AITA for telling my roommate the plants aren't communal after she repotted mine?
me (21F), art student, i have somewhere around forty plants in a shared apartment. that sounds unhinged written down but they're mostly small and they're all mine, i've bought or propagated every one over three years. my roommate (22F) moved in six months ago. she's been great about them, waters them when i'm home late, asks questions. two weeks ago she repotted my hoya while i was at studio. she used a pot she bought, better soil than i had it in, and she was genuinely proud of it. the hoya is now dropping leaves. hoyas hate being disturbed and that one was root bound on purpose because it was about to flower for the first time in three years. i told her the plants aren't communal and she needs to ask before touching them. she said she'd been watering them for six months and nobody called that not communal, and that i only care about ownership when something goes wrong. that landed harder than i expected because it's a little bit true. i've been happy to let her care for them right up until she made a decision about one.
What People Are Saying
She meant well and did harm, which is the hardest kind to be angry about. Tell her exactly what you told us — about to flower, root bound on purpose. She'll get it.
NTA but her line about you only caring when something goes wrong is sharp and you should sit with it a minute. Free labor plus no authority is a bad deal for her too.
yeah i think the actual fix is i tell her which ones she can mess with and which ones she can't, instead of one blanket rule after the fact
ESH, mildly. She overstepped. You let a boundary stay fuzzy for six months because the fuzziness was working for you.
three years to flower and it was right there. i'd be devastated. NTA
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@willow_mushroomhunts+106
NTA. Watering is maintenance, repotting is a decision. Those aren't the same permission and most plant people would assume everyone knows that. She didn't.