'AITA for switching to regular milk?' 'My lactose intolerant roommate keeps stealing from me.'
"AITA for switching to regular milk to prove my lactose intolerant roommate keeps stealing from me?"
Me and 2 other guys share an apartment together and we split all the bills. The only thing we don’t split costs on is groceries. Everyone’s in charge of buying their own food and we don’t touch whatever doesn’t belong to us in the fridge. We put our names on everything so no one gets mixed up. This issue has been going on almost a year and I’m sick of it.
One of my roommates, R, keeps stealing my food. I get home from work and containers with my leftovers are sometimes missing (they have my name written on it), or my stuff finishes too quick. My gallon of milk for example. I buy almond milk because I like the taste. But it seems to finish after a week even though I’ve only drank once or twice.
I confronted R about this lots of times and that’s caused a lot of arguments. He outright denies it and tells me I’m crazy even though it’s so obvious. My other roommate and I carpool together because we both work the same early morning shifts around the same area so I know it’s not him.
It’s always after we get back home and R’s already left for work that I notice my food’s gone. My roommate’s also had a similar problem but not as often as I do. I’m guessing cause R doesn’t like what he buys.
The funny thing is R buys a lot for himself and is even more stingy about his food. He will literally point out what’s his when he comes back from grocery shopping and tells us not to touch it.
Last week, my milk was nearly empty again and I got fed up. I went to the store and bought regular dairy milk. I drank what was left of my almond milk and refilled the gallon with the one I bought. This was to catch/prove R is the one stealing since he’s lactose intolerant.
The next day, Saturday, we get back from work and R is pissed. He yelled at me that he was stuck in the bathroom for 40 mins with diarrhea because of my milk; he was using it to make a shake. I only responded with “So then you’re the one who’s been stealing?”
He freaking exploded. Yeah he admitted he was “sometimes” drinking my milk and eating my food, but he was more mad that I switched milks than the fact that he was caught. I told him I wouldn’t have done that if he’d just stopped taking my stuff from the fridge or at least told the truth instead of trying to make it seem like I was making it up.
My roommate backed me up and thought it was kinda funny he got payback for stealing from us. It’s a little tense rn and my roommate told me R is trying to convince him to agree to kick me out. Little does he know we’re both looking to move somewhere else together cause we are sick of his stuff.
I told some buddies what happened and a few think I was an ahole for that. I feel like I’m not in the wrong here. He was taking my food and not even owning up to it and I wanted to prove it, does that make me TA?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
Jayney__ said:
NTA. As you said if R wasn’t stealing your food, he wouldn’t have had a problem.
hcp56 said:
NTA. It’s your food. You could have put your medicine in it or even your pet’s medication in it. You could have put a laxative in it. And I would still say NTA.
When people steal food, lie about it and don’t replace it they reap what they sow. Food is expensive, especially milk substitutes. Without replacing the food he was essentially stealing money from your wallet.
Fabo__HD said:
NTA. If he steals from you, he should face consequences, especially after you bringing it up to him. Why would he expect you buying and using products that accommodate to his health condition?
kolfman said:
NTA keep doing it. Drive him crazy. Make him leave. He's an awful roommate. I would have done that sooner once I suspected he was doing that.
jaywinner said:
NTA. He's been caught. When are the two of you getting paid back for all the food he's stolen over the past year?
GrandpaJoeSloth said:
NTA - and your payback is not going to lead to a long-term successful relationship with this roommate. You're definitely not an ahole, and do you have plans for finding a new place at some point?