AITA For throwing out my flatmate’s rice cooker and clearing out her part of the fridge after she left the country to go home for Christmas?

An 18-year-old university student shared a heated flatmate conflict that unfolded after they threw out their flatmate’s mouldy rice cooker and expired food. With their flatmate away for the holidays, tensions escalated over hygiene, boundaries, and group communication. Was the clean-up necessary, or did it overstep personal boundaries? Read the story below.

‘ AITA For throwing out my flatmate’s rice cooker and clearing out her part of the fridge after she left the country to go home for Christmas?’

Me and my flat mates are all uni freshers: me (18), Madison (18), Simon (20), Robert (22), and Liam (19) (all fake names btw). One day, Madison pmed me saying she didn’t like how I talked to her in the flat group chat. I’m a very jokey person so though I might of gone too far with my sarcasm, so I apologised straight away.

She then didn’t reply to my message and didn’t come back to the flat for weeks. I got worried as her life 360 was off too.. Simon messaged the group chat:

Simon: “Yo guys, whose cooker is that? 😅” (picture of a mini rice cooker)..
Madison: “Mine, lol.”
Simon: “Inside is only just mould hahah okay.”.
Liam: “Crazy stuff.”.
Madison: “Oh what.”

I gagged when I saw the picture as I remember sitting in the kitchen with her as she cooked that rice. Last month 💀. I took another picture of the rice to send to chat – adding that her avocadoes also went mould and that I few them out. She didn’t reply. The next day I reminded her to throw the rice away, it was making the kitchen stink.

She responded: “Has anyone seen my pot?” 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️. I pmed her twice reminding her – no reply. I finally caught her at 4 am in the kitchen with her friends. I apologised again to her in person and reminded her to throw away her rice. She told me it was ok and said she would.

(she didn’t – it was there for another few days) I triple-bagged the rice cooker and left it by the bin, sharing a picture in the chat:
“Madison, please throw your rice away 💀.”
Madison: “I’m not even there y’all, and I lost my pan.” (she left to go back home for Christmas break in Thailand)
Me: “Madison, I told you multiple times to please throw that away. It’s a health hazard.”
Madison: “Bruh, just put it where the vacuum is.”
Me: “No—it’ll heat up and grow more mould.”. Madison: “Nah, there’s a lid.”
Me: “It’ll attract bugs and rats.”
Liam: “I threw that s**t in the bin fr. Was n**ty.”

When she left for Christmas, she didn’t clean her fridge section. I threw away food that was going to expire over the holiday, open sauce packets leaking on the shelf, curdled milk, cookies, eggs, and vegetables pooling water. My flatmates said her side of the SHARED fridge was filthy for weeks. I messaged the chat with what I’d done..

Madison: “K.”

I sent her a video of me clean-up. She complained I was disrespecting her space, claiming the sauces were still fine to eat and expensive. She accused me of nagging and said I shouldn’t touch her side of the fridge area since I don’t use it (I share a mini fridge with Robert). She also said the sauces were expensive.

I kinda feel bad for clearing her stuff out, especially as she was having personal problems in her life and was trying to heal. And I did call her a bad word on the group chat after her “K” responses💀. But it was going to expire over the holidays, and as I’m staying in the flat during Christmas, I don’t really want to smell that… So, AITA?

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

Powerful-Solid-8752 −  NTA. that sounds n**ty af. Don’t feel bad for not wanting to live in mouldy rotten filth. She cannot do much about it beyond complain, so just use it as a lesson to get better roommates in future.

rossimac007 −  Disgusting for even letting that food sit there for that long. This sounds like a bunch of children that are used to their mom cleaning up after them. Honestly the first time you saw mold should have been when the rice was thrown away. AH? No idea. But this is embarrassing for everyone who lives in that flat

Apart-Ad-6518 −  NTA. Leaving moldy food for what, *weeks*?. Gross. Disgusting. I saw others saying you should’ve just thrown the rice & cleaned the pan. *No way*. When she left for Christmas, she didn’t clean her fridge section. I threw away food that was going to expire over the holiday, open sauce packets leaking on the shelf, curdled milk, cookies, eggs, and vegetables pooling water.

My flatmates said her side of the SHARED fridge was filthy for weeks. So you also cleaned up after her lazy, health hazard inducing a$$. She complained I was disrespecting her space. So let her go live in a dumpster. Sounds like she’ll be right at home.. Edited for clarity

Any_Use_4900 −  NTA on the rice cooker and food; her fault for leaving it like that. Maaaybe you didn’t need to throw away sauces, especially if they’re vinegar heavy and not likely to mold…. but with her disregard for everything else, I’d have probably lost my patience and thrown it all away all at once too.

demon803 −  NTA, mold is mold and in the fridge it will just grow, and ruin all the other food. You have every right to make sure you food will be good when you want it, and moldy food will make yours go bad faster and the stink may never come out of the fridge.

squirrell1974 −  NTA sounds like you got stuck with someone who has never had to take care of herself in any way, shape or form. Living in a shared space means respecting the other people who share your space and leaving a mess like that is not respectful of the rest of you.

I’d have thrown the rice cooker out, too. If it had just been a regular pan, maybe I’d have tried to clean it, but a rice cooker isn’t a regular pan. You can’t clean every surface and once you get mold growing in something like that, you can never really clean it out.

saffarinda −  NTA – anyone saying you’re TA has clearly never lived with messy housemates. you guys are saints for not throwing it out sooner

woman_thorned −  Nta but next time just tuck it into her bed.

AKlife420 −  NTA, that is just f**king n**ty.

twinsoccerx2 −  NTA. I lived in a cottage in college with 2 other girls. The fridge smelled awful. We couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from. And my pregnant roommate couldn’t stomach it but didn’t want me touching her stuff. This was May when we were moving out.

I basically wasn’t home and neither was the other roommate. The smell was from a container of takeout when she told her family she was pregnant. That was in February. Heaven forbid you leave crumbs on the counter rushing to class but leaving rotting food in the fridge for months was perfectly acceptable!

Do you think the user was justified in cleaning up for the sake of hygiene, or did they cross a line by throwing out their flatmate’s belongings? How would you navigate cleanliness disputes in shared living spaces? Share your thoughts below!