When my roommate disappeared overnight to live with her boyfriend, I thought she’d at least handle the rent situation like an adult. Two months later, she showed up pounding on my door, screaming about changed locks and missing belongings.
When I first rented this place, the landlord told me there was already one person living here, and they just needed one more roommate. Her name was Milly.
Honestly, I was happy about it. Living alone seemed scary, and having someone to split bills with sounded perfect. I thought I’d found the ideal situation.
Boy, was I wrong about being happy.
Don’t get me wrong, Milly wasn’t a bad person.
She was sweet, caring, and genuinely nice when you talked to her. She’d ask about my day, remember little things I mentioned, and we’d sometimes watch movies together on weekends. But the thing was, she never had her own stuff.
I’m talking about basic things like toilet paper, dish soap, and laundry detergent. I’d buy these things, and somehow they would disappear twice as fast as they should.
She’d even use my shampoo and coffee. When I’d hint about it, she’d say things like, “Oh, I’ll grab some next time I’m out!”
But next time never came.
The rent situation was even worse. She was always late.
The first month, she came to me three days after rent was due, looking stressed.
“Hey, Cynthia? I’m so sorry, but I’m a little short this month. Could you cover me? I promise I’ll pay you back next week.”
I covered her.
Next week came and went, but I got no payment.
When I brought it up, she got this hurt look and said, “I thought we were friends. I’m going through a rough time right now.”
“We are friends,” I replied. “But you said you’d pay me back.”
“I promise I’ll pay you back next week,” she said.
But that payment never came.
Besides that, the dishes piled up like Jenga blocks in the sink, the trash overflowed until I couldn’t stand the smell anymore, and the bathroom looked like a tornado had hit it.
I’d clean everything, and within days, it was back to chaos.
I often wondered how Milly was managing before I moved in. Like, how was she even surviving in this place if she wasn’t doing the bare minimum?
The landlord had mentioned she’d been living here for six months before I arrived. Did she just live in filth? Or had she found other people to take care of everything for her?
It made me wonder if Milly had become careless intentionally because she knew I would take care of everything. Maybe she’d sized me up as the responsible type who couldn’t stand mess and would just handle it all.
I stayed patient for months. I even tried talking to her about it.
“Milly, we need to figure out a system for chores,” I said one evening. “And the rent thing is becoming a problem.”
She’d nod enthusiastically. “You’re totally right! I’m sorry, I’ve just been so stressed with work and everything. I’ll do better, I promise.”
But promises don’t pay rent or wash dishes.
Then something changed. When our lease ended and we went month-to-month, Milly just disappeared one day.
No calls or explanations.
Most of her belongings were still scattered around the apartment, but she didn’t come home.
A few days later, I found out through mutual friends that Milly had basically gone to live with her boyfriend. She was staying with him in the basement of his mother’s house, playing house like some kind of teenager.
Meanwhile, I was stuck covering her half of the rent because she didn’t pay what she owed me before vanishing.
When I finally worked up the courage to text her about the rent situation, her response made my blood boil.
“Well, I’m not living there right now, so why should I pay rent?”
Excuse me? I stared at my phone in disbelief. Did she seriously think that’s how rental agreements work?
I texted back, “Does that mean you’re officially moving out then? Because I need to know what’s happening here.”
Crickets. Complete silence.
So, I covered May’s rent alone. All of it.
Then June rolled around, and I was doing it again.
I texted Milly constantly, asking for answers, for money, and for any kind of communication. But I got nothing.
She’d read my messages, and I knew that because I could see the blue check marks. But she never responded.
At that point, the whole situation was driving me crazy. I was working extra shifts at my campus job just to afford her half of the rent on top of my own expenses. My savings account was getting drained because my roommate decided to play house with her boyfriend.
That’s when Milly’s mother texted me out of nowhere.
“Hi honey, I know Milly is going through a rough patch right now. She just needs some time to figure things out. She’ll be back soon, I promise.”
Seriously? I thought. A rough patch?
She was living rent-free in someone’s basement while I was breaking my back to keep a roof over both our heads. And she was the one going through a rough patch? Yeah, right!
I texted back politely.
“I understand she’s going through something, but I can’t keep covering her rent indefinitely. If she’s not coming back, I need to know.”
Silence. No response from her mom either.
By July, I was done being the patient doormat. I’d given Milly every chance to communicate and to pay what she owed.
Instead, she’d ghosted me completely while expecting me to maintain her half of the apartment like some kind of storage unit.
I sent her one final text, “Milly, if you don’t respond by July 1st and sort out the rent situation, I’m going to assume you’ve moved out permanently and act accordingly.”
July 1st came and went. Still nothing.
That’s when I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I called up three of my friends and told them the situation. They were just as outraged as I was.
“Girl, you’ve been way too nice about this,” my friend Sarah said. “She’s literally stealing from you at this point.”
So, we packed up all of Milly’s stuff.
We packed her clothes, books, and all the random knick-knacks she’d left scattered around the house.
We donated what looked basic, like old clothes, worn-out shoes, and generic items that anyone could replace. I saved what looked valuable or sentimental, just in case.
Then, I called the landlord and explained the situation. He was surprisingly understanding.
“She’s been off the lease since it went month-to-month anyway,” he said. “If she’s not paying and not living there, she has no legal right to the space.”
He changed the locks the next day. Phew!
Bye-bye, freeloading ghost roommate.
I thought that was the end of it. I thought I’d never see Milly again.
But I was wrong.
Three days later, Milly was pounding on my door like the building was on fire.
“Why are the locks changed?” she screamed through the door. “I LIVE HERE!”
I opened the door calmly.
“Oh, hi, Milly,” I said. “Actually, you haven’t lived here in two months, and you haven’t paid a dime of rent.”
Her face was red, and she looked genuinely shocked that there were consequences for her actions.
“I was COMING BACK!” she yelled. “The situation with Jake didn’t work out! His mom kicked me out!”
“Not my problem anymore, Milly. You’re off the lease, and you ghosted me for months.”
That’s when the waterworks started. She burst into tears, the kind of dramatic sobbing that probably worked on her parents when she was 12.
“I have nowhere to go! I just need some clean clothes and a SHOWER! Please, Cynthia, I thought we were friends!”
I felt a tiny pang of guilt, but I pushed it down. Friends don’t abandon friends with rent bills and disappear without a word.
“What’s left of your stuff is in the closet,” I told her. “The rest got donated to charity.”
Her crying stopped abruptly.
“Donated to charity?” she repeated. “What do you mean, donated?”
“I mean, I gave it away. You abandoned it for two months, and I’m not running a free storage facility.”
She pushed past me into the apartment, rushing to what used to be her room. When she came back, her eyes were wide with rage.
“Where’s my grandmother’s wedding dress?” she demanded. “It was in a special box under my bed!”
My stomach dropped. “What special box? I saw a dusty old cardboard box that looked like trash.”
“That WAS the box! Oh my God, you gave away my grandmother’s wedding dress!”
Honestly, how was I supposed to know that some random, unmarked cardboard box contained a family heirloom? If it was so important, maybe she shouldn’t have abandoned it for two months.
But instead of realizing that it was her fault, she went absolutely nuclear.
“YOU MONSTER!” she yelled. “YOU GAVE AWAY MY LIFE! I’M CALLING THE POLICE!”
I shrugged, staying calm.
“Go ahead,” I said. “I documented everything, and even your mom knew about the situation. I told you in May, then in June, and you ghosted me completely. I’m not the one at fault here. Do whatever you want.”
She screamed, sobbed, threatened to sue me, and called me every name in the book. But then she finally realized she had no case and no keys, and there was nothing she could do.
“This isn’t over!” she yelled as she stormed out.
But it was over. Completely over.
I hope she learned that ghosting your roommate doesn’t mean your stuff ghosts with you. And I also hope she knows that I didn’t throw her out. She threw herself out by ghosting me.
I just made it official.
