Good fences make good neighbors, and clear boundaries make good roommates. You’d think that everyone would have enough common sense not to barge into someone else’s room and steal their property. Sadly, some folks feel that boundaries are optional. Sometimes, when words fail, it can take a harsh lesson to get them to change their ways... though this can be taken way, way too far.
Redditor u/IllCryptographer1948 boasted online about how her roommate kept ‘borrowing’ her clothes without permission, no matter what she did. So, she decided to get back at her by putting glitter into her humidifier. Read on to find out about the fallout and to read the internet's mixed reactions. Bored Panda has reached out to the author for comment, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from her.
Warning: Even if you think your roommate deserves it, don’t actually put glitter in their humidifier or anywhere else. Glitter can cause a lot of health issues if it gets inside your body, lungs, and eyes. Not to mention the potential damage that it can do to pets and the environment. Instead, do the mature thing and talk to your roommate about respecting each other’s boundaries, get your landlord involved, or start looking for new roommates or accommodation.
Respecting each other's boundaries is fundamental if you want to get along with your roommates. Unfortunately, some people think your privacy means nothing
Image credits: stockking (not the actual photo)
One woman shared how she finally had enough and laid a glitter trap for her thieving roommate. However, her actions got a lot of criticism online
Image credits: wirestock (not the actual photo)
Image credits: IllCryptographer1948
Glitter can wreak havoc on people's and animals' health, as well as the environment
Again, just to be very clear, you shouldn’t use glitter, which is made of microplastics, as a weapon. Don’t go about putting it into people’s humidifiers, food, etc.
Glitter can cause respiratory problems if it’s inhaled. It can irritate and injure your eyes and cause inflammation and infection.
And it can potentially even disrupt your hormones and organ function. Meanwhile, some glitter can actually contain chemicals and metals that are toxic. To put it very bluntly: using glitter is not the harmless, glitzy prank it might seem at first glance.
As reported by The Conversation and PBS, glitter is incredibly problematic because it:
- Prevents recycling because it isn’t biodegradable
- Tricks fish into thinking that it’s food, once it gets into the water
- Contaminates human beings’ bodies with microplastics
- Makes its way up the food chain into your food after it’s consumed by marine life and birds
- Due to its small size, it impedes the growth of organisms that are vital in water and soil cycles
What's more, some types of glitter can also harm aquatic plants
Science Alert points out that because glitter resists degradation, it accumulates in the environment. Glitter particles are often much too small for wastewater treatment plants to filter them, meaning that they get into bodies of water, harm aquatic life, and pollute the ocean.
One study conducted by researchers at the Federal University of São Carlos in Brazil looked at how glitter, while made of plastic, is sometimes coated in metals like aluminum, bismuth, iron, or titanium. It’s likely that these metals prevent aquatic plants from getting enough sunlight to thrive.
"These findings support the hypothesis we began with, which was that glitter interferes with photosynthesis, possibly owing to the reflection of light by the microplastic particles' metallic surface," explained Luana Lume Yoshida, the lead author of the study.
According to the study, photosynthesis rates in the aquatic plants they tested were 1.54 times higher in the absence of glitter.
Though revenge sounds 'fun,' the mature thing to do is to settle any issues diplomatically
Broadly speaking, if your roommate keeps ignoring your boundaries and requests to change their behavior, you should escalate things. Have a chat with your landlord about the situation and ask them to mediate things.
Alternatively, if the situation is unbearable, consider either moving out or asking your current roommate to leave. Meanwhile, if your roommate is actually stealing from you, picking your locks, etc., you can and should reach out to law enforcement.
While it’s impossible to pick up on every single potential red flag early on, you should try to move in with people whom you know a bit about. Make sure that your values, character, lifestyle, level of cleanliness, etc., more or less match.
And get ahead of some of the potential problems by coming up with a list of rules to follow, including dividing up the chores, respecting each other’s privacy and property, keeping noise levels in check, and not inviting guests over without checking in first.
What’s your take, dear Pandas? Do you think the woman was right to use glitter to get her point across, or do you think she should have taken a less risky, more subtle approach? Have you ever had roommates from hell who ignored your boundaries, and how did you handle them? Let us know in the comments below! And remember—don’t go for the nuclear option with glitter.
A lot of netizens had questions they wanted answered. So, the woman shared more details in the comments
This is what some folks said after they read the revenge story
Some people thought that the author took things too far. They called her out for it
Image credits: yanalya (not the actual photo)
Later, the woman shared an update with her readers
Here's what people had to say after reading the follow-up
