Landstacy learns to never take pity on rentoids

I own the house (30F), and I am also moving out at the end of the month to join my partner in a different state (military). I have new tenants renting the entire house starting January 1. This has been the plan since I started dating my partner in January, and regularly communicated to my roommate (35F) who has been renting a room in the house at significantly below market rate for the past 2.5 years.

Long story short roommate is upset that she has to move out, and has refused to say a single word to me for over a month. Even when I attempt to speak to her when present in the same room.

In mid-November I gave her notice by email, text, and in her renter portal to move out by 12p on 12/31. She does not respond to any text messages. I let her borrow a bookcase and I asked her when she planned to clear it off so that I could sell it. No response. I reiterated and gave 24 hours or else I would consider it stolen and would file a police report. Nothing. I then sent a certified letter with notice to inspect. That letter is still sitting on my counter unopened, but I did go into the room at the day and time designated, filmed myself emptying the bookcase, and removing it. I also took a photo of a half-eaten plate of Chinese food that was probably 5 hours old and ended up remaining in the room overnight.

There is no sign of her packing her things. She told our neighbor that she has not found a place yet and is “considering all her options.” She turned down a FREE room in my neighbor’s house because she thinks it would be best to move away and move on from the “resentment” she is harboring over this situation.

I told her that the internet will be shut off on the 28th as that’s the day I’m moving out and I’m taking my equipment (I pay for the internet, she never has). Today I offered $500 cash to move out by/on the 28th as well. No response. At this point I’m thinking she may have blocked my number.

I’m beyond upset, frustrated, and stressed at this grown woman’s behavior. She will be in the same room as me, I’ll try to say something, and she literally will not respond. She continues to move around the house without a word. She will go out the front door and walk around to the back to get to her car to avoid crossing paths with me. Her behavior is completely irrational and makes me incredibly nervous that she won’t leave. The new tenants can sue me if they aren’t able to move in. It’s insane to me that I can’t remove someone from a house that I own and live in and just have to wait. It’s all I can think about.

On Wednesday I packed up my entire house, everything in the kitchen including plates, pans, utensils since everything in this house is mine. I put all the boxes in my bedroom and now have a camera in my room to make sure she doesn’t enter, as I’m about to travel for the holiday.

It didn’t have to be this way, and I greatly regret letting her stay here. I wanted to provide someone with affordable housing and now I’m spending a ridiculous amount of money in attorney fees and security measures.

Update

Long story short, roommate removed all of her possessions and left the keys on the counter by 12pm today. House is now ready for the next tenants to move in tomorrow.

Things that happened between my post and today:

• While I was away for the holidays, she dragged the outdoor patio table into the house. I spoke sternly through the backyard camera to stop and put it back, but she didn't comply. Now there are a bunch of water ring stains on the table.

• I had packed up the silverware--rubber bands around the forks, knives, etc. and had them nicely placed into a paper shopping bag for donation. In my rush, I forgot to put it in my room. So she unpacked all of it and threw out the shopping bag.

• She invited her family from Alaska to stay at the house for a week.

• She entered my room and showed her dad my bathroom, which he proceeded to use. Extremely unnecessary—theres a common bathroom (her bathroom) in the hallway. I know this happened because I had a camera set up in my room, watching over all my moving boxes that I had stacked in there.

• They ate my food and used my condiments. I had all of my stuff in a box in the pantry (not much, just some bread, crackers, cookies, etc.) Someone unpacked it all and set the contents on the shelves for no good reason. I had purchased a new container of butter a few days before I left, there was 1/5 of it remaining when I got home. Using my condiments happened pretty much every time I was traveling, but this time it was the most blatantly obvious.

• She took most the boxes I had saved from deliveries and used them to pack her own stuff.

• She failed to clean the freezer space where she had all of her stuff (tons of crumbs and such in the bin) and I had put all of her refrigerator items in boxes yesterday so the cleaners could easily pull her food out while they did their work and put it back in after.

• She took my nice OXO shower caddy organizer ($50)

I have zero interest in renting a room to anyone ever again. It's either the entire house or nothing. I understand the importance of tenant rights but someone renting a room in an owner-occupied property should not have equal rights as someone renting a whole property. Not being able to remove this child-behaving 35 year old from my own home caused me way more emotional distress than it was worth.