Two years ago, I was ghosted by my housemate. From our house.

I have been ghosted many, many times in my short 29 years.

Given I’ve been actively dating men on Tinder for the last five years, I am well-acquainted with what being ghosted looks like.

Once, I was ghosted by a man who I thought was my boyfriend. (To my surprise, he wasn’t. I’d just been faking orgasms for six months, but that’s another story.) But never did I think these rejections were actually preparing me for a far greater betrayal.

The betrayal of being ghosted by a housemate… from our house.

That housemate’s name was *Sadie, but before I get into the why or the how of this tale (but actually tho, how???), I need to explain to you the kind of person she is.

Side note -Mamamia staffers unload on the very worst things their housemates do in the video below (Warning: it may bring up unresolved feelings for you). Post continues after video.

When Sadie first came over to meet my other housemate Jen and I, she seemed like the perfect fit: early twenties, chatty, employed, and like she’d be good fun after a wine. Neither of us were from Brisbane, so we wanted a housemate who could be a friend, too.

A few days after she moved in, we realised she was, in fact, not the perfect fit.

You see, Sadie liked to leave raw chicken on plates uncovered in the fridge and would pile her used pads precariously on top of the bin instead of taking it out. She enjoyed borrowing my hairbrush without asking and would use my expensive skincare.

Sadie didn’t care for basic home hygiene standards. She was perfectly happy to tip chunky, off milk into the sink for me to find the next morning, after it had dried and looked and smelt like vomit. And her room? Atrocious. You know when you live with a smell for so long you stop being able to smell it? When we had friends over, they’d comment the back of the house near her room smelt… funny.

One weekend while Sadie was away, I snuck into her room to open her window. I found two mugs and a wine glass I’d presumed had broken they’d been in there so long, and a dinner plate lying on the floor upside down.

When I turned it over, a congregation of ants scurried out.

Within months, our lovely rustic courtyard turned into a soggy ashtray, and our shower, a science experiment. So yeah, that was Sadie.

But for all her faults, Sadie was a lovely person. She loved trashy reality TV and was always up for a drink, so Jen and I sucked it up because finding housemates is such a task. She quickly became one of my only good friends in my new home city. We’d watch The Bachelor together with a cheeseboard and spend early Sunday mornings searching for greasy takeaway. We tagged each other in memes on Facebook.

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Around 10 months after Sadie moved in, she sat us down and said she had to move out. Honestly, I was relieved.

And so the search for a new housemate began. She gave us a month’s notice and was happy to pay up until we could find her replacement. We found someone great almost immediately. Their move-in timeline matched when Sadie would be moving out. Everything was sweet and I remember thinking I couldn’t believe how well things had worked out.

Then, one Thursday night three weeks before Sadie was due to leave us, I came home late from work. Jen was sitting on the couch.

“Go and look in Sadie’s room,” she said, so I did. It was empty. Completely empty.

It’s always weird seeing a room for the first time without any furniture in it, but this was weird on a whole other level. Her room looked like it had been gutted or broken into. Aside from some takeaway wrappers and household items like dirty cutlery, a full length mirror and a curtain rod, there was literally nothing left. The carpet (which looked like it had never been vacuumed, ever) still had marks from where her bed and wardrobe had been.

Between the time Jen and I had both left for work that morning around 8am, and when Jen got home at 4pm, Sadie had ghosted from our house. No message. No note. Nothing.

I pulled out my phone to message her on Facebook and I could see she was online. “Hey, so I got home and all your stuff is gone haha… everything OK?”

Sadie left me on ‘seen’ and I haven’t spoken to her since.

The author of this post is known to Mamamia and has chosen to remain anonymous to protect her identity. The featured image used is a stock image.

Do you have a horror housemate story? Tell us about it in the comments below!