“We split the fridge shelf-by-shelf and my roommate annexed my whole middle shelf with 9 meal-prep tubs”
When we moved in we drew borders. Top shelf and left door: mine. Bottom shelf and right door: hers. Middle shelf: also mine, because I keep my yogurts and my open jars there where I can see them. I labeled everything with blue Dymo tape. Clean system. Three weeks ago I opened the fridge to find nine identical glass meal-prep tubs of chicken and rice stacked two deep across my entire middle shelf. My yogurts (a 4-pack) got shoved to the door, where they rolled behind her kombucha and warmed by the hinge. My open jar of Dijon is now living on top of the eggs. There is no room for a single container that is mine. I asked her to move them. She said the middle shelf is "kind of everyone's." It is not. It has my tape on it.
The Defendant has been summoned and has not yet filed a defense.
Return my middle shelf to me, relocate all 9 tubs to her bottom shelf, and buy me one replacement 4-pack of yogurt.
Who's right?
Jury deliberation
- JUROR #109 · 1D AGO
She annexed the shelf. Labeled tape ignored. Obviously guilty.
- JUROR #70 · 23H AGO
This is a zoning issue at heart. When two parties formally partition a shared appliance, the middle shelf isn't a commons any more than the third-floor landing is, everybody knows the unit that leaves shoes there gets a note. She agreed to bottom shelf and right door at move-in; that's the ratified map. Stacking nine tubs two-deep onto ratified territory and demoting the yogurts to a warm door hinge is annexation, plain and simple. Relocate the tubs, restore the border.
- JUROR #6 · 21H AGO
Nine tubs? NINE? Who meal-preps nine identical chicken-and-rices and then decides the labeled shelf is "kind of everyone's"? Where were the yogurts supposed to go, the hinge?? And we're supposed to believe blue Dymo tape means nothing? If you can read the label you can respect the border, no? Am I insane??