AITA for telling my roommate her cat isn't welcome in the common areas anymore?

Advice Needed

So I (24F) have been living with my roommate Jess for about 8 months now and overall it's been fine. She has a cat, Mr. Pickles, and when we first moved in she said he mostly stays in her room. That was the agreement. I'm not allergic or anything, I just like having the living room and kitchen be a shared neutral space, and I was very clear about that before we signed the lease together. For the first few months it was totally fine. But lately Mr. Pickles has basically claimed the couch as his own, and twice now I've sat down on a wet spot that I really don't want to think about too hard. Last week I woke up at 3am to the sound of him knocking things off my desk in MY room because Jess left her door open. I texted her about it in the morning, pretty calmly I thought, and said I needed her to keep him out of the common areas like we originally agreed. She got really defensive and said I was being "cold" and that "he's just a cat, he doesn't understand boundaries." I said I understood that, but that's kind of her job to manage, not mine. She hasn't spoken to me properly in four days and told our mutual friend that I'm making her feel like she's not welcome in her own home, which honestly felt like a huge leap to me. I never said anything about her, just the cat and the original agreement we made. Now I'm second-guessing myself because Jess is genuinely a good person and I don't want things to be weird for the rest of the lease. But also I feel like I was totally resonable here and just asked for what we both agreed to from the start. Am I missing something or is this actually a normal thing to be upset about?

Posted Mar 2, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

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