The Horrible Roommates Thread

[Susannah]

You've got stories.  I want to hear 'em.

I've been lucky enough to avoid most bad roommate experiences in my life, but during my freshman year of college, I shared a 10'X10' dorm room with a manic depressive compulsive eater who happened to be a born-again Christian.  She was nice enough at times, but would often:

1.Spend multiple days holed up in our bedroom, listening to the song "Perfect Day" from the "Legally Blonde" soundtrack on continuous repeat
2. Cook exotic fish such as Chilean sea bass on a hotplate over our tiny sink, stinking up the entire dorm and the 3700 block of Spruce Street in Philadelphia
3.  Ask me why, as a Jew, I didn't just "cave" already and accept Christ into my life as my personal lord and savior. When she realized she wasn't getting very far, she enlisted members of her family to call me and ask the same.

These memories came rushing back to me last night as I realized that my roommate clogged the toilet, left disgusting matter in there, and didn't bother to plunge it.  I, not realizing it was clogged, assumed he just forgot to flush and inadvertently flooded the bathroom. 

The corollary to this thread is, "Does anyone know of any one-bedrooms available for cheap in LA?"

[Martin]

That sounds pretty awful.

I've been very lucky. I haven't had any horrible roommates at all, I've only shared apartments with close friends. (Not a guarantee of course, but still.)

[bruce]

First apt. after college. I shared a house with three other people. Ugh what a nightmare we had one person who was a argumentative drunk who would tag along when ever you would just go out for a quick beer. Which would always lead into some stupid argument. He would then write stories about us changing their names but it was pretty obvious who was who. I need to point out this guy was about 7 years older then anyone else at the time.

Then would become enraged because he passed out on the couch and I did not wake him while I was heading out to work. Gee never knew being someone's mother was part of being a housemate. This experience was the last time I lived with anyone.

For you you folks who know RI it was in lovely Fox Point near the silver star bakery

[buffcoat]

Nowhere near as bad, but I had a roommate in college who was:

- A compulsive tooth-brusher.  He had braces.  He would get up, go down to the bathroom, and start brushing his teeth.  I got up 10 minutes later, went to take a shower, he's brushing his teeth the whole time.  I'd come back down, get dressed, and he'd show up 10 minutes later.  About 45 minutes per time.  At least twice a day.
 
- The last human being on earth to still watch "Arsenio."

[Turf Out]

I had a roommate for awhile that did a lot of meth. Whenever he would get high he would just stay in his room and work on his "music" (it basically just sounded like static). The stench coming from his room was absolutely terrible. One day while he was gone my other roomate and i decided to take a peak in his room. We found a mountain of porn mags 2 feet tall on the foor with 3 sticks of butter laying on the desk next to it and on the floor were about 50 bottles of all shapes and sizes filled with urine. When he moved out the floor underneath where the mattress had been was warped.

[ericluxury]

I've had many...
1) in college I lived in an apartment style dorm with a guy who would talk constant filth about women, punched the walls all the time, ate everyone elses food and always would follow everyone around. After I moved out with him he finally snapped like I thought he would (living with men kind of made him keep it in check a bit) and began stealing his two female roommates underwear and when they kicked him out wrote 'Fuck you Bitches' in his blood on the living room wall.

2) living in Bushwick with a lady who I met on craigslist who kept things more than anyone I've ever met. Had 6 stacks of cardboard boxes to the ceiling in the living room filled with old issues of disposable Women's magazines. It was that way with everything. Had a basket filled with ketchup packets that would fill probably 3 ketchup bottles. Did her dishes once a week when the sink was completely full. Stayed at home at all times blasting Family Guy.

but the winner
was a guy in college who I shared a room with who wanted to put up a wall-sized Led Zeppelin poster that looked like a D&D book cover but when I refused plastered the wall with pictures of Che and Che themed RATM posters. He was very vehemently straight-edge and threatened to beat me up if I ever came home drunk. Also he twice didn't lock his door when having sex with his girlfriend.


I am so glad that college is over.

[erika]

I'll be happy to contribute. I'll make this a running series.

Hampshire Ave Entry #1

Roommate Rich -- had questionable hygene habits* grew pot in his closet, owned snakes which he feeds rats** on a semi-regular basis, and slept naked with the door open. The room was at the end of the hallway so you could see his hairy butt, etc. from the living room. He slept during the day since his job at the bar kept him up late nights. Made good friends with the drug dealers that operated outside our apartment and invited them up a few times when I wasn't home.

Rich replaced Joe. When Joe moved out he left us long letters about how he would miss us all and we were like family. A few days later we noticed that jewelry, CD's and such were missing from each of our rooms. Joe recently contacted me on facebook to apologize. It's been 8 years. He still has green hair.

I failed to respond.



*something made that room smell like cheese
**the rats and mice escaped a few times so we had some living in various closets and things. No one could seem to catch them but they shit on everything. I found out later that another roommate kept one as a pet. She didn't feed it for a few days and it died in a trunk. But no one bothered to throw it away or bury it and I found it when I was moving out. That was pretty traumatic.


I promise I never did crack. I was just too eager to trust strangers and move out of the dorms. I swear.

[Beth]

Freshman Year of College:

Thank god this only lasted one semester, but my roommate

A: Had sex with random dudes while I was sleeping (or rather, turned on my side toward the wall). After the 3rd time this happened, I resolved that next time I would turn the light on and start blasting Billy Joel's greatest hits. Unfortunately, she got kicked out so I never got the chance.

B. Stole my clothes, and pretended they were hers when I asked her about them.

C. My mom and dad gave me one of those toggle Tiffany necklaces with my initials engraved on it for my graduation. I didn't wear it much, but it meant a lot to me. She stole the necklace, SCRATCHED OUT MY INITIALS and when I asked her about it she claimed that she got it in Chinatown or something, even though I could clearly see where the initials had been scratched out. Possibly the craziest girl I've ever come across.


3 years ago:

A. My roommate didn't work and got all her money from her parents. She would sit inside watching TV and chain smoking with the shades down and the windows CLOSED all day. We stated with a no smoking inside rule, but somehow that disintegrated. It was depressing.

B. My boyfriend would stay over a lot, as would hers. But she decided that even though both of our boyfriends stayed over an equal amount of time, only mine should contribute to rent, since hers was eternally "between jobs".  When I told her that was ridiculous, she got mad at me for like 2 weeks

C. She was an animal lover, as was I, but I already had two cats. She told me she was thinking about getting a kitten. I said okay, since we had a big apartment. Then she comes home with THREE kittens who, although adorable, promptly gave my cats ear mites (and me a 200 dollar vet bill). They would tear everything in the house apart, and when they knocked over a vase of lilacs that I had brought home, she blamed ME for it because she said the flowers were "wayyy to big"(!)
 
She wound up having to give all 3 kittens away when she moved out because she decided she couldn't take care of them. 

[Gilly]

My roommate freshman year was a nice enough guy but we didn't mesh. I came to school with a 200 disc changer and a TV, he came with his physics books and a book full of Maynard Ferguson CDs. In all fairness I was probably his worst roommate ever as well and we promptly got single rooms as soon as the semester was over. It was good that I got a single room since I wasn't ready for the responsibilities of college. I would have been a bad roommate for almost anybody.

I also roomed with a bunch of friends the next year and we got along most of the time but being guys we never talked about it when we had problems with each other and it wasn't pleasant to live in the house for weeks at a time when we just avoided each other. But, it was great most of the time. That could have been a great year if we just communicated with each other.

[Pat K]

on the floor were about 50 bottles of all shapes and sizes filled with urine.

That is awesome.

and when they kicked him out wrote 'Fuck you Bitches' in his blood on the living room wall.

That is awesome.


I have nothing that awesome to add, but one funny story that still makes me laugh is about the passive-aggressive frat guy my friend and I lived with for two years in college. He was a fine roommate, no notes in blood or urine bottles or anything, always very friendly to my friend and I, kept quietly to himself most of the time, did all his partying and whatnot at other people's places. Really, almost the perfect roommate. He was Italian and really into cooking elaborate Italian meals for himself. A few months after he moved in with us my friend came back from a trip to Europe and presented him with a gift of some kind of fancy italian pasta that he bought for him in Italy.

Fast forward 2 years to the day we all graduate and have to move out of our place, to discover that this guy moved out secretly under cover of darkness and left us a long, elaborate note about how much he hated us, what terrible roommates we were, how much he hated living with us, etc. Blindsided to say the least. But the kicker was that, next to the note, he left the little bag of souvenir pasta, apparently as a little "Fuck you" to my friend. Harsh.

I love it because, even if he hated us, why not just eat the pasta? He ate pasta every single night. He made a special point to set that particular bag of pasta aside on principle, save it for two full years, and then ceremoniously give it back, rather than either eat it or throw it out. I love it.

[gravy boat]

One college roommate turned out to be just a horrible person.  After some girl had the nerve to break up with him, he called her parents while he was drunk, shouting multiple vulgarities, the most memorable being "I f-ed your daughter up the a__!"  I'm sure he is having a bad life somewhere.

[Dorvid Barnas]

I shared a dorm room with a mutant named Yuri.  He used my phone while I was on Christmas break, running up about 1500 dollars on phone-sex charges and calls to his girlfriend in Russia.  He was a big, dumb, rich jock, so when I confronted him, he just took a "Well, what are you gonna do about it" kind of attitude.

Well, what I did was email everyone on his contact list a copy of the bill, along with the story of what happened. Among the recipients were his parents, his professors, and his Russian girlfriend.  Within a couple of weeks, his dad sent me a check, his girlfriend sent me a thank-you note (she dumped him), and his parents yanked him out of school. 

Don't mess with the bull, son.

[Turf Out]

I shared a dorm room with a mutant named Yuri.  He used my phone while I was on Christmas break, running up about 1500 dollars on phone-sex charges and calls to his girlfriend in Russia.  He was a big, dumb, rich jock, so when I confronted him, he just took a "Well, what are you gonna do about it" kind of attitude.

Well, what I did was email everyone on his contact list a copy of the bill, along with the story of what happened. Among the recipients were his parents, his professors, and his Russian girlfriend.  Within a couple of weeks, his dad sent me a check, his girlfriend sent me a thank-you note (she dumped him), and his parents yanked him out of school. 

Don't mess with the bull, son.

DORVID WINS!!

[todd]

I shared a dorm room with a mutant named Yuri.  He used my phone while I was on Christmas break, running up about 1500 dollars on phone-sex charges and calls to his girlfriend in Russia.  He was a big, dumb, rich jock, so when I confronted him, he just took a "Well, what are you gonna do about it" kind of attitude.

Well, what I did was email everyone on his contact list a copy of the bill, along with the story of what happened. Among the recipients were his parents, his professors, and his Russian girlfriend.  Within a couple of weeks, his dad sent me a check, his girlfriend sent me a thank-you note (she dumped him), and his parents yanked him out of school. 

Don't mess with the bull, son.

Fuck yes! What did he do? How did he not kill you?

[John Junk 2.0]

Yuri's on a Russian message board sharing his Horrible Roommate story about Dorvid ruining his life right now.