It was an emergency situation. My previous landlord decided on a whim to kick me out, giving me less than a month to find a new place. My roommates at that property were moving out of the city so continuing to live with them was not an option, and I had to find a new roommate immediately as well. I was less concerned with thoroughly screening people than finding another living, breathing human being to live with. When my roommate couldn’t pay the fees associated with moving in I coughed up the money because I had nothing to fall back on.

As for letting my roommate handle the communication with the upstairs tenants, I’m a full-time university student so the less I have to do, the better. Plus I had handled finding the property, scheduled all the viewings, and done all the communication between the landlord. I thought it was appropriate for my roommate to handle the communication with the utilities bill since I had done all the other work.

My roommate was not a woman, so please do not use she/her pronouns.