A Guy Refuses to Stop Stealing Roommate’s Food. He Makes Him Regret It by Launching a Set of “Experiments”

Living with flatmates offers a diverse experience. On one hand, it provides advantages like cost-sharing and companionship; on the other, it entails challenges such as shared responsibilities and the need to define personal boundaries. A recent Reddit post highlighted one user’s firsthand experience in this regard, seeking advice and solutions from the online community.

He wrote:

“I had a roommate years ago that always ate the food I purchased. And sometimes the leftover food I made. He always had an excuse, like he was too tired to go to the store, but he would replace my food tomorrow. He never replaced my food.”

“So I decided to be petty. I had a half gallon of milk that I left outside for about two weeks. I let it get nice and spoiled, then put it in the fridge.

The morning after, my roommate decided to help himself to a bowl of my cereal, and lost it when he poured chunky milk into the bowl. It smelled awful and had the most disgusting texture to it. The entire kitchen and living room smelled rancid. Of course, I was the one to blame because I kept the milk past the expiration date.”

“This one was my favorite. I simply took non-hard boiled eggs and put them in a container labeled ’hard-boiled eggs.’ I woke up the next morning to him yelling and cussing, as he stormed into my room and asked why I did that.

I asked why it mattered how I labeled my food. He was sitting in the living room and tried to crack a couple eggs at a time on the coffee table. The raw egg got all over his hands, the table and on the rug under it.”

“This didn’t stop him from taking my food, but it happened less frequently. I spoke with him several times about this, and he agreed he would stop. But he never did. He just told me what I wanted to hear and ignored it after that,” he went on saying.

Reddit users swiftly chimed in voicing their support, and they shared their some useful tips or even “recipes.”

• Buy a mini fridge, put it in your room, put a nice strong lock on your door, and watch your roommate slowly starve because he’s incapable of buying his own groceries like an adult. © SheWhoLovesToDraw / Reddit

• See when people would take my food I’d pride myself in my high spice tolerance. Enjoy that sandwich with ghost pepper sauce with buffalo cheddar cheese. The cheese alone is enough to make most people back off! But the sauce, that’s to punish them for even trying! And trust me it comes out just as hot as it went in! © Gabbz737 / Reddit

• Make some cookies with laxatives and label them clearly “do not touch”. When he eats them and gets diarrhea, you can claim you made them specifically for yourself/someone you know with constipation. © deeeevos / Reddit

• Somebody at my last job kept eating my subs. Couldn’t figure out who. So I decided to smother a sub with extra hot sauce. Absolutely smother, it was a meatball sub and so the hot sauce and meatball sauce were indistinguishable. I found out who it was when somebody disappeared for the rest of the work day. © silveroranges / Reddit

• A trick I learned from my dad was to take a box of chocolate covered cherries and open it then break apart one for the chocolate pieces (you’ll need that later). Then poke a hole in the bottom of half the candy (randomly) and with a syringe, suck out the cream sauce and replace with hot sauce. Now warm a butter knife in hot water and use the broken chocolate pieces to “patch” the hole in the hot sauce filled candies. Then put them back in the box and set it out and wait for the fireworks! © Minimum_Zucchini1572 / Reddit

Certainly, this Redditor is not alone in experiencing such stress. Here are some additional stories that could help you feel grateful for not having to share your living space with housemates who have quirky habits like these.