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Am I wrong for asking my roommate's boyfriend to pay rent if he's here every night?

Your roommate's partner sleeps over every single night, uses everything, and pays nothing. Are you the jerk for bringing up rent? Here's the ruling.

The roommate who wants him to pay

They signed a lease for two people, not three, and now there's a third person using the hot water, the couch, the Wi-Fi and the AC every single day without contributing a dollar. It's not about disliking the boyfriend — it's that the household got 50% bigger and the bills got split the same way they always were.

The roommate dating him

Guests are part of normal life, and nobody put a sleepover counter in the lease — they'd never charge a friend for crashing, so charging a partner feels like being fined for being in a relationship. He buys groceries sometimes, cleans up after himself, and isn't on the lease, so he has none of the rights a rent-payer would have.

The verdict

Who's at fault

The roommate who wants him to pay · 35%65% · The roommate dating him

The roommate dating him is more in the wrong here. If someone sleeps at your place almost every night, keeps stuff there, and lives off the utilities, they're not a guest anymore — they're a third roommate who skipped the interview. That doesn't automatically mean full rent, but it absolutely means a real conversation about utilities and a cap on how many nights count as "staying over." The bigger miss is that this was allowed to drift for months without anyone naming it, and the person dating him is the one who should have raised it first instead of waiting to be confronted. Asking is fair; the way to lose this argument is to spring a rent invoice instead of proposing a number together.

If he has a drawer, he's not a guest — he's a roommate who skipped the interview.

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