College student asks: 'should I kick my roommate's mom out of our dorm?' UPDATED

"Extremely torn on whether I should get my roommate's mom kicked out..."

Me and 3 other girls live in an on campus apartment-style dorm. We all have our own bedrooms and there are 2 bathrooms. One of the main characters in question, let’s call her Eve (I share a kitchen and living space with her), is one of the roommates and is also international.

All of my roommates had a group chat over the summer where we barely texted but used the group chat as a means to communicate just in case(I just want to throw that out there.)

Last Saturday, I moved in and opened the dorm door for the first time, I noticed Eve and her mom cooking in the dorm kitchen. I introduced myself and continued to get the rest of my stuff from the car and proceeded with the move in process. I notice that Eve's mom is wearing pj bottoms. I do not give it much thought as people now sport pjs like they’re the new jeans.

I do not have a meal plan and want to avoid spending money on fast food ,so during move in I brought a decent amount of groceries to cook food for whenever I’m hungry. One other roommate, not Eve , also moved in but she only took up one cabinet.

I open the other cabinets and notice that nearly every one is filled with Eves stuff. Her mom sees that I clearly look annoyed so she decides to shift some of her daughters stuff into the other cabinets. The fridge is also jam-packed with Eve's food. Surely she could not have a meal plan so out of curiosity I ask.

To my surprise, she indeed does have a meal plan and she says that she “lives in the dining hall." When I go to open up the pantry closet, it’s filled with Eves' messenger bags and shoes, YES SHOES.

After I moved my suitcases in, and put my food away in whatever nooks I could find, I go to sleep as I am tired because I had been up very early that day doing last minute shopping and packing. I wake up the next day, Sunday, and I see that Eve's mom is making a cup of tea in the kitchen. I’m a bit confused as to why she hadn't gone to her hotel or flown back to her home country.

I thought she would have been gone by Sunday as classes start Monday… but...Fast forward to today (AN ENTIRE WEEK LATER) Eve's mom is fully living with us. She eats, cooks, showers, and sleeps here. Whenever I come back from class to make myself something to eat, she emerges from their room to ask if she can cook my food for me.

Eve didn’t think it was important to tell us? She did not say a word regarding her mom living with us in the dorm. Here’s why I am conflicted: Eve's mom is very nice. She cleans (even washes my plates sometimes), she offers us the food she cooks, and is as mentioned an overall nice person.

However there are little micro-annoyances like her constantly cooking FOR HOURS (I’m talking like 9 am to 10 pm), hogging up the fridge space (in fact she just did another shopping spree and my food is buried in the back ), not allowing me to cook alone (I personally hate whenever other people are in the kitchen with me), and most of all not verifying with her daughter that we were OK with her stay.

Furthermore to why I’m torn on asking her to leave is because I remember her telling me how expensive groceries are for her so that makes me wonder: what if she can’t afford a hotel room? If I told an RA then she’d be on the streets because of me.

Having a parent stay in a dorm obvs isn’t allowed. My roommate is fine with the mom's stay so I don’t wanna be the only one complaining. If I told an RA she’d be gone ASAP however there would be tension in the air. I’m conflicted and I don’t know what to do.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

7625607 said:

I would not be ok with this. I would let Eve know that it was nice of her mom to visit and help her get settled at college, and I hoped she had a safe trip home, when is she leaving? And if she wasn’t leaving —soon— I’d be calling the housing office and asking the policy on guests.

You’re paying to share the bathrooms with three other people, not four. You’re paying for 1/4 the fridge and kitchen space, not 1/5. You’re in college where most people get their first chance to be independent adults but there’s a mom cooking for hours at a time in the shared space. Nope.

holymacaroley said:

I would also speak to your roommate about when her mother is leaving. She is heavily affecting how your roommates experience college, including you. It's not appropriate for her to be there, maybe a grace period of one night to get her moved in, but really I've never heard of anyone doing this.

Secure-Major1637 said:

People! That mother is freeloading! It‘s completely inappropriate that the woman is there! There is nothing to be “torn” about!

Hemiak said:

Tell the RA, or manager for your property, etc. Ask them to keep your name out of it. This is absolutely not allowed.

Direct-Physics2645 said:

This is a housing office issue--Not an RA one. It is most likely in violation of the dorm contract. Also, housing can keep your name out of it whereas your RA might be a good one or not.

Iamstarstuff1972 said:

Talk to your roommate and ask her what's going on. It's time to be an adult and do adult things. Talk it out. If Mom is, in fact, staying, tell your roommate you're not cool with it.

Let her know you'll be paying a quarter of the bills since there are 4 people living there. You do NOT want to be the reason she's kicked out, what if she ends up homeless or something.

UPDATE:

I thought it would be fine until it wasn’t. Each day I realized more and more how little respect and thought the mom and daughter (my roommate “Eva”) had for me and my 2 other roommates.

Some of the things that really pushed me into making the decision I did was one the “brother situation." I am unsure if I mentioned this in the OG post but they also have a brother/son who goes to college in the states (the same state but it’s in a city roughly an hour and 30 minutes away).

They would bring him over unannounced but when he was over you knew he was over because of his loud deep voice. One Sunday at 9 am, I was awakened out of my sleep by the sound of his LOUD voice walking through the door.

This was extremely frustrating to me because on the weekends I like to sleep for a very long time because I have 8 am classes all throughout the week. That was one of the moments, I was like yeah no. You first of all do not say anything or text anybody that this man is going to be coming and can basically pop up at anytime which is personally extremely uncomfortable for me.

The next was the “fridge situation." The mom had a MAJOR shopping issue. I think this was rooted in the fact that she had to be bored staying in this dorm all day. She continued to go on these massive grocery shopping sprees and would fill the fridge up to the point where you had to manually push the fridge door to close.

There was literally no place for my roommates and I to put our food to the point where one of my other roommates bought a personal mini fridge. This was another strike.

I don’t want to go into all the things she did because that’d be me ranting atp but I’ll briefly mention two more. The mom “prohibited” me from making a quick lunch in my 2 hour gap between by hogging up the kitchen to make her grand meals.

Like imagine wanting to make yourself something quick to eat but you can’t because all 4 stove burners are being used?This was also a big no. Then leaving the door open for the mom to get in and out also made me feel unsafe so that was another realized BIG NO.

All of these factors and other in addition to the combination of reading those comments, I realized that I do not have to deal with any of this. As much as I tried to tell me self “it’s ok," if I find myself complaining then it’s truly not ok.

I did not feel the need to talk to my roommate about her mom because it couldn’t be more obvious that the mom was fully planning on staying the entire semester. Plus why should I have to do this when there is literally someone who gets paid to handle the situation?

So what I did was this, I emailed and privately messaged the RA weekend all that was happening. She then thanked me for letting her know and then she forwarded the message to her supervisor. I did this weekend that I went hope in hopes that when I came back, the smoke cleared. Unfortunately, when I came back the mom was still there.

However the next day, when I quickly went into the kitchen to grab something, I saw suitcases packed. The mom was leaving. Fast forward to December, Eve clearly has a chip on her shoulder towards me and the other roommates.

Me and one of the other roommates have gotten to talk more since I wrote this and she let me know that the RA told her that we all would’ve gotten in trouble because we were all breaking the rules by letting the mom stay so luckily I said something.

Unbeknownst to me, she was also deeply uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom (also Eve's mom was apparently disgusting in the bathroom) with the mom and that Eve never told her anything prior besides move in day where Eve just was like “oh btw my mom is here..."

And that Eve was actually planning on allowing her brother to sleep on the couch to have near daily sleep overs. She was going to do that ofc without anyone’s permission. Long read, but thank you all for the advice it really emboldened and justified me reaching out to the RA.

Here's what people had to say to OP about the update:

fightmydemonswithme said:

This is WILD. I really hope roommate grows up to get some independence.

ambercrayon said:

Wow that is some serious audacity. I'm glad you got her out of there. I would not have let her stay past one single weekend but I've never been accused of being too nice.

You are being way too nice about this whole thing because that is a huge boundary cross. if she wants her mom to live there then they need to find their own place and let you have ur peace back.

MaleficentFan6427 said:

If they didn't want to be away from mommy maybe they should have went to a local college and lived at home....weird arrangement.

Extra_Bedroom_6941 said:

Glad you were able to get your comfort zone again. Happy Holidays!

CloudyMarshmallow said:

You did the right thing. Some people grow old, but don’t grow up.

SourLemons2 said:

This happened at our daughter’s dorm a few years back. The student and her mom were not Americans and did not understand college culture. No, your mom cannot live with you. Report them to the R.A. If he/she can’t resolve it then go to Housing Department.

wenchywitchy said:

OP you need a spine! All of you were aware of the rules and violations and the fact that this invasive and illegal behavior took place for months was insane! Eve can have a chip, however she was infact a terrible roommate!