She took the cold shoulder to the next level.
After months of quietly enduring a frustrating roommate scenario straight out of a sitcom, one woman decided she’d had enough — literally clamping down on her co-habitant’s cagey behavior.
Seeking vindication, the anonymous apartment dweller took to Reddit, explaining that she lives with her 31-year-old partner and his brother, and that for the most part, the less-than-common living arrangement works just fine — they even split rent and bills three ways.
However, she noted, her 29-year-old pseudo-brother-in-law is a picky eater and tends to stick to frozen snack foods — which would be fine, except for the fact that after gobbling up his own supply, he goes in on everyone else’s icy stash.
“We’ve talked to him about it countless times. He always apologizes, says he was really hungry, and promises to replace it but he rarely does,” she explained.
One day, after coming home from a long day at work and looking forward to one of her favorite frozen treats, the frustrated flatmate instead found an empty box in the trash.
Furious, she argued with the meal mugger, bought a lock, and put it on the house’s spare freezer, leaving the thief without access to her food — which, according to her, really set him off.
“He said we were treating him like a child and being incredibly petty and hostile. He says it’s humiliating,” she said — before explaining that her partner is firmly anti-pilferer and thinks his brother is “just mad he got caught.”
After thinking it over, the woman said she felt guilty and wondered if she took the tiff a touch too far.
If there’s one thing that can unite the Internet, though, it’s a tale of bad roommate etiquette.
“Adults make commitments and keep them. Adults also don’t steal each other’s food. Act like a child, get treated like a child,” reasoned one commenter, while another slammed the roommate’s behavior.
“Congratulations, you are living with a human cockroach. Set boundaries and if/when exceeded, enforce them,” they insisted.
“Now that there are 2 freezers, he can get more groceries at once, so it should last him a few days more,” said one positive person.
Drastic as the thieving deterrent sounds, the classic padlock-on-the-fridge is a more common solution than expected.
In some cases, some offices have had to resort to locking up communal refrigerators — to prevent potential pilfering between employees.
Some households also occasionally opt to lock up supplies to circumvent too much midnight snacking — like the man who bought a so-called ‘fridge safe’ to keep his fiancee from eating his chocolate.
“Anyone want him? Surely, this is break-up material,” the choc-blocked woman protested on Facebook at the time.
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