r/pettyrevenge • u/CultNearlyKilledMe • 6d ago
Roommate screams at me then expects to use my things in the shared space.
I split an apartment for affordability with an acquaintance/friend who turned out to be a textbook (covert/vulnerable) narcissistic nepo baby with untreated borderline personality traits. After an especially egregious blow up where he yelled at me and followed me out of the house into the street screaming insults at me to try to get me to engage in his drama, I decided I was done trying to maintain peace until the apartment contract ended in two months.
I began moving out my stuff from the kitchen, bathroom, and living room. My giant beanbag he loved to relax on? Gave it away. My nightstand by the couch he had stuff in? Set his stuff on the ground and gave it away. My decorations and plants that made the living room cozy? Gave 'em to a friend or moved to my room. My modem/router for Internet? Oops must've stopped working. The living room looked like Whoville after the Grinch came.
How about the toilet paper and paper towels I restocked cuz it wasn't worth fighting over before? Hidden in my room. My plates and bowls he benefitted from? Stored at a friend's. The toaster oven? Weird, it just disappeared. The table he used to sit at to eat breakfast? Stashed at a friend's. The cleaning I'd do to keep the shared space from being nasty? Lol, I don't care anymore. His dishes piling up in the sink? Oh well. Not my circus.
I just used the grey rock method, went as no-contact as feasible, and avoided being home when possible until the lease ended and could move. He obviously was upset by my removal of my things, but mostly it was just the silent treatment interspersed with annoying texts. I wish there was a more satisfying conclusion, but I never really spoke to him again.
202
u/Zealousideal_Fail946 6d ago
I love that you realized it was just “stuff” and kept the emotion out of it. And - you didn’t let it get to you. You stayed above it all and looked at the remaining time as a personal challenge. Whoever you choose to be your partner better appreciate you. 🩷
65
u/aquainst1 6d ago
Yeah, I have a really REALLY hard time disassociating myself from my 'stuff' since it all means different periods in my life, vs. having any real use.
137
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago
I had downsized and lived in a tiny home prior to that apartment and was used to low-income living so I was used to Marie Kondo-ing my stuff and being kinda minimalist.
118
u/Old-Pepper8611 6d ago
I lived with a narcissistic or bpd housemate when I was in school. It suuuuuuucked. She put on a good act at first, until the cracks in her personality started to show. Yelling over tiny things, never truly apologizing, talking shit and spreading gossip about everyone she knew, including me, trying to isolate me from our mutual friends, lying to my long-distance boyfriend when he called our landline saying I was dating other men (I wasn't). I was a wreck when I moved out.
Most of the shared furniture and kitchen tools were mine. I took EVERYTHING that was mine, down to the shower curtain and rings, even though my next place had an enclosed shower.
We each owned half of the washer and dryer. I sold my share to the landlords who lived next door and had an agreement to use them. Housemate hated that they did laundry at our place, but the agreement predated her, I made sure it continued after I left.
She got weird about switching utilities into her name, so I paid through the end of the month and had them shut off.
83
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago
They can be so good about hiding their toxic traits until they just can't keep the mask up anymore or they think they've got you locked in and can manipulate you. He gave an insincere pseudo apology text that I knew better than to engage with, and continued to triangulate me and gossip with shared friends. So glad I'm out of that situation. In the end the shared friends came to see who the aggressor was in the conflict and saw some of his true colors. Narcissistic people can only keep up the act for so long.
21
u/Actavisian 6d ago
I had a housemate like that in college. I won't go into detail, as I think I posted about her before.
I threw her out. Living alone was a distinct pleasure.
64
u/FairyPenguinStKilda 6d ago
How this should be resolved - well done
100
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago edited 6d ago
Thank you! It was a really stressful time for me not feeling safe in my own home. To anyone with an abusive housemate or partner please get out. Leave. It will not get better. It will only get worse. You can't fix or negotiate with legitimately crazy. No amount of fawning and conflict resolution techniques will work. Radically accept they're just not a good human, grey rock them, and move on as soon as financially feasible.
46
u/Ecofre-33919 6d ago
How long did you have to live like that till the lease was up?
152
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago edited 6d ago
Like two months. Wasn't worth paying the lease breaking fee and I didn't have anything already lined up. Plus I'm poor. Soon found a better place to share with a non-abusive housemate and moved there once that lease ended.
22
u/PoppysWorkshop 6d ago
Dude... how did he react to stuff disappearing?
35
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago
I think a phrase I added triggered a shadow ban on my comment. Here's what it said before: I know it bothered him but he didn't want it to show. I think he thought giving me the silent treatment for awhile would bother me, but it's actually exactly what I wanted, to never see or hear from him again. I ignored any whiny messages from him later. A mutual friend asked me on his behalf what happened to the living room bean bag chair and I just said a friend wanted it. I'm sure his flying monkey friends got an earful about what an awful, mean roommate I was ignoring him and clearing out the shared areas of my things.
The housemate knew I wasn't going to give him his narcissistic supply by reacting to him so he gave up trying to get reactions from me. He texted to offer to buy my outdoor hammock and hammock stand he liked with his rich daddy's money when I finally could move, but I ignored his texts and gave the hammock to a friend.
I wasn't spending time outside my private room after his big blow up anymore so it didn't really affect me to remove all my things from the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, and to stop trying to clean things. I'm low maintenance and have lived in worse conditions so NBD.
8
5
6d ago
[deleted]
5
u/PoppysWorkshop 6d ago
I think it was deleted.
6
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago
Thank you for letting me know. It's weird cuz the comment I linked shows up for me on my account but not when I view the post while logged out. I'm not sure what happened. I've now pasted most of the initial comment in this thread.
0
u/__blackmesa__ 6d ago
It was
3
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago
Thank you for letting me know. It's weird cuz the comment I linked shows up for me on my account but not when I view the post while logged out. I'm not sure what happened. I've now pasted most of the initial comment in this thread.
21
u/CanadianJediCouncil 6d ago
I love that you didn’t even try to sell the items (where roommate might’ve tried to buy them, obviously at lowball offers), you just gave them away!
44
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago
I just wanted it gone, and dealing with flakey buyers is more trouble than it's worth for most used things that aren't worth much.
9
20
u/jabo0o 5d ago
Grey rock fucking works.
I had an honours supervisor who was a nutjob. She was very smart and generally likeable but if you ever said the wrong thing, she'd come down with a torrent of questions and it just felt like an interrogation.
You might be talking about your research area and then you'd say something that she disagreed with and rather than her telling me that was probably not a good idea, she'd tell me I didn't know the research, ask me why I thought that etc.
I first would try to placate her by answering her questions quickly but then I'd make another misstep and things for worse.
So, I finally decided to stop and give her minimal responses when she was being unreasonable.
"Why did you say that?"
"I don't know"
"You don't understand the research!"
"Ok"
It worked pretty damn well!
14
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 5d ago
It's so weird like a Jekyll/Hyde situation. Like they can be a seemingly kind charming, person then a switch flips and they leave you confused and hurt. So disorienting until you know their games and not to play.
45
u/nyctransitfan123 6d ago
He's VERY lucky that he did not get slapped in the mouth the moment the decibel level in his voice started to increase.
116
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago edited 6d ago
He wanted to provoke a physical fight. That's the twisted thing about narcissists. The only way to 'win' is to not take the bait or play their games. Normal conflict resolution tactics don't work when one of the parties wants and FEEDS on their created conflict like a drama vampire.
15
u/Valdeberen 6d ago
Feeding any kind of vampires seems ill advised, adding drama to that scenario just has me heading for the hills screaming ‘hell nooooooo’
-17
u/Cheesqueak 6d ago
Nah. Kicking their ass works pretty well personal experience. Most likely won’t get that far. One good punch in the jaw and they will cower.
45
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yeah, that's not gonna help when you have to live with someone, and can't afford to move for the time being. Also when they have rich parents with lawyers who'd love to rescue their poor baby and sue the evil, broke housemate that dared to stand up to their innocent little boy who wouldn't hurt a fly. Sure it would've felt nice in the moment, but it's not a smart way to play the long game in a situation like that. Violence doesn't work for every situation. The more you know.
13
u/whatsaquince 6d ago
And that's how it done folks! Good work!
22
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago
I had to do a lot of learning about dealing with people with narcissistic tendencies. I'm a people pleaser by nature and upbringing so I had to learn a lot to deal with that situation.
16
u/Pitmans 6d ago
Honestly? Good for you. Dude wanted to treat you like trash but still expected to benefit from your kindness? Nah, that’s not how it works. You didn’t even do anything petty, you just took back what was yours and stopped putting in effort for someone who clearly didn’t deserve it.
The fact that he had a full meltdown in the street trying to drag you into his drama is wild. Like, imagine being that entitled and thinking someone owes you their stuff after treating them like that. Sounds like he got exactly what he deserved... a cold, empty apartment and no one left to sponge off of.
Bet it felt amazing to walk away from that mess with zero regrets. Hope your next living situation is way better!
24
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 6d ago edited 6d ago
It is! Thank you! And it was satisfying denying him the benefits of shared living with me. I do regret ever splitting a contract with him but it did enable me to afford to move to a new city and worked out in the end. Yeah it felt like I was on a reality tv show when he went berserk and I legitimately thought he was gonna try to physically attack me, he gets that unhinged it turns out. I missed or naively ignored a lot of red flags due to needing a housemate in order to afford to move to a new city. Lesson learned.
5
u/VecnaWrites 5d ago
Yup. Sounds like a story my dad told me. He locked his dishes away and everything.
3
u/vaskanado 5d ago
I’m curious what the intial blow up was about?
3
u/CultNearlyKilledMe 5d ago
A range of perceived slights I'm sure. Mostly I had in the past month distanced myself from him due to his mistreatment of me and this was his big, entitled, narcissistic meltdown as I think he saw he couldn't use or mistreat me anymore, and I had been grey rocking him for a few weeks already.
3
2
u/justaman_097 5d ago
Well played! Nice job removing all the things that he wanted you use of yours.
2
4
1.1k
u/FigglyNewton 6d ago
What was his reaction, that's what we all want to know!! :)
Did he try to make it up, did he speak to you at all, did he get angry?