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A man fed up by his roommate’s 5:30 a.m. smoothie habit garnered overwhelming support on the internet from people sympathetic to his dilemma — and his clever way of trying to deal with it.
The man, who shared in a Reddit post that he’s 30 years old and from Melbourne, Australia, took to the platform to vent about how his housemate uses a loud blender to make smoothies in the morning when he’s running late to work.
The poster said he lives in a townhouse with the man and his girlfriend and that they have a clear house rule of “quiet hours” from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
The frustrated roommate said he’s tried offering solutions to the problem and even bought a $40 portable blender for the man to use in his car.
The man agreed to do so — but his girlfriend accused the original poster of trying to “control her partner’s food habits.”
The man said the couple brushed off his complaints as “frivolous” and said the man has to “deal with it” – otherwise, his roommate would “go hungry.”
In follow-up posts, the Redditor shared that whenever he tries to have a serious conversation about the issue, the couple dodges it, sometimes claiming the man is asleep at 7 p.m.
“He wakes me up at 5:30 a.m. with a blender, but by 7 p.m. he’s too tired to talk,” the man wrote.
Now, he’s considering a move.
“I bought the [portable] blender to allow me to sleep and ‘keep the peace’ [while] I look for another shared place — as their reaction to this was very revealing and disappointing — and entitled,” he wrote.
Most Reddit users sided with the poster.
“You set quiet hours,” one person wrote. “Case closed.”
Someone else said he or she doesn’t even use a blender before 7 a.m. because it might wake neighbors next door.
“If he’s running late, he could make toast or grab a protein bar,” another person noted. “There are options that don’t wake everyone else in the house at 5 a.m.”
Others agreed that using a portable blender is a “great solution.”
Some people, however, were less sympathetic.
One person said nobody was in the wrong and that 5:30 a.m. is a normal hour to wake up.
“You can also help yourself by using white noise and earplugs when you sleep,” another Redditor suggested.
“A blender at 5:30 a.m. isn’t just breakfast prep. It’s an alarm clock no one asked for.”
Someone else said the man should be able to deal with the occasional noise since it only happens every couple of weeks. “Waking up briefly once every couple of weeks is not a health issue,” the person said.
Lisa Mirza Grotts, an etiquette expert and author in San Francisco, said there needs to be some compromise.
“Noise etiquette is one of the cornerstones of shared living,” Grotts told Fox News Digital. “A blender at 5:30 a.m. isn’t just breakfast prep. It’s an alarm clock no one asked for.”
She recommended a direct conversation before things get more heated.
But others didn’t see any room for compromise.
“It sounds like this is a basic incompatibility issue and I would suggest looking for other living arrangements,” one person said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the original poster for comment.
The post Roommate’s loud smoothie prep at dawn ignites viral debate over noise etiquette appeared first on Fox News.
