'AITA for installing a lock on my fridge to stop my roommate from ‘stress-eating’ my food?' UPDATED
"AITA for installing a lock on my fridge to stop my roommate from ‘stress-eating’ my food?"
So, I (30F) live with my roommate, Sarah (29F), who has this habit of eating everything in the fridge, whether it’s hers or not. She always says it’s because she’s “stressed” and swears she’ll replace it, but my groceries vanish faster than a dating app match after mentioning kids.
The last straw was when she ate my emotional support tiramisu. For context, I’d spent hours making this tiramisu after a rough week at work. It was my therapy in a dessert.
Sarah ate the whole thing without asking and left a note on the empty dish that said, “Sorry! PMS sucks. I owe you.” That was it. I lost it. I ordered a lock for the fridge for my food and moved everything into it.
Now Sarah’s furious, saying I’ve “ruined the vibe of the apartment” and that I’m “passive-aggressive” for locking her out of the shared fridge. She even tried to rally our other roommates against me (spoiler: they also hide their snacks from her). AITA for locking up my food, or is Sarah just mad she can’t steal my serotonin anymore?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
"The last straw was when she ate my emotional support tiramisu." - I'm done with ya'll
JennyAnonymous OP responded:
It took my HOURS , and $80 in materials! Baking is my escape. This was just the nail in the coffin for me with the combo lock
NTA. If Sarah is stealing everyone's food, you need to have a house meeting and everyone bar Sarah decides on a solution. Also, she's going into your rooms to steal food? That should be an immediate eviction as far as I'm concerned, because your rooms are not common property. You didn't ruin the vibe. She did. And now she's pissed because she knows the reckoning is coming.
This is genuinely the weirdest post I've seen. Sarah is legit mentally ill and needs an intervention. Good on you for calling out the safety concerns. Poor op. You know this is gonna escalate weirdly.
NTA. If I made tiramisu from scratch after a hard week and someone ate ALL of it without asking and then left a note on the empty dish blaming PMS, their life would be in danger lol
JennyAnonymous OP responded:
I would have shared , I really would have. She left the dirty f^%$#%g plate in the sink too
Nope, f%$# Sarah. She can buy her own stress reduction food from now on. Send her a bill for the replacement ingredients for the tiramisu and anything else she’s eaten recently. NTA
JennyAnonymous OP responded:
My roommate and I decided to put the lock on the shared fridge so now she has no where to put food. So what should we do there?
There's fridge specific lock boxes so that you can lock containers in the fridge if you want to lock certain portions and still let her have access. Otherwise, I'd suggest telling her she needs to get her own private fridge for her room, or you can look at getting one for you room if you're not comfortable with her not having fridge access.
It is kind of a nuclear option, but I also very much get being pushed to a point. Look up lockboxes for fridges or fridge safes. They have some options. You can also get locking containers for your pantry if non perishable snacks are also on her eat list.
The next day OP gave these updates:
• There is a TEMPORARY lock on the fridge while we figure out a solution.
• We have no proof to go to the cops, we have receipts from the last 6 months of grocery bills and she claims that she could have been on those grocery runs. She also took the broken lock from my roommate.
• We’ve lived with Sarah for around 6 years now , she was one of the core girls in our group and this has only started within the last 14 months. So we care about her as a person but this behavior can’t continue. She only recently started saying it’s because we make more money than her and that it’s only fair we share since we’ve been friends for so long.
• We’ve gone to the landlord for theft, he claims that we just need to work it out and don’t really have a leg to stand on. We also use a paying portal with him where we automatically split the rent four ways.
• As for buying a fridge , we already bought two 400 dollar coolers and that still didn’t work. Why should we pay an additional few hundred for a fridge and our electric bills would be insane.
• We CANNOT break the lease. We would loose our 4,800 security deposit and need to pay 9.8k for 60 days of rent until they find new tenants (& we can’t live there during the 60 days)
• Her parents are crazy strict and abusive and feel bad for going to her parents.