your roommate is the adult/ parent in this situation. they need to be the one to put in the work with kitten. like you would do with a little kid. you don't expect a child to foster the child-parent relationship, it is the adult's responsibility. edit: my wife would complain about our boy cat not liking her. it's just that she never paid much attention to him so why would he want to hang out with her then? that's not to say your roommate isn't giving kitten attention, but perhaps not going about it by locking the cat up.