Woman’s Dazzling Revenge: How Sparkles Set a Shimmering Trap for Her Thieving Roommate
Ever had that one roommate who treats your closet like their personal boutique? You know, the type who “borrows” without asking — and just keeps on doing it? Boundaries, apparently, are like unicorns for some people: mythical and entirely optional. So what do you do when polite hints and passive-aggressive notes fail spectacularly? Well, one savvy Redditor decided to turn the tables with a shimmery surprise—glitter in a humidifier! Yep, the classic prank took a sparkly detour that had the internet buzzing, but it also raised some serious “uh-oh” flags about danger, health, and environmental fallout. Ready to unpack this glitter-coated drama and the flood of reactions it unleashed? Buckle up—it’s a wild ride between petty revenge and responsible roommate diplomacy. LEARN MORE
Good fences make good neighbors, and clear boundaries make good roommates. You’d think that everyone would have enough common sense not to barge into someone else’s room and steal their property. Sadly, some folks feel that boundaries are optional. Sometimes, when words fail, it can take a harsh lesson to get them to change their ways… though this can be taken way, way too far.
Redditor u/IllCryptographer1948 boasted online about how her roommate kept ‘borrowing’ her clothes without permission, no matter what she did. So, she decided to get back at her by putting glitter into her humidifier. Read on to find out about the fallout and to read the internet’s mixed reactions. Bored Panda has reached out to the author for comment, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from her.
Warning: Even if you think your roommate deserves it, don’t actually put glitter in their humidifier or anywhere else. Glitter can cause a lot of health issues if it gets inside your body, lungs, and eyes. Not to mention the potential damage that it can do to pets and the environment. Instead, do the mature thing and talk to your roommate about respecting each other’s boundaries, get your landlord involved, or start looking for new roommates or accommodation.
Respecting each other’s boundaries is fundamental if you want to get along with your roommates. Unfortunately, some people think your privacy means nothing
Image credits: stockking (not the actual photo)
One woman shared how she finally had enough and laid a glitter trap for her thieving roommate. However, her actions got a lot of criticism online
Image credits: wirestock (not the actual photo)
Image credits: IllCryptographer1948
Glitter can wreak havoc on people’s and animals’ health, as well as the environment
Again, just to be very clear, you shouldn’t use glitter, which is made of microplastics, as a weapon. Don’t go about putting it into people’s humidifiers, food, etc.
Glitter can cause respiratory problems if it’s inhaled. It can irritate and injure your eyes and cause inflammation and infection.
And it can potentially even disrupt your hormones and organ function. Meanwhile, some glitter can actually contain chemicals and metals that are toxic. To put it very bluntly: using glitter is not the harmless, glitzy prank it might seem at first glance.
As reported by The Conversation and PBS, glitter is incredibly problematic because it:
- Prevents recycling because it isn’t biodegradable
- Tricks fish into thinking that it’s food, once it gets into the water
- Contaminates human beings’ bodies with microplastics
- Makes its way up the food chain into your food after it’s consumed by marine life and birds
- Due to its small size, it impedes the growth of organisms that are vital in water and soil cycles
What’s more, some types of glitter can also harm aquatic plants
Science Alert points out that because glitter resists degradation, it accumulates in the environment. Glitter particles are often much too small for wastewater treatment plants to filter them, meaning that they get into bodies of water, harm aquatic life, and pollute the ocean.
One study conducted by researchers at the Federal University of São Carlos in Brazil looked at how glitter, while made of plastic, is sometimes coated in metals like aluminum, bismuth, iron, or titanium. It’s likely that these metals prevent aquatic plants from getting enough sunlight to thrive.
“These findings support the hypothesis we began with, which was that glitter interferes with photosynthesis, possibly owing to the reflection of light by the microplastic particles’ metallic surface,” explained Luana Lume Yoshida, the lead author of the study.
According to the study, photosynthesis rates in the aquatic plants they tested were 1.54 times higher in the absence of glitter.
Though revenge sounds ‘fun,’ the mature thing to do is to settle any issues diplomatically
Broadly speaking, if your roommate keeps ignoring your boundaries and requests to change their behavior, you should escalate things. Have a chat with your landlord about the situation and ask them to mediate things.
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