that her best option now is to utterly refuse to discuss the matter with anybody else and ignore them all until February. And, yeah, try to get them onto Andy's case instead. (Maybe sometimes I just like to stir the pot, okay?)

[cimorene]

This!!! She HAD a bed in the house. Or why can't her second bed be in the bedroom she was in before? Because the former couple can't act like adults around each other? Sounds like a them problem, not a LW problem. If Kia's ex is free to categorically refuse to share her room with Kia, so is the LW. If the LW is choosing to avoid her ex to the extent that she's willing to take space someone else is paying for according to predetermined agreement but NOT willing to suffer the discomfort of sleeping in a room near where people on the night shift make noise... sounds like a Kia problem.

[fox]

YUUUP.

[cereta]

Yes.

[adrian_turtle]

But there is an enormous problem I see here, and it looks like Prudence missed it entirely.
"Andy has declared himself Switzerland."
No. He is part of the community. He doesn't get to opt-out of helping to make important decisions. Whether you think of this as a 3 person community or a 4 person one depends on whether you include KIA. Andy pays rent. I'm confident that LW included him in "us" when she said "None of us wanted to kick her out," and "we all hate it...we cannot use the space."

LW needs to push him a lot harder on this one. Like Conuly said, I suspect he's trying to avoid the whole mess because he thinks of it as emotional girl stuff. When Kia moved in as Lynn's guest, most of the inconvenience was Lynn's problem. And when they were breaking up, he thought the emotional drama could be Lynn's problem. And the LW's problem. (Because emotional drama is girl stuff; he doesn't want anything to do with it.) That's not how it works. If Kia is the LR or DR, the problems are shared by the whole household. If she's in the LW's room, the LW carries the inconvenience and emotional tension for everyone. Totally not fair.

[conuly]

At any rate, LW doesn't want to share, that's her right as a paying tenant (unlike Kia), so she needs to stop discussing it with these people.

[green_grrl]

Seriously. Not her circus, not her monkeys.

That advice was THE WORST. She’d have done better going to AITA instead.

[adrian_turtle]

Your wording makes me wonder how much money it's worth for the LW to have to share a room for 3 months. And how much money it's worth to Lynn and Andy to have Kia out of the living room? If those match up, they could have a solution.

[cimorene]

If the four of them went to a pizza place with a free soup and salad bar, and the couple ordered a pizza to share, while LW and Andy each ordered a personal pan pizza, and then they broke up before the pizza arrived, would ANYBODY be suggesting it was reasonable for Lynn to refuse to share "her" pizza because she paid for it and that the LW therefore "should" share her pizza with Kia because Kia doesn't like soup and Andy's the only one who isn't a vegetarian?

We don't have any indication that there's a stronger reason than discomfort why Kia can't sleep in the dining room (especially since she has BEEN sleeping in an even more central location). Sleeping in an uncomfortable or noisy spot for a few months is... a pretty mild inconvenience, in my book. Even if it's cutting into her sleep time, if she's laid off surely she can then... nap? This doesn't apply, of course, if there IS some more compelling reason, but "it's uncomfortable" and "she doesn't want to" does not cut it when it comes to compelling reasons why someone else should feel ethically obligated to solve your comfort problems for you at the expense of their own comfort.

[minoanmiss]

Dear Prudence, what ARE you smoking?!

Poor LW. I wish I could mail them a Get Along SHirt and some rope for Lynn and Kia.

[jadelennox]

Nobody even suggested that the LW get a massive rent discount! I mean, this would be a terrible idea, but Kia and Lynn should start paying 30%-50% of LW's rent if this is the solution.

But it's also a bad idea. LW should be Switzerland; Lynn and Kia can continue to share, or Kia can suck it up in the dining room.

[ekaterinn]

This is AWFUL advice. I was 22 the last time I shared a bedroom with a roommate. I like my privacy - having a place to go where I can be alone is very important. LW should stand their ground and ignore the tension as best they can until February.

[mommy]

This is terrible advice! Kia breaking up with her girlfriend is not an excuse for demanding someone else give up their privacy, and it's not like she'd gain much privacy in the process. The most private space available for Kia is the dining room, and she can take it or leave it.

I feel that one of the best parts of being an adult is not having to share my living space without my consent. I'm siding strongly with the LW here.

[lannamichaels]

If it's just three months, I'd rather suck it up and deal with an unusable living room, than have 3 months of an unwanted person in my bedroom where I can't escape it. I don't see how that's better.

[frenzy]

Wow. I get that there are no good solutions here, but this is literally the worst advice ever???

[tozka]

This advice is awful and I can't believe Prudie suggested it. The dining room solution seems best, since if Kia and LW were sharing a room then Kia would still be woken up by LW coming in/out for her later work shift anyway. Or Kia and her ex should share, geeze.

[rosefox]

WOW, NO. This is awful advice. Among other things, bedroom sharing when people are on different sleep schedules is harder, not easier.

The LW has the same right as Andy to declare herself "Switzerland" and the same right as Lynn to say "Someone I'm not dating doesn't get to share my room". The three of them, as the people paying rent, should get together and decide what they all feel is an acceptable arrangement, whether it's the dining room one or something else. Then it's up to Kia to take it or leave it.

[lilysea]

I usually really like Danny M. Lavery's advice, but this was one where I REALLY thought he gave very bad advice.