AITA for turning off the tumbler dryer and making my housemate go to work with wet clothes?

She lives in the quiet desperation of chronic illness, where every night’s sleep is a fragile lifeline against relentless pain and exhaustion. Bound to the ground floor by the weight of her body, she faces the harsh reality of a loud tumble dryer just across the hall, its rattling and beeping shattering her precious rest and stealing her peace.

In a shared house filled with promise of understanding, she sought only a simple kindness: no dryer noise after 11pm. Yet, as the nights grow restless and agreements falter, her struggle for rest becomes a silent battle, a plea for empathy in a world that often forgets how fragile some lives truly are.

AITA for turning off the tumbler dryer and making my housemate go to work with wet clothes?

I 21F am in a bit of an argument with my housemate right now and I’m wondering if I’m justified here. For context, I have a chronic illness which causes chronic fatigue. If I don’t get enough sleep I feel very unwell, and it makes my pain and other symptoms much worse as well as just being horribly tired all day.

I try not to use earplugs as for reasons I won’t get into they cause my ears to get blocked and very painful quite easily.

I live in a student house on the bottom floor (I can’t manage stairs so it was the only option for me) across the hall from the tumble dryer. The dryer is Loud. It rattles the floor and beeps when it’s done until someone (usually me) opens the door or turns it off.

It keeps me awake and if someone puts it on while I’m asleep it’s guaranteed to wake me up. Given my condition and just generally needing to not have my sleep interrupted I asked my housemates not to turn it on after 11pm.

We all agreed to this arrangement and there were no problems.

Recently one of my housemates has been consistently using the tumble dryer late at night. I spoke to him and said if he keeps doing it I will just turn it off after 11pm, regardless of if his clothes are dry.

This is where I might be the asshole. He put clothes in the dryer at about 2 in the morning and woke me up. I was pissed off and turned the dryer off so I could sleep. When I woke up he had sent me a message saying that because of me he had to go to work with wet, musty smelling clothes.

He had only put the dryer on that late at night because he had no other option and couldn’t I have just put up with it for one night.

He has done this 3 or 4 times and I didnt complain so maybe he thought I didnt mind that much? I probably should have spoken to him before I got fed up and just turned it off, but I did warn him that I would turn the dryer off if he did it again.

I do feel bad that he had to go to work with damp clothes though. I really don’t feel like it was that bad of a thing to do but he is quite upset with me and wants me to apologise.

AITA?

Here’s how people reacted:

stammering_idiot

ESH
You suck for turning his clothes off knowing it was his work clothes. Even if you didn’t, you seem to know enough to have realized it could be his work clothes. You are supposed to be his friend and despite whatever you are dealing with, which must be tough as it is, you should at least have warned him you shut it off and not left him to have to find out in the morning when it was too late to do anything about it.
He sucks for not keeping to the agreement, despite you guys having an agreement. How dare he forget he needs his uniform in the morning and try to fix his problem last minute, especially knowing you don’t want to deal with the dryer keeping you awake for an hour.
Honestly, if it is such an issue everyone pull your money together and buy a new one. Check your local tenancy laws and the contract you signed. You may also be able to bill your landlord for the expense if they refuse to remedy the appliance, or at least they can store it while the new one is in operation.

New-Bobcat-4476

Totally get your situation with your health.
Totally get being annoyed at having to wear wet clothes.

Does roommate have a job where he’s there late and has to wash uniform?

It’s not unusual for college kids to be doing laundry at all hours. Clearly the roommate can’t abide by the agreement. You may need to review the agreement as a group and unfortunately you may need to re-assess your expectations.

Given the history, it’s likely to happen again. OTOH, if it’s an otherwise good living situation, I recommend seeing if you two could work out an arrangement.

Steak_Shake

NTA. He agreed to no drying after 11 pm, didn’t follow what he agreed to, and you simply did what you said you would do to protect your own peace and sanity. If it were me, I would have said no drying after 9 pm. THEN he has the nerve to blame you for the damp clothes? Nope. He needs to take care of his laundry earlier in the day. Just tell him he is giving off a lot of main character energy and you are sick of it.

Willing_Ear_7226

NTA
You guys have house rules and he’s not upholding his end of it.

Tell his to get a heated drying rack, they’re great for cold bedrooms in winter

Also tell him to figure out shit on school nights earlier, maybe even consider not going out until so late and definitely some more work clothes, he should ideally have enough for each day of the week just in case.

Not a difficult thing to do.

No-Presence-6692

YTA – You mention that you had come up with this time agreement – not that it’s against the rules of the building. Your neighbors are fully allowed to use facilities provided if there isn’t a building rule about it. I’m sorry but you don’t get to make up rules for everyone and others don’t have to cater to you. If you can’t handle being by the laundry room, you should ask for a room switch.

smarvel4

ESH. People are assholes in shared spaces. You’re all paying equally (probably) so technically it’s in his right. But unfortunately if there’s no written rules about dryer noise then it’s a very shitty thing to just turn it off. I’ve got mixed insomnia. I get it. But he shouldn’t do laundry that late and you shouldn’t turn off the dryer. Try to work out a written agreement

Adorable-Writing3617

NTA because of how it affects you, but YTA because you’re subjecting the entire house to the eggshell walking because of your issue. You know what problems you have. You shouldn’t leave someone with wet clothes because you have an intolerance to living in that type of environment. Does everything now have to be community effort to meet everyone’s little nuances?

Marcuse0

NTA, I came into this story thinking the opposite, but the fact you had the conversation, warned them in advance you would do this, and still despite you clearly communicating your feelings about it he still put the dryer on at 2am, he really can’t complain you did what you told him you were going to do if he ignored you.

Alone-Kaleidoscope58

I shared a wall with our washer/dryer in my last living quarters.. I am lucky enough to not suffer from any light sleeping and would simply smoke some greens and turn my tv up but it did suck especially when someone would put shoes in it or if bedsheets got tangled up and it just banged the shit out of it

Droo99

NTA. You can solve a lot of the vibration by buying a set of 4×4″ rubber/cork isolation pads and putting the dryer on them. Should cost like $10 on amazon. And if you’re lucky there might be an easy way to disable the beep or tape over a hole on the dryer to at least muffle it.

Empressario

NTA remind him of the “well we don’t use the shower due to it waking you up, this is the same scenario. No I cannot just put up with it, just like you cannot put up with the shower noise. It’s not my problem you forgot you had work and went out clubbing. “

JoshuaofHyrule

NTA. 2AM dryer usage? That is incredibly inconsiderate. Your housemate didn’t stay on top of his chores. Laundry is more important than clubbing. So is having courtesy for the people that you share a home with. That dude brought what you did upon himself.

Roswyne

NTA.

He knew the rules, and had options.

* He could have done his wash early enough that it would be done drying on time.
* He could have hung them to dry instead of using the dryer.
* He could have aired his clothes out instead of washing them.

Material-Solution748

Yta unless there is something in the lease about quite hours and even then i don’t think a dryer would fall under that you just need to get over it you chose to live in shared housing and others shouldn’t need to move their scedual around for you.

ProphetHito

you re the person with the unspecified disease, you should be prepared using ear plugs (i recommend industrial foam ones). the symptom description is as vague as it gets, most of us are grumpy when we dont get enough sleep.

Economy-Emu-4689

YTA. I don’t care what your “ailments” are. You live in a shared space. Telling someone he has to arrange his schedule around your preference is the very definition of an asshole.

Not_a_Roman88

YTA sorry, if he gets sick for wearing damp clothes (not sure where you live but being damp all day isn’t good for you).

At best both are the A-hole as this is tit for tat 😅

RickRussellTX

> ⁠He dried his clothes that late because he was coming in from the club and had forgotten he had work the next day

NTA. His lack of planning is not your emergency exception.

BlackGinger2020

NTA. If he didn’t remember to get his stuff ready for work, that sucks for him, but he does not have the right to make anyone else miserable for his lack of organisation.

cyanidelemonade

You had an agreement and he broke it. Simple as. Has nothing to do with illness or anything like that, no one wants the dryer running when they are trying to sleep.

NTA

e-pancake

NAH, everyone is pretty justified here. a solution would be a timer plug, your housemate can put the washing in at night and set the drier to begin in the morning

Low_Notice4665

YTA. You suck. You cannot dictate other people’s lives like this. Especially without a written and signed contract. Same for the shower.

NekoAkuma02

It’s on you to manage your symptoms. I’m up late at night, I’ll do my laundry when I please as I please.

Conclusion

The original poster (OP) is experiencing a direct conflict between managing a significant chronic illness that requires strict sleep hygiene and a housemate’s routine use of a loud appliance outside of their agreed-upon time limit. The central tension arises from the OP enforcing a previously established boundary by turning off the dryer, which resulted in negative consequences (damp clothes) for the housemate, leading to a demand for an apology.

Did the OP act appropriately by enforcing the previously agreed-upon quiet hours rule by turning off the dryer, or should they have managed the situation differently given the housemate’s one-time late-night need? Where does the responsibility lie when a shared amenity conflicts with a necessary medical requirement?