Woman buys four ferrets to teach roommate lesson about cleanliness.

I [22F] live with a friend from college to save money. We usually have gotten along pretty well.

I've mentioned to her before that I was possibly thinking about getting ferrets - we had some when I was little and I wanted them again. She sort of begged me not to because she said they smell god-awful and she can't stand it.

I have almost no sense of smell so it wouldn't matter much to me, but I said if it meant that much to her I could wait until we had our own places to live.

She has a cat, and recently she hasn't been as consistent with the litter box cleanings as she was in the past. I get that she's been super busy and 90% of the time she does fine, but a couple times she went too long and the cat did its business in the living room, which grosses me out.

The second time it happened I got a bit upset, and she apologized and said she'd try to do better. She asked if I could help clean the box if she did forget and that it'd be a lot easier for me without much of a sense of smell, but I refused since it's her pet.

When it happened again a month later, I told her that if it happened again, I'd be getting pet ferrets. Not as like a punishment, but I'm not gonna go out of my way to keep the apartment free from pet smells or whatever if she's showing it's not really a priority for her. She got upset but said she'd do better.

She did, but 2 months later it happened again. I didn't give her a warning - when she was out of town one weekend I bought 4 pet ferrets.

When she got back she was practically crying that the stench was overwhelming and everything stinks, and begged me to get rid of them. I said no, sorry, I warned you what the consequences would be and I'm not just going to abandon them now.

I figured she'd get used to the smell anyway, but it's been a week and she's still pretty upset, saying I don't understand how nauseating it is since I can't smell and that this 'punishment' is totally disproportional to any grossness her cat could ever produce, etc.

AITA?

tl;dr Told friend I'd honor her request to keep apartment smelling nice by not getting ferrets, but she wasn't super tidy with her cat, so I bought them anyways.

Here's what people think:

_maude_lebowski_ says:

FOUR???! FERRETS? FOUR FERRETS?!??!

Just thinking about that smell nauseates me. The smell has probably seeped into your roommate's stuff, and yours too. Do you work outside the home? If so, I bet your manager is writing an WIBTA about telling you that you are the stinky weird person at work.

YTA ???

ajbates11 says:

The renter who lived in our house before us had ferrets. It took at least 2 months before the room stopped smelling. That is with frequent cleaning and nothing in the room/ airing out.

irish_gnome says:

Former owner of a ferret here, yes, they stink like a skunk and make horrible pets in general. If you leave a door ajar or a window cracked open they will take off and disappear in a flash. They are a high maintenance pet. Could not imagine having four of them.

Due_Sir_2052 says:

I was going to say NTA but after reading all of these comments about how much ferrets really do stink (I've never been around one) I'm saying YTA for sure!!!

That poor cat though :(