I live in a college apartment with two other girls from my school – I have a single bedroom and they share a double. One of my roommates, Alicia, is struggling financially and at the beginning moving in, she was open about what she's going through (often has to go without food, or cannot afford to do laundry) and the fact that she will need us to share a lot of things for her to get by. We were okay with this – I love cooking and it's great that we don't have to waste leftovers, and I certainly have more clothes than I can wear at any given time.

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However, I think she has gotten to assume that anything in the apartment is fair game for her to use. She would put on my headband AND THEN ask me if she could wear it, or take the bike ( a cheap, crappy one which I bought with my own money, although it was agreed that it would be a shared apartment bike) before asking and getting approval for it. The gist of my grievance for this post, however, surrounds a pair of scissors. It's a nice, expensive pair of scissors that I bought at a fancy art supplies store. A week later, they went missing, and I just about turned my whole room upside down looking for it before discovering it laying on Alicia's nightstand in her bedroom. So I took it and put it back in my room. A few days later she was doing some craft stuff in the living room and asked me "Do you know where the good scissors are?", so I gave them to her and said "Can you put it back into my room when you're done?" She looked apologetic and replied: "Yeah, sorry for taking them out of your room."

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She did not end up returning them to my room – her craft-art project lasted more than half a week (taking up 2/3 the couch space in the living room) and even when she had cleared the place, the scissors remained on the living room table.

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Fine, I thought, as I took my scissors and some other stationery stuff I had bought which she was using back to my room, I will just keep them there so she won't mistake them as public property.

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Today, I came back home, sat down on the dining table, and discovered that my scissors and (also expensive) tape were strewn there next to some scrap paper. I didn't want to be accusative, so I messaged the group chat: "Hey, did either of you take the tape and the scissors from my room?" She immediately replied: "Yes, did I not put them back?"

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Note that I put those things on my table in the far corner of the room, so she couldn't have just grabbed it as she passed by my door – she would have had to go into my room and walk all the way to the other side, and probably search through my cabinets to find them.

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I replied: "No, but also please don't go into my room without asking first."

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To which she basically said sorry, she was in a hurry to send a package and needed those things, and would ask next time if she needed something and I'm not around.

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I don't think she gets how problematic what she did was – it is one thing for her to take my things without returning, it's another thing to wander into my room without my permission. I also used to live with another roommate who had a single room and I would never dream of even peeking into his room without his explicit permission. I have decided to have a word with her about this, but I'm not sure how to frame this conversation. For one, the matter of public vs. private usage of things in out apartment is not that clear-cut: there are things I paid for but am okay with people using it without asking e.g. salt or spices, but there are things that I put in common spaces that I don't want others using or moving e.g my toiletries and electric mixer. Secondly, I don't know how to be firm but not come across as a selfish, petty person who would get madly possessive over something so small as a pair of scissors, especially when my other roommate is much more chill, plus Alicia is already struggling with everything else and she is actually a very sweet person otherwise.

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How should I approach her? Thank you in advance!

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TL;DR: Roommate went into my room and took my things to use without returning them, seeking advice on how to address this behavior and set boundary.