When my daughter Abigail called me, her voice shook with frustration. She wasn’t just venting — she was reaching her breaking point. That was the moment I knew it was time for me to step in and protect her, no matter what it took.
I still remember her words like they were yesterday.
“Mom, this is a nightmare. All of it!” she cried over the phone.
Alarmed, I asked, “Sweetheart, calm down. Start from the beginning and tell me exactly what’s happening.”
Her reply made my blood boil.
“It’s my roommates,” she said, nearly in tears. “Or rather, their boyfriends. You won’t believe what they did yesterday. They stopped my laundry mid-cycle, pulled out all my clothes, threw them on the floor, and then ran their own load.”
“What?” I snapped, already fuming.
“And that’s just part of it,” Abby continued. “They eat our food, leave dirty dishes everywhere, hog all the hot water, and they’ve completely stopped pitching in for household supplies. They don’t even pay into the snack fund anymore!”
My heart broke hearing how defeated she sounded. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. We’ll fix this, I promise.”
But I also knew we had to tread carefully. People who behaved so disrespectfully could make life even harder if confronted the wrong way. Still, things shifted when I discovered that not all the girls were to blame. Abby’s friends Ella and Danielle were just as fed up.
“Please, Mrs. Landon,” Ella begged me. “We can’t live like this anymore. You have to help.”
With three of the five roommates united, I realized the real problem boiled down to Tess and Rachel — the two who had dragged these freeloading boyfriends into the house.
Direct confrontation would probably explode into drama, making the toxic environment worse. But with the lease ending soon and Rachel and Tess planning a weekend camping trip with their boyfriends, the timing gave us the perfect opportunity.
“This is our chance, Mom,” Abby whispered eagerly. “They’re leaving Friday and won’t be back until Sunday.”
That week, I met Abby, Ella, and Danielle at a diner. We plotted everything out between sips of milkshakes.
“Girls, this has gone far enough,” I told them. “You can’t be expected to live under these conditions. I’ll help you take back your home.”
They looked so relieved. Ella admitted her parents had brushed her off, telling her to just “deal with it.” Danielle said hers told her to stay quiet. But I wasn’t about to sit back and let them be walked over.
When Friday came and the couples left, we got to work.
We boxed up everything Rachel and Tess had brought — couches, cookware, utensils, containers, baking pans, even the shower curtain and the nearly unused broom and dustpan.
“They haven’t paid for household supplies in ages,” Abby reminded me as she shoved rolls of paper towels into a bag.
“Then they don’t get to keep any of it,” I said firmly.
I brought over a lockable cupboard from my garage, installed it in the house, and we stocked it with the essentials — detergent, dish soap, toilet paper, and more.
“This way,” I explained, “you’ll always have what you need without them freeloading off of you.”
When Tess and Rachel returned on Sunday, the sight that greeted them nearly sent them into meltdown. Everything they’d been claiming as theirs was gone. And to top it off, they had come home sick with food poisoning from their trip.
Abby called me later, laughing. “Mom, you should’ve seen their faces! They were furious. I’ll forward you their texts.”
A flood of angry messages came through.
How could you do this to us? Where are our belongings?
You took all the shared stuff too? Even the toilet paper? We’re sick! This is cruel!
I chuckled to myself reading their outrage. Abby’s reply was perfectly calm:
We tried messaging you. You were camping, so maybe you didn’t get signal. Sorry, not sorry.
Over the next few days, Tess and Rachel came to realize the brutal truth: without Abby, Ella, and Danielle, they had absolutely nothing. Every item they’d been mooching off of was gone.
Eventually, they gave up and moved out earlier than planned — straight into their boyfriends’ place.
“You won’t believe it, Mom,” Abby told me during coffee one morning. “They all moved in together. Dani even ran into Tess at the grocery store. She said they looked completely miserable, trying to manage everything on their own.”
“Serves them right,” I said with satisfaction. “Now they know what it feels like to pull their own weight.”
“Exactly. I just wanted them out of our lives,” Abby said, finally at peace.
With Tess and Rachel gone, Abby and her friends renewed the lease. Dani’s twin cousins even moved into the empty rooms, and from what Abby told me, they all got along beautifully.
In the end, our plan worked perfectly. Tess and Rachel learned a hard lesson about respect and responsibility, while Abby and her friends finally reclaimed their home.
And for me, it was the sweetest kind of revenge — watching entitlement crumble when faced with consequences.