An HMO (House in Multiple Occupation) rental is a property shared by three or more tenants who are not members of the same family (so forming more than one household) but who share amenities like a kitchen, bathroom, or living area.
While basic items like major appliances and large furniture are provided by the landlord, dishes, cutlery, cookware, small appliances, and other personal items not deemed household necessities are the responsibility of the tenants to provide for themselves.
How much is shared by tenants, for instance toasters or coffee makers, is up to them. Some share everything, some choose to share nothing.
The arrangement differs from a group renting a home or apartment together where each tenant is responsible for paying rent on the entire property. Each HMO tenant rents only their own room, so bills and rent don’t change when people move in or out.
Often called shared houses or bedsits, these properties are popular in the UK in expensive areas like London. They most closely resemble boarding houses, except the landlord usually doesn't live on the property sharing space with tenants.
An HMO tenant turned to the "Am I The A**Hole" (AITAH) subReddit for feedback about their plan to move out.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However, there are no required voting acronyms—only suggested ones—and no official final judgment declared.
Ikeasbitch asked:
"AITAH for not telling my housemate I’m moving out and taking everything with me?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"I’ve lived with my 2 friends in an HMO house (it's rented room by room with some communal spaces included) for 10 months, and around 3 months into this, a girl we don’t know moved in to fill the last room."
"I was initially excited to have another girl move in as my 2 friends are guys, so I greeted her first when she moved in, but my excitement was quickly dulled as her first words to me weren’t 'hello' but 'what are your plans to clean this place up'."
"This annoyed me immediately as the place was in pretty good condition, but I explained the way we clean and tidy (clean up after ourselves with a weekly cleaning day) which happened to fall the day after she moved in."
"I showed her around explaining what belonged to who, what was communal, etc... and then let her settle in. But there was already problems the next day when we found she had used various things of ours to cook and then half arsed washing them, leaving dirty food and stains on our dishes and utensils."
"This happened a few times before one of my friends explained we didn’t mind her using our stuff until she got her own, provided she actually cleaned it after. She then shouted at me for 15 minutes even though I wasn’t the one that even brought it up and said I was trying to 'look good in front of the boys'—who have been my friends for years."
"Cue the laundry list of issues we’ve faced over the past 7 months."
"She uses the clothes drying racks 5 days a week not accounting for the other 3 of us in the house, still won’t clean our dishes, has cracked the wood on our chopping boards using them as lids for hot frying pans, leaves her hair all over the bathroom and kitchen floor, uses all of my freezer space leaving me with none, leaves the microwave and air fryer dirty, leaves pee and period blood on the toilet seat and takes my pads, tampons, razors etc... without asking."
"It was less a matter of letting her and more a matter of she did it anyway after we asked her to buy her own stuff."
"For the first couple weeks we let her use them willingly because she’s a student doing her masters, so I was empathetic towards the fact that buying things immediately after the cost of moving may not be financially viable."
"I also do not have space in my room to keep my dishes and utensils - there also wasn’t much the landlord could do about this apparently."
"These are a quarter of our grievances which we have tried to address, only for her anger to be directed solely at me."
"The house has never been in worse condition and her only solution is to complain at us for the mess (90% of it is obviously hers) then ask us to send her money to buy cleaning products (we have plenty) and then not help with the weekly clean."
"Me and my other 2 housemates have been looking for a reason to leave and I just got a new job opportunity, so we took this chance to find a 3-bed flat to rent as a whole and are moving in next week."
"We aren’t moving out because of her specifically as I’m moving for work anyway but she was sort of a catalyst for finding the new place as it were."
"We gave our landlord just over a months notice which has been accepted, so everything else is sorted."
"The thing is that 90% of the things in this house are bought by us. We will be taking the toaster, microwave, kettle, drying racks, air fryer, our pots and pans, the iron, hoover, and much more."
"Pretty much all our communication with her is now through me as the boys refuse to talk to her (for various other reasons), so I have decided to not even bother letting her know and let her find out when A - she notices people coming for viewings, or B - the moving van arrives."
"Planning on packing all the things in our rooms first then everything else on the day of, hopefully when she’s busy."
"We didn’t expect her to buy things we already used communally, but she has maybe twice ever contributed to this household financially. So she can deal with buying her own stuff and learn to clean up by her own messes."
"Only thing I’m doubting is not telling her we’re going and leaving her without household basics - moving out and taking my things is no issue for me, it’s just her not being aware I feel kinda bad about. But I don't want to deal with her flipping out about us taking our own possessions we paid for."
"AITAH for not telling her?"
The OP later added:
"As it’s a room by room renting situation, she will NOT have to leave or experience an increase in rent or bills. The only thing affecting her will be everything disappearing from the house when we go."
"The landlord is the person organising viewings, so we couldn't give her a schedule for that."
"We have previously briefly spoken to the landlord about the situation with her, but he said there wasn’t much he could do. I may write down the entire situation for him because it could affect his ability to find new tenants if she stays this way."
"I’m not worried about taking my things, obviously. I paid for them, and the same goes for the guys."
"This is about the fact that she will *not be aware* that there will be next to no household basics or furnishings until they’re gone."
"It hasn’t really crossed our minds that she would purposefully break/steal anything, but she definitely seems like the kind of person who will claim things are hers or need to stay in the house and cause a scene about it."
"Better safe than sorry, though, I guess, as we barely know her because we just avoid her."
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors decided the OP was not wrong to take their possessions when they moved and to avoid an unpleasant scene with their unfriendly roommate.
"It’s not like a fully furnished household was in the lease. And if it was, it would have been the landlord’s responsibility to provide for it."
"And if she wasn’t such a see you next Tuesday, you would have given her a heads up, but she’s just reaping what she sows." ~ UncleNedisDead
"No, you're NTA, but I strongly recommend you go ahead and remove anything that is very important to you and that she uses regularly and store it somewhere temporarily until move-out day, so that if she figures it out, she can't mess with things that you truly value. She sounds petty and like someone who'd try to sabotage your stuff or take things." ~ DontDreamItsOver3
"To be blunt, YOU especially need to do this. She's focused on you in a way she's not focused on the guys."
"If you own anything that the sudden lack of would be a major problem—work uniforms, the laptop that holds your whole dissertation, medicine, pets, beloved sentimental items, expensive electronics—those things ought to exit the house first."
"And cosmetics, jewelry, toiletries and any clothing that could fit her, since she seems to think girl stuff is communal property." ~ Birdlebee
"And take pictures on your way out the door to document the conditions under which you leave the residence or have the landlord there to check it when you do. Cover your a**." ~ fatmominalittlecar
"Keep your room locked and start moving as much of your stuff into your bedroom as possible. She is focused on you (internalized mtsogyny maybe?) and if she does something, it will be to your stuff." ~ tatasz
"This girl thinks you’re all a**holes regardless of what you do, and she doesn’t sound like someone whose opinion matters."
"So some random girl from your eventual past doesn’t like you. Oh well, you don’t have to deal with her anymore."
"You’re overthinking this about someone you don’t care about and won’t see again. NTA." ~ BulbasaurRanch
OP will soon put this person behind her. If that leaves their roommate in the lurch, that's her soon-to-be former roommate's problem.
