This is from late 2018. I’m a college student renting a house with 4 others. The rent is a little higher than other off-campus living options mainly because the house is a 10 minute walk from campus.

Background: I knew everyone in the house pretty well, we had all gone from the same dorm and gotten along really well. There was drama here and there but we all stayed on good terms when it mattered. After our year in the dorms was up, we rented together. Things were not perfect. One of them who I’ll call Mike occasionally clashed with another who I’ll call Jane (house is coed). Jane and Mike had some issues occasionally, partially from some stuff I won’t share here but also because Mike is pretty messy, and often had some very weak excuses for not cleaning up his messes. His bedroom was also very messy. Jane and Mike mostly stayed away from each other, pretty much the only combination of 2 in our group who didn’t get along. Mike and I were pretty close, he was one of the people I really connected with when I came up to college.

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I knew for a while that Mike was having some academic and financial issues. Months ago he offhandedly brought up that he might need to dropout and move at some point, but this was something that had been said before the previous year, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.

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With about three weeks left in the semester just after we return from Thanksgiving break, Mike and I are driving, picking up a pizza as it was easier to just use a second person so the driver didn’t need to park. He then tells me that he’ll be moving out at the end of the semester, for real this time. He adds that he’s going to take a day or possibly two over at a different house, rented by mutual friends about 20 miles over in the next city. I internally shit myself since now we have 3 weeks to find a new person or everyone’s rent goes up by $115. When we get back he says that I can/should tell the others about this, packs some overnight stuff, and leaves. Mike’s gone for the rest of the week, with little to no communication in the meantime.

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Later a friend offers to help spread the word and asks for pictures of the room, so I clear out enough garbage (to give you a mental image, a solid 6 inches of bags and wrappers on most floor surfaces) to take not-appalling pictures. When Mike returns for a day to pick up some stuff, he’s furious about this. I say that I wouldn’t violate privacy like this if I thought I had other options but for the most part stand my ground. He leaves a while after to go back to the other house, and it became entirely the rest of our jobs to find a new person. I can’t thank my other roommates enough for their work on this because they’re much better with people than I am, but in the end Mike never really pulled his own weight on the issue. Months later he and I are still friends but we talk a lot less. I want some closure on this from a neutral party. AITA?