AIBU after a flatmate shouted about the shared bathroom?

[Confused383838]

I’ve started living with a friend (F) and another person in a shared flat. I have a boyfriend (BF) who doesn’t live with us. We’re all on the same course together, final
year, and know each other.

On the first day of term my boyfriend had stayed over (one night) and we had a 9am class next day. I had a heavy period so in the morning I was in the communal bathroom for 10-15 mins in total (shower, teeth, loo), got dressed, and then came back to the bathroom to scrub the bathtub because I was conscious of my period and I wanted it to be clean for the next person - door was open while I was cleaning and it took another 5-10 mins. I’m guessing the number of minutes but I wasn’t taking my time at any point and I didn’t want to keep BF waiting, and if anyone had wanted to use the bathroom I would have made way. BF then used the bathroom for minimal time, (loo, washed face and done). F hadn’t emerged from her room during this time so I didn’t know if she’d already left or wasn’t in. I knocked on her door but no answer so BF and I left together with time to spare.

I didn’t see F in class. I headed back to the flat after. F emerged from her room and started screaming about me and BF using the bathroom all morning so she couldn’t wash her hair and she therefore missed the class. I was too shocked to say anything. I assume F thought that BF was using the bathroom when I was actually cleaning, and she was raging silently about it in her room rather than coming out and asking us to hurry up. After I had a few minutes on my own I went to speak to her and explained and she listened but I could see she was still furious at me.

I’ve lived with people before and shared bathrooms and never had issues. I don’t know if there is some bathroom
code I broke. I feel like I’ve just moved in with an insane person with a horrible hidden personality. I can’t leave as I’m contracted to living here for at least a year. We got on very well previously. It’s the start of the year and it’s a small class and I can’t escape from her at home or on my course. I thought I was being considerate and now I feel like I f*ed things up for the rest of the year. I know she’s going to complain to the other people on the course that it’s all my fault. I’m normally very passive and avoidant and it took a lot for me to go back to her and say you were wrong about BF, but now I don’t ever want to see her again. 😭

If this was the first day of term I can imagine she was pretty annoyed that a random man was in the shared bathroom when she wanted to use it, and that this could become a common occurrence. Perhaps she didn't want to come out of her room in her night clothes with said random man roaming around the communal areas.

Why did you scrub the bath for 5 minutes after a shower? And to those of you saying why did the flatmate not come out, maybe she is one of those people who need to pee the second they get out of bed. If that is not your issue, then you won't understand how difficult it can be when you cannot get access to the bathroom - stopping you from doing anything else during that time. You were in there too long. As you minimise some areas and exaggerate others, I am fairly sure she was not screaming at you. But if you think she was then I suspect it would be in your best interests to find somewhere else to live. Perhaps with your boyfriend. I would definitely have been extremely cross with you for having monopolised a shared space for 30 minutes in the morning.

This is bullying behaviour by your 'friend'.

Speak to the university staff and tell them what's happened and the impact on you and ask if you can be moved.

For next time though, if you have someone staying, the onus is on you to be considerate and be mindful of what time she would ordinarily use the bathroom. You could have texted her saying you and BF were up and did she want to use the bathroom before your BF went in.

Does she ever have people staying? How often does your boyfriend stay?

I actually don't think it does actually. Your response says a lot about you though.
first day back at uni and I bet your flatmate FELT like she couldn't knock to use the bathroom and heard it being used.
You sound very entitled and owe her an apology

Not a random man - we’ve all known each other for three years!

I did apologise!

That's less than 15 mins per person... That's fairly rapid and certainly not monopolising. You might be able to get using the loo, brushing your teeth, and using the shower down to 10 mins if you were really in a rush.

Flatmate completely overreacted with the anger and screaming.

Fixed bathroom slots are the way forward. She should have come out of her room and knocked under those circumstances, and spoken to you like an adult. Shouting and screaming is never helpful. A conversation needs to be had to resolve it, but you probably need a third person present if she’s aggressive.

Very rarely - he has a proper home, not an over priced university room. Might be spending more time there than I expected. 🙄

Just to avoid any more conflict. I don’t need this worry in my final year.

Exactly! She sounds like an arse

It sounds like when you're saying you'll have to walk on egg shells, it means you'll have to think about whether your actions will impact others. You should already be doing that.
She shouldn't have screamed at you but I'm on the fence about whether she actually did or not because of how dramatic your language is throughout the post.

I think if a person leaves anything behind in a bath/shower (blood, hair, anything else that drops from your body!), they should clean it up, as you did OP. This isn't a feminist issue, its basic hygiene and civilised living.

It’s your first day of class, you seem completely fine with your own need for long showers, boyfriend staying over, your period issues etc.. but oblivious to the needs of your housemates who may have had all the same issues but chose not to make the morning about them.
apologise and try and make amends, you have to live together, so it’s best to try and smooth it over.

As it's so rare, her reaction was completely overblown.

I would just ignore her from now if she doesn't apologise sincerely.

Because I could smell the blood and I thought a clean bathroom smell would be more considerate. I didn’t even know if she was in - she didn’t come out for a cup of tea or anything. It wasn’t a solid block of 30 mins - I was in and out a lot, BF was only in once and very quick.

It was not a calm conversation or a raised voice which I would have been fine with, she was at full volume at a high pitch. 😭

Your time estimates are probably much shorter than they really were.
Your boyfriend didn't need to be there.
Your flatmate almost certainly didn't scream or yell at you.
You sound selfish.
YABU.

Are you American (using the word tub is unusual in the UK)? And if you are leaving blood on the bath, to the point it needs that much cleaning, you should consider seeing a gynaecologist-I believe Americans can make appointments with them, in the UK you'd need to see a GP first.

OP, I don’t think you were being unreasonable, BUT my DD lived in a very nice shared house that eventually broke down over people having BFs to stay over and using the bathroom and other house facilities. I know the bathroom can be a very sore point, especially in the morning. On a day when you have a nine o’clock lecture, why not agree your bathroom timings in advance?

BF was in my room the whole time. He spent maybe 2 mins in the bathroom.

I call bollocks to that

I’m not oblivious, I can’t help a heavy period but I apologised to her for taking so long, and I thought I was being considerate making the bathroom decent for anyone after me.

In what life time do students not go to class because they can’t bloody wash their hair? If that’s their attitude I can’t see them hacking the real world of work. They also have words and could have shouted out at some point “ hey are you going to be done soon ? “. If you knew she had the same class as you I might have discussed what time she was thinking of getting up so you could coordinate and I wouldn’t have spent 10 minutes cleaning it … surely there wasn’t that much to do?

Agree. And if her hair needed washing then why is she waiting until minutes before class to use the shower. And given that none of us were there I don’t know why the op is getting a hard time over cleaning the bath? She didn’t do that for fun did she? If she felt the bathroom was left unclean and she could literally smell her period blood (I don’t know why people find that so hard to believe) then she was obviously trying to be considerate.

He didn’t have a shower. He went to the loo and washed his face and then we left.
🤷‍♀️

When I was at uni there were six of us in a shared house (frequently more when boyfriends or girlfriends stayed) with 1 bathroom.

We never fell out over it, we used to get up super early to get a shower out of the way if necessary but it never seemed to be an issue?

Maybe discuss the night before who is going in first?