People Tell Their Most Solid Roommate Revenge Story
18. Be Inconsiderate All The Time? We'll Ensure You Can Never Play Your Annoying Videos Again
“My freshman year of college, I decide I want to live in the dorms. Sure, it’s relatively expensive, but I didn’t have the time to look for roommates, for an apartment, etc. So, long story made VERY short, I pick a guy from a list of people with “similar interests,” and we room together for the whole year.
Let’s call my roommate Francisco.
Francisco was, it seemed, rather socially inept.
At first, I thought he was just quirky and resolved to deal with it. How bad could it be?
Come finals, Fall term. He is up literally all night, watching Youtube. Not good Youtube either – Stuff like the Trololol song on repeat. He’d laugh and sing along, out loud. Here I am, engineering major, already getting about 4 hours of sleep because I messed up one of my longer assignments due the next day.
I’m a nicer person, so I ask him politely to put on headphones. Instead, he turns the volume down. Inside I’m raging but I manage to get to sleep.
This goes on all year long. Francisco was generally inconsiderate of others, both in his interactions with other people on the floor (he’d routinely interrupt conversations and attempt to butt in) and when he was just sitting in the common area.
No matter how many times we asked him to wear headphones, all he’d do is turn down the volume. It got to the point where people I didn’t even know would come up to me and say “Francisco’s your roommate? I am so sorry for you.” (There is a lot that I’m not telling, mostly because it isn’t all that relevant.)
Anyways, come Spring term, and Francisco’s still doing his nonsense, despite repeated please to stop.
Well, after his long stint of laying on the couch, laptop open, watching TV, he decides to go and get food. As soon as he leaves, all of the engineers prepping for finals throw a minor celebration. But a friend and I see the laptop, left unlocked, and come up with a terrible plan.
What we did was edit the host file on his laptop. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a file in the System32/drivers folder that literally just maps hostnames to IP addresses.
So, what we did was add a few entries. Namely, we put in Youtube. So, anything that had “http://www.youtube.com” or “youtube.com” or “www.youtube.com” in the address was redirected to 127.0.0.1. Which, again for those of you who don’t know, redirects you back to your own computer. Every time he tried going to Youtube, he would get an error. And for the rest of the year (sadly, all 2 and a half weeks of it), we never had to hear his YouTube videos again.”
17. Blare Your Music Loudly All The Time? Here's A Song For You
“In college, our dorm rooms were laid out like an H with a double bedroom on each side connected by a bathroom in the middle. The bathroom had a lock on the bedroom side of the door so your suitemates couldn’t enter your room.
My suitemates were pretty obnoxious. They never bought toilet paper but used an ungodly amount of it any time I left some in the bathroom.
They never cleaned the bathroom. They left their hair all over the shower. They would listen to country music really loudly. I just didn’t like them at all.
My roommate and I were leaving for the weekend and knew that the suitemates had a campus ministry event so they’d be staying there. On our way out, we put the Muppets ‘Mahna Mahna’ song on repeat, not so loud that it would be a noise complaint requiring an R.A. to enter the room to turn it off, but loud enough that it would be audible while they were trying to sleep or study, and it would definitely seep into their minds.
I heard them humming it for months afterward.”
16. Cheating In More Than One Way? Cancel Your Trip To Go To Summer School
“This story takes place a couple of years back.
During college, I lived with several roommates. All of them were nice and we got along well, except for this one jerk. Let’s call her Karen. She is a loud-mouthed, stupid, egocentric jerk who has the face that scares the life out of a toilet. She would never clean up after herself; she would always leave her plates and things at the spot where she last used them.
I have lost count of how many times I caught her stealing my clothes without asking, and if you do so much as touch her clothes, she loses her mind on you, or her drinking our lactose-intolerant roommate’s almond milk, and any time we confronted her for drinking it, she would shrug and say, “I only had a sip. Stop being so stingy.” She plays her music loud at night, invites strangers without giving any heads up, a time or two she didn’t pay rent even though her parents are FILTHY RICH, and she is wearing Gucci and Prada stuff.
Karen also lies about everything, even things that are not worth lying about. Like if she woke up at 7, and you ask her, she’ll lie through her teeth and say she rose with the sunrise because she is a natural (p.s., this is something I actually heard her say to her parents while she was Skyping them… So cringy, like who says that?) But I digress.
Months we have put up with her. Of course, we tried to get other roommates, but unfortunately, when we all moved in everything, all documents and contracts were done in her name, so kicking her out would require a lot of effort, and most of us were busy with school and work, and life happens. So we ignore it as much as we can and try to move on.
We are now all seniors and in our final semesters, meaning graduation was coming, AND Karen is planning a backpacking trip across Europe with her friends as a graduation gift to herself.
This is important, so remember this.
One of our roommates and my closest friend, Sasha, has had a crush on a guy that lives down the hall. Any time the two of them are together, Sasha and the Guy keep giving each other googly eyes and blushing faces; it was sooo cute. Sasha is a verbal autistic person and has never dated anyone because she has a hard time with socializing and understanding social cues and subtlety, which let’s face it, that is the core of seeing someone especially flirting, but with a lot of encouragement from me and the final roommate, Lola, we got her to ask him out.
He said yes. She was so happy, you guys, that she flew back into the apartment and did an hour of happy dance with her arms flailing about and a grin on her face. Needless to say, we were all so happy. Karen caught wind of this and it just so happens at that time she was having relationship problems. I guess her man finally realized he’s with actual human garbage.
Not one to be outshined, Karen behind all of our backs went to the guy’s place and spun lies about Sasha, saying she is a serial cheater and even made a fake account for Sasha’s so-called partner. The guy never called Sasha, and eventually, weeks passed by, and he told us why, but by then, Sasha felt like the damage was done and lost interest in him.
I.
WAS. FURIOUS.
This, this level of foolishness and bloody pettiness is the straw that finally broke the camel’s back and I vowed I wouldn’t leave until I served my slice of justice. Here’s another character that you must know about: Prof C. His wife two years ago was in a horrible car accident and as a result, is in a wheelchair. This is especially problematic because she was a stay-at-home mom that took care of their two kids and they have a toddler at home.
Homelife is a mess for him. He is running ragged between working and single-handedly is taking care of his family. The uni took pity and also feared the workload would see one of their best and most beloved teachers leave the school, so they struck a deal with him to help him out. In all of his classes, there are quizzes and midterms; this doesn’t change, but assignments you submit, and he will correct them at the end of the year.
This is important to know since our uni has zero-tolerance on profs that don’t constantly update the students’ course work so that students have the chance to improve their grades.
Karen, being the lazy and stupid jerk she is, is somehow skating through his assignments, even though they require a ton of research and writing. I accidentally learned that one of her older friends told her that she only needs to submit the paper on its due date and to only write the first 3 pages and use a paraphrasing tool for the rest of the paper, so the plagiarism software won’t detect it and would think its original material, and when the end of the year comes, submit a hard copy but with the first pages being her actual work and the rest being completely plagiarized, professional work.
Prof C won’t know because the likelihood of a man as busy as him thoroughly checking the work of 120+ students is pretty low. I grinned. A plan was beginning to formulate in my head. Oh, sweet mother of Jesus. She is going down! All semester-long, I let her do this for all of the 7 papers, one of them which is a term paper that has 20% on it alone, all the while I spied and gathered all of her passcodes, social media, her student ID, everything.
The end of the year came, and I compiled all of her assignments, both the original one with the paraphrasing tools she used to circumvent plagiarism and the one she finally handed them in, and I even made photos where there is a side-to-side comparison of the assignments.
This is a good start but not enough. So, one day chilling in the living room, I open a conversation about relationships, Karen is two-timing her new man and is sleeping with some other person, so I ask her questions like, “Don’t you feel guilty for cheating?” and “You do realize this is wrong?” and I even paraphrase my words in a way that is vague but also clear.
For example, I would say, “It’s not fair. So many people work so hard every day to be successful and you are here cheating and lying your way to success.” Karen, very narcissistic, would respond with snippets of I don’t care and how she isn’t cheating; she is only having fun and that everyone does it so why not her too. This is too good to be true.
Even her answers are vague. It’s like God put his hand on my shoulder, looked me right in the eyes, and said, “Bury this jerk,” and I’d be damned if I didn’t. As you probably have guessed by now, I was recording EVERYTHING. The recording plus the photos, and her assignments were more than enough evidence. I sent an anonymous email to the professor, and I tell the girls so that they can prep for the storm that’s coming.
Three weeks later, the results are out.
She failed and LOST HER MIND. She was screaming, crying, wailing, what a sight to see! You best believe the girls and I were laughing. She tried to talk to the prof, but he was not having it. She cried and begged for a second chance, but he said a hard no. So now she has two options: she goes ahead and doesn’t graduate with us and takes on a whole other semester for one measly course or take a summer course and cancel her trip to Europe, which mind you, she spent a ton on, something like $13,000, and I know it could have been much cheaper, but Princess Karen only wanted the best.
The next couple of weeks she spent sleepless nights because she was calling and canceling all the reservations she made, trying to get her money back BUT (again, GOD really was out for blood that day) because the cancellation was so close to some of her trips, most places refused to refund, or some charged her cancellation fees.
She only managed to scrap $5,500 back together, losing $7,500. OUCH!
It’s not over. Having damning evidence, I, with earned gusto, told her she was going to pay all of the bills till we move out, which was in two months, payback for all the times she was late on a payment or defaulted, and she would from now on do her part of the house chores or else I’m gonna send it all to the admin and faculty dean, and she will definitely be kicked out, and all those uni years will have been for nothing.
She hated it. She threw tantrums and cussed me out, but my God if she didn’t do what’s told. She cleaned her stuff, apologized to Sasha for what she did, I forced her to come clean to her man (don’t know the guy, but the few times I met him, he was super sweet to us, and I felt bad for the guy), I watched her actually do the dishes for the first time in like years. IT was amazing, and I don’t regret it one bit. In fact, anytime I feel sad now as an adult, I kick back my feet and reminisce, and a slow grin draws itself upon my face.”
Another User Comments:
“I hope you sent all that to the school anyways. She doesn’t deserve to graduate at all. You know she cheated any chance she got.” TMNT4ME
15. Completely Break My Trust For You? I'll Demolish Your Life
Just be an honest person. That’s all.
“So, many years ago while still a teen, I moved out of my parents’ place to live across the street from my junior college. There were many students in the building, so I rented a room in a large basement 3 bedroom unit that was reserved for students at the school. I didn’t really know anyone in the building as it was on the other side of the city from where I grew up.
At the time, there was one other roommate already living in the unit who we’ll call Sean.
To be kind, Sean was a short fat jerk. Older than myself by a few years, he was in some kind of simplified remedial program as he’d failed a couple of school years and mentioned how this was his “last chance” to make something of himself in his parents’ eyes.
Kinda dim, not too much going on in his life but harmless, or so I thought. Anyways, I was hoping to start things off on the right foot with him as he was to be my roommate, so I wanted to be friends.
As I was moving in my stuff, he mentioned how he had no money for a moving van. So I offered to do a trip with my rented van to his parents if he needed any help moving some stuff of his.
He happily accepted. So we drive to his parents’ where I meet his mother and discover that he’s from a somewhat affluent family (somewhat surprising considering he’s “too broke to hire a van,” but whatever). A couple of days later, I meet his nice partner who lived “up the hill” from our apartment (translation: she was extremely affluent). This girl would dote on him, visiting him a lot at our place, to the point where she would regularly hand deliver him delicious meals that had been prepared at her house.
This will be important later.
Anyways, it slowly becomes apparent that this unassuming guy has a dishonest streak. While moving my stuff in, I’d mentioned that I had a spare waterbed. He immediately offered to buy it, so I moved it in myself and set it up with the agreement he’d pay me a ‘friend’ price (around $200 for a $700 bed). Weeks pass, and he keeps giving me excuses about not paying whenever the subject comes up.
He then started to randomly shift the narrative to a story about how “his wealthy parents” can pay for us to get a great condo in a new development just up the street. I remember wondering why his parents would make such an offer despite the fact we’ve just moved into our current apartment. The story didn’t make sense. Nevertheless, he constantly tried to set up some visits with me and get me involved.
I wasn’t really interested in moving again at that point, so I never really pursued it. I learned later that this was not only a lie but a typical ploy of his. Anyways…
As I had just moved out of my old neighborhood, I hadn’t opened up a new bank account (this was before internet banking) in this new part of town. So I was keeping my money (a couple hundred) hidden in my room until I set up an account nearby.
I was only loosely keeping track of this money and barely noticed how my money was going a little quickly until one day I go to get my last $40, and it’s gone. Unfortunately, by this point, a third roommate had moved into our flat (a cool hippy dude from Maritimes). So although I was convinced it was Sean that had robbed me, I wasn’t 100% sure.
To resolve things as amicably as possible, I decided to give him a chance to come clean.
So one night, I asked him point-blank, fairly casually, if he’d taken my money “as I’d noticed a small amount” was missing. I’ll never forget his reaction. He immediately stiffened, his eyes glazed over, and he blurted out, “I didn’t take anything. It wasn’t me” and just stared at me. I was shocked. He didn’t just look guilty, his reaction had such a rehearsed quality, I could tell he’d been accused of similar things MANY times before.
I tried my best to be calm, smile, and act as if I believed him… but inside, I was livid. I couldn’t stop thinking about how this guy was trying to play me like a fool. I realized that although I knew it was him, I couldn’t do anything about it as I had no proof. By this point, I felt sick to be living in the same space as this guy.
I realized to get out of this situation and to deal with this jerk appropriately, I would have to lay a trap.
To make sure he didn’t suspect anything, the next day, I was all smiles. Playing clueless, I exclaimed loudly how “I hope I don’t lose my money again. I just got paid!” and left the apartment. Before I left, I made sure to leave my video camera filming my room.
This was so long ago; it was a huge VHS tape camera that I had to hide on my bed under pillows and stuff, but it still worked like a charm.
I came back, replayed the tape, and 16 minutes in, I see that jerk going through my stuff. I tell you, I went cold as ice seeing Sean casually rifle through my things. My suspicions confirmed.
I had to cool off with my friends across town over some drinks. When I finally told them all what was happening, they started pulling out bats, hockey sticks and suggesting we go pay Sean a visit. As tempting as this was, I was now in college and didn’t want to resort to messy violence. So instead I plotted my revenge.
The first thing I did was to make sure my cool, hippy 3rd roommate was in the loop.
Not having had a lot of time to get to know him, I asked him his thoughts on retribution and if he agreed with ‘an eye for an eye.’ Confident we were on the same page, I showed him the video. He freaks out over having a thief for a roommate, but I reassure him to just be cool because some things are going to happen to Sean real soon.
Then I WENT TO STAY AT MY PARENTS’ HOUSE and waited until that Thursday.
You see, Sean liked to talk a lot. Turns out, his rich parents had actually kicked him out of the house. The fact he’d actually found an apartment and gone back to school was a big success for him. On Thursday, he’d be out of the apartment as his parents were having a big congratulatory dinner for him at their place.
So I waited until I knew the dinner was underway then called his house to speak to his mother. Crazy thing is, both he and his sister pick up the phone at the same time. So while his sister goes to get his mom on the line, he’s asking me loudly, “Why are you calling my mother???” repeatedly. His mother gets on, and while Sean’s screaming at his mother to hang up, I calmly state, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I have reason to believe your son has stolen from me…” Suddenly, there’s dead silence.
After almost a minute, she replies, “Take it up with Sean” and just hangs up. What the heck?!?! I don’t know what reaction I expected, but it wasn’t that. Anyways, now with just Sean on the line, I tell him the jig is up. I have him on tape, and I want my money back. He replies, “You have nothing on me, screw you”. At this point I realize, he’s right.
I’d really only filmed him rifling through my stuff. If I went to the police, the charges wouldn’t stick, and there was a good chance he knew it.
So by this point, I’d tried very hard to be reasonable about things. But as it was, his rich parents couldn’t care less, I had no real proof to go to the police with, and worst of all, I still had a year-long lease to live with him.
So screw that nonsense; I told him he’d better find another place to live and hung up the phone as it was time to go nuclear on his butt.
Remember how I said the jerk talked too much? Turns out he’d bragged about how he’d faked his credentials for the apartment, and the landlord had never checked. So, the first step was to drive with my folks to the landlord’s office and tell them to evict him for theft immediately.
When they start telling me nonsense like, “We’ll have to take some time to review this matter,” I immediately threaten a lawsuit over how they’re liable as I can prove they never did the prescribed background check. My landlord goes pale and instantly promises everything I ask.
I then take this moment to go downstairs “for a minute,” a statement witnessed by multiple people. I then go to Sean’s room and take thousands of dollars of his expensive stuff (stereo, tv, hockey jerseys, cologne, etc…) and put it all outside on our enclosed/hidden fire escape.
I then go straight back upstairs (hello alibi) and leave with my folks. The first chance I get, I call my friends with the bats. Hey guys, who wants a new wardrobe and entertainment system!!! I give them the instructions on how to find all of Sean’s stuff hidden in the unused back alley and chill with parents for the next 3-4 days.
Upon my return to the apartment, I am greeted with awe by a highly entertained hippy roommate who gave me the play-by-play of what went down in my absence.
Apparently, Sean returned from his dinner to an empty room devoid of any of his possessions, causing him to rampage through the apartment and curse my name. When hippy innocently asked, “What’s wrong Sean?” he tells him that I stole all his stuff but that his dad would get it back for him (as if!).
The next morning, his alarm clock was the landlord walking into his room and showing it to a potential tenant while informing him that he was evicted “immediately.” He would later be dumped by his rich partner who was buying his groceries (“You haven’t changed Sean! Again with the lying and cheating”) and disowned very publicly by his well-to-do dad.
Indeed, his dad had come to the apartment, only to tell Sean he was worthless, and that despite his crying and begging, he could not live back at the house. Desperate, Sean followed his dad outside and jumped on the hood of the car, pleading to go home. The dad had to drive to a nearby police station to have him removed.
The last thing I heard, he was broke, dropped out of school, dumped by his girl, and camping in a friend’s backyard in a tent in CANADA in November.”
14. Demand Your Ex To Ship Your Stuff Back? You'll Just LOVE The Package
“My little brother and his girl came to stay at my house for the weekend, and the girl was super self-centered and obnoxious. When they left, she forgot her clothes and toiletries because she left them sprawled all over my bathroom.
About a week later, she and my brother moved into an apartment together. After he paid for the moving truck, deposit, and utilities, she cheated on him with her ex and kicked him out of the apartment.
This left him broke, homeless, and heartbroken.
In the days after the breakup, she kept calling and emailing him several times per day, demanding that he ask me to ship her clothes and toiletries back to her (‘I mean, it’s really important. It’s my NORTHFACE.’) My brother called and pleaded with me to ship them to her, so she would stop having a reason to contact him.
Being the loving sister that I am, I gathered up the Really Important Northface sweatshirt, shorts, underwear, shampoo, conditioner, soap, and razor.
I folded everything nicely. I then wrote a nice note apologizing for taking so long to mail them to her and let her know that I hope all is well. The note was written in permanent marker, and the paper happened to be resting on the Really Important Northface when I wrote it.
Unfortunately, the ink bled straight through the paper and onto the shirt. Also, unfortunately, the shampoo, soap, and conditioner caps were not tightly secured on their bottles, and the contents leaked out all over the clothes, further spreading the ink. The most unfortunate result, though, was that her razor didn’t have any sort of protective cap or container and left little slashes all over the front of the Really Important Northface.
She received the package, and my brother never heard from her again.”
13. Don't Be A Butthole For No Reason
“My sophomore year roommate in college was a jerk for no reason.
Day one, he lies in bed and cranks his TV to full volume for absolutely no reason. His level of nonsense would eventually lead to him immediately jumping up and locking the door the moment I’d leave the room, even for something like brushing my teeth. When the RA would let me back in, he’d sneer ‘Didn’t you remember your key?’ with a big grin on his face.
My first act of revenge was completely unintentional, but I was so happy it happened.
My buddy next door came over PLASTERED one night after drinking, and at one point, he poured milk on my idiot roommate’s side of the room.
(Sidenote: our roommate went home every weekend, so he wasn’t around). The milk had gotten into his book bag slightly, so I decided to be a decent guy and wash it, so he wouldn’t have a fit. I emptied everything out and put it through the washer and dryer. Turns out, I had missed a small pocket and left a floppy disk in his bag, which contained his English comp assignments.
All that ‘trauma’ in the washer and dryer wiped the disk. Fast forward to the following week as he’s proceeding to finish his assignment, he can’t find his work and had no other backups.
The second time wasn’t me but a buddy. Everyone knew of my jerky roommate and how much of a lazy idiot he was. Well, during another weekend later in the year, I had some friends visiting who were prospective students.
After hearing all the horror stories of this guy, my buddy took our roommate’s laundry detergent into the bathroom and blew a load into it, shook it up, and put it back on the shelf, ensuring Roommate would not truly have clean clothes, ever.
The last time was at the end of the year. After enduring the lockouts, the blaring TV, him using my computer behind my back without asking because his was a piece of junk, etc., I got him kicked out of the dorm.
He was so lazy, he quit going to all his classes midway through the first semester. He failed his classes but was just close enough that the school offered him a one-semester reprieve to get his grades up.
He went to class for 2 weeks then quit going. He would stay up all night, play games, and then come back and watch TV at an ungodly volume all hours of the morning, then proceed to sleep well into the day.
Kind of annoying when I had a normal schedule.
After taking this to the dean, she deemed him to be ‘detrimental to my studies,’ especially since he was basically just renting the bed at this point and nothing else.
So, for the last 3 weeks of school, he was ordered out of the dorm and not allowed to return, forcing him to go back and live with his parents and brother whom he HATED living with, hence why he was freeloading at the university.”
12. Give A Key To Our Place To A Stranger? I'll Have Another Dude Move In
It’s only fair.
“Loony Lucy is a slovenly, food-stealing, clothing-destroying waste of carbon. I dealt with it by keeping my space clean and ignoring her areas, storing my food at work or my man’s place, and installing a lock on my bedroom door so she couldn’t “borrow” outfits that “looked like she could fit into” when she had 30 pounds on me.
All that made Loony Lucy a bad roommate, but I had my workarounds, and she had the one saving grace of being quiet at night.
So I put up with it.
I put up with it, that is, until she broke our Cardinal Roommate Rule: no one gets a key to the apartment without both roommates agreeing. The rule was sacred; I couldn’t even give a key to my partner of more than a year.
Unbeknownst to me, Loony Lucy had met a guy online who lived several hours away. Within two weeks of “meeting” him, she invites him to meet in real life and stay over for the weekend.
Loony Lucy then mailed this strange man a key to our apartment because he was going to get into town before she got off work.
You read that right: a man she talked to for only two weeks, had never actually met, and who I didn’t know about now had a key to our shared apartment, and she wasn’t going to be there to greet him.
But I was.
I’m starting laundry while wearing only my Victoria’s Secret robe because I’ll be hopping into the shower right after.
I hear the lock snick, turn around, and see the door swing open to reveal a thin, creepy-looking guy in a trench coat who just stands there silently while I freeze like an idiot rabbit.
CLG suddenly steps forward into the apartment, I come out of my startle, scream bloody murder, and chuck the laundry detergent at his head before scrambling into my bedroom and locking the door.
He’s yelling that it’s ok; he’s Loony Lucy’s partner.
I scream at him that I don’t care who he is, get out, or I’m calling the cops and my 6-foot-4, built-like-a-tank partner.
CLG leaves, and to his credit, even locks the door behind him. Poor, poor CLG.
I call Loony Lucy and ask her if CLG is her partner and if she gave him a key. She said he was, and she did. She gushes about how they “met;” I hang up on her mid-sentence and call my partner (who, lucky me, actually is 6-foot-4 and built like a tank).
He comes over, we pack up the essentials, and I move in with him that day. We hadn’t thought we were quite ready for that step; turns out that in the face of Loony Lucy, we were.
No apology or even excuses from Loony Lucy when my partner and I go back the next week to get the rest of my stuff. She yells at me that it’s my fault that I overreacted and that I’m lucky CLG didn’t press charges.
Now, I’m slow to true anger.
I’ll complain and moan with the rest of them, but actual rage is not in my usual repertoire of emotion. But guess what? I’m there now. Loony Lucy needs to pay.
Still have that popcorn? Good.
Now, the 2-year lease is in my name only because Loony Lucy’s credit is so awful that nowhere in the “good” part of town would take her; she’d been living with her parents over an hour away from her job for months before we started rooming together.
Hindsight tells me this is because no one else would room with her prior to me. Hindsight’s a pain.
So there’s nothing legally preventing me from subletting the apartment for the remaining 14 months on the lease. I could also evict her, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun as what I decided to do instead.
I post a roommate ad on Craigslist and make it quite the deal: I’ll keep my original deposit on file and pay the first two months’ rent and sublet fee, on the condition that they know they’re living with a food-thieving, clothing-destroying, slob.
I may want revenge, but I’m not willing to sucker some innocent person into it.
Over the next couple of weeks, I get a few nibbles, but no one has the flavor I’m looking for to match Loony Lucy. Then I get a message from Kevin. Kevin goes down my list of warnings. Kevin doesn’t care about the food-thieving; he orders takeout and hates leftovers. For obvious reasons, Kevin isn’t worried about Loony Lucy borrowing his clothes.
And Kevin admits that he’s a huge slob and not having to pay attention to it is actually a plus.
Kevin says the two-months rent seems kind of excessive and that there must be more to the story if I’m willing to pay that on top of the deposit and the sublet fee. So I tell Kevin the rest of the story.
Kevin tells me he’ll take the deal, but I should know something about him.
Kevin says he is very happily active in the singles scene and not looking to settle down but very much looking to continue bringing home a revolving door of hook-up buddies. Sometimes they’ll stay for a couple of days or a week at a time, so it’s good to know the key rule isn’t really that big a deal.
I tell him it sounds like he and Loony Lucy will be a good roommate match.
Kevin fills out the paperwork, the leasing office does its credit/background check and gives it the green light, and I mail Kevin my key.
Kevin moves in.
I get a frantic call from Loony Lucy about a strange man showing up saying he lives there with her now. I tell her that’s right, he does, and explain the subletting process. She starts raging at me; I hang up and mute her calls.
Over the next few days, I get a lot of voice mails. Some raging, some whining, some begging. Loony Lucy has been forced to clean and take out the trash or something because Kevin doesn’t bother.
Loony Lucy can’t move out because she can’t get a lease anywhere else, and her parents won’t let her move back home. Loony Lucy has to keep paying her half of the rent because Kevin told her if she stopped, he’d change the locks and move all her stuff out.
After a few weeks of radio silence, Loony Lucy calls again, and I decide to pick up.
She tells me she’s so happy to get a hold of me; I have to do something. Kevin is now bringing men home every couple of nights, and sometimes they don’t leave for days and days.
“Yeah, having a roommate who hands out keys without your consent to guys you don’t know is a pain, isn’t it.””
Another User Comments:
“That last line was glorious. I had to explain to one of my roommates in college why her friends had to knock before walking into our apartment. “I know them.” But it’s my home too, and I don’t. The university shoved us together, so I don’t really know you either.” BraveLilToaster42
11. Have A Secret Stash? I'll Get You Expelled
And he got kicked out of the apartment!
“This happened my Freshman year of college in a small art school.
The school didn’t have much in the way of housing for students, a small house they rented for the female/GN students, and a few apartments down the road for the male students. The school only did this for you for the first year of school, and once your freshman year was up, it was your job to find housing.
(The school would help, and often the apartments would give students special offers but still kinda awful in my opinion). I get my room assignments, and I’m living with the ARA in my room and another person who paid an extra $500 for a single room. His name is D (not really, but privacy or whatever); hails from southern CA; his hobbies include paper crafts, geocaching, and hiking; and he enjoys smoking.
A couple of months go by with us all living together, and he has pulled almost zero weight when it comes to taking care of the apartment.
ARA and I have to clean the whole common space and kitchen on our own because whenever we tell him to pull his weight, he just gets up and leaves the apartment until late at night. We clean all his messes because, otherwise, they end up rotting and stinking up the place. Never did simple chores, always left laundry in the machines, shoes were thrown all over the place, small but irritating things.
I let the RA know about this, but he never did anything about it; he SAID he talked to the Dean, but he was infamous for not pulling his weight either.
Fast forward a few months, and it’s wintertime. In our area winter is also the rainy season, so the walk to school sucks, but it’s whatever. I had taken it upon myself to get one of those shoe brush things to scrape mud and grime off our shoes before walking into the apartment (because mud is my least favorite thing in the world).
Everyone seems on board to use it, and I don’t even ask for help paying for it; it wasn’t much, and I knew D wouldn’t pay a dime regardless.
One day, we had our chore list, and D proceeded to do his usual tantrum of storming out whenever we asked him to do his chores. Whatever. At this point, I just do it out of habit anyway.
Around 1 am, I hear him walk in loud as can be. I think nothing of it and continue playing some games before going to sleep.
The next morning, I get up for my morning class around 8:00, take a shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, etc. (ARA and I had the “master bedroom,” which means we had our own bathroom) all clean and ready for the day.
I open my door just to have it jam halfway out. I sigh thinking it’s one of D’s shoes again. This time is different though. It smells bad.
I look down and see a smear of brown substance on the carpeting. Poop! I reach around and pick up the boot holding my nose, and I look at the living room. I have never seen walls so caked in mud in my entire life.
Imagine the biggest breed of dog you can think of, cake it in mud, and have it shake in a small apartment. Mud. Was. Everywhere.
I let out a guttural “NO!” and I threw the shoe at the shoe pile by the front door on my way to banging the life out of D’s room door.
D: “Go away.”
Me: “What is with all this mud? What did you do? It’s everywhere!”
D: (emerging half-dressed) “It’s just a little mud calm down.” The smell of the grossest smoke emerging from his room as he opens the door.
Me: “It’s everywhere! You need to clean this now! Otherwise, I have to tell the RA about this.” We have a rule that if the apartment ever gets too bad, we will all have to pay, out of pocket, for a cleaner to come clean for us plus fees from the school, totaling $250, which none of us can really spare.
I reminded him of this rule several times before this incident.
D: “Why can’t you guys just clean it up? You already want to anyways.”
Me: “We never want to; we have to because you won’t.”
D: “Same thing, can’t you just be a bro?”
Me: “No. Clean it before I’m home, or else.”
With that, I storm out of that apartment. On my way to class, I stop by the main office to tell someone about this.
The nice receptionist takes a note and says she’ll let the Dean know. This gives me some peace of mind, and I head to class. Guess what? There was still poop and mud when I got home, so I checked back in with the Dean, and he said he would take care of it. A day later, I came home to the apartment cleaner than ever.
I later found out that D had to pay for the cleaning fee all on his own, so that was at least a little revenge but not enough. This was the straw that broke the art student’s back. I needed more.
In our state, it is legal to use smoking products recreationally so long as you are 21+. D was 19. I know I could technically bust him with that somehow, but it wouldn’t really do anything other than anger him and some other very liberal students off.
I needed more. So I bided my time. I took note of his actions and even followed him one day when he stormed off. Turns out, he has been going onto an unmarked trail in the woods surrounding our area. He has a small fort and everything. I watched him smoke, slide on his penny board through some mud, draw in his sketchbook, you name it.
When I knew he wasn’t there, I rummaged through the things he had left behind, and I found a goldmine.
There was this ornate wooden box he kept in his little stick fort. Inside it were drawings he’s done, old assignments, polaroids of him and friends, some CDs of what I assume is his original music, tons of smokes, and hidden at the very bottom was a small cube of something wrapped in tin foil. I opened it up a bit and found what looked like sheets of parchment paper with little smiley faces printed on them.
At the time, I was super stressed and didn’t think anything of it. But I knew the substance was enough to land him a hefty fine at the least. So I put everything back and went home. I did a little digging and upon my travels on the substance side of the internet, and I found out what the paper was. It was an illegal substance.
I couldn’t believe this.
Then I started thinking of a plan: how could I get him to bring this stuff into the apartment where it could be found by an “impromptu inspection” of some kind? I thought about it and decided to take a risk.
I went back there a few days later and completely trashed the place. Broke his fort, buried his penny board, and stole the substance out of his box.
Luckily, he did the exact thing I thought he would do, and he brought the box home. Except I found out in the weirdest way possible. One night I was up late (around 11) and decided to get some Red Bull from the fridge to keep me going, when I went in there, lo and behold there was his box, sitting plain as day, still muddy, in the fridge.
Little tin foil cube and all. I immediately hatched a scheme even better than just telling the RA.
At the time, I was seeing a girl, a girl D had previously seen, but she dumped him for me (some smaller revenge that was too long to put in this already long post, but let’s just say she found me more well endowed apparently). I called her, fake crying and panicking over what I had “discovered” in the fridge.
She got furious and came over immediately. We called the RA and ARA over and had them call the Dean as well. He didn’t show up, but I didn’t expect him to. I showed them all the box, fake tears and shakey voiced, and they of course sided with me on this as the evidence was indisputable at this point. We all waited for D to come home and sure enough, it was around 1:30 when he strolled.
My girl immediately berated him for this, saying things like “You do NOT keep that here,” or “How stupid could you be, you beach boy reject?” (I don’t know where that one came from, but I’m sure there was a story.) Unfortunately for her, but luckily for us, he was too intoxicated to really register any of this.
RA and ARA stepped up and told them they all needed to have a serious conversation, but he sort of made a “guh” noise and shuffled into his room ignoring our outcry. I think this finally sunk into RA’s mind that D needed disciplining.
He took the box and said thank you for bringing this to his attention and left. I told ARA that I’d spend the night at girl’s house for a few nights.
That night was probably the most… “pleasurable” night we had in our relationship.
After a few days of R&R, I finally went back to the apt and let myself in around 7 am to shower change, etc. After all of that, I went into the kitchen and started making breakfast. I see the door open, and RA walks in.
RA: “Good, you’re home. I needed to talk to you.”
Me: “Yeah? What is it?”
RA: “No matter what happens, from now on, you are not to allow D back into the apartment.
Okay?”
Me: “Uhh. okay? Did something happen while I was gone?”
RA then proceeded to tell me how the day after he brought the box to the dean, he explained everything I had told him and the events that occurred that night. ARA then also spoke up about how D hadn’t been doing any share of the chores, coming home late, and being loud and obnoxious past quiet hours.
Dean also remembered how I had come to him a while prior about these issues and decided this was enough. He immediately got a hold of D and chewed him a new butt or two. Not wanting to get the police involved, apparently, D was going to be kicked out of student housing and suspended until further notice, effective immediately. Turns out that the Dean took his key right then and there and that he’d have to arrange for someone else to get his things.
Shocked and almost right on cue, the door tries to be opened but luckily RA had locked it behind him.
RA opens it, and it’s D.
D: “Hey bro, I need to get some things. Can you let me in?”
RA: “No, I can’t. What do you need, and I’ll get it for you?”
D: “Come on bro, just for a minute. It’s not going to be long, I swear.”
RA: “No, I can’t D. I or someone else you want can get whatever you need for you.”
D, now crying.
“Why are you doing this to me? Why are you ruining my life?”
Oh, the raging justice I got from hearing this go down. I sat back and ate my breakfast with the best show of all: D getting kicked out of the apartment. I later found out he had gotten expelled after a formal investigation was completed, as well as someone coming forward with a Title IX complaint against him.
The last time I saw him was on campus a few days after his little front door tantrum. He had his arms full of his drawings and supplies from one of the drawing rooms.
Me: “Hey bro, how’s it going?”
D: “Yeah,” he said, soulless and defeated.
I watched him walk outside with arms full of paper in the pouring rain. I’ve never seen a man more defeated in my life.
ARA and I decided to convert our apt into two single rooms since it was just the two of us. I don’t know what became of D, but I do know that shortly after I left that college, several others followed. The school shut down last I heard, but I tend not to pay attention to that stuff anymore.
And of course, after it all, everyone applauded and gave me a hundred rewards and a Nobel prize nomination.”
10. Homophobic Roommate Gets Personal Pictures Uploaded Online
“So many moons ago during my grad years, I was in charge of the finances of a group house I was living in. During our stay, everyone got along for the most part, and it was relatively peaceful during my first year being there. Unfortunately, one of the roommates lost his well-paying job and had to move back to his parents leaving one room unoccupied.
At the time, one of my other roommates had a friend from his work who was looking for a place to live.
His attitude was very in-your-face, A-type personality, but he got along with everyone in the household quite well beforehand that everyone was okay for him moving in. So after talking about the living situation in the group home, he was content with moving in. “Awesome,” I thought. His contribution will keep everyone’s portion of the rent/utilities the same without interruption while he saves money on rent.
The 1st and 2nd months went well.
Everyone got along. Then around the middle of the 3rd month is where things went weird. I started to notice that every night he drank a case of booze (~30 or so) without missing a heartbeat. He easily smoked two packs a day. His contribution to his group dinner night (everyone was assigned a night to cook for everyone else) only consisted of hamburgers, hot dogs, or pizza and nothing more.
I get home from school/work, I found him wiping something or vacuuming to almost or at OCD levels. At times, he would “borrow” things without returning/replacing them. He would inject his thoughts into random conversations regardless if his opinion was requested or not (apparently, he is an expert in career growth, religion, real estate, financial investments, pet grooming, relationships with women, politics, etc.). He would make jokes about how all women want to be with him and all guys want to be him.
He would complain he wants a woman who doesn’t bring drama to his life but magically finds drama when a woman rejects him. You get the idea.
So three things stood out that drove my petty revenge on this kid.
-
The first was when he found out his sister back home is seeing a black man. He went on a rage so severe that I couldn’t count the number of times he said racial and homophobic slurs (and here I am, a gay, Hispanic male watching from the sidelines).
When he did calm down, he stated that the racial slurs meant nothing because he was seeing a loser (don’t know if it is true or not) and that I’m a “cool” gay guy and that I shouldn’t worry since we are alright (his words).
-
The second is when he was at the bars hitting on women. You know those types of guys with the popped collar, muscled types with the overprocessed hair? Yup, my roommate was that guy.
He claimed that all women want him and all guys wanted to be him. If the woman wasn’t super hot, hook up-hungry, and Christian, he would avoid them. If he was lucky to find one, he believes that they should be honored. If any woman rejects him, he considers them as jerks in his book. I can’t even begin the number of times I stopped him from getting with women when I went with him to the bars/clubs.
-
The final straw was when everyone was enjoying the summer weather in the backyard.
The conversation at the time led to gay marriage. Obviously being a gay man, I was for this. Jerk McGee was not and went on a religious rant of the whole “hate the sin, not the sinner” approach, but since he liked me as a friend, that I should repent my sins before I die. As the cherry on the sundae, he even said that if he dies first that he would put in a good word when he gets to Heaven.
Oh, screw you, jerk.
My opportunity for revenge was random, but I took it when it presented itself. On a particular day off during the week, I went to his room and found that he didn’t lock his computer. So I went through his pictures and found unclothed pictures of himself at the standing attention position. So I got myself a USB stick, downloaded those pictures to my USB, and decided to upload them to a gay website.
To this day, he has no clue. It brings me GREAT joy.”
9. Judge Me Based On Racial Stereotypes? I'll Live Up To Them
“So my Junior year of college I transferred Universities to a school where I did not know a single person. As a poor student in a new city, I had no choice but to go potluck in a rooming situation at a student housing complex near the school. I did not know the name of my new roommate until a week before I was due to move in and sent her a friend request on Facebook to introduce myself (she never accepted the request).
Although my school is 12 hours away from home, my mom drove down with me to help me set up my apartment. Walking in, she saw my new roommate setting up the living area and greeted her with a pleasant “Howdy!” This bleach-blond, salon manicured, raccoon makeup-ed, princess brat glanced up from her iPhone, looked my mother up and down with a disdainful look, and turned her back to walk to her room without saying a word.
I was shocked at her appalling rudeness but figured we could talk it through later when it was just the two of us in the apartment.
I opened the fridge we were meant to share and found that she had packed it to the point where I could hardly fit a couple of water bottles in with cheap light booze and diet food. I stacked some of the stuff that was not too fragile so that I could make some room for my own groceries.
Later when I went to go buy some apartment supplies, I found she took out some of my stuff she deemed as able to “survive outside the fridge” on the counter (my water bottles, apples, etc.). Upon viewing our bathroom, I found that she had moved my stuff around, so she got all the prime space in the cabinets and the best towel rack (don’t act like you don’t know there is a better towel rack in your shared bathroom, lol).
I was upset about all this (mainly the issue with my mother, so I text her asking if we could have a little chat).
We met later that night, and she listened to what I had to say but failed to apologize. Never one to raise my voice or express the depths of my frustration, I took her, “Sorry, did not hear your mom,” and “Yeah, I did not realize that would bother you. You can have some fridge space” and decided not to pursue things over for the sake of peace in our apartment.
What I did not know is that there was a different reason other than “she is just a brat” that she was treating me like this.
I heard her speaking on the phone to someone that she did not understand why she had to live with someone “like her (me)” and that she “did not want to live here anymore.” I did not get the big deal, until later that week when her friends came over, and I heard one of them inquire about my Dos Equis booze in the fridge… “Oh.
It’s like from the motherland for her, lol,” she replied. She did not know I was home, so I heard her continue with some jokes about my being “Mexican” and a “loner” (not that it makes a difference, but I’m a third-generation American. I’m proud of my roots but also where I am now). She got really intoxicated with her girls that night and went out on the town.
She began the weekly tradition of bringing home a guy from the bars, sleeping with him, and leaving him face down and unclothed on our shared living room couch (never understood why he did not just sleep in her room). I was hurt. I’m a proud Latina and never really thought hard that an educated individual would be so ignorant as to judge me solely by my race.
I stewed about it and being timid and not the arguing kind, chose to fall into the most awkward living situation ever with us living side by side, completely ignoring the other’s presence.
I got sick and tired real quickly of her sleeping around and intoxicated messes. I got sick of hearing her tell her mother about the “Mexican” and how unfair it all was. I spent a lot of time away from the apartment largely to avoid her, which helped out in the long run because I made a solid and fun group of friends pretty quickly.
Towards the end of our time together, I thought…
you know what? I have put up with this long enough. Time for some payback. I thought of all the things that might annoy her and remembered the Dos Equis incident at the very beginning. If she was going to ignorantly judge me on stereotypes, then stereotypes were what I was going to force-feed her. I decided that if she was going to complain about a “Mexican” roommate, she was going to get the full “Mexican” experience.
I called up a bunch of my Latino friends and asked if they would like to spend the night at my apartment and get uproariously intoxicated.
While she hid from us in her room (she always disappeared whenever I had company), they set up their sleeping bags all over the apartment, and we proceeded to get wasted while listening to ranchero music as loud as possible. We talked about her in Spanish loud enough for her to hear, making sure we threw in her name ever so often so that she could know she was the topic we were laughing about.
She came out of her room around 4 am when everybody was snug in our little Tijuana of sleeping bags, and I could nearly feel the intensity of the disgust rolling off of her. It was quiet enough for me to listen as I heard her sobbing in her room, on the phone telling someone that “They” were here and were so loud earlier she could hardly hear herself think. Gee, I wonder how that feels?
For the rest of the semester, I hardly saw her. I think she stayed at a friend’s house.”
8. Make Fun Of My Family? I'll Turn Your Cat In
“Basically, here’s the deal.
I roomed with this girl. Let’s call her Gee. Gee and I disagreed at the core of our personalities, which would usually be manageable (I have lifelong friends with who I disagree regularly), except for the fact that Gee was an unbelievable jerk of a person. Snotty, privileged yet acted like she was hard done by, selfish, stubborn, deliberately ignorant, unreliable, and all in all rude.
She was good for a rent check (and barely that some months) and not much else. She always seemed to be asking her parents for money but hated to do it, always lamenting the shame of asking for money, while spending lavishly. Never understood it.
Needless to say, I didn’t care for her, but we needed her rent check, so the philosophy I took was “just need a warm body” and to put up with her.
That is until one day, she crossed a line I could not forgive.
Political, religious, and ethical issues I could avoid, forgive, or attempt to discuss healthily.
But not this.
One day, I’m in the kitchen when Gee comes downstairs and starts up a conversation with me.
We had only lived together a few months, and I engaged in conversation for one of my many attempts at achieving a friendship/peace.
As a side note, Gee had a pretty bad relationship with her father and was not shy about describing the terrible things she and her family had endured. That’s fine if that’s how you want to deal with it. I had similar if not worse (although I hate to measure misery to misery) issues with my family and didn’t share much about my past with her, aside from my parent’s divorce which had come up in previous conversations.
My general rule with people and their families is I don’t talk trash about other people’s families.
I didn’t live with them through the nonsense they pulled, therefore I don’t make light or insult anyone I haven’t spent significant time with.
Gee did not follow that rule. Clearly.
We’re chatting about plans that weekend or something to that extent, and I make a comment about not being sure if I could show up to an event of some kind. Gee takes this as an opportunity to take a shot about my father also being absent from events and then laughed and continued to make jokes about my having an absent father.
I try to tell her to stop, but she’s on a roll only she finds funny, and after multiple attempts to stop her, I leave, hurt and fuming for revenge.
It was top comedy coming from someone I didn’t know, who didn’t know me that well, and also supposedly knew and lamented the pain that can be felt from situations like such.
For a friend who made a wrong step, I’d forgive them.
For this sad sack of skin, not so much.
Not saying this was the high road, but boy, I was flying high after.
See, Gee had a cat. Not just a cat to her, this cat was her everything. She treated it like her infant, had full conversations with it, (another story for another time), and all social media revolved around this furry devilish creature. Yet, she refused to register her pet with the apartment complex and insisted we all keep her pet secret.
I knew she had these supposed financial difficulties yet also was entirely devoted to her feline. Given she had hurt me, I resolved to hit her back as hard as I could, in a place I knew would hurt: her wallet and her cat.
Painfully simple really. All I had to do is make a concerned call as a roommate about allergies and an illegal pet. Cue a letter from the establishment requiring her to either get rid of the pet within 24 hours, pay a $1,000 fine for each day the cat stayed, or pay the required $300 down and $30 extra a month in rent.
Gee was so mad when she returned home to find the letter, she beat the couch with her rattan and cried to her mother until funds were sent to secure this demonic furry creature’s status. In the meantime, she made my other roommate furious with her violent behavior and interrogation about how this could have happened. The other two roommates and I assured her none of us had reported the fur monster, and we had her convinced it was a neighbor who must have seen the cat and reported it.
All in all, her comments about my family cost her around $1,000 extra if she had just not passed judgment on someone else’s family.
Additional: I did tell the other two roommates what I did at the end of our lease once I was sure they would not be held liable for any reporting. They had had no idea but bowed to me, as by the end of two years, Gee had driven us all insane.”
7. Mess Up My Credit Score? I'll Return Your Bills To Sender
“Picture me a year ago, a young college student trying to find a decent place to live. Finally, my roommate and I from our previous living situation found an affordable house with a decent amount of space to live in right across from the university. The rent was too much for just two people, but there were three rooms. So my roommate asked her old friend, Matt, if he was interested in moving in with us too.
I’m 20, she’s 21, and he was about 24, so we assumed all of us could be responsible enough for rent (utilities were even included) and Comcast.
I guessed wrong.
For the first month and a half, Matt is doing okay. Kind of slobby, hooking up in the shower a few too many times (and I have no idea what else he did in there, but there are black smudges all over the tile to this day.) One day, Matt up and leaves and says he’s going to visit family and friends across state lines, and my roommate and I were very confused seeing as he took literally everything with him.
The first month he’s away, he pays rent (late but still pays it) and Comcast (late, as well – keep in mind Comcast is under my name, so it’s my credit that will take the hit for late payments).
The second month, Matt straight up doesn’t pay rent for 20 days. Our landlords are nice people and tell Matt to just pay now and they will waive all late fees (90 dollars total.) Matt again is late with Comcast, even after my various texts asking him to pay it.
It’s literally only $15 for his share, and I’m not paying $30 for him to be a bum. I ask him to pay, he ignores me, I Facebook him saying “Matt, I know you can see this. Facebook tells me when you read a message. Please pay Comcast.” He calls me a jerk. Nice.
The third month, Matt just doesn’t even pay. Doesn’t pay Comcast. Doesn’t answer our texts/Facebook messages.
The landlords call him up again and tell him they are terminating his lease and keeping his security deposit, but he is not obligated to pay the rest of his rent for the year-long lease. (Nice people, right?)
This whole time, Matt is stringing us along with, “Oh no, I’m going to be coming back. Don’t worry, I have the money for this month.” If he had told us he was in trouble, we could have started searching for a new roommate.
Of course, he didn’t, and when his lease is terminated, my roommate and I are left to scramble and find a new roommate by the end of the month or face about a $150 increase in rent- nothing we can afford, mind you (luckily we did find someone.)
Fast-forward to about a month ago, Matt texts me. My roommate straight up won’t answer his texts/calls, so of course, he comes to me, the person he called a jerk for not wanting to pay $30 worth of a bill for someone who screwed us over and caused a lot of unneeded stress and time (I’m a college student; $30 is a lot of money for me).
He’s been getting bills in the mail from his old job this entire time, and I continuously write “no longer at this address” and shove them back in the mailbox. He technically is no longer on the lease, and it is perfectly within the law to do this. He’s asking about the bills because he needs to pay them to avoid legal trouble (apparently that’s the only way you get Matt to pay the bills.)
My time to just watch his disappointment as I tell him, “I’ve been returning them to sender for a few months now; you’ll have to call your work.” Meaning, he will have to call the place he is having legal troubles with to get them to mail him the bills he owes them. No way I am wasting 40 cents on a stamp to send his loser self the bills. The sheer frustration, regret, and guilt were practically palpable through the “ok.” text he sent back.
Feels good man.”
6. No More Benefits For You, Jerk
“Many years ago, I lived in a massive shared house (there were 8 of us).
We had a long driveway along the side of the house that was a single car width. Terrible roomie Jeff was parked first with Jessica parked closer to the street, blocking Jeff in.
Jeff was a 6-foot Dudebro; Jessica was a 5 foot, very feminine woman. We’d all paid Jessica bill money a few weeks before, except for Jeff.
Jeff comes in to get Jessica to move her car…
by screaming abuse at her. Jessica calmly replies, ‘Pay me what you owe for the bills, and I will move my car.’ He then rants about how he has a meeting in ten minutes and screams more abusive things and even appeals to me (as the only other person home) to support him. I back Jessica – she’s being entirely reasonable.
After 45 minutes of abuse, he walks down to the street and orders a cab.
That night, when he gets home, he sneaks all his stuff out of the house and does a runner, never to be seen again.
Revenge time: It turns out that Jeff was on unemployment benefits and had a publicly appointed defender for an upcoming court case. He’d also had a birthday recently, and we all met his mom – who was divorced and used her maiden name.
Armed with his date of birth and mother’s maiden name, we canceled his benefits and his defender. It felt pretty good.”
5. Passive Aggressive Roommate Gets Gassed
Simple and petty but oh-so-funny!
“I’m a female.
I was living in a dorm with another female, though she was passive-aggressive, high strung, and very obsessive about her things. I could get along with literally anyone, but apparently not her. We had our own bedrooms, which were next to each other and opened up to a small kitchen with a shared bathroom. Leading up to the revenge, we had pretty much established through many unpleasant interactions that we weren’t really friends.
We just sort of tolerated each other.
One day we were in our separate bedrooms and we had our doors open (which is rare for her). I’m sitting in my room at my desk on my laptop when my belly starts making the rumbles. You know the ones. I had a moment where I thought I should close my door or at least be discrete for my neighbor.
But then I had a glorious moment of clarity.
I thought ‘forget it’ and let out a loud, disgusting, fog horn fart. I didn’t think it would be that bad. The entire thing lasted about 4 seconds. She had 100% heard me rip hot gas.
I started laughing uncontrollably at the thought of her next door with her nose scrunched up like ‘what is wrong with her.’ Of course, my laughing caused me to fart more. I freaking lost it. Here’s my neighbor, who I hate, listening to me cackle at my own farts.
I remember hearing her door slowly close with a click. She didn’t talk to me much after that. I think there’s something wrong with me.”
4. Refuse To Pay Your Share Of Our Bills? I'll Screw You Over A Month Of Rent
“So my roommate in college for a year was this Nigerian fellow who very quickly made a poor impression on me. He was monied and flaunted his wealth whenever possible and also acted skeevy towards any female guests we had over and made awful comments about how it was unfair that I had ladies over regularly while he consistently struck out at local gatherings. When it came time to pay bills like electricity and Internet, I would pay them, but he would procrastinate or ignore me when I implored him to repay me for his share.
He would point to my elaborate computer system and insist that electricity usage was all my fault and that he shouldn’t have to pay for me even though he ran the AC all the time. He also began making banana claims at me, like after leaving fish out to age for a week, he would eat it and get food poisoning and then confront me claiming that I or one of my guests had poisoned him.
(My response at the time was that is ridiculous, that my coursework allowed me to work in plenty of labs, and that had I wanted to poison him, I could’ve done so much more effectively.)
This came to a head when I started leaving him notes totaling the amount he had outstanding to me, which I spent some time meticulously writing up and he began just throwing them away.
One night after arguing, I tried to look in the trashcan near his bedroom, and he slammed me into a wall for “going into his room.” I called the cops, and he almost got arrested, but Dallas cops being what they are, I relented as I felt that he was going to get unduly punished for what was essentially an argument that got out of hand, so I declined to press charges, preferring instead to have the cop explain how his actions almost earned him a night in jail.
He was unrepentant, so I hatched my plan.
I procrastinated and hemmed and hawed when he asked for my share of the rent for the month till the end of the month at which point he changed the locks and locked me out. I had been expecting this, or something like it, so I already had a place to stay lined up. So the day before the end of the month I went to the apartment managing staff and told them that I have been locked out of my apartment by my roommate who had changed the locks, but I was still on the books as a legal tenant, so I was intending on breaking the window and taking my stuff out and offered to pay for the damage.
They responded “he changed OUR locks? Screw him. Break the window. We’ll make him pay for it.” So a few of my friends and I broke in while he was at work and took all my stuff out.
A few hours later, my neighbors text me to tell me not to come near because my old roommate called the cops. I laughed and immediately came over holding a copy of our lease, which declared me a legal tenant until tomorrow. As soon as he sees me, my ex-roommate immediately points at me and implores the police to arrest me. I showed them the lease and explain my side of what has happened, and they shrug at him and tell him, “Take him to small claims court; this isn’t our business,” and that was that.”
3. Release Yourself On Me? I Can Go Number One Too
“In my freshman year of college, I was paired in a two-bedroom dorm with the broest of bros. He liked to drink, “go out,” play Tekken, blast rap, and watch bro movies very loudly. I liked to read and stay in. An excellent pairing by the Res life people. It also didn’t help that we had the same first name.
Our dorm was an old mental health facility (basically an asylum) that had been converted into residences, so they had a cramped medical feel to them.
But hey, sinks in the rooms! The two small bedrooms in the unit were separated by a wall with an opening the size of the door—minus the actual door. The front door to the unit opened into my room, so whenever my bro roommate (bromate) came in, he had to walk through my room to get to his.
Bromate had a friend from his hometown who also went to the same school.
On the very first night of college, they went out and got really intoxicated. He came home pretty late when I was already in bed and woke me up walking through the room. Ok, fine, no big deal. About 20 minutes later, as he is passed out and I’m trying to get back to sleep, there is a loud knock on the door. It’s past 1 in the morning.
I freeze in bed, waiting for whoever it is to go away. The person knocks again and then starts to knock harder and faster. Basically pounding on the door. The person doesn’t say anything, no, “Hey, it’s…” or “Come out… (our name),” though the latter wouldn’t have helped clarify things anyway. I’m starting to get pretty scared. I’m imagining dying horribly on my first night of college.
Since it’s a small cramped dorm room, I have all my kitchen supplies stored pretty close to the bed, so I reach in and pull out a kitchen knife.
It was a pretty cheap, flimsy one, but it made me feel better. The knocking goes on for TEN MINUTES before my bromate is finally awoken by the noise and stumbles to the door. He opens it, and lo and behold, it’s Hometown Bro, apparently intoxicated beyond the point of speech. They both stumble back to Bromate’s room and pass out there. I quietly hide the knife close to my chest as they walk past.
Why Hometown Bro had to come over to sleep, I never knew. Maybe he left his blankie at home and was lonely.
So, the first night of college, Bromate and his friend made me think I was going to die. Not a great start.
These sorts of incidents continue throughout the first semester. He also had an annoying habit of inviting back girls he met at the bar that night to our dorm in the wee hours of the morning.
I know, it’s college; that’s the lay of the land (bad pun), but given the size of the room there really wasn’t an option for privacy, and he never gave me any advance warning. We had covered the open doorway with a curtain, but that did nothing to block the noise. The issue, though, wasn’t the noise of them hooking up; it was what he did to COVER the noise of them hooking up.
Without fail, he would pop his favorite movie into the little VCR-TV combo he had. His favorite movie? The Ladies Man (2000) starring Tim Meadows. I don’t know what he saw in this movie. It seems like the last thing you would want to play while hooking up with a woman, but what do I know. To this day, I have never seen The Ladies Man.
I have HEARD it 30+ times. Whenever someone mentions that movie, or I see a copy of it somewhere, my stomach twists. Sorry, Tim Meadows.
Anyway, to get to the real story, it turns out that Bromate has a problem with sleepwalking. Drinking seems to aggravate it. Seems like you should probably drink less if you don’t want to risk sleepwalking around at night, right? Nope! All the drinking all the time.
One night, I am happily asleep, and I start to have a dream that I am in the ocean.
I am swimming, the water is warm and green, and there is no land in sight. I suddenly get the sense that something is wrong and start to wake up. Bromate is standing above my bed, peeing all over me. As I slowly realize what is happening, I start screaming. He wakes up from his sleepwalking, confused, and realized what has happened. He is embarrassed and apologetic, telling me over and over that he is so sorry, that I can have his sheets, so I can go back to sleep.
Instead of responding, I start laughing (in shock and angry amusement). He tells me to stop laughing, it’s not funny, he’s sorry, etc., etc. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been peed on, but it’s not something you simply go back to sleep after. It’s about 6 am, and I have class at 8 and have to take a LONG (non-golden) shower before I am even going to be ok about starting my day.
After this, two things happened.
He never once looked me in the eyes again, and I started plotting my revenge.
I decided to play the long game and wait for the opportunity to strike. Truth be told, I kind of started to forget about having my revenge. Things like this were so common that I was taking the “let’s-not-think-about-it-the-year-is-almost-over” approach rather than actively plotting. While he didn’t pee on me again, there were several close calls.
He usually ended up peeing somewhere in his own room, thank God. So, added bonus, the room had a faint smell of pee that wouldn’t go away.
Peegate happened in the fall semester. The following spring, I was hanging out in a friend’s room in the same residence hall, and we’re having a drink. After a few, I need to pee and am on my way to the bathroom when it hits me.
“He’s at class. The time is now.” I hurry back to my room, make sure that he actually is at class and not skipping as usual, and find it empty.
I peed on his towel. I peed on his pillow. I peed into the VCR slot of his TV. I peed IN The Ladies Man (opened the flap and peed on the magnetic strip–apologies again Tim Meadows).
I peed on his toothbrush. I peed into an open can of soda he had left on his desk. I peed on many other things I can’t recall but I peed on them all. Just a little. So it would dry up quickly and not leave a visible trace.
After I was done, I felt both ashamed and exhilarated. I went to my desk and did some reading or whatever, gloating and nervous at the same time. About an hour later, Bromate comes back.
I smiled as I heard him take a sip of the soda.
He never knew.”
2. Screw Up Big Time? Get Arrested And Sued
“Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for the 1989/1990 school year.
I was a fifth-year senior living off-campus at a large Midwestern university. In my fourth year, I shared the bottom floor of a house with three other guys. Two of them graduated and one needed only to finish up a class or two, so he decided to commute for his last semester. I wanted to stay in the same house, so I arranged to get three other roommates for my final year: Bob 1, Bob 2, and Matt.
As I say, we had the bottom floor of a house. There was a common bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. Off the southeast corner of the living room was a single bedroom. Off the southwest corner was a second bedroom that connected through a slightly smaller room to the bathroom. The first year I lived in the house, one guy paid extra and got the southeast bedroom to himself.
The other two guys and I shared the two connected rooms with the guy who got his own room paying a little more in rent. This second year, I paid a little more rent and got my own room with the two Bobs and Matt, also known as Mamma’s Boy, sharing the two-room “suite.”
The first six weeks, school starts, and everything seemed fine. Unbeknownst to us, Matt is not happy.
Despite his being a college senior, this is the first time he has ever lived away from home, and it turns out that he’s not a fan. He doesn’t like having roommates, he doesn’t like making his own meals, and he doesn’t like doing his own laundry. So, after six weeks of these living arrangements, he leaves and goes back home to mom.
The other three of us are now panicked.
We can’t each come up with the additional money to cover Matt’s quarter of the rent (yes, it would have only been about $55/month, but all of us were working minimum wage jobs. At that time, the minimum wage was under $4 an hour, so that money was something close to a week’s wages for a part-time job). So we go across the street (literally) to Tim the landlord’s house and tell him of our woes.
As I said, Tim was a man among boys and a man among men.
He tells us that he will find us a fourth guy. This is a bigger problem than you may at first realize. With school already six weeks in, everybody already had housing, so no one is looking for a roommate, but Tim says he’ll handle this for us. Further, proving just how great of a human being he is, Tim tells us that on the off chance that the guy he finds for us proves to be a complete waste of oxygen, he’ll put the guy on a separate lease.
We’ll be responsible for our part of the rent, and the guy he finds for us will be responsible for his part. This way, we’re not liable if the guy proves to be a flake.
The guy Tim found for us was Chuck. Chuck was not a college student, but a local who was looking to move out of his house. He worked construction, mostly installing drywall, and made pretty good money doing it.
Even more, while his boss kept him on the books, he was not on as a full-time worker, so most of his money came in under the table and untaxed.
However, Chuck was not the smartest of human beings. Despite coming home every Friday with $4-600 cash (keep in mind, those are 1989 dollars so something closer to $1,000 a week), he would regularly have to return to a store on Thursday night to return a purchase so that he had enough money to buy himself dinner.
I have no idea where his money went. We assumed he would go to crowded college bars and buy rounds of drinks for everyone. However, since he was on his own lease, as long as he covered his share of things like gas, electricity, and phone, we were all good.
Chuck was a terrible roommate. Big, stupid, loud, and just about everything else you could think of.
He left dirty dishes everywhere and refused to wash them. It got to the point where I bought my own cookware and dishes and kept them in my room. He would eat other people’s food and replace it with cheap, substandard versions. Oh, you bought yourself a package of Oreos? He’d eat them and replace them with a smaller package of generic, off-brand sandwich cookies. He’d use other people’s towels after he took a shower, and if you didn’t like that, he’d tell you that the best way to handle the dispute was to go out front and fight about it.
After all, if he could beat the life out of you (and he could), he must be right. He bought himself Pay-Per-View movies and, since we all lived there, thought we should all pay for them even though we didn’t watch them. Still, he was a necessary evil. We didn’t plot revenge against him, but eventually, revenge fell into our laps.
To give you an idea of just how dumb Chuck really was, though, here’s the prime example.
Chuck lost his job. Because his boss kept him on the books a little, he managed to get unemployment. However, since he had lost his income, he panicked regarding his rent. He went to talk to Tim the landlord who agreed to let Chuck work for him through the winter shoveling his various properties and doing other menial tasks in exchange for his rent. As I say, best beloved, Tim was the sort of man we should all aspire to be.
So, after claiming poverty to Tim, Chuck goes out and buys himself a motorcycle, then asks Tim if there’s anywhere safe he can park it. His new motorcycle that he purchased after claiming he couldn’t pay his rent.
One fine spring day, Chuck is out gallivanting on his motorcycle when he does something stupid like blow through a stop sign. He is naturally pulled over by a cop who has seen this action, and when the cop walks up to discuss his behavior with him, Chuck decided the best course of action was to drive away as quickly as he could.
We’re going to have to keep score here, best beloved.
We’ve got a traffic incident and leaving the scene to start with, so our count of problems Chuck has caused for himself is at two. As it happens, Chuck drove off because 3) he didn’t have insurance or 4) a license because he’d had it suspended. Why? Because he 5) blew off his court date for his earlier arrest on a 6) DUI. Chunk is suddenly a wanted fugitive.
He is Public Enemy #1 in our little college farm town. Evidently, he drove home and hid in our basement for a couple of hours before realizing that eventually the police would get his address and come looking. He left and vanished into the wind.
I knew none of this at the time, as I was working the circulation desk of the college library. I got home just after midnight, said hello to the two Bobs, and walked into my bedroom.
Lo and behold, Bob 1’s girl is sitting on my bed. I turn, look at the Bobs, and say, “Okay… Explain.”
Bob 1 says, “Well, I had her go into your room so that she wasn’t involved when the cops showed up.”
I nod and say, “Okay… Explain.”
The Bobs do, and I learn of all of the events of Chuck and his desperate flight from the law. Just as the explanation has finished, the police show up again and question us.
Now, we had endured about seven months of living with this idiot and the three of us hated him about as much as three college-aged guys can hate another human being.
And it’s worth noting that the two Bobs had to share rooms with this human trash fire, so they got it worse than I did and hated him more than I did. We assured the police that if we knew anything, they’d be the first to know it. We wanted this jerk out of our lives, and if the police could bring that about, so much the better.
The next day, we went across the street to talk to Tim the Landlord.
Tim’s response was as pragmatic as it was epic. “He hasn’t paid me in months, and he hasn’t done any work for me in months,” was Tim’s reply. “Why don’t you guys evict him?”
And so we did. We gathered up all of Chuck’s stuff and put it in the shed behind the house. All of his clothing, his weight bench, and even his food. Everything (with a single exception—we’ll get to that) was moved to the shed.
We printed up a series of eviction notices and posted them around the house—front door, back door, interior door, windows. Pretty much every possible point of access into our part of the house had a notice for Chuck telling him that he’d been booted by Tim the Landlord, that his stuff was in the shed, and that he owed us for supporting his out-of-work butt for things like gas, electricity, and phone for the previous several months.
Been a slice, bro. Don’t let the door hit you, and don’t bend over for the soap.
That evening, Bob 2 has just finished calling into work, saying that he couldn’t come in because he was (fake cough) “sick.” He puts the phone down, and it rings immediately. It’s Chuck! He’s called to tell us that he has to leave town for a couple of weeks. Can we put some of his stuff together for him?
Why yes, we say.
Your butt has been evicted, my friend. Your stuff is conveniently already together for you in the shed outback. Chuck is outraged that the rules actually apply to him and that he can be evicted for something as trivial as not paying rent for three months. He slams down the phone.
Roughly an hour later, there is noise outside the house. The eviction notices are being pulled down.
The prodigal son has returned and has brought some of his junkie friends with him to help gather his belongings. We lift the phone receiver. We dial the phone. “Hello, Farm Town police? Are you still looking for the dangerous outlaw Chuck? Well, we are his roommates, and he is here collecting his belongings after being evicted. You might want to send some patrol cars ‘round to this address to collect him.”
We wait.
Minutes later, two squad cars roll up, sirens off, but lights on. One blocks the driveway, the other stands ready by the field to the east of the house. Cops exit the cars and flank the house. I tell you, best beloved, it was like an episode of “Cops,” except that we could not change the channel. We run to the kitchen where the windows overlook the shed.
Cops arrive. Chuck is busted. Chuck offers a lame excuse. Cops are not having it. Chuck is cuffed, dragged to a squad car, and driven away.
Moments later, basking in the milky afterglow, one of the Bobs realize that while we put almost everything of Chuck’s in the shed, we neglected to give him his booze. We celebrate Chuck’s arrest by drinking his booze.
Several weeks later, Bob 2 and I graduate.
That morning, we decide that our best course of action is to sue Chuck for the money he owes us. We do. Small claims court a few weeks later. Chuck again fails to show up. The decision for the plaintiffs to the tune of about $650.
I never saw a dime of that money, but I slept better knowing that if Chuck ever tried to get a loan for as much as a pack of gum, he had that unpaid settlement on his record.
And that, best beloved, is the story of how two of my roommates and I got our other roommate arrested and out of our lives.”
1. The Messiest Roommate Gets Left To Clean The Dorm
“I had three roommates in college, and we were in a suite-style dorm. Three of us cleaned up after ourselves and got along pretty well, but you know how it goes. There is always that one person.
The 4th roommate was as inconsiderate as could be. He would always leave trash around the room, he would dirty every dish, and would consequently overfill our 40-gallon trash bags.
He would be very loud when we were trying to sleep. He would always open the fridge to see if anyone brought any food from home and ask, ‘This yours?’ followed by, ‘This have pork in it?’ He was Muslim, so he didn’t eat pork. He would leave his locked tablet on full volume, and 5 times a day it would go off, playing the call to prayer for him to pray to Mecca.
The problem with that is he would never take his tablet out of the room. Since the tablet was locked, we couldn’t silence the app when he wasn’t home. Also, he slept on the bunk above me, and if I wasn’t asleep before he went to bed, I would have to wait for him to quit tossing around before I could fall asleep. He didn’t just calmly roll over; he’d thrash until he got comfy.
Time for the petty revenge.
We started to hold the power button on his tablet every time he left the room, so it would power off.
We would pile his dirty dishes on his desk until he washed them. If there were papers on the floor, they went in the trash no questions asked. The cherry on top of this petty revenge was on move-out day.
For about 8 months, my two friends and I kept the room presentable. We always picked up before we left for a weekend, or helped each other tidy up before our partners would come over.
But he refused to participate, ‘I didn’t make a mess,’ or ‘That’s not mine.’ So the second half of the second semester, we just stopped cleaning. We went cold turkey. Then finals week came, and we knew he was moving out Friday, so we packed our stuff up and got out of there on Thursday morning.
The school’s policy is that the last person to check out is responsible for the room being cleaned. He came back to the room and saw the 3 of us signing out with the RA and asked, ‘You guys leavin’?’ We said yup, and the RA said, ‘Make sure this place gets clean or you are the one that gets crucified.’ The look on his face was so worth it.”
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