Man's Roommate Lied About Having 10 Ferrets, So He Broke the Lease
Jun. 27 2023, Published 11:02 a.m. ET
The hunt for the ideal roommate is tedious and often painful. Obviously no such person exists, which means people find themselves making small concessions and compromises in an effort to end the insufferable searching. One issue that often comes up is pet ownership. Either you have a pet and are entering a home that is sans animal, or the potential new roommate already has a furry pal and you have to deal with it.
In a perfect world, both individuals have pets that get along like those adorable animal friends videos the algorithm feeds us when we're at our lowest, but this scenario is rare. For one Reddit user, his new living situation turned into a living nightmare when he discovered his roommate lied about owning 10 ferrets. That is of course nine ferrets too many. This prompted an immediate move from him, and a trip to the AITA Subreddit to ask if he's the jerk for leaving. So, is he?
Two ladies and a ferret walk into a house...
How many ferrets is too many ferrets?
When the original poster, who goes by the handle u/jgorzo, moved to a new city with a roommate he met online, everything was great at first. The two had been communicating for months prior to the move, and they got along quite well. The new roommate told the OP about a ferret he owned named Lucky, and even shared pictures and videos of his little buddy.
In the new house, the OP rented out the basement while the roommate lived upstairs. The two shared the kitchen and the other common areas. On occasion, the OP would hang out with Lucky but soon noticed that Lucky's personality would drastically swing from playful to aggressive. Soon, the OP was wondering if this was actually two different animals.
An adorable ferret lounges on a picnic table.
He wrote this off as something ferrets do because the OP wasn't familiar with their behavior. However, that didn't last. "When Lucky was nice she looked slightly different than when she was mean," wrote the OP. Upon confronting his roommate, he admitted to owning two ferrets: Lucky and Domino. The OP forgave his roommate but "remained suspicious which led to the next revelation."
Knowing he couldn't take a look at the roommate's bedroom, because he kept it locked, the OP decided to snoop on social media. He was aware of an Instagram account that featured only Lucky, but remembered his roommate specifically asking if he was on TikTok. What he discovered stunned him to her core. "This man had a TikTok account where he showed off his 10 ferrets. 10 weasels that had been living under my roof for months at that point."
Is this man in the wrong for breaking his lease due to the ferret fabrication?
After bringing his findings to the roommate's attention, the OP was on the receiving end of yet another string of lies. To make matters worse, the new roommate was predictably defensive. With the trust now broken, the OP moved out and as of the time of the post was couch-surfing.
As if sleeping on sofas wasn't bad enough, the OP was also met with a barrage of angry calls from his former roommate who cussed him out for breaking the lease. "He thinks I’m in the wrong but idk how I possibly could be," he asked. Is he the a------? Reddit doesn't think so.
"NTA, obviously, replied u/IamMrEE. "Block him. The guy is clearly trouble as he lies as he breathes, then makes you feel like you are in the wrong. You did the right thing." Most folks agreed with IamMrEE. The ferret situation is less of a problem than the subterfuge. If the roommate was willing to lie about that then freak out about it, what else could come down the pipeline?
A lot of users were curious about the landlord's reaction to the plethora of pungent pets. "I told him about the ferrets," said the OP. "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." So far, there hasn't been an update.
Ferrets are notoriously smelly which begs the question, how did the OP miss nearly a dozen of them living under the same roof? "I definitely noticed the smell but I just assumed that it was the one ferret," he said. "I’d heard a lot about their stink and thought that it must be true cause it smelled really bad." Honestly the whole situation stinks but the worst appears to be over, until the roommate search begins anew.
