"AITA for telling my roommate her friend needs to start paying rent or spend less time at our place?"

So I (25F) share a 2 bedroom apartment with a friend of mine from high school (26F). We’ve lived together for almost a year and had no problems until the last couple months. She has a “friend” we will call Mike. (he’s around our age) At first they were seeing eachother romantically, but have since decided to just be friends.

Mike is at our apartment a LOT. Like he stays the night 5-6 nights a week usually. He eats my food without asking and has basically laughed at my polite requests to replace the food he eats. If it was a snack here and there I wouldn’t mind, but I will buy groceries for the week and it’s half gone within a couple days because of him.

He sleeps with her in her room, but when they’re not sleeping or if she is at work he is in the living room loudly playing video games. I work from home and he is disruptive during my work hours most days. Again, when I’ve requested him to quiet down he laughs it off like I’m joking.

A few days ago we had a rare evening where he wasn’t at our place. My roommate was watching tv in the living room and I took the opportunity to bring up my concerns. When I brought up the behavior that bothers me, she apologized but basically said she can’t change who he is.

I then said I think if he’s going to be practically living at our place and eating my food, he should be contributing to rent/groceries. She essentially said that was unfair as he’s “not on our lease”. I told her if that was the case then he needs to spend much less time at our place, because he’s not a tenant.

She also said he has troubles at home (he still lives with his parents and is unemployed) and it would hurt their friendship if she asked him to help out or stop coming around. She thinks I’m being a huge AH and I'm sure she’s told him what I said because he’s been really snarky ever since the conversation. AITA for asking that he help pay to essentially live at our place?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

coffeebean823113 said:

NTA. That is some big brass ones to hang out and interrupt your work day and eat your groceries. So your roommate basically he is an AH and won’t change. I’d be tempted to kick her out. There isn’t much of a relationship with her to damage.

OP responded:

we have been friends for years, it would really suck to do that. but our lease is up in a couple months and I think I am going to look for my own place.

Consistent-Leopard71 said:

NTA. Your roommate has essentially added another roommate to your living situation without your consent. He absolutely should not be eating your food nor should he be there when she isn't. They are both being completely unreasonable.

PolesRunningCoach said:

NTA. No one wants the uninvited extra roomie. Except your roommate, apparently. But it doesn’t seem like he’s eating her groceries and disrupting her workday.

OP responded:

It started as soon as they decided to just be friends. She was head over heels for him when they first met. She has been single for a very long time and I have a feeling she allows this because he is leading her on in some way. It sucks because she sees him as a genuine friend but I see him as someone who is using her for as long as he can.

And theDagman said:

NTA Mike cannot be at the apartment when your roommate isn't. That's a violation of basic roommate etiquette of no unaccompanied guests. And yes, he needs to pay for the food he eats. It's not free, and it's not his. I'd start calling him "Mooch". Shame him for his moochery. Make him uncomfortable. He may get the hint and find some other place to avoid his parents.

EDIT:

Thank you all so much for the responses! I probably won’t be able to go through them all but I am glad to know I’m not crazy for asking these things of him lol. I appreciate all the suggestions, but when it comes to getting my landlord involved it is just not worth it for me right now.

The situation is now already tense and even though I think he deserves to get told to f off I don’t want to make my last two months living here even more awkward. I’m going to start looking for a place for myself and if possible, move out a little bit before our lease is up. I’ll pay my last two months of rent but I’m gonna try to get out asap. Thank you all!

She later shared this UPDATE on the situation:

I wasn’t expecting to have an update so soon but things kind of blew up this weekend lol. On Saturday morning my roommate and Mike went out for brunch and I went grocery shopping. I also stopped and bought a few locks for a couple of the cabinets so I could lock away some of my food, was planning on borrowing a mini fridge my dad had later this week too.

I brought home my groceries and locked a lot of it up and then went to run a few more errands. When I got back in the afternoon, Mike was sitting on the couch and my roommate was in the shower. I tried to just walk past him to my room but he stopped me when he said “so what the F is that about?” pointing towards the kitchen.

I told him I was tired of him stealing my food so I locked it up. We got into a yelling match over this as he doesn’t believe him eating my food is “stealing”. My roommate came out of the bathroom and I was fed up and said “He needs to get the F out of our apartment, now.” She did not put up a fight and drove him home, not before he called me a few awful names though.

When she got back she tried to walk past me to her room but I told her we needed to talk. Long story short, she broke down crying after I told her I wasn’t renewing the lease. I guess she had a conversation with him at brunch about what I talked to her about and he blew up at her and told me I was trying to “turn her against him” and she should kick me out.

She also confessed to me that she’s been giving him money regularly, but didn’t tell me how much. They had plans to go out to some show tonight and she was considering taking him home after and basically not allowing him to come back.

(I don’t think I mentioned in my original post that he doesn’t have a car) I don’t know if this is true or if she said this because of what happened after I got home, but either way he’s gone and she has agreed to not let him back at our apartment.

We talked a lot and I think after our first conversation she really started to realize she was being taken advantage of. I told her I am still going to look for my own place and she was understanding of that. She agreed that she should not have let him affect our friendship like she did, and even though things are weird right now I hope we will go back to how things were before eventually.

Thanks again for all the advice on here, it did not end exactly how I planned but either way, I’m glad that dude is out of my apartment and my life!!!