‘Help! I Regret Asking My Depressed Friend to Be My Roommate.’

Dear Amy Rose and Allison,

Since 2022, I’ve had a great apartment, a prewar, rent-stabilized three-bedroom in Brooklyn. When my previous roommate moved out to live with her boyfriend, I panicked about listing the room online — I didn’t want a stranger living in my home. I was so relieved when a friend I used to work with told me they could fill the open bedroom.

I no longer feel relieved. Shortly after my friend moved in, I noticed a smell of mustiness and body odor coming from their room. They’re not cleaning their dishes. I’ll be putting them away from the drying rack, then notice they’re dirty, like they weren’t even rinsed. I have to ask my friend to send me rent and to buy their fair share of apartment items, often without hearing back right away. Finally, my friend has an incredibly food-motivated cat that eats food — including food still in its packaging — off of counters if it’s left out for even a short time, like while I’m cooking. I got an extra-tall gate for the kitchen, but the cat figured out how to get over it. My friend knows this is a problem but hasn’t done anything about it.

We had a roommate meeting a few months ago to talk through some of these issues. I mentioned the smell and asked if they were doing okay. They told me they were coming out of a really hard time but were now the happiest they’ve ever been. There have been no improvements since that conversation. It seems like my friend is dealing with a significant mental-health issue. I want to be kind and supportive, but it’s taking a real toll on me. My home was a sanctuary, and it sucks that, instead, it’s becoming a place of stress.

Even though I know they’re probably depressed, their ambivalence is causing tension in the house. I don’t want my frustration to mount to the point that it affects my ability to empathize and offer help, but I don’t know how to move forward when my friend won’t acknowledge that they’re struggling. How do I show them compassion when they’re hiding their feelings? I go through cycles of pretending things are getting better and ignoring issues as they build up, then having everything come to a head and feeling angry and annoyed about every little thing. How do I approach the very real issues that this is causing in my home in a sensitive manner, without making things worse for my friend and myself?

Begging for advice,It’s Not Really About the Cat

As a New Yorker who lived with roommates for many years, I recognize your admixture of concern, horror, empathy, and anger. I don’t pay exorbitant rent to then have to deal with this smell! Still, I’m genuinely concerned for their well-being — something is really wrong. But I’m supposed to play personal chef to Garfield over here? … That being said, my friend needs grace and patience. It’s pretty clear to me that you want to do right by your friend, and at the same time, you’re terrified of anything interfering with your “minimal rent increases since 2022” living situation and overall sense of stability. You can’t just move, nor can you passively look on as your roommate biffs it on the rent, potentially causing problems with your landlord. (I feel this intensely — the thought of paying late makes me squeamish.) So this feels existentially threatening, in addition to vexing in a daily way, while also, above all, worrisome in terms of your friend’s well-being. Great!

Pause. RuPaul once said, “I always try to come from a place of love, but sometimes you have to break it down for a motherfucker.” There’s a lot of wisdom in that, but some situations warrant that this M.O. takes a different conjunction: to come from a place of love and break it down for a motherfucker. The motherfucker in question here, by the way, is you. While it certainly sounds like your roommate is overwhelmed, you are too. (As to Garfield’s mind-set, I can’t say for sure. But let’s be charitable and say he’s bugging also.) You need to compartmentalize. So: It’s not not about the cat.

Decouple your “worried about your friend’s mental health” problem from your “my cherished fortress is looking and smelling gross, and Garfield can bite through hot-dog plastic” problem. Yes, we know one problem is influenced by the other. It’s true that depression and other stultifying, attention-sapping mental-health issues contribute to diminished motivation to keep your home clean, take a shower, stay on top of life’s administrative barrage, and much more. Also true is that those are unacceptable long-term circumstances, especially when they discomfit others by expecting them to scramble for rent, either clean up or be put out by a mess they didn’t make, and agonize that their living situation is destabilized by either unmet responsibility. It’s important, if you want to support your friend, to not make that conditional.

The house problems need solutions. Your roommate’s mental health doesn’t benefit from your overlooking that; I would argue the opposite, if anything. Let’s consider the housekeeping and administrative parts as flatly and emotionlessly as we can, in order to see them for what they really are: highly surmountable tasks on a list that have little to do with how you express care to and look out for your friend. Taking the feelings out of these things means we can allocate our emotional intelligence, sensitivity, and understanding where it’s most needed, instead of expending more of it (along with your money) on yet another baby gate when you already know the cat is smarter than you. Give it up. Your friend isn’t going to magically become an amazing communicator about life’s stressors. You have to step up.

Treating house issues as all business safeguards against inadvertently assigning stigma to your friend’s mental state, which you should address in separate conversations. The goal is also to reduce your resentment, which, left unchecked, drastically impacts your ability to empathize with your friend. As to rent and hygiene: No more texting, no more setting meetings, no more adding even more looming dread and anxiety to something that’s already hard for your friend. (Anyone who has been depressed knows the misery of falling short like this.) Time to be really direct and clear.

Your friend isn’t responding to your message, and it’s the afternoon of the first? Knock on their door and be your friendly, unaccusatory self as you say, “Hey — the rent is due today, so I need you to send it to me, please.” When they waffle, you do not then just acquiesce to depression’s terms and not pay your rent on time. Instead, say, “I know this has been tricky before, and I want to help figure out a solution if I can, rather than having our landlord get upset or charging a late fee. Do you see a potential issue with our being able to get them the money today? I can’t spot you or pay a fine, but I can help figure out a plan for what to do.”

Same premise for the smell. “Hey, I don’t totally know how to say this, so please bear with me if it’s awkward, but I’m still smelling something really off in here. Can we team up to figure out what’s causing it and how to get rid of it? I’ll help you if you want a hand!” If they brush you off or say “I’ll clean later,” you need to be amenable to letting them try, then bring it up again every day that it’s still an issue. Your script: “That smell is still here and it’s really bothering me. I don’t want to be a pest, but we have to deal with this. Is now a good time to track this down together, or if not, when can we? If it’s something in the walls or plumbing, we’re going to have to bring the landlord into it, but I want to be sure it’s not something we can fix ourselves first.”

In all of this, be casual, non-accusatory, and matter-of-fact. “I need you to keep the cat in your room while I’m eating until you’re able to convince him to stop eating my food, sorry!” Operate with the truth in mind: The house issues are only chores, not a commentary on your friend’s worth or ability, and they can’t continue to go unaddressed. Them’s just the breaks!

This is not actually separate from your wish to care for your friend, even though we’re treating it that way to make it manageable. Please recognize that they demonstrably can’t take charge of their situation right now. If they could, they would. While you can’t make them shower, the kind and responsible thing in all relevant respects is to offer direction and reiterate the path to a solution. No one wants to live in filth, and ignoring this isn’t actually helping them. So coming from a place of love here means breaking it down (into manageable, concrete next steps) for a motherfucker named them as well.

So: Why won’t they tell you that they’re struggling? It’s possibly related to shame, or self-denial, or they have other supportive people to talk to, or they dislike you, or any number of other unknowable reasons. Unfortunately, no matter how swampy your friend’s mental health might be, they aren’t obligated to share how they are doing with you. Not even if you’re roommates, not even if you want the best for them. They might, of course, with time and sensitivity on your part. But what if they never did? How could you offer support then? Do that now.

While you should absolutely continue to ask after how your friend is doing in wholly separate conversations and interactions, outside of the ones about apartment care and keeping: Accept that they might not be straight with you. You can still demonstrate that you’re not judging them and reinforce that you care for them without having to make it literal in conversation. Personally, I would do this by cooking a little extra for them where I could, asking them to play cards, making other conversation with them, and generally just hanging around and making it clear I was there for them without crowding them. Ask them about the people in their life and what they’re looking forward to this summer — if they don’t have plans, maybe you could invite them to something?

One other truth of city living: We sometimes bear much more witness to potentially troubling signs than someone’s loved ones are able to. This is also a good reason to find out more about the people in your friend’s life, in case you start to worry they’re in significant danger — like if they seem manic or delusional or they start spending all their time in their room. That doesn’t sound like what you’re noticing right now, but just in case, you might want to have a general sense of their support network in case of any emergencies. (The good news is, this is true for roommates in every respect, so you can probably manage to just ask without it being that weird, should you feel like you might want to.)

City programs and local providers can be part of that safety net, whether for you or your friend. To reach counselors in New York City who can offer insight and resources if you need backup, you can call 988. If you find out that your friend might need free or low-cost therapy, 988 can also make referrals based on their ability to pay, what kind of help they’re looking for, and whether they have insurance. One solid, 988-backed place to start is Pace University’s McShane Center, which is a training facility for clinicians offering low-cost individual and group counseling to the public. If they have insurance, point them to Psychology Today’s incredibly easy search engine, which is how I found my therapist of three years.

You’re so kind to be thoughtful about how your friend is doing. You can help them manage it, to start, by making clear how to keep your living situation running smoothly, and by being an open, present roommate when you’re home. You mention that your apartment has been a sanctuary before, and I believe it can be again, for both of you. You have to set those terms yourself. See this constructive candor as helping a friend out, because it is. Also, cats are easily bribed — just lure it somewhere else with a little safe-to-eat morsel. Stop letting Garfield win!

Frankly, stop letting someone else’s depression boss you around, too. In all things: You’re obviously kind, and you have agency. I trust you to wield it in the promotion of everyone’s peace, well-being, and happiness. Good luck.

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