People Admit Their Most Disastrous Roommate Experience
19. He Was Fine Until Nighttime Came
Honestly, there’s really no clear explanation for why this guy is the way he is. A true mystery, one that nobody wants to solve.
“I recently acquired a new roommate. The entire situation should never have happened, but I needed someone to help with rent, so a Craigslist posting later, he moved in.
His name was Greg, and he disclosures to me that he did have some strange sleeping behaviors (sleep talking, sleepwalking, night terrors).
Funny thing was, I also had a history of sleepwalking but only on rare occasions.
The first incident occurred about one week later when I heard him screaming in the middle of the night. Since we both slept in separate brooms on different sides of the house, the screams sounded distant but enough to scare me so much I ran to check on him. As I’d get closer to his bedroom, he stopped screaming, so I just went back to bed.
For the next month, he had no issues. I noticed he had no friends or family that would visit, and I never saw or heard him on the phone or texting. Then another random night, Greg started screaming. Same thing; I got up and started to go to his room, but he’d stop.
Then one night, I was awoken by screaming in my bedroom. I couldn’t see anything in the panic, so I turned on the bedside lamp, and he was at the foot of my bed wearing some sleeping clothes (athletic shorts and a t-shirt).
Scared me, so I started screaming and woke him up. He apologized and went back to bed.
Then the scariest thing happened. About two nights later, I awoke to the sound of clanking. Sounded like tools and hammers tapping. I turned on the light to see Greg kneeling down in a corner working on something with his hands. A few seconds after turning the light on, Greg froze, then slowly turned his upper body around and stared blankly at me while I laid in bed.
I was beyond creeped out, so I slowly slid out of bed and left the house. After sleeping in my truck down the road in an empty church parking lot, I returned to the house at about 8 in the morning.
Greg was gone. All of his belongings were gone. No signs of him anywhere. It was like he never lived there. I didn’t know of any of his friends or family, so I had no one to call about him.
Days turned into weeks, weeks into months.
When I moved out after the lease was up, I was moving furniture out of my bedroom. In the corner of the room where I last saw Greg kneeling down, I realized the floor vent for the air conditioning was loose. Inside the floor vent was an envelope with a ton of pictures of me sleeping. The pictures had handwritten dates and times written on the back of the pictures.
The only other item was a widdled down wooden broom handle brought to a point. I truly believe Greg was preparing to kill me that night, and he realized it. Because it was the sleepwalking, and Greg was going to do it, he left to save my life. It appears Greg had been coming to my room almost nightly and working on making the broom handle a stabbing weapon, and I never heard until the last night I saw him.”
18. Never-Ending Chaos With This Crazy Dude
There was always something wrong he was doing.
“I lived in a housing complex. The units are basically small cottages made for two roommates with a common area and an attached kitchen, along with a small storage closet in the common area containing water pipes leading to Suite A’s bathroom. The two private areas of the suite contained a private bedroom, a sliding glass patio door, and a private bathroom.
Sounds idyllic.
My roomie, Jed, liked to throw parties. He liked tarantulas, too, and kept six.
For the sake of saving my effort in recounting this story, here is a basic rundown of the chaos:
This run-through of incidents is going to be kind of terse because I’m working off of a checklist I made a while ago.
During our stay together, my roomie:
- He brought his motorcycle into our common room because he was “afraid it would be stolen.” This was fine, but then he started it and let it idle for 15 minutes without opening any windows, causing all of our stuff to smell like motor exhaust.
- After his girl left him, he went berserk in his private bathroom with a sledgehammer or a geologist’s hammer and smashed all of his bathroom fixtures.
I’m not sure of this, but I believe that just before she left him, she hooked up with some guy with lice in my bed during a party.
- His toilet was inoperative at this point, so he used mine for a time until I refused him access. Later, I would find out that he pooped in garbage bags and kept them in the common room closet for weeks.
More on this later.
- He set fire to our carpet with booze during a party. He peed in the fridge. He pooped in the fridge. He pooped in the crisper drawer. He pooped on the oven top, and instead of cleaning it up, he turned on the burner, reasoning that carbon is easier to clean than feces.
- He left a dead cat he found somewhere in our oven for a week and forgot about it.
I discovered it later.
- He owned 6 tarantulas and would let one run around free-range. He assured me he had “tamed it.” I assured him he was a stupid knucklehead.
- He never showered.
- He sold illegal stuff from his room. He smoked stuff with his friends in the common area. He and his friends did illegal substances off of the television set in the common area.
- He had a party to which he invited too many people, and they spilled into my room.
Strangers hooked up in my room at that party. In my bed. One of them had lice. Someone took a dump in my closet. I discovered all of these things after it was too late.
- Morning after said party, my mother knocked on the front door, and a stranger from that party answered and immediately threw up on her legs.
- Shady people would regularly come by our apartment at all hours of the night trying to buy illegal substances because of his illicit activities.
Whenever I answered the door and indicated that there was nothing to be had, they would sometimes get, desperate, belligerent and violent, and refuse to leave.
- He put food products containing milk, meat, and cheese on the heating unit and turned it on for three hours to see what would happen. I could’ve told him what would happen if he asked me.
- He got angry at some video game he and his friends were playing in the common area, so he busted into my room while I was sleeping and punched me in the face and stomach.
- A few days later, he put a tarantula in my bedsheets while I was sleeping.
Thankfully, I wasn’t bitten, but I was freaked out and still sometimes jump out of bed in the middle of the night for no reason and attack my sheets.
- He pooped in a lot of our fixtures. He would put his poop in baggies and leave them in strange places. I was thankful for when he used a baggie. A few words of advice for potential roommates: A light fixture is not a toilet.
A heating vent is not a toilet. The sink is not a toilet. The oven is not a toilet. That is all.
I was angry at this point. He refused to clean or take care of all of the messes listed above, so I ended up cleaning them, but keeping an hourly log and catalog of what work I did and worked out a bill, which I sent to him.
I was tired of cleaning feces out of our refrigerator, finding turds in our crisper drawer, crap on the stovetop, vomit on the carpet, vomit in our potted plants, vomit on the grille of our television set, urine on the carpet, urine on the kitchen floor seeping behind the refrigerator, dead animals in our oven and freezer units, and bags of feces hidden in our light fixtures.
Have you ever had to move your refrigerator out of its little nook to get behind it to clean urine mixed with whatever the heck lurks behind a refrigerator in the first place?
After sending him the cleaning bill and getting a refusal of payment, I took some of his stuff, dumped it in a storage unit across town, and held it until he paid me back.
He stole some of my stuff in retaliation, but I called the cops and repossessed my belongings. He was unable to articulate to the cops that I had some of his crap in this exchange, so I ended up basically getting my stuff back while he had to be put in their car to cool off.
Upon retrospect, I think maybe he became mentally ill after losing his girl, and not being able to part with his feces was part of his illness.
This is purely speculative.
He wasn’t poor. He was from a wealthy family. They don’t come into the picture, though.
This is where the sealing begins. Put a date mark right here because this is where stuff gets crazy.
I had had enough. I bought a mini-fridge, a plug-in stovetop, two padlocked footlockers, a wooden bar, duct tape, a remote-control car, and an external padlock. My private area had two entrances… Here, I best sum up my little fortress:
Actually, upon reflection, I really want to share how I kept my roommate out of my private area.
It was dubbed the “Home Alone” security system.
I had two potential entrances to my private area, a sliding glass patio door, and a regular door to the common area. I secured the common door with a padlock on the outside which was really just for show. The inside was barricaded. At the bottom, I had a rolled-up towel, and I sealed the rest of it with tape to avoid smell or other chemical assaults from the common area.
I packed against the door with my king-sized bed, which was in turn secured from being dislodged by a bookshelf full of weights and books. Even if he got through the padlock, he would not have been able to open the door without busting it in two. The top half of the door was unsecured; I was worried he might break the door and gain access, so when I seized his stuff, I had it put in public storage across town.
Now the sliding glass door is where the “Home Alone” stuff comes in. It had a lock, but it was nonfunctional and only accessible from the inside. So in order to secure the door while I was away, I got a remote-controlled car, attached it to a string which was secured by a fisheye screw at the top of the door, and tied to a security bar which would drop into the tread of the sliding door, preventing it from being opened.
Anyone who has a sliding glass door would know how this works, but if anyone needs further explanation, I’m happy to furnish it.
So when I came home, I would whip out my little remote control, make the RC car run off and lift the bar, then gain access to the apartment. To prevent this system from being discovered, I papered the inside of the sliding door with butcher paper, and I ran a wire outside of the door in an obvious manner so that the roomie would think that this wire somehow if tugged correctly, would undo the lock.
To my knowledge, all of his attempts to get inside my apartment were by messing with this wire, which was attached to the handle of an antique coffee grinder and paint can. If you tugged it, you’d get a weird uneven resistance as the handle crank turned, and the paint can dance, which added to the illusion that this wire was some secret way of ingress.
I heard this account from the neighbors because it occurred while I was away, but apparently, he had lost his front door key, had some kind of intestinal problem, and had to take a poop really bad. All of the neighbors he knew he had already hit up for toilet access and been refused by this point. So he’s swearing like crazy and yanking at this wire and bashing against the door in a frenzied desperation when the neighbors call the cops, reporting a B&E.
When the cops show up he’s taking a crap in the bushes just outside my window. I hate him so much.
I think he went crazy and lost all his friends at some point because around the time I barricaded, I stopped hearing parties. In fact, I stopped hearing anything from the common area of the apartment. I don’t know precisely what went on in there because I mentally washed my hands of the whole area.
I did, however, start smelling odors. I taped up my door. I know it wasn’t smart to do things like this, but I was just sick of dealing with his crap. I didn’t call the landlord or anything, despite the fact that I knew he was destroying things over there. After cleaning so much of his stuff up, I just wanted the universal god of justice to see what a wreck the place would become without my presence.
Forgive me for being a little spotty in my descriptions after this point. What I do know of what transpired over there I can only reconstruct from forensic evidence, what precisely was destroyed, what common friends have told me in their accounts, and two forays over into the waste zone over the next two months. I essentially didn’t even see the front door of our apartment during this time.”
17. A Quad Of Losers
“For some reason, I didn’t feel uneasy pulling up to that old house–tiles falling off the roof, paint chipping, the porch slowly sagging–and even the fact that Matt’s breath stank of booze and that he was pretending to have a hook for an arm didn’t seem to phase me. Maybe it was because the boys from the ad seemed nice over email. But maybe it was because I had run out of options.
I had nowhere else to go.
Matt and James were buddies for several years before they finally moved in together. They formed a neighborhood metal band in the back of that house, with James on drums and screaming, Matt on guitar, and the occasional local college kid on bass. They would play to make noise, and that was enough for them. It was usually just something fun that they did together.
When I came into the picture, things were peachy. They were excited that I baked and liked cleaning and that I was kind to them.
A few weeks into my move-in date, we went out to a local dive bar. Things took an immediate turn for worse. Matt, in his intoxicated stupor, pulled out his knife in an attempt to show a girl “tricks” that he knew with it.
It didn’t help that Matt was trying to grow dreadlocks (but instead he looked like he had just been struck by lightning, hair sticking up and matted every which way, with little dingleberries of hair hanging scattered throughout) or that he was missing his 2 front teeth, or that he faked a thick southern accent, despite him hailing from Connecticut. He was banned from that bar and we had to take him home.
What Matt didn’t realize, though, was that James had just tried to make a move on me minutes before we were advised to take our friend home.
The walk back home was awkward. I rejected James. Matt was inebriated and angry. This was the turning point.
A week later, James and I come home to a note on our front door from our “new roommate” Chris. He let us know that he had signed the lease already and he was going to be moving in within the next few days.
We were stunned. Who the heck is Chris? Where did he come from? Why were we not informed?
Chris was a homeless dealer, facing charges of second-degree murder, collecting food stamps from the state (and he would then sell them for cash), and to TOP IT ALL OFF, he had a homeless….pregnant….girl. So he moved right in.
Apparently, Matt returned to the bar where he was banned and met Chris, who guilted him into letting him move in with us because he had nowhere else to go.
They went right to the landlord, fed her some bogus story that we were all on board with this, and she, in her senility, didn’t question anything and allowed him to sign the lease.
It was a crap storm after that. Chris and Rabia moved in. They stopped paying their rent. They dealt illegal substances out of the house. There were sketchy dudes circling our block, waiting for him constantly.
They would sometimes ring the doorbell and we wouldn’t answer. They would stand on our lawn like zombies until nightfall when they would give up and go home.
Then Matt and James exploded. In a fit of wasted rage, Matt and James got into an argument about who I liked more. They were essentially fighting over me? Matt was screaming. James took a swing. He hit the concrete wall instead.
He shattered his entire hand as well as snapped his wrist and arm.
I took him to the hospital. When we came home, Matt was waiting at the foot of the stairs with katanas he had recently order on Amazon. He had inherited a generous sum of money from his grandmother and would buy random things often, like professional video cameras (he was going to make his own movie and make it big), an insanely expensive gaming set-up to play LoL (he had never played though), and vintage videos (we’re talking VCR) that nobody wanted.
Besides his things, he sat at the top of the stairs, threatening to kill James if he came any closer.
The next day, I installed 3 locks on my door with my power tools (thanks, Dad). And that’s when it started: the cops were at our house daily. Matt called the cops just about every day. Once was because James changed the internet password. Once was because he was missing his Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce.
Once was because James had put bleach in his water. So…some legitimate…some not. James was a professional gamer. He now was unemployed and unable to work with his hand. He took to his pain meds. He became distant and angry.
We tried having the cops remove the homeless, pregnant girl when we started getting mail from the courts–serving her child support. They were trying to collect because she had 3 other kids that she had abandoned.
She claimed to have been abused, but when confronted by the police, she confessed that her parents were wealthy and lived nearby, but she hated them. The cops were about to take her home when she claimed to have been getting mail at our address. Apparently, in our state and to police, that meant they couldn’t remove her. She officially lived there. It sounded insane to us.
But they were serious.
Eventually, they were served eviction papers, and James and I confided in each other (when we weren’t fighting), while we tried to get the courts to get them out. It became clear that eviction takes months. We were screwed.
Shortly before I left, Matt got fired from his job (kitchen prep) for harrassing one of his customers.
James moved back with his mother.
Chris and Rabia? I have no idea.”
16. She's The Biggest Slob Ever
“I go to a big university in the southern US. One of the many types of dorms they had were these small apartment-style dorms that my previous roommate and I wanted because their photos were nice, and we would have our own rooms & kitchen. The way our dorm applications work is you have to apply to a community, and if you get into said community, you get put into whichever of the corresponding dorms you prefer.
The community for this dorm is the international community, typically for visiting/transferring foreign students. We figured we’d both get in fine as we’re both learning Spanish (our success is debatable, lol), and my previous roommate is Vietnamese, and our school has a large Vietnamese population. Sadly, she didn’t get in, but I did. I got my roommate, who we’ll call Rosa from Spain.
Now, Rosa is a nice enough person.
We talk to each other, and when she’s cooking, she always offers me some, etc., and I’m always happy to help her look up things for getting around the city, going on trips, and signing up for things through the school. But she’s an absolute nightmare to live with! I learned very quickly that Rosa is absolutely FILTHY when on DAY ONE, I walked into our apartment to see she and her friends had a full meal eaten and left their dirty dishes on the counter and didn’t take the stopper out of the sink, so it was filled with nasty water filled with bits of food.
I knew this was going to be rough.
So I had a talk with her a few days later and said I mainly just ask that she cleans up after herself, and I’ll do the same. I won’t take her food without asking, and she’s welcome to use my dishes as long as she asks (except silverware; I couldn’t care less if she used that).
She has constantly taken my food, so I’ll get random texts that say, “By the way, we ate such and such, but we’ll buy you more!” which I don’t mind them replacing what they ate, but I don’t really care about that, as much as I’d rather they ask me first! I wouldn’t have even asked them to replace it.
But there have been times where they’ve eaten an entire loaf of my bread, all of my snacks, and all of my desserts. She’s also taken my baking supplies without asking, and I’ll find them sitting in the sink of her friend’s room down the hall covered in grease and burnt food! Once I found she’d taken my baking sheet and didn’t realize it until I was about to put some cookies on a sheet to bake in the oven!
She also leaves her dishes sitting on the sink covered in food and filth which attracts ants.
We had a whole nest of ants in the lining of our sink last semester! I told her I had found ants in our house and how we both need to do better about washing dishes and cleaning up remains of food. She promised she’d do her part, but the next day, I found a plate with a pile of meat remains and covered in ants.
I also ALWAYS had to be the one to do the dishes after her. I got placemats for our table that she leaves COVERED in food, and I had to rescue one of my coasters I got from the oldest pub in Ireland ’cause she tried THROWING IT AWAY! No more coasters for Rosa!! She also has left rotten fruit in the fridge which has given our fridge a permanent smell that all my friends have questioned me about.
She also never cleans up the bathroom sink or cleans up the makeup she washes off in the sink. Granted, I could have done that, but it’s the principle of the thing!!!
Because of this, I found mold growing in the corner of her side of the bathroom counter, and the sink is always CAKED in hair, makeup, and toothpaste because of it! And yes, I’ve talked to her about all of this MULTIPLE TIMES.
Besides being really gross, she’s also painfully inconsiderate.
She’s always yelling on the phone, which isn’t as bad, because she’s from Spain, so I’m sure it’s mainly an issue of making sure her parents can hear her, but her friends also just walk in all the time without even knocking at all hours of the day and night, and if it’s at night, they’re HAMMERED! One girl spent all night inebriated on the couch because she was waiting for Rosa to come home.
At another point, Rosa was having family troubles, which I tried to help as much as she would let me, but I was getting pretty irritated with the vast amounts of people coming in and out of the apartment. One night at 3 am, I was falling asleep after a late-night when I heard her friend’s roommate, who’s a friend of mine we’ll call Highland (she’s from Scotland) and 2 guys I didn’t recognize, but the first voices I heard were the guys.
When I was young, I had been assaulted, so I immediately grabbed my keys and threw the door open and screamed, “WHO THE FRIG ARE YOU, and WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?!” ready to go at it with the keys since they were closest. Highland quickly explained that the guys had been looking for Rosa, and she hadn’t meant to wake me up (they came on the side of the apartment that didn’t have a doorbell, and I hadn’t heard their knocks), but I was shaking and still panicking because of the guys and was upset that Highland had just led some strangers in my house.
One of the guys saw my Irish flag (one of many parts of my heritage) and asked if I was Italian (he was that intoxicated he couldn’t tell the difference). I said no and told him if Rosa isn’t here, then get out. They left and Highland apologized profusely for the panic attack, and we sat down for tea later and ended up becoming good friends because of this.
The next day, Rosa apologized for her friends, and I told her I was not comfortable with her friends just coming in and out of our apartment like that because I felt unsafe. I would lock the doors at night after that, but she lost her keys, so I had to start locking my bedroom door instead ’cause I knew sometimes they even went into my room.
(I once found a pair of her friend’s dirty underwear on my bed because she’d changed her clothes in my room and forgot them.)
Rosa also will leave socks, underwear, and bras in the bathroom and on our living room chairs, and because she always locks her bedroom door, I have to leave those things in a pile on a chair when I clean the house.
Now that all the gross/crummy stuff from last semester is gone, time to get to the start of the new semester! So when we left for Christmas break, Rosa was leaving after me.
I asked her to please make sure she got rid of any perishable foods in the fridge, clean her dishes before she left, and make sure things were generally tidy when we got back so we wouldn’t have to deal with it later. (I had made sure to do my part thoroughly before I left but wanted to make sure it was still tidy.) I just got back today, and while the apartment isn’t necessarily bad, I certainly wasn’t happy.
For one thing, I don’t think she’s still back from Spain. I found the bathroom light on which means it was probably on for a whole month. I checked the fridge and saw fairly fresh fruit and a carton of eggs that I still need to check the date on and didn’t clean up the toilet or bathroom counter like I had asked (both I’d cleaned myself), and they both had mold! I also went to put away the dishes she’d left on our drying rack and found them covered in grease meaning she didn’t clean them properly, so I have to do it again.
I decided to just clean the whole apartment, and by the way, I’m pretty sure the stains from her makeup on the tub are there permanently.
I really wanted to switch roommates, but I’ve signed a lease for an apartment with my previous roommate and 2 of our close friends for the next school year, so right now, I’m just trying to grit my teeth and bear it, so I can put this mess behind me.
The only benefits from living here that I have are that Highland and Rosa’s friend are around the corner, and both are wonderful people, and the guy I just started seeing lives in the apartment building just down the street, but I will make a note of not having him over HERE very often ’cause I don’t want 2 people having to put up with this nonsense.
And yes, I’ve tried to talk to her about all of this MULTIPLE TIMES, but for some reason, it NEVER seems to stick.
I forgot that she never found her key and had to get new ones but didn’t tell me she had to get people to come to change the locks cause we both needed new keys. While complaining to the office girl about how I wish she’d told me she was doing that, the girl said if I hadn’t mentioned that it was she that had requested the new keys, I’d have been charged $150 for brand new keys that I didn’t need, so my petty revenge is that because I was more responsible, I don’t have to pay $150 for my apartment keys.”
15. She Doesn't Clean Up Her Feminine Body Fluids
Didn’t anyone teach her?
“I’m a girl. I live with 2 other girls in a shared three-bedroom apartment. We’re all grad students and have single rooms. One lucky girl has her own bathroom. I share the second bathroom with the other – I’ll call her GAB for gross-and-bloody.
Sooooo GAB is disgusting and messy and steals people’s things.
Re: stealing…..
She continuously uses my face wash – the first time, I was purposefully nice about it and said, “Hey, it’s ok, but I really am not ok with you using my products, so please don’t do it again.” One week later, GAB blatantly has moved my facewash from the sink to the shower.
Because she is a hermit and ignores any attempt to talk to her, I text messaged her. She ignored it (but read it).
She steals/keeps hostage my other roommates dishes and utensils, leaving the poor girl with nothing to use. She steals both of our foods.
Now, talking to this girl is impossible because she’s basically an f-ing hermit. She has zero friends and never leaves her room.
If you knock on her door, she opens it about 3 inches to stick her face through. Behind her, you can see old food and dirty plates mixed with clothing and other crap all over the floor and her mattress. My policy with roommates is – your room, none of my business. As long as it stays in your room, do whatever the heck you want in there.
But, that brings up the main reason I’m posting…..
SHE IS DISGUSTING.
Warning folks: the following includes bodily fluids in places they don’t belong.
Which bodily fluids you ask? Why, period blood.
And where? EVERY FREAKING WHERE. All over the toilet.
Oh and used pads. With PUBES. On the counter right where I put my clean clothes for after showering.
First time with the blood, I talked to her kindly but firmly. The second time (the infamous PAD incident of 2018), I may have freaked out and text messaged her and our third roommate. I included a photo (while apologizing to my other normal person roommate for the graphic grossness that will forever be burned into her retinas) and basically said, “I don’t care whose this is, but it’s disgusting, and I expect you to clean it up.”
Well, let’s flash forward to this weekend.
My mom is visiting from way out of town. I cleaned the entire apartment including our bathroom because GAB is gross in general. Oh, and surprise: GAB has her period! Right before breakfast, my mom comes into my room and is like, “Um, why is there urine and tons of blood sitting in the toilet?” My mom tells me she cleaned the toilet. NOT okay.
My mom and I go out for the day.
We come back home quickly before leaving to go eat dinner. BAM!!! Look at the disgusting blood right there all over the toilet seat, which my mom cleaned this morning. This time, I locked my mom out of the bathroom and cleaned it myself.
Our apartment is having a meeting tomorrow to discuss things. My other roommate and I want to bring up our concerns as for the group in general and not single her out.
We will have a roommate contract that everyone signs.
GAB is an international student, and when I talked to her (nicely) the first time about the blood thing, she basically tried to write it off as, “Oh, I am Chinese; this is normal to me,” which, sorry, is BS. I have lived with multiple other Chinese roommates and they have all been friendly, respectful, and CLEAN. Heck, I felt like a slob and had to clean up after myself better while living with them.
Those girls became close friends of mine, and I find it inexcusable that GAB is basically blaming her entire home country for what is purely her own individual disgusting life habits.
But after today, I am livid. And I’m thinking of sending good old GAB the following, as a text message, this morning before our group meeting:
“Hi GAB,
I did not want to bring this up yesterday when my mom was still here, but I want to make you aware that you left blood in the toilet TWICE yesterday.
The first time, my mom found it along with unflushed urine.
She asked me (and I had just woken up, not used the toilet, and am also not in my period). My mom also CLEANED the ENTIRE toilet – the whole thing.
We went out for the day and came back home. Before leaving for dinner, I used the bathroom and was shocked to find blood on the toilet seat. This is after my mom, visiting and a guest, already cleaned your mess once.
This time I cleaned it up.
We are meeting tonight at 9 PM, and I would like all 3 of us roommates to discuss what is and is not ok.
I think that I was quite clear before, but in case I was not:
Blood is NOT ok. You may not know that you have a blood-borne disease even if you are carrying it. Many bacteria live up to 7 days in dry blood.
Any contact with someone else’s blood is DANGEROUS. Blood should be cleaned off with a wet wipe – there are a box of them right on the toilet itself.
In addition, it is NOT my job or my mom’s job while a guest here to clean up your bodily fluids. YOU ARE AN ADULT – please behave like one and check after yourself. Flush the toilet – nobody wants to see your urine.
Clean up your own bloody messes. I am not your cleaning lady. My mom is not your cleaning lady.
If you have any concerns for me, we can talk more at 9 PM tonight.”
Another User Comments:
“I’m Taiwanese and I’ve dealt with my fair share of international Chinese students and even had an international Chinese roommate last year. They’re notorious for being dirty and gross–it’s most likely because they’re so wealthy that their MAIDS clean up after them; they never clean up after themselves.
You should try and get a Chinese-speaking friend to tell your roommate what’s up. Last year when I lived in the dorms with 3 other people, including the Chinese roommate, I had to speak to her in Mandarin to explain to her about cleanliness and stuff. After that, she understood more and was a little better at being clean.
People who are nonnative English speakers will most likely feel more comfortable when there’s someone speaking in their language to them–that’s why there’s the stereotype of Asians sticking together–it’s because they’re comfortable and Asia, in general, is very monoculture.” chstydng
14. He Stopped Paying Rent After We Confronted Him About His Lack Of Cleanliness
“When I went to college I moved into the dorms with, we’ll call him Den, and 2 other roommates. Over the years, Den was always my roommate for the entirety of my college stay, even the year after we moved out of the dorms.
Throughout the years, Den would be the reason why our other roommates left. He always left the sink full of dishes, never cleaned the living area though he was the only one that used it, never cleaned the floor, so there was always dirt or stains on it and the microwave would always be covered with food.
I would clean up every so often after getting tired of the mess and asking him to do it himself.
I stayed in this dorm because I had a locked-in rate, it was on the first floor, and was a short distance to my classes. Though he was messy, I could deal with that because my room is always clean. I just ignored the common area.
Anyways, we moved together with 2 of our friends to an apartment 5 minutes from campus as rates were rising.
I decided to move with him despite the cleanliness of him because he could afford the rent and I knew he’d pay on time. I also thought that with our other friends there that he would shape up.
Well, that didn’t happen. He paid his portion of the rent mostly on time but was still the same messy person. My other housemates and I decided to talk to him together as I was the only one to tell him to get his act together.
We didn’t want to make it all about him, so we padded the conversation with stuff we could all do to change.
We told him he needs to clean up after himself, clean after his dog, be a better pet owner as he would leave for hours without walking her and she would destroy his room, to be quiet and stop screaming when he plays games, etc.
That didn’t work and he took it personally (as he should have I guess).
He decided to turn it on us and say that he doesn’t think it’s fair that he pays more portion of the rent than the rest of us. Now before we moved in, I was to move into the master bedroom. He said that since the room is bigger, I should pay slightly more to live in it.
Fine with me. But before we moved in, he wanted the master bedroom as he got a dog. I thought the same agreement we made would translate for him and figured it did as he paid for rent for months without complaint. So he says that he never agreed to that, and he will no longer be paying for rent.
I called him a piece of crap and was close to fighting him, but my other roommate stepped in to stop it.
It was a build-up over the years and the disrespect he gave the entire house. I told him to move out and I’ll pay to use both rooms since he can’t take criticism on his crappy living habits.
We all calmed down, and some hours later, we talked again. We agreed to look over the rent, so it is fairer for all of us. He ended up paying more rent, though, after this.
He took over paying the rent to the housing office, which I use to do. I would pay $50 to pay for it online on my own, but he didn’t know I did that. He also took over more utilities because he would leave his computer, lights, and electronics in his room, and the rest of us would conserve. His pet also destroys his room, so we had him pay more because we knew we were going to lose the security deposit due to that damage. He ended up paying about $120 more per month than before this conversation.
So he sucks as a roommate, but after moving out on my own, we’ve kept being friends as he’s still a good friend outside of that. He is much better to be around without thinking about how much of a slob he is.”
13. He Thought He Was Kidnapped
“While the mean things he did to me later in our friendship aren’t crazy, I had one roommate who did something truly bizarre. It began one day while I was at lunch with my partner at the time, and her family and got a text from stating: “I owe you a new dresser.”
Junior year, I lived with two friends. We had a 2 bedroom apartment and thus I ended up sharing a room with one of them who I’ll call Jeff.
In this room, we had a walk-in closet. One night, he and the other roommate, who I’ll call Eric, went out partying while I was off at my girl’s place. They come back pretty smashed and Eric passes out on the couch while Jeff drags himself back to our room and onto his bed.
This would normally be the end of the story, but Jeff had a strange habit in that when he got really inebriated, he would often sleepwalk.
Sophomore year, he got tons of crap for waking up after a night out, squeezing past a broken door that barely opened into his closet, and literally dousing the joint with pee. Needless to say, he began to repeat this process that night.
Now as has been told back to me, Jeff reckons he got up during the night, sleepwalked into our shared walk-in closet that shared my Ikea dresser, and closed the door behind him before passing out on the floor.
A few hours later, Jeff wakes up fully only to find himself in an absolutely pitch-black room with unfamiliar objects and no recollection of how he got there. To this day, he claims he thought he was kidnapped.
Apparently Jeff, upon realizing he had been “kidnapped,” jumped up and started just going crazy in an attempt to escape. He started ing on the walls and door and screaming, “ERRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIICCCCCC” who was comfortably passed out on the couch still and rather a heavy sleeper.
Now Jeff was a rugby player and quite built and so he started to literally tear his way out of the room. He punched a hole in one wall that led to the bathroom and then proceeded to tear a torso-sized hole in the opposite wall. With his bare hands, he went through drywall, insulation, and another set of drywall. Upon reaching the vinyl siding that adorned the side of our building, he tore down the metal hanging rod, bent it Hulk style, and started trying to spear through the siding.
If we had had wood siding, he would have probably fallen to his death. It was visibly dented from the outside for at least the rest of our time there.
Eventually, after severely denting the vinyl siding and somehow tearing my poor dresser to shreds in the process of all this, Jeff gave up. He really needed to pee and began to cry at the state of his hopelessness. Sitting in defeat on the floor of the closet, he saw light coming in from the bottom of the door. Spurred by this glorious light and the need to urinate, he finally managed to locate the door handle and stepped out into our room.
His victorious words?
“Crap.””
12. Our Shared Apartment Is Your Territory Now? I Don't Think So
“In 2002 I went to uni in Edinburgh. Initially, I was quite anxious as it was quite away from where I’m from (Northwest England), and I was the only one I knew going there, but it is a beautiful city, and student life is great. Turns out anyway that Edinburgh uni doesn’t really present much of a cross-section of Scottish society, being largely made up as it is of rich English people from Surrey eager to try out the snowy wastelands on Daddy’s tab.
Cue the end of the 2nd year. My group of friends and I are choosing who lives with who as we move from halls to flats. My course is pretty intensive, so 9 times out of 10, I would have to turn down any invitation for a night out/chill/party. Hence, my name was not too high up on people’s wish list when it came to populating their soon-to-be-uber-party-pad.
So I got lumbered with 3 other guys. Now, two of these guys are fine. One (Joe – a rather wealthy Surrey boy) was unknown to me and, as you’ll see, turned out to be a bit of a poop.
We got lucky with our flat. Super-close to the new Parliament, and with 3 floors for 4 people, the rent was undervalued hugely because it was brand new and we were the first tenants.
Everything was gleaming – it was worth over $650,000, apparently. Not bad for $366 per month each in Edinburgh. So we got everything signed and went to our prospective homes for summer to work, etc. Except for Joe, who decided to hang around for summer and enjoy the festival. The last I see of him is when I leave for home having just put all my coursework, architecture models, computer stuff, etc.
in my room and locking the bedroom door behind me.
About a month later, I’m heading up to Edinburgh with 2 friends. We decided to celebrate my birthday by having a week at the festival. Why not? I’ve already paid for the rent. On the train up, I get a phone call from one of the other flatmates telling me he’s moving out.
‘What?!’ says I, a tad surprised and concerned.
‘It’s the flat, man. It’s messed up. Joe’s messed it all up,’ he said.
It doesn’t sound good. So I tell him I’ll check it out for myself and not to tell Joe that I’m coming.
We arrive in Waverly, walk the short distance to the flat, and get ready for what awaits us. The plan was set: go quietly straight up to my room on the top floor, leave our stuff, then have a look around.
Up we go. As I reach the top of the stairs, I notice something different about my bedroom door. There seems to be only half of it left on the hinges, the rest splintered across the floor. Darn.
We go into my room. There are three tussled but empty sleeping bags. I survey the room. My flatmate’s description was accurate: it’s messed. The blinds have been torn and snapped off the wall.
The en-suite (nice flat as I say) – brand new until now – was a tip. Urine everywhere. Smears of what I can only assume to be poop along the shower walls. The showerhead is smashed and hanging like a New York payphone. I open my wardrobe. Coursework: crumpled into a ball. Architecture models: completely destroyed. Computer: side has come off and one of my jumpers has been shoved inside it.
On inspection, the insides have been smashed. Time to see Joe.
We go down to the kitchen via the living room. The living room is off the kitchen with double doors, so it’s pretty much one huge space. Walking in, we see about 10 sleeping bags and a mattress (we had no furniture at this stage). In the corner is a comatose Joe half on the mattress, half on the floor.
His head being on the floor, we step over him and enter the kitchen.
What followed was the most breathtaking sight I’ve ever seen. Scattered amongst spilled beans and cans of beer were: 1 large pile of the stuff from ‘Scarface,’ the remnants of illegal substances. Many discarded pieces of foil with burn marks (I presume illegal street substances). The fridge is ajar. It’s full – to the point it won’t close – of mushrooms.
And there, in the middle of all this, is one sharp medical instrument.
I walk over to Joe to wake him up. His eyes are deep pink. His expression upon seeing me standing over him was priceless. That’s the kind of shock/shame/fear in his eyes right now. He stares at me. I stare at him. Finally, he pipes up with, ‘What the heck are you doing in my flat?’
Come again?
‘Get out, man.
This is my flat now. You can fudge off. Go find yourself another place to stay.’
This went on for a while. Me pointing out the obvious, him still tripping telling me to get out of his newly-conquered territory. I’ll cut this bit down as this is getting long… Basically, I looked for another flat. Eventually, I realize I’ve got a good one as it is and shouldn’t have to be spending my birthday flat hunting because he decided to mess up our current flat.
I decided I’d better get the landlords involved.
We met the next day outside the flat (we were staying at my mate’s in the meantime). On the way, we walked down Princes St., and we saw something rather bizarre: some guy leaning forward off a traffic light post in the middle of the road (think Titanic, king of the world scene) staring at oncoming traffic as if wanting a fight.
He then let’s go and runs straight at the oncoming cars. Cue much beeping, running over bonnets, and narrowly avoiding a bus. All while barely clothed and screaming ‘Wahoooooo!’ Weird. But it is festival time.
Anyway, I explain everything to them. They were shocked but, to their credit, understanding. They appreciated the honesty and the chance to save their expensive new property. We say thanks and stand back as they enter the flat…
Now, you know that scene from Ratatouille where the woman’s ceiling falls down and about 10,000 rats come flooding out of the house.
Yeah, like that but with Spanish and French people. Some scantily clad some fully. All messed up and running as if Robocop himself had just walked in. I’ve never seen so many bouncing dreadlocks in all my life. After about 5 minutes, it’s pretty quiet except for a shouting/whimpering exchange. Then, just as things look like they’re coming to a close someone sprints past us heading for the flat, bumping us on the way:
‘Wooohooooooooo!’ The barely-clothed guy pelts straight in ready to join the party.
About 3 seconds later, he comes running out again, minus the woohoo.
So yeah, the karma is, he got kicked out, he lost many friends, and messed up his degree. The one stand-out moment, though, was when my friends and I were sitting in my bedroom window a few minutes later. I was enjoying the fact that I no longer had to face flat hunting at the worst time of the year or be homeless, while my mates were happy to be watching the spectacle. As Joe slinked away, pashmina-clad partner in tow, he looked back and we all gave him a wave. The arse.”
11. This Crazy Roommate Has Nothing To Lose
“A few years back when I was in college, I had an apartment with some guys and we figured we should get a house. The downside was that we needed an extra person as we had 4 people, and the place was a 5 bedroom. So in my friend’s most brilliant moment, he gets his girl of a year to join us. At first, me and the other 2 didn’t think it was a great idea until we saw that there were 2 separate leases for the house.
Great, we thought, us 3 can be downstairs and they can be upstairs.
Cut to the summer and they break up as we kind of expected. It was ok at first, but then the guy, who I will call Sam, starts playing World of Warcraft and acting reclusive. The both started seeing other people, and the girl who will be called Celeste usually kept away when she was with her new guy.
He had an old Bowflex upstairs and would do some weight lifting but seemed to only do 2 reps at a time and ALWAYS let the weight slam down, which just made me wonder how long it’d be ’til he hurt himself. After his workouts, he would grunt a lot and walk without clothes on past her door. He also had a massive pile of used tissues that just sat on his desk near his monitor.
Apart from blowing his nose, and the other…well, I don’t want to think about it. His floor was always covered in cans, clothes, books, and whatever else to the point that you couldn’t see the floor anywhere.
We aren’t sure if he showered more than once a month during this period as well. He also played WOW til about 4 every night with the vent blasting so loud, we could hear voices throughout the entire house.
We eventually fixed this by unhooking the cable modem which was located in my other friend’s bedroom. To this day, we aren’t sure if he ever figured it out considering we would hear him yelling, “Oh, gosh darn it! The insight cable sucks so much; it always cuts out at night!”
So more and more time passed and Celeste continued to ignore him and tell us stories of his walking around without clothes on, leaving her notes, starting up painfully awkward conversations with her…etc.
He had written her poetry a few times that was incredibly awful and barely legible most of the time. We would throw quite a few parties and he would come downstairs to the main floor halfway through the party and then take a few swigs out of a bottle then run back upstairs to play WOW. We tried to even take the party up thereby bringing maybe 10 people upstairs to dance in his room while he played, so he wouldn’t feel left out.
He ended up just ignoring us so we left.
So Celeste started seeing a new guy, who she eventually married and spent a lot of time at his place. Sam had started seeing a girl as well, but how he met her or convinced her to date him, we will never know. The difference between the two was that Sam told Celeste he didn’t want them to bring new girls or boys to the house, but he kept bringing his new lady over.
Well, one night, Celeste came home with her new boy, and they tried to be quiet and get up to her room without making a sound. It was about 2 am, and apparently shortly after they got back, so did Sam. Well that wouldn’t have been a problem except he was intoxicated as heck. So he comes into his room and starts throwing things and making a ton of noise for some reason or another.
So Celete’s new guy walks in there and says, “Hey man, we’re tired and trying to sleep. Could you please be a little quieter?” That’s when Sam freaks out and just sucker punches the new boy.
Now I feel I should mention that this guy is about 6’3″, maybe 220 pounds or more of all muscle. He apparently played some football during his undergrad and was tough as nails.
So he takes the punch and is a bit surprised for a second then grabs Sam and slams him to the ground. Somehow he stays cool and just holds him there telling Sam to calm down and he’s not going to hurt him; he just wants to make sure he’s not going to get punched again. So after a few seconds, he lets Sam get up and bam, Sam punches him again! So he slams him to the ground and pins him.
At this point, me and another roommate head upstairs to find Sam squirming on his chest screaming, “I’ve got nothing to lose!!” which is a line that lives on in my group of friends to this day.
So Celeste’s boy decides to pick him up and hand him over to me since I’m not a small guy and I can handle Sam. There’s still a lot of screaming and threats going around, so the boy calls the cops on Sam while I try to calm him down outside.
So the cops get there, and he starts mouthing off to them nonstop to the point that they warn him they will cuff him and pop him in the car. So he goes for it, and next thing, he is sitting in the back of the car while Celeste’s man shows the cops his bloody face. So they cart Sam off to jail for the night while another cop stays to talk to us.
We we had been standing outside in February with no coat, so we’re shivering, and the cop looks at my friend and says, “You tweakin’, boy?” Great cops in Indiana, lemme tell ya.
Cut to the summer and we have to go to court to testify about the night. The lawyer that Sam’s family found was the worst most disrespectful lawyer ever. Showed up late to court, continued to ask the same question over and over despite the judge telling him to move on, trying to change what we had said during the deposition, and so on. Oh, and he was from a Johnny Cochran law firm. Celeste’s man’s lawyer laughed and laughed nonstop when he found that one out.”
10. Peanut Butter And Maggots, Anyone?
“My horror story starts with something innocent that most people wouldn’t think would be an issue. It was an open jar of peanut butter.
It was our very first year attending college, we lived in an apartment complex that was a few miles away from campus. The apartment itself was a nice 2 bed, 2 bath, 1,060 square-foot apartment. Being college students, and due to stupid reasons, all three of my roommates dropped out and had gone back to live at home with their parents.
Also, because it was in the lease that we had signed, we also needed to pay rent for 1 year total. With this being said, they didn’t feel the need to move all their stuff immediately, as I was still there, and it just worked out better for them as well.
Flash forward three months after they moved, it was a hot summer night and around 11 pm.
I was sound asleep until I heard someone come in from outside. I tiredly walked outside and came face to face with someone who was not my roommate, but my roommate’s mom whom I had met only a year prior. She said she was sorry for the late arrival but needed to move the rest of my roommate’s stuff. She opened the door to the bedroom and turned on the light but immediately closed the door tightly while going inside.
It was kinda weird, I thought, especially how brisk the door shut. Then came the screams.
I opened the door to make sure she was alright, which was the equivalent of opening Pandora’s box. There she stood in the center of the room holding a peanut butter jar festering with maggots and hundreds upon hundreds of flies lining the walls. Everything was just covered in flies, and the whole room was buzzing. Needless to say, it took weeks to get rid of all the flies. Luckily, we did get a large portion of the deposit back on that apartment.”
9. A Case Of Paranoia
“So my buddy’s dad bought him and his brother a house for them to live in during university. I and another of our friends moved into the house, but there were still 2 rooms vacant, so they posted the vacancy online. One random guy took one of the rooms. He moved his stuff in one day at around 5 am, which we thought was pretty strange to begin with.
Now he wasn’t a student at our school, he actually moved to the city to be with his partner, who was a student. Unfortunately for him, a couple of weeks after signing the lease, his girl dumped him.
He was a strange guy to begin with. He was the filthiest person I’ve ever met. One time, he came home from his factory job and proceeded to make and eat a sandwich with hands pure black from grease.
Pretty gross and strange considering we have sinks and soap in our house. Over time, he actually started becoming a lot more normal, probably because he came out and partied with us a lot. When we’d go out, he would stay at the bar until closing and bring home some unattractive girl who was smashed out of her mind. He actually wheeled quite frequently.
Then things started getting a little off.
He developed a rash of some sort, which I thought was probably because his room was disgusting and there may have been bugs living in it. However, that’s not what he thought. He told my friend that he thought we had been putting chemicals in his laundry soap to give him a rash, which of course we didn’t. The paranoia continued with him misplacing his driver’s license, which he thought we had stolen and hid so he couldn’t come to the bar with us anymore.
Again that wasn’t true. So after a few weeks of him clearly developing paranoia, one morning, the crap hit the fan.
I woke up one morning at around 6 am to the sound of someone running up and down the stairs. I was half asleep and didn’t know what time it was so I just assumed one of my roommates was late for class or something. Then I heard more frantic running, followed by my other, normal, roommate screaming.
I jumped up and ran out to the kitchen. I see my normal roommate, I’ll call him Steve, standing in the kitchen. Then, I get around the corner and see the crazy one, I’ll call him John, standing in front of my fridge in a bathrobe, sweatpants which were clearly women’s and way too small, and a baseball cap with a wolf on it. All of my and my other friend’s stuff had been torn out of the fridge and smashed on the ground.
Pickles, milk, chili, you name it, all over the ground. Steve asked him what the heck was going on. John replied, while shivering, shaking, and sweating profusely, “I took 11 Benadryl.” We didn’t know what to do, so we took him into the living room, sat him on the couch, and tried to calm him down. The whole time he was shaking, shivering, and sweating and had one of the most murderous looks on his face I’ve ever seen.
At this point my other, much slower to react, roommate came out to see what the fuss was about. When he walked into the living room, John looked at him with his death gaze, pointed, and said: “That’s my guy!” I’m confident my friend has nightmares about it, lol. So after a little while of us trying to figure out what to do while this kid mumbles random things, out of nowhere, he jumps to his feet, lets out a war cry, and charges at my roommate Steve.
Now Steve was a bouncer at some bars in our city, so when John charged at him, he hip tossed him right through one of our dining room chairs (our dining room and living room were essentially one room). After this, he jumped on him and held down his body, then I jumped on his legs, and we held him down. He was kicking and punching us, trying to get us off.
At this point, he started yelling some crazy things, most of which I forget now. However, one that stuck out to me was, “The media always wins!” So after holding him down for a while and no progress on his mental state, we called 911 and waited for police and EMS to come and take him to the hospital.
Now before I explain what happened next, I should explain what happened after he got taken away.
We were of course quite shocked and curious, so we went into his room to take a quick look at what the heck he’d been up to all night. In his room, we found a bunch of our food, a bottle of Tylenol which was missing a substantial amount of pills, and some Benadryl scattered around the floor. We also found a box that had a photo album and some other things in it which we think most likely was all stuff from his relationship with the girl who dumped him after he moved out here to be with her.
That being said, we figure the hat was a gift from her, and the sweatpants were probably hers.
So now that his ex’s box is out there, I can continue, and this is where it goes from sad and shocking to just plain creepy and frightening. While we were holding him down, he kept struggling, and in the process, his little sweatpants started coming down. They got down to about the bottom of his butt when we noticed he was wearing little purple woman’s panties. We can only assume they were his ex’s.
So we figure he most likely tried to take his own life, but instead he just ended up tripping the heck out. We only ever saw him once again when he came to pick up his stuff and move out, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about it.”
8. A Bad Case Of Bipolar Disorder
“My first time having roommates, and there were seven us…great. Living with six other girls, however, was not the nightmare I believed it would be. Six of us got along great and actually liked each other for the most part.
But there was one person-sized issue we needed to take care of. The 7th roommate.
If her incessant tapping, night escapades of wandering in and out of the room hours at a time, and hoarding of half-eaten food and other people’s stuff wasn’t bad enough, we were all pretty sure she was certifiable.
A week in, and things were only getting worse. One day, she walked into our room holding a sledgehammer, claiming it was to crush up meds, so she wouldn’t gag. When asked what type of pill she was on that needed a sledgehammer to crush, she proceeded to then tell us how she has a bad case of bipolar disorder along with many other strange quirks.
To say the next three weeks of living with her was a nightmare is an understatement. But the final straw came when she became offended with my roommates, and I refused to debate with her on whether we should get a pet hamster for a room. After that, we all, including the infamous 7th roommate, came to the conclusion that maybe our room was not the best fit for her and that it was best for both parties if she moved out.”
7. Kitchen Troubles
“In college, I got an apartment with 3 dudes (I’m a girl). It was an art school, so some crazy is expected, but this went above and beyond.
These were nice guys, if a little immature. There were some annoying but hardly newsworthy points of contention– they never washed a single dish, filled the house with stuff they found at the dump, played insanely loud music, etc.
Then one of them, never a poster child for mental health, really began to lose it.
It started with him getting a turtle. He kept the turtle in a tank full of water with an enormous cement block sticking halfway out of it, ostensibly for the purpose of giving the turtle something to climb up on. He claimed the turtle’s tank “cleaned itself” and bought the turtle worms to eat.
Turtles don’t eat worms, but my roommate didn’t throw worms out. Instead, he kept putting the jars of worms in the kitchen. One day, we woke up to find he’d emptied the jars of worms into the bathtub, so they could “live there with their brethren.” What?
I started staying at friends’ places because this roommate had come home one day with a trumpet and begun playing it at all hours (he didn’t have any actual trumpet-playing skills).
One morning, I come home to find this roommate has gone into my room, slashed at various possessions with a hunting knife, smeared paint on my walls, put onions in my bed, and left open containers of booze everywhere. When I confronted him, he said, “Missebean, you can’t stay out all night and then come home and expect me to NOT have gone into your room and done some stuff.” As I planned and executed my escape, my roommate’s shenanigans continued.
Among his offenses:
- He left the turpentine on the stove with the stove on, on two separate occasions (once in a can sitting directly on the burner and one in a frying pan).
- He left every single faucet in the house running full blast, left the front door open, and left the apartment unattended.
- He laminated live goldfish to the kitchen table.
When I talked to my other two roommates about the crazy one, there was some general shifting from foot to foot, some half-hearted agreements that the situation was untenable, but a general unwillingness to deal with the situation with the defense, “I mean, he’s our boy. What are we supposed to do?” When they finally got evicted, they all went for a semester abroad, and I was left with all their insane, coddling mothers calling me and blaming me while I dealt with the landlords and everything else.”
6. My Best Friends Changed For The Worse Once We Started Living Together
“I am a sophomore in college, and during my first year, I lived with my two best friends from high school (I know, I know; in hindsight, it was a TERRIBLE idea). They ended up being completely different people by the end of the year. They iced me out, publicly humiliated me, kept me from entering the room I paid for, and constantly had their partners sleeping over when I’d expressed multiple times I wasn’t comfortable with it.
They used my things but got upset if I asked to use theirs, and I always asked for permission. They stowed their things under my bed because they didn’t have the space, and I did. My 20F roommate, Jennifer, would accuse me of taking things that my 19F roommate, Annie, had borrowed from her without asking, and Annie not ONCE came to my defense. Annie never did anything bad to me, but she was my best friend throughout high school, and I consider her never coming to my defense EVER as bad as what Jennifer did to me.
Their partners used my things and ate my food and lived in our room, which was only big enough for three. I should also note that the partners both lived RIGHT DOWN THE HALL FROM US. At the end of the year, I moved Jennifer’s printer out from under my bed, and she very aggressively accused me of breaking it in front of everyone on our floor.
We were all quite close, so it was very humiliating. It was Annie’s partner who had last used the printer—I saw it with my own eyes—but Annie lied and said that he hadn’t used the printer in months. I was angry and devastated afterward, and I left the room to be alone. I returned after an hour to move my things, and she had the nerve to ask me what was wrong.
After I moved out, I had panic attacks for a month straight, I went into a terrible depression, and I relapsed back into my eating disorder. I spent every waking moment for almost 2 months straight thinking about the friendships I’d lost, the terrible treatment I’d endured, and how angry I was at them for treating me so badly. I still think about it and am affected by it every day.
Sidebar: I tried my best to combat it and stand up for myself, but I have terrible anxiety and as a result am super non-confrontational. I am very bad with conflict. I would keep quiet for the sake of peace sometimes, but even when I expressed my concerns, I was ignored or belittled.
Now, crap has hit the FANS, my friends. I was walking back to my room coming from a stairwell I never used before, and I saw it.
A little whiteboard with a “Happy Friday” message written on it from Annie and Jennifer. I was shocked and immediately felt sick. It didn’t make sense to me because I’d known they’d arranged for different living spaces last semester. But their handwriting is very distinctive, and I felt my heart drop. I immediately called my mom and cried to her, and she assured me that it just didn’t make sense for them to be there.
Then I saw them at my dining hall, which is the one that people from my dorm go to.
I ran out of there as quickly as I could without them noticing me, and I had the worst anxiety I have had in a long time.
That was Sunday night. I have left my room for classes, but I cannot eat because I feel sick constantly. I don’t use the bathroom or the showers on my floor. I am afraid to leave the room for fear of seeing them or talking to them, or even hearing them.”
Another User Comments:
“At some point, you have to realize that just because we have anxiety, or we’re shy, or introverted…
does not mean we can allow ourselves to be walked over. You can’t hide. They’re college girls who will end up nowhere in life. Walk out. Walk right past them. Don’t give them any piece of your mind because that’s what they’re after. A piece of your mind because their own is not satisfying enough. If you confirmed to live the way you do, I hope you find the best accommodations for it; we all deserve it. But I hope you grow and learn and realize that people cannot mistake our quietness for kindness. I’m not saying to go beat the crap out of them (even though it sounds like they deserve it at the least) but don’t let them ruin college for you! Go out and live, and let life deal with those girls later on.” ChanceT7
5. She's 34-Years-Old And Got Her Parents To Harass My Partner
“I met my current partner in January of 2019. She lived with two other girls she worked with at the time. For months, I would watch both of the roommates live like slobs: dirty dishes everywhere, never sweeping or dusting, never clean their bathroom, etc., generally filthy behavior (keep in mind we are all around 30 years of age).
After being together with my partner for 8 months, my lease was ending, and one of her roommates wanted to move out! Easy peasy; I’ll just jump right in.
I was warned by 3 different people in their workgroup about the roommate that was planning on staying and if I knew what I was getting myself in to. I love my partner and decided to go for it anyway.
So the terrible roommate was in a car accident about 2 years ago and has since complained about back pain so much so that it was her excuse for never taking out the trash (too heavy), emptying the dishwasher (couldn’t bend over), rotting food in the fridge and pantry constantly, etc.
No contribution to the household at all. However, she could manage to make it to baseball games, haul her 40-pound bag of laundry up and down the stairs, and more. My girl would even work her 10-hour shift and then come home to see the kitchen a mess and clean it all up every time, usually while the roommate sat and watched her. My partner is a huge neat freak, and she just did it so things would be clean.
Recently, we decided that we have had enough.
We talked to the landlord about the issue. Her first reaction (because she loves me for fixing things around the house, so she doesn’t have to call a handyman) was to ask the roommate to leave at the end of the lease, which would be 7 weeks away at the time. We decided to move out instead. Upon telling the roommate, she became completely indignant and uncooperative.
I’ve kept my mouth shut to her for this entire time but finally had to ask her to simply not use my set of plates and bowls because there have been multiple occasions that she runs out of soap in her bathroom and doesn’t replace it. One time it was 20 days… no soap… we’re in the worldwide pause of 2019.
Her response was to hide the silverware drawer to keep me from eating.
Ok, mature, had new silverware the next day. Then we tried to get her to stop running the window air conditioner all night with her windows open, or leave for work with it maxed out and her windows open. The air conditioner belongs to the landlord, and she’s burning the darn thing out and wasting tons of electricity that we all have to pay for. After 2 weeks of her not responding to our requests, I just pulled the A/C and asked the landlord to come by and pick it up.
So now, today, our 34-year-old roommate had her parents come by and harass my partner and threaten to call the cops on us. We’re leaving the house in a week or two anyway, but now I have to worry about this crap. I’ve contacted the landlord and will talk to her in the morning.”
4. He Told Me He Hopes My Baby Dies All Over A Simple Assumption
“My partner (20m) and I (20f) live with our (was our best friend until tonight) roommate (21m). I am 6 months pregnant. Our lease is up April 1st at which time my partner and I will be getting our own place. He and I both work full time and pay our rent/phone/bills/etc. COMPLETELY ON OUR OWN. I have food stamps, so I stock the fridge and buy all of the food.
My partner buys toilet paper/paper towels/etc. My roommate (we’ll call him Jake) sits on his butt all day playing video games. His parents pay his rent because they think he has a job (he doesn’t). My partner found him 2 jobs, and he messed up both of them because he was late too many times (to a job that didn’t even start until 5 pm; the other was at my partner’s job, which he was 3 hours late to, got a second chance, and then just never showed up).
He dropped out of art school, and our other friend has had a job waiting for him for weeks now and he is just simply too lazy to go. He claims he’s “too good” for a bike delivery job, and even though our lease is up April 1st, and he will be forced to find a place where rent will be WAY more expensive (we each pay 200 here now).
He hasn’t done anything except play video games and drink beer. It’s gotten to the point where we clean up after him or else it just won’t get done.
Now being 6 months pregnant and working, I will admit that I don’t do much housework. I usually get home from work around 10 pm and just want to sleep, which he has called me lazy in the past for doing.
It’s annoying as heck to come home and see him in the same exact position playing the same video game as he was when I left 9 hours beforehand. He’s maybe done the dishes once or twice in the past month, hasn’t contributed a dime to anything but rent, eats all the food I buy to the point where it’s all gone when I get home and says, “It’s free money, so you can’t be mad” when I whine about it.
All I ask is that he doesn’t eat all the food because I get home so late that nothing’s open, and I’m hungry as heck. His constant snarky remarks and judgmental attitude of being better than everyone else have made it just not fun to live with him at all.
Tonight, my partner had just left for work (he works overnight). Jake woke up around 9 PM and came into the living room after overhearing me ask our friends who are staying with us for a week if they had done the dishes, thank you, and I was planning on finishing them.
He says, “Why can’t you assume that I did them instead of assuming everyone else would?” to which I replied, “Because you haven’t done them for three weeks. What would make me think you did them now?” to which he gets mad as heck and starts yelling at me saying he does do crap when I’m not home and that he took out the trash (there’s currently 5 bags of garbage in the kitchen), and he did the dishes (there’s a sink full of them still), and that I’m a bee with an itch, etc.
I obviously got angry and pretty much said, “You don’t do anything to contribute, so forget you” and tried to get up and walk away.
He got in my face and shoved me, to which I shoved back, and he grabbed me and started screaming in my face, and at this point, we’re just trying to hit each other and screaming at each other, and the whole thing looks like a Jerry Springer episode. Our friend started yelling at him and trying to break us up and telling him to get off me ’cause I’m pregnant and such.
It gets pretty ugly and then he yells “I hope your baby dies because you will be the worst mother in the world, and you don’t deserve to have a child.”
Now, our lease is up in two weeks, so I don’t know if I should just avoid him as best as I can and just try to avoid more confrontation or kick him the heck out (his name isn’t on the lease).
So I left, went to my friend’s house, obviously an emotional wreck.
My partner’s obviously angry as heck and wants to throw him out tomorrow (I didn’t want to because he has nowhere to go and even though he got in my face and tried to hurt me, I just can’t throw him out on his butt, we were friends once.), I just don’t know what to do. My partner and our two friends that are staying with us are all fed up with his crap and are on the same page that what he did was just messed up.
Not sure where to go from here. I don’t even want an apology. I don’t even want to see his face. Also not sure if I’m just overreacting and hormonal.”
3. She Passively Gangs Up On Me Through Her Partner And Cousin
“I live with 2 roommates.
At the start, we didn’t really have a system and I was doing all the cleaning and work for the apartment. After a couple of times of frustration and asking them to help out more or to at least pick up their own stuff and not leave garbage, etc. around the apartment, my one roommate (Cara) was very nice, understanding, and apologetic.
It was her first time living away from home and didn’t really know anything. She has gotten a lot better and really makes an effort. I really respect that. My other roommate, Selena, has proceeded to ignore all my frustrations and continues to leave a mess, not do her dishes, etc. after months of being very nice asking to help out more or at least do her stuff, it has gone nowhere.
A few weeks ago, she said she was going to get a cat and I said that it’s not a good idea because I’m very allergic, and it’ll be a lot of cleaning (for me to do). Since then she made a “chore chart” where alternate chores each week (her trying to prove that she can clean and convince me to yes to the cat).
The first week, her chore was to clean the floors of all the common areas.
I was home all day and she only did the kitchen and bathroom, not the living room or any of the hallways. I didn’t want to fight with her since we’ve already been fighting about many things like she steals my food and baking things. So I simply added on the chore sheet “including living room and hallways.” She then sent a picture of this in our group chat and was super angry saying she did it (even though I’m 99% sure she didn’t), and if she did later when I was gone, I still don’t trust her for obvious reasons, so instead of arguing with her, I simply replied, “Ok.” She proceeded to send long messages insulting me and my other roommate saying stating specific things that we didn’t clean well enough and all the things she cleaned (that one time when I already do all of those every day).
This started a big fight, and I tried pointing out to her that there’s a lot of things that she is still doing after I’ve asked so many times to help out with.
After this, I told her I’m no longer to be super nice and baby her; I’m just going to be honest, straight up, and direct. One example is when she leaves her dishes in the dish rack for days or even weeks and just stacks them to make a mountain and then expects me and my other roommate to clean up after her.
The other day, she did this again, and as always, there was no room for me to put my dishes. I very respectfully but directly messaged her and asked her to put away her dishes before piling them up and letting my other roommate and I put them away.
She, as usual, ignored me and let my other roommate do it all. The next day I said (since I cannot change her behavior; I will just change mine) I will find a new solution which is buying another dish rack.
This obviously really upset her because that night, her partner and cousin (her only two friends and complains she has no other friends) starting harassing me saying that I’m bullying her and she has depression, so I should just suck it up and do her chores and that this is HER apartment (which is not true we all pay the same rent and are all equally on the lease) and then said that this harassment from them I brought upon myself because I’m bullying her etc.
I didn’t even know what to say I was baffled– I had never said a mean word and only ever called her out on her crap when she started having a meltdown after we asked to uphold her responsibilities.
After I explained to her partner and cousin the real issues and that it wasn’t personal but that my roommate should come to talk to me in person if she feels like I’m being unfairly mean to her, the cousin apologized and said it was a misunderstanding, but the partner continued to harass me for 2 days. He was saying that this was all personal, and I hated him for some reason (which wasn’t true until now; now it is personal) and continued saying that I’m just angry ’cause she’s not giving attention or thanking me for doing all her stuff.
This is not the case. She has been unfriendly since day 1 and I just accepted it cause I didn’t want to be friends with someone like that. I explained that I was not seeking gratitude, but I wanted equality, respect, and effort which she has done nothing of. I further explained to them (after multiple times them bashing me for being upset over her stealing my stuff and not doing the dishes) that it is not these small things that are really upsetting me, but it is the overall principle.
Stealing is stealing no matter how much, and that loses my trust. Living with someone who is this immature, passive-aggressive, and who I cannot trust, THAT is what makes me angry. He continued to say how much I was hurting her and being mean to her forgetting about these things.
This whole time, I was very straightforward, honest, and tried really hard to be respectful, and asked to speak in person instead.
After 2 days of this, I finally got fed up and admitted that I don’t like her attitude cause she is nonstop complaining about her life, that she has no friends, how sorry she feels for herself, and that she thinks everyone should do things for her. I then said that due to this harassment from them and her overall attitude that she thinks the world owes her something it has now become personal.
I told him I was going to block all of them ’cause I’m a full-time uni student and I work and have my own life and problems and couldn’t handle this immaturity.
He then accused me of “running away” and “not facing the truth.” Like what the heck?! What truth?? The simple fact is that asking respectfully and directed my roommate to uphold her responsibility is not bullying her and she needs to start to do her own stuff. I eventually blocked him, but I have been at my partner’s house for 2 days now, and I honestly don’t feel comfortable going home. Every time I come up with solutions, she gets offended and starts a big fight like this.”
2. He Seemed Normal... At First
Then things got out of hand quite quickly, as in, the very next freaking day! But at least his true colors showed…
“I decided to find a roommate off Craigslist because I was in need of a quick room after my former roommate bailed on me. The dude seemed normal at first, worked some construction job, smoked ‘stuff’ a lot (it’s legal here), and had a cute puppy.
He owned the house and wanted to rent two of the bedrooms. One room went to another guy, more of a bro-type but really nice. I’m a female, but living with two dudes seemed fine as long as they weren’t creepy. I told the guy who owned the house that I was just looking for a place to sleep during the day since I was working overnight at a hospital, and my dog would come to work with me, so we would both be pretty invisible.
I even cooked at my man’s house most of the time; we just couldn’t live together because of the dog and his stupid apartment rules.
My man and I went over to get keys, made small talk with the new roommates, and everything was cool. The next day, I get off work at 7 am and bring my bed and some clothes over. My man comes by later on to move some more while I was sleeping.
He knocks on the door, and the owner acts like he doesn’t recognize him at all. He threatens my partner and tells him to leave ‘her stuff outside and learn to respect his property.’ My man texts me and tells me what happened, but I’m like what the? That doesn’t sound right. The owner ‘has no idea what I’m talking about’ when I ask him about it.
Very weird.
Over the next month, the owner would randomly text me very angrily that I’m ‘avoiding him,’ not helping with housework, and that I don’t deserve to take up space in his house. I respond that I was upfront about just being there to sleep, I always clean up after myself (the very little I did use the kitchen and bathroom), and I’m paying rent. He threatens to raise my rent because I won’t help him build a rock wall in his backyard during his day off (while I’m freaking sleeping because I work overnight did we not got over this?).
I decided to ghost him after paying the following month’s rent in full.
The day I was moving out, I saw his pup had chewed up some junk mail, and the other roommate decided to text the owner about it. The owner comes home while I’m about to leave with all my stuff and proceeds to hurt the dog for chewing up the mail. He texted me later that day to tell me I still owe him a deposit even if I’m moving out and that I should have tried harder to pull my weight in the household. I did not respond.”
1. Our Bum Of A Roommate Is Overcharging Us For Rent
Just milking his roomies of money for his own little convenience.
“I’m not very sure how to go about this, but my other roommate (I’ll call him Jim) and I are concerned about how this will affect us in the long run and how our credit scores will be affected as well.
Jim and I moved in with our friend Bean this summer, and like in most living with your friends’ stories, things did indeed get sour with said friend.
Long story short, all of the utilities in the house are in Bean’s name as Jim and I had never had utilities in our names, so it was just a quick switch for him to just do it.
Jim and I are ever so silly and never asked to see any bills and just paid him blindly each month with said blind trust. But things started to become pricier over time and so we started to ask to see bills for the first time at the beginning of November, and it’s been literally the hugest battle just to see any of them.
We’ve gotten to see a single electric bill and a screenshot of an “internet bill” that’s a screenshot of a numeric value and a pay now button. The only other thing is he just gave us the actual bill for water for November today, and it was over $300 for a single month which is crazy. He claims there are no paper bills being sent for us to see even though I’ve personally seen them come in.
While we can only assume with the other bills, we know for a fact that he’s overcharging for the internet because we’re supposed to be paying for the most basic Cox internet, and he’s been charging us $120 for it (the best plan the offer is max $80, but the basic we’re paying for should be no more than $60), and I’m sure the other bills are in the same boat, but again, he refuses to let us actually see.
Bean hasn’t gone to school in two years, has no job, and honestly doesn’t really leave the house except to see his girl on the occasional weekend.
He really doesn’t have a way of making money that I can see, and while he claims to pay his own bills, we know for a fact that his mother pays his rent and to accommodate for other expenses. He’s racked up about $700 in debt to Jim that we’ve already come to terms we’ll never get back.
We’re in a lease for a three-bedroom, three-bath that has until the end of June 2017 for lease to be up.
It’s a single lease that all three of our names are on, but Bean needed a cosigner and Bean’s mom stepped up to the plate. Would his mom being the cosigner on the lease protect us? I know that sounds terrible, and while she could afford it, she really doesn’t deserve it, but living with him really has changed him into a different person. Since living here, we’ve put locks on both our doors, bought a firearm, and keep the puppy put away now when we’re not there because of his neglect towards her, and this was supposed to be our friend.
We want to leave as soon as possible because we’ve been in a position of being uncomfortable in our own home for almost the entire time we’ve lived here, and this really is the last straw.
We’re hoping to break our lease as soon as possible if our landlord allows us to.”
Another User Comments:
“If you break the lease unilaterally, either “Bean” or the landlord can sue you for the entire remaining rent.
If he’s overcharging you for utilities, then you can sue for the amount you’ve overpaid (depending on your agreement), but you can’t break a lease because of that. I would also make sure that your lease allows for the modifications to the unit you’ve made (internal locks) and that you’ve provided copies of the keys to your landlord.
Seriously, buying a gun is the dumbest response to this. Tell him that you won’t pay utilities without seeing the full bills. Contact the landlord to see if they will let you sublet.” bbhr
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