‘My housemate stole my food without asking and ended up in the emergency room’

Sophie Collins

A young man who moved into a shared apartment discovered his food was being taken by other household members.

Although he tried to find out who had taken his food, his roommates continued to deny it – until one detrimental slip-up.

The 19-year-old said he had brought home eggs after ‘dumpster diving’ and wanted to perform the water test to see if they were ok to eat.

He said he was far too tired and decided to do the test the following day instead, and headed to bed.

The next morning he discovered that the food thief had struck again and had eaten the eggs. He quickly discovered that the roommate he thought was robbing from him – but denying it – ended up in the emergency room.

Although an unfortunate outcome, the young man finally got to the bottom of who his thief was. His roommate was absolutely fine, despite the hospital dash, but is now accusing his friend of poisoning him.

Explaining how it all began, the young man wrote on Reddit: “I (19m) recently moved into a shared place and there is someone who keeps stealing my food. At first I thought it was just a mistake but even my leftovers were being eaten. It was very clear that the person was doing it on purpose.

“I spoke to my housemates about how I would just prefer to be asked first but they were nonchalant about it and none of them admitted to doing it and I haven’t caught anyone in the act so I just tried to ignore it as it only happened every couple of days or so.”

He went on to say that: “A few days ago I came home from work with a carton of eggs that I found while dumpster diving and some bread. I wanted to give the eggs the water test first before eating them just to make sure that they are safe to consume but I was too tired and went to bed early without eating.”

That’s when things went from a minor inconvenience to a visit to the emergency room.

“The next day I found out that one of my housemates got so sick he ended up having to go to the emergency room,” the man explained.

“My eggs were not in the fridge where I left them but I saw the carton and shells in the trash and my bread was opened. I had a hunch that it was him because there was a possibility that the eggs had gone bad but I was also annoyed at the fact that he helped himself to my food without asking.

“When he came back, I asked him if he had eaten my eggs and bread but he denied. I then said okay but I hope whoever ate them doesn’t get as sick as you did because I found the eggs in a dumpster. His face immediately dropped and he looked visibly uncomfortable. He got angry and went from saying that he may have consumed the food by mistake as he wasn’t paying attention and doesn’t exactly remember and accusing me of poisoning him.”

The young man says he can’t decide whether he is in the wrong or if his roommate should have asked before eating someone elses food.

He asked other Redditors for their opinion, and most agreed with him that the roommate robbing his food was wrong.

One man said: “I lived in dorms for 7 years with 9 different people all together. Nobody has ever eaten my food by mistake (or on purpose by the way) nor did I eat other’s. It’s really not that hard to not eat what’s not yours. Not your fault.”

Another added: “If the housemates prefer a communal food-sharing system, they had the opportunity to discuss this with you when you brought it up. They also could have asked you to label your food so they didn’t accidentally mix things up, but it sounds like they didn’t take that opportunity either. This sounds like karma to me.”

A third then said: “Nope, you did nothing wrong. Your forgetful roommate sounds like a piece of work.”