Woman kills what turns out to be dormmate's pet roach; she launches social rage campaign. UPDATED
'AITA for refusing to get my dormmate a new pet cockroach after I unknowingly killed hers?'
thrrowaawayy4
I (20F) am taking summer classes at my college and living in a dorm of about 40 girls. A few weeks ago, my friend showed me a Snapchat private story post from “Alex” (19 or 20F), a girl on my floor. It was a video of a cockroach climbing her bedroom wall with the caption “tfw your pet has the zoomies.”
I assumed she was just making a joke out of a bug getting into her room, but my friend told me that no, she has a pet cockroach that she feeds, keeps in a “cage,” and lets out for play. We had a WTF moment but moved on.
Flash forward to three days ago. I was walking down the hall to the bathroom when I encountered a massive roach on the wall. I HATE roaches, especially since there was an infestation the last time I was home. Instinctively, I smashed it with my shoe, flushed it, and cowered in residual horror for half an hour. I didn’t think much of it after that.
Until now. Yesterday, my friends and I ran into some girls in our common room, including Alex. We stopped to talk for a bit. I was speaking with Alex and one of her friends when she asked whether I live on the floor. I said yes.
Then she asked me, “Have you happened to see my roach around here?” before saying it has been missing for days. That’s when it hit me. The nasty roach I killed the other day was her pet. I froze but came clean. I said I believed I killed it, not knowing it was her pet.
Alex FLIPPED out. I apologized, but it wasn’t enough. She wallowed about how she loved “Leggy” and would need to get a new roach now. She asked ME to get her one since I work with insects in my lab.
I told Alex that, while I am sorry for her loss, it is not fair, healthy, or hygienic to keep a pet cockroach when you live with 40 people. That they carry dangerous diseases and that breathing the air near them exposes you to illness.
And that for those with asthma, roaches are very unhealthy. They will breed, and people will not want to deal with an infestation for years to come. Plus, we don’t even use roaches in my lab.
Alex was livid. She accused me of animal cruelty, which was funny. One, I’m a biology major who has worked with arthropods; I know it’s unlikely roaches feel pain the way we do. Two, I’m a vegetarian, and to my knowledge, she isn’t.
Her friends went off on me for being cold-hearted, accusing me of knowingly killing her pet. This was ridiculous. I said I didn’t know it was hers, but I don’t feel bad for killing a disease-carrying pest. Finally, I told her she was downright disgusting for keeping a pet roach in the first place.
Alex started crying and left the room. Since then, her friends have been sending me nasty DMs. Alex has sent me tamer messages, including some insisting that I find a way to buy her a new roach if I can’t get one from my lab. Using my name, she bashed me on her private story to gain sympathy.
She accused me of everything above: being a cold-hearted animal hater, knowingly targeting her, “dehumanizing” her pet, and showing no remorse. Maybe I was too harsh for calling her disgusting, but I don’t see how I’m wrong for refusing to get her a new roach and disagreeing that it’s okay to keep one. AITA here?
The OP then returned with an edit to clarify more.
thrrowaawayy4
It was not an exotic roach bred to be a pet, it was a common house roach she found outside, trapped, and brought inside. She clearly was not taking care to ensure it wouldn’t get out. It wasn’t an actual enclosure she kept it in, it was a plastic container with a small opening.
I’m just gonna assume that thing isn’t super well-secured since it got out while she was away. Or maybe it just got out during ‘play time’ when she wasn’t watching it properly.
Yes, my school has rules about pets. Only fish are allowed explicitly. Dogs, cats, hamsters, reptiles, a bunch of common pets, etc., are not allowed because we live in close quarters where people have allergies and there can be sanitary issues. Roaches aren’t specified in the rules. Alex had Leggy for about 2 weeks before it went missing.
We are all students in our junior year. No one is a new student. Alex and I both lived in this dorm when it was more full during the school year but on different floors.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this initial post:
floorgunk
If she didn't have it on a leash, then she's an irresponsible pet owner. NTA.
Opening-Rice-6872
... on ... a ... leash ... 🤣🤣🤣 I'm dying at the thought.
NTA if it was a common roach. It would be different if it were some exotic roach, but if not, then ew.
SmokyLavender13
That girl is unhinged. Go straight to your RA and stay the fuck away from her and her psycho friends. Show your RA all the messages.
Specific-Garlic-1036
There is no way that’s allowed in the student handbook. Do not buy her a new one. She let it get out, it got what roaches get.
The next day, after seeing the post blow up and recieving a lot of questions, the OP returned with an update.
'Update on my dormmate wanting me to buy her a new pet roach'
thrrowaawayy4
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice on how to handle this. I did respond to “Alex’s” messages this morning apologizing for calling her disgusting, because I would not have insulted her like that if the friends hadn’t attacked me first.
I did not apologize for giving her reasons for why common roaches are not appropriate to keep in the dorm. I didn’t say those things to mock her grief, and I wouldn’t have gone into them had she not pushed back over and over again when I said I would not be buying her a new roach. She didn’t seem to be mad about either of these things though.
Alex said sorry for her friends harassing me over DMs (nothing about her own private story post) but insisted again I get her the new roach. As some of you suggested, I told her that I didn’t personally have a problem with her keeping an exotic roach bred to be a pet in a secure terrarium where she did not let it out, but I would need to ask the RA whether this is even allowed.
I still don’t think it’s a great idea for her to keep these because knowing the little amount that I do about her pet-handling habits, she hasn’t taken efforts to make sure the roach is well-secured and it wouldn’t stop someone else from killing it if it got out. But that’s not my problem.
My friend who was on the private story and I went to our summer RA about it this morning, and we showed her Alex’s post about me, the friends’ messages, and her TikToks with the roach as proof.
As predicted, she said keeping ANY kind of roach is most certainly not allowed. She was appalled. She told me to sit the rest of this out and that she would handle talking to Alex.
The OP then provided more context on all of this.
thrrowaawayy4
I left a lot of info out about Alex because I didn’t want to make the original post too long, plus this situation is about my actions/her anger and not her herself. But I figured I’d give it now because it might be insightful into her state of mind + the Leggy stuff.
I have never thought Alex was super weird or anything. It’s really just her friends who have that rep. My friend thinks she’s weird because of social media posts she’s made, but I’m not on Snapchat so I don’t see that side. I also hadn’t seen her Tiktoks until another friend (who was present when I told Alex I think I killed the roach) showed me them.
Basically, she has made five or six TikToks since getting Leggy two weeks ago including: the story of how she caught it with her friends, making the cage + Leggy in the cage + “sealing” the gap under her door (this clearly was not effective), Leggy running around, and a short one most recently that was like “RIP Leggy.”
I think she wanted these to go viral but they did not. For the few people who have said this is too crazy to be real, I WISH I could post screenshots here but I don’t want to open the door to doxxing her.
There also seem to be MANY posts where people just have their pet roaches (mostly the exotic ones) out of the enclosures so maybe she thought it would be okay due to those. We take 2-3 classes in the summer so I guess she just has a lot of free time.
I go to a small women’s liberal arts school, and for those of you who don’t have experience with these, people tend to be very… quirky. I was shocked at Alex keeping a wild roach as a pet (and even her having any roach at all in a shared dorm in the first place; I believed she had an exotic one before she told me it was wild), but not surprised.
This is the craziest thing to ever happen to me here, but definitely not the craziest thing in general. People in the past year have done sh*t like letting a homeless man they made friends with camp out in an empty bedroom, TAKING SH*TS IN THE SHOWERS, putting Nair in roommates’ shampoo bottles for stealing a girlfriend (definitely took the idea from the Internet), etc.
Also, I suggested she just catch another roach if she really wants another one ASAP since that’s how she got the first one, but she claimed she’d never seen one here before this.
She asked me to get her one because of my lab work (I don’t think she cares whether it’s common or exotic), but when I said we don’t have those in my lab, she said I needed to be the one to get it because it was my “responsibility” since I killed the first one.
I’m just not gonna do that no matter what, because again, this is a shared dorm where anyone would likely see a roach and just kill it, or in a few cases, maybe trap it and let it out outside. It’s also literally just against the rules.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this latest update:
Jenkinsthewarlock
Yeah I had no doubt the stories real, it screams womens liberal arts school lol.
okay___
I hate everything about this.
9279283
Honestly I could totally see this happening. I know some people think it’s fake but having recently graduated myself, I completely believe it. The dorms are something else, just way too many half baked brains left to their own devices.
Reminds me of when someone on my floor had their friends over for the weekend and they brought their hamster named Smirnoff with them, then left him behind with us. Thankfully we managed to secure emergency housing, but the poor thing had been living off of nothing but cheez its and bottled water while we hid it. College is f*cking weird.
Komabeard
Get her a second roach and when she gets excited just smash it in front of her.
Orphan_Izzy
No reasonable person could be expected to know that a single roach crawling on the wall is someone’s pet. The first instinct would be to assume it’s one of many and treat it as part of an infestation. So no way should she have to replace it.
The thing is this is a non issue thanks to school policy. Too bad no one thought of this and saved themselves the trouble of everything after the death of the roach. RIP Leggy. Now every time I see a roach I’m going to be like, “Leggy?”