Ever since the age of 18 (I am now 30) I have been living with roommates. More appropriate term would be housemates since I always have a room to myself. I know myself and I always warn the people I stay with that I am a messy person and they always reply 'as long as it is in your room it is fine!'. I have lived with people from my church, friends, friends of friends and strangers. Everything would be going great with my housemates and I at first. We had no bad blood or ill will toward each other whatsoever until a housemate or 2 would see that my room is messy. Just to clarify I am messy not dirty. Messy meaning the bed is not made, my clothes among other things are always on the floor, desk full of random stuff, bed might have stuff I emptied from a bag. Dirty meaning anything that produces odor or rots/causes critters and bugs to enter the vicinity. (I do not have time for that nor would I want to live in squalor. YES, messy people have standards of living too haha) I try and tidy up my room whenever I can but sometimes I don't get around to it because a have 2-3 part time jobs and I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Once my housemates would know the status of the room some of them would distance themselves from me, see me in a different light and even try to address it indirectly and eventually move out but they never speak about it directly to me. It was a whole 180 shift on how they treated me. I would like to think it's because of life circumstances changing for my housemates that they move but all of the housemates who have moved have: 1) lived in the place I've lived for 2 years no problems, 2) their attitudes change about me once knowing this fact 3) the move is super abrupt.

In my defense: 1) I told them that I am a messy person from the beginning 2) I don't make a mess in any of the common areas 3) It isn't their room and I am not sharing the room with them 4) there's no odors or anything I am doing in the room that would bother them in their room

I ask if it's a weird phenomena or AITA because I have never repeatedly ran into so many people in my life who shove a stick so far up their own booty holes that they are crawling up the walls like the girl in the exorcist over something that isn't even their business. I can see it in their demeanor how much they hate living near a messy person. But why should it bother them when it has nothing to do with them?! It isn't their business that I am messy in my own room away from their things and this is how I decide to conduct my life. As a person I didn't change from the second you let me stay in your living space to the moment you found out I was messy.