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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/HauntingProgress8589 on 2024-01-23 21:58:56+00:00.
Can't cross post so I'll just paste sth I posted at the roomie group. Disclaimer: 1) I'm not an insane radical man-hater. 2) English is not my native language. 3) The legal service is free provided by my college.
Me and my friend (22/21f) are college students living off campus and being financially supported by our parents. We had a roommate (30+f) for the past 5-6 months. We had a 3 bed 2 bath apartment, and the utilities are charged per unit (meaning for the three of us together) to one account. Basically it works like this: I own the utility account and the company charges my card every month, and I personally divide the bills with the two other roommates after receiving the bill.
Now the 30f roommate moved out around Christmas without paying me the December bills AND still owes about 1/5 of her November portions. She and us had quarrels about utility usage all the time and acted as if the two of us were bullying her just because we knew each other before.
During the time being roommates we tried to be as nice as possible to her, letting her husband stay here overnight for TWICE even I hated the fact of a man appearing in my residence (I honestly had a slight breakdown when I was triggered by his first unnotified appearance), I saved a piece of my birthday cake for her, we put her dishes together with ours into the dishwasher using OUR detergent, etc. What she did as a grown-up working adult almost 10 yrs older than us was giving us hard times on the room temperature (she literally "turned us in" to the leasing office, causing the office to send us harsh emails about the A/C temperature in our apartment??), and kept talking about her plans on savings and limited budget when we ask her to get a hotel room with her husband or pay the utility on time.
I sent her messages about the December bills at the beginning of this month but she just plays dead. I can't imagine people would stall on $70 electricity bills after living half a year in a $1200/m apartment.
$70 is not huge but it's also not small for me, and I feel worse because it's my parents' money. It has been haunting me for a while. I texted her several times without getting any replies, and I don't really want to confront her over the phone cuz English is my second language and you just think slower when you're fighting someone not using your mother tongue. I am thinking about going to student legal service and asking one of the lawyers to call her for me. WIBTA if I do so?
And FYI only because I was attacked on the "triggered breakdown" in my last post: 1) By "breakdown" I meant asking "Is he gonna spend the night here", closing my doors quietly after they leave, and having a silent panic attack in my room. 2) We discussed the house rules with her when she moved in, and she agreed to not have male guests without prior notice, and no sleepovers. For both times her husband came, she didn't even bother to let us know. We just came home from school and found a random guy in our kitchen.