THE SHARED KITCHEN WAR

What started as a friendly shared kitchen turned into a roommate leaving hostile notes, sabotaging belongings, and screaming, "GET OUT," over an empty box.

About 10 months ago, a 20-year-old moved in with a 45-year-old roommate who, at first, seemed perfectly pleasant. The roommate explained that she had celiac disease and was allergic to wheat and soy, then carefully pointed out which dishes and silverware were communal and which were hers. The poster says they tried to be careful in the kitchen. A little after moving in, they bought an e-bike, and the roommate even cleared a spot for it in the living room.

Then, about six months into the arrangement, everything shifted.

One day, the roommate suddenly accused the poster of "poisoning" her kitchenware. She locked all the dishes and silverware into big boxes in the living room, and the poster ended up getting their own set of dishes just to keep things moving. But the accusations didn't stop there. The roommate began insisting the poster was "purposefully poisoning and trying to trick" her, and started snapping over tiny things, crumbs, trash, even empty soda boxes left near the garbage can. Those boxes reportedly got moved into the sink and then placed outside the poster's bedroom door.

The fights spread to the apartment's temperature, too. The poster says the room gets very hot and their cat shows signs of heat exhaustion, so they asked for the air conditioning to be turned down. The roommate bristled at that, saying, "lower than what it is outside," and, "i pay for half the electrical, so i dont want it on." At one point, the thermostat was torn off the wall and hidden in her room.

Then the sabotage got more personal. The roommate started writing hostile messages on the fridge and cabinets. She turned the heat on while it was still hot outside. She put soap and wax on the kitchen chairs. The poster says she threw their waffle maker onto the counter and broke it. She also put wax on their shoes.

The e-bike became another target. The roommate began complaining that "vehicles belong outside," moved it around downstairs, and repeatedly ripped the charger out of the wall.

Every attempt to talk, the poster says, ends in screaming. They reported the situation to the leasing office, but say nothing meaningful happened. According to the poster, the office skimmed the email, seemed to pass it along to the roommate, and only agreed that empty cardboard boxes near the bin are normal.

Yesterday brought another blowup. After the poster asked her to stop moving an empty box, the roommate yelled again. Both boyfriends were there. The roommate dismissed concerns about the dog being scared and fired off more insults, including "lazy slob" and, "Awww are you scared too?" The poster says they're trying to move out within a month, but they're worried more of their belongings will be damaged before then.