Man finds out through Tik Tok that his roommate has been hiding 10 ferrets. AITA?
'AITA for breaking my lease due to my roommates obsession with ferrets?'
I (24M) just moved to a new city with a roommate (27M) I met online. We had spoken for months before this and seemed to have a lot in common. He told me ahead of time that he had a ferret named Lucky.
He sent me a lot of videos and pictures and overall she seemed like a cute pet. I’ve heard bad things about ferrets, but I ignored them because my roommate seemed cool and Lucky was adorable. In person, she was even cuter so I didn’t think much about it.
A few weeks into living with him I noticed that Lucky was bipolar. Not literally, but it seemed like sometimes she was playful and nice while others she was more aggressive.
Again I chose to ignore this because I knew very little about ferrets so it’s possible that they were just like that. But as I got to know Lucky I realized something. She was almost certainly two different ferrets.
When Lucky was nice she looked slightly different than when she was mean. This revelation hit me like an anvil so I immediately confronted my roommate about it. He confessed that he actually had two ferrets (Lucky and Domino) and that he thought I wouldn’t agree to room with him if I knew.
I was a little peeved but forgave him for lying and didn’t make a big deal out of it. However, I remained suspicious which led to the next revelation.
Part of me thought that my roommate was still lying so I did a little investigating. For context, we rent a house and he lives upstairs while I live in the basement. I couldn’t (and generally wouldn’t) snoop in his room mostly because he locked his door.
I originally thought this was totally acceptable but by then I thought it was suspicious. What really tipped me off was that the Instagram profile where we mostly talked only had pictures of Lucky, which is why I didn’t think he had two ferrets.
I dug around looking for alternate pages but couldn’t find any. Then I remembered him deliberately asking if I used TikTok (I didn’t) and checked there. And, my god. This man had a TikTok account where he showed off his TEN ferrets. TEN weasels that had been living under my roof for months at that point.
I confronted him again and this time he was much more defensive. He was mad that I didn’t believe him the first time even though he was still lying.
I told him that if he had just told me about the ferrets right away, I may have been ok with it (probably not, but maybe). But now that I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t live with him. I called the land lord and broke my lease.
I’m staying on a friend’s couch for now but my roommate keeps blowing up my phone, cussing me out. He thinks I’m in the wrong but idk how I possibly could be. So am I the a**hole for breaking my lease over my roommate’s ferret obsession?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
NTA. Get out of there. You agreed to move into a house with one ferret and there’s ten. He lied to you. Some people might say that you have lived there for weeks and they didn’t bother you but that’s not the point. You did not sign up to live in a house with 10 ferrets.
Are you sure you really had a human roommate? Or was he a suit full of ferrets?
NTA, Obviously:) Block him. The guy is clearly trouble as he lies as he breathes, then make you feel like you are in the wrong. You did the right thing.
INFO. Does the landlord know your roommate has ten ferrets? What reason did you give to break the lease?
The OP responded here:
I told him about the ferrets. Our lease had no restrictions for pets so I don’t think he can do anything. He did seem disturbed on the phone so I’ll update if anything happens.
NTA. Roommate is a walking lie. Any problem with the renting, you have no guarantee he won't throw you under the bus.