Foraging flatmate

[Pers]

I need some advice, I moved in with a flatmate a few months ago. We share a kitchen and bathroom but are on separate housing contracts. Things were going well at first and we got on well, she's a bit over curious about my life, needing to know my plans etc.

I noticed things have been moved in my room, door open when I left it shut and things like that. I bought a new phone and used the old one occasionally, left it switched on and went to work all day. Came back, noticed it had moved and it had been picked up five times.

Suspicions raised, I have set up a video camera using my old phone and every day that I've been out, my flatmate has been in my room looking around my room, at the letters on my desk, and yesterday I put my letters away in the cupboard and on the video she was going in my cupboards to have a look.

We get on well generally, but I really feel my privacy has been violated, and like an abuse of trust. I don't want to start locking my door as I feel it will change the atmosphere in the house.

She doesn't work but starts a new job on Monday and hopefully it will stop, but somehow I think she'll carry on snooping about in my room.

I've been thinking about getting a glitter bomb to see if she'll open it, which will then open the conversation. I feel like a creep for filming but I wanted to prove my suspicions correct.

How would you recommend to deal with something like this, where the person is perhaps suffering with anxiety, and I don't want to humiliate her but I'm also really annoyed! Would it be unreasonable to deal with this with an explosion of glitter

She isn't your friend, she is someone who happens to share a flat with you so that you don't pay as much rent.

Maybe if you viewed her in this way it would matter less to you what she thinks. She behaves like a spoiled brat because you enable it.

You talk about confronting her. You don't need to "confront" her. It isn't all or nothing - doormat behavior or confrontational behaviour. There is a middle way.

Just be politely assertive. There is no need to be rude. You don't need to justify why you lock the door, but I would agree that the insurance reason is a very valid one if you have to justify it.

OP seems to have a bigger problem than the room invader flatmate does.

Go into her room and rummage around OP, not for bad reasons but let her know you can do the same. See what the reaction is from rummager in chief then.

But you really need to just put a LOCK ON YOUR DOOR! It is so simple, but you are oblivious to this it seems. Don't know why at all.

@Pers

I moved the vacuum and she said

"Oh good, now I won't have to feel bad about going in to get it"

Unbelievable

That's not the unbelievable bit.

You've had a whole thread of people telling you to sort this and it's quite frankly unbelievable that you're ignoring them.

*I'm really laid back, she's really highly strung.

I'm not going to make drama and continue it, however I think she will. It will be my fault for locking the door not her fault for going through my stuff... she'll see me locking the door as being passive aggressive.*

If you're laid back, you wouldn't give a toss what she thinks. If she thinks you're passive aggressive then so what?

@TicTacTwo

Not sure if you read my previous post but I said I will lock my door.

That is the advice, that is what I will do. Thanks all for insightful advice, it is genuinely appreciated

Is there such a thing as a 'people going through my private stuff' fetish?

By the way people with anxiety tend to worry how they come across. This means they dont tend to go around breaking into peoples bloody rooms.

I am so devastated you didn’t do the glitterbomb and video it.

You sound like you have major anxiety as you keep catastrophizing. I have lost count of all the negative scenarios you have theorised. Your problems run deeper than this situation.

But with regard to this, locking your bedroom door is completely normal in a houseshare. Only weirdos would think otherwise. Who cares if she hears you lock it or gets annoyed? You’re not responsible for her irrational behaviour and you can’t plan for every possible scenario. You don’t need to try to mitigate it. Simply put, you’re allowed to lock your door and don’t need to justify it.

The glitter is a stupid idea. It’s a bitch to clean up and doesn’t really address the situation. Years down the line, your landlord will still find specks! You’ll certainly have to pay for an additional deep clean of the surrounding flooring.

I lived in a houseshare at uni with my best friends and we still kept our doors locked when out - with no hard feelings down the line. It’s not that deep.

I just couldn't live with someone who did that. I'm sorry I would get away from her. The film Single white female springs to mind!

OP, you need a mindset shift. You have to accept that your relationship has already changed, fundamentally and irrevocably: it changed the moment you had evidence of her invading your privacy. It’s not going to change because of you ‘confronting’ her by locking the door, except superficially. The real issue is the current lack of trust and the fact get you have no idea how she’ll exploit the information she finds. I would also look to redirect my mail to a safe place. This is now pure survival mode until you find a way to move out.

Pretending that a problem doesn’t exist in a relationship will not make it go away, or even diminish it. It will simply rear its ugly head down the line. If you are being abused, manipulated, exploited by a partner, then that relationship is already dead. It’s just a case of how much you’re willing to endure until you feel brave enough to get out.

In future, I would encourage you to rethink the way you describe yourself. Being ‘laid back’ is not necessarily a virtue, and certainly not it’s a synonym for ‘hates confrontation’, aka ripe for exploitation by others, whether indirectly or not.

This thread is unbelievable.

437 posts and the OP has neither taken the simple and effective advice offered by an overwhelming majority of posters, nor addressed the surely serious worry over banking / credit details and financial security.

Extraordinary ...

I know you’re moved the robot one, but is there another vacuum cleaner in the house? I would store my one away and just use the other one. She may damage it.

Well done on taking a step though.

OP...don't take this the wrong way but you are coming across as really crazy. If lots of people say you are acting crazy, then....possibly you are. This is really simple to fix. 'Flatmate, my romm contents insurance has a clause saying I have to lock my room, so if you wanna tell me when you need my hoover, I can let you have it before I go out'. The glitter thing comes across as really quite nasty. And won't work. She'll dust off the glitter, pretend she wasn't in there, and will also dislike you.

Sooo disappinted to get all the way to the end of the thread to find out no glitter bomb was used! Use it! USE IT!!!

She felt sooo bad about getting the vacuum she had a rummage to help her feel better about it!!

Moving on to when you actually do lock the door:

Flatmate: "why have you locked the door?
OP: "why do you think?"

The end.

How would she know if you had locked your door - UNLESS she tried to open it???

You could print millions of these and put them everywhere in your room

Hopefully OP left the vacuum in the hallway and locked her door.

Flatmate will never find out the door is locked.... cos the vacuum is not in that room anymore!

No hassle, no drama, no falling out!

.... breath not being held ....

That's a very good point @CuriousaboutSamphire if your flat mate asks you why you've locked your door, you can respond with 'why were you trying to open my door, I told you the hoover was in the hallway'

I'm getting shades of supersoaker from this thread...

Yeah I thought about the supersoaker

Supersoaker?

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Of course she will know, she'll see me locking the door when I leave and unlocking it when I come home.

I'm wfh til Wednesday so no change yet anyway