Sometimes you choose the person you live with. Other times, fate chooses that for you. As many poor souls know all too well, fate is not always on your side. Endless disruptions, unwanted attention, and blatant disloyalty are all signs of a horrible roommate.
The following stories come from apartment dwellers, homeowners, or college dormitory residents alike who shared a living space with some who made life an everyday struggle. Perhaps these horror tale will help you to appreciate your current roommate... or help you realize that now is the time to move.
This Man Knew Exactly What He Was Getting Into
“I am just going to list off the top three worst things that the worst roommate I ever had did.
1) She bought a sugar glider without knowing much about it. The apartment reeked of tiny marsupial. They may be small, but their scent glands are intense. He also was nocturnal and was constantly noisy at night. She had no idea how to take care of him and screamed at him when he didn’t immediately love her.
2) She also refused to pay rent.
3) Oh, yeah – and there was that one time she tried to stab me with a kitchen knife because I snapped at her.
The moral of the story kids? Don’t move in with your ex.”
Her Boyfriend’s Cousin Was Costing Her Her Health
“I was lost. I was frustrated. I did not know what to do.
I have a celiac disease. My intent when I left one apartment with dirty roommates who contaminated me frequently was to move where I could keep a clean kitchen and not have to worry. But then my boyfriend’s 22-year-old cousin moved in with us so he could get himself together and try to start over.
Since he started living with us he trashed my house. He would not wash anything. When he did, he left food that contained gluten crusted in everything. The counters were constantly a mess of crumbs and there was food splattered everywhere. He used my own dedicated utensils for his food. There was gluten spaghetti in the burners, on the counter, and in the sink. The microwave had a whole crust of cheese across it. He even puked up gluten food in the kitchen and left it for me to clean.
Nothing in my house was clean. Nothing. He would not conform and I kept getting sick. I lost my job because of it. My blood work came back and it was TERRIBLE. I nicely talked to him, to his parents, and to my boyfriend about it. He would not get it through his head that he was sacrificing MY HEALTH because he was lazy and had a drinking problem. He cried to his parents that I was awful to him because I told him off. He then started going on about how he wished he could end it all. My boyfriend would not let me throw him out.
All I wanted was my house back, to feel safe eating, and not like I was living in a wasteland. I did not know what to do. I cried every time I looked in my kitchen, my fridge, or anything. He was blatantly disregarding my health. He was disrespecting my home. He had celiac disease explained to him multiple times. Nothing changed. He did not care.
When we finally kicked him out, it was not strictly for the issue of him ‘glutening’ me. He spent a weekend trying to convince me that my boyfriend was cheating.
Then, he called me vulgar names and was demanding I cook for him because ‘I’m a woman and it was my job.’ He then locked me out of my house in below freezing weather while I was on the phone with my dad.
Fortunately, that put my dad in the loop of everything that was happening. Also, my boyfriend finally understood my issues with that kid. He now knows to stay away from me.”
He Was Only Trying To Study, If Not For His Roommate’s Selfish Demand
“We were in suite-style dorms. We had four people per room with two bathrooms, a living area, and four bedrooms. They were tiny, but separate. The walls were thin, but we were all in our own locked rooms.
On this particular night during finals week, I was up late chatting with some friends on Teamspeak, a voice conference app, and going over some Calc 3 notes. It was about 2 a.m. when the roommate who shared a wall with me knocked on my door. He asked if I could be quiet. I am not a person who particularly loud on the mic, but, it was finals week, so I agreed without a second thought. I dropped out of voice chat and got back to my studying.
A few minutes later, he came back, knocked on my door, and asked if I could turn off my light, which was only coming through under the door. Keep in mind, there was both my door and his. I was a bit annoyed, but I was wrapping up with studying. I figured I could finish up by the light of my monitors and lamp.
Ten minutes passed. I got another knock. I was getting a bit annoyed. The dude was just pleading with me to ‘stop making noise.’ He seemed stressed out and I knew his exam was a lot earlier than mine was. By that point, I was just about done, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was having trouble sleeping?
At about 3 a.m., I decided to get to sleep. Ten minutes passed when, oddly enough, I heard our dorm door open. I heard my aforementioned roommate talking to somebody. It was a woman he was talking to. Shortly after, the sound of kissing start coming from his room. On finals week, this imbecile begged me to stop studying so he could hook up without having to deal with the ‘my-roommate-is-still-awake’ type of awkwardness.
I felt a bit better though the next day. I asked him how the final he had went.
‘Oh, that’s tomorrow,’ he replied.
This was odd, of course, because a buddy of mine was in the same class as he and had it that morning. I could not help but take pleasure in the fact that he soon discovered that he had missed a final.”
Her Friend Needed A Place To Live, But She Needed Her To Leave More
“My worst roommate was a friend who needed a place to live. I let her move in with my boyfriend and I in a house we were renting. The landlord was a friend of my parents and he said that it would be fine. I assumed that we would have no issues since she was very quiet. She also worked and went to college at the same time, so she would be gone a lot. Boy, was I wrong.
For starters, one time she made some food and set the plate on the couch. Then, she walked away for something. I was in the bathroom getting ready, but I got to see what happened next – my dog went for it and started going to town on the unattended food. I ran out to stop him, but she got there first and hit him in the face. None of that would have happened if she left her freaking food on the table out of his reach like a normal human being!
She would also encourage her cats to attack my dog if he was merely in the same room as them. She would be super happy if they scratched him.
Speaking of her cats, she would let them eat chewed up food out of her own mouth…
She would never help with housecleaning. However, there was one time when my dog was sick and he had an accident on the floor. She cleaned it up with one of my good bath towels and left the poop covered towel on the living room floor. She acted all offended when I asked her why she couldn’t use paper towels or the carpet cleaning machine we had like a normal human being.
Also, instead of using a napkin, she would suck each individual finger clean, loudly, after eating any sort of finger food. She would do this not just after finishing the meal, but between bites. But that was not even as gross as when she would shave her pubes while sitting on the toilet and not flush. This created a forest of pubes sitting on top of the toilet water.
She once asked if we could set up cable TV for her in her bedroom. She never used it. Instead, she would intrude while my boyfriend or I were playing video games to sit and complain out loud about how boring it is watching other people play games.
Girl, go watch TV in your own room since you begged to have cable set up in there. Nobody is forcing you to watch us play!
Once, she told me about a coworker who she thought was creepy. A few days later, she bragged about getting him fired. Why? Because he said ‘Hi’ to her and made small talk in the break room. She thought he might try to assault her.
My boyfriend, who is now my husband, and I were in the process of buying a house during the time she lived with us. When we moved out she was on her own. She did not live with us for too long. Thank God.
I’ve only talked to her once since she moved out. It was such a relief to get away from her.”
Everybody Hates Shannon
“Her name was Shannon. We hated her so much.
She ran a house painting company during the summer. She had all these really expensive, tall ladders. She insisted they were too valuable to keep in the back and they were too long to get upstairs to her room. She kept them in the living room.
She used dip and would leave her cups of nasty dip spit all over the house. She would eat our food, then say that she did not.
She never washed the dishes. She used the same pan all semester for all her morning eggs. She would not even give it a rinse. Day after day after day, she continued to cook eggs with cooked-on burnt eggs in the pan. It smelled disgusting.
She wouldn’t chip in for toilet paper, nor would she ever change the roll. She wouldn’t wrap up her sanitary pads or tampons. She would just toss them in the garbage as is. She wouldn’t even take out the garbage herself. She would also use our bathroom toiletries without asking. Once I found out, I started keeping my stuff in my room and locking it.
Forget you, Shannon!”
She Was Honest On Her Profile, But Not About Everything…
“The other girls in my dorm hall and I considered writing a book about how weird this girl was. We matched on a roommate site because her profile said she that was tidy, studious, and religious. I’m not a huge partier, I study a lot, and I am fairly neat. However, while we lived together, she proceeded to do a lot of problematic things.
She would invite me to a church at which I was yelled at for wearing black tights and a long top instead of a dress and not reading ONLY the King James version of the Bible. She also played loud hymns constantly. It was like visiting my grandmother in a nursing home. She was always listening to old song like ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘How Great Thou Art.’ I thought they were nice songs, but not 24/7.
She never even left the room except to go to church. She only ordered takeout. She didn’t go to class, which led to her being put on academic probation every semester that I knew her. She left an imprint in the chair she used because she sat in it forever. Our resident advisor had to check on her because her key card to leave the dorm had only been swiped five times in one month.
She bought fruit scented perfume because she claimed that it made her smell like a ‘snack’ to guys. She would spray it all over the room. Once, she thought my gay cousin was flirting with her and followed him on every form of social media, stalking him constantly.
However, she thought that I was a hussy because I was in a sorority and would go to the occasional party. Once, when I went to a country concert, she told me that country music was only about drinking and ‘fooling around,’ which she used as further proof of me being ‘easy.’
She slept with the lights on. She would turn them off when I asked, but then turn them back on the second she thought I was asleep. She wanted me to give her a 20-minute heads up every time I would come back to the room. Once, she thought that I was lying about being a size 2. She went through my closet to see if I really was.
At least monthly, she would overeat so much that she would make herself sick. She would get our RA to drive her to the emergency room. The doctor would tell her the only reason she was throwing up was because she ate too much junk food. She would then have the RA go through the McDonalds drive-thru on the way home.
She really was something else.”
He Would Have Been Better Off In Juvy
“I got, deservedly, kicked from home at 18. My folks put me on to a charity for troubled teens in which they would put you in a house shared with two other misfits, covered half of your rent, and checked in twice a week to see if you were looking for jobs. There were three houses within a ten-minute walk of each other. One was the domain of a couple of girls whom nobody got along with, the second was a raver house, and the third (the one I was deployed into) was full of bombers. I am not sure of the parlance outside Australia, but bombers were graffiti artists/clothes thieves/criminals.
I spent most of my time at the rave house because my place became unlivable. There were always about 20 people in there, always doing nothing. That was bad enough, but they were all dressed head to toe in the best clothes because all they did was steal. They all had cash to burn.
Our landline was bugged. You would hear weird noises and clicks and the calls would echo. One day there were five (obviously stolen) high-end racing bicycles in the backyard. The people and the house were all known to police. Hence, I was as well. Once, I came home at night and heard voices in the yard. It turned out to be two homeless guys burying some cash and contraband in the yard for some reason. Of course, they were delighted to see me.
One day, I heard that they had roughed up Joe. Joe was a kid of maybe 14 who kept strange hours, was out all hours of the night on a BMX, and knew all three houses and everyone’s name. He was a really weird kid with a big, smart mouth. He was so unusual that my friends and I just figured it best to give him a wide berth. He would mess with us, but we never bit. He gave off a weird vibe and we figured any kid who was this brazen and out at 2 a.m. so often, presumably, had older brothers or something.
After I heard that one of the housemates hit Joe, soon later, our mailbox got smashed to pieces. Then, a window. Then, the front lawn got poisoned. I came home one night and all of the lights were out with the front door wide open. As I entered, a tweaked-out bomber jumped out with a baseball bat and almost hit me before I could tell him I freaking lived there. I decided to spend a couple nights at the rave house.
After three days, I dropped by to change clothes. All the lights were on and all the doors are open. Nobody was there and the house was completely trashed – upturned couches, thrown drawers, beds flipped, the lot. I was picking my way through all this wondering how bad my room would be. It was untouched. I changed and went to the rave. I saw a couple of my housemates there. They all had injuries and black eyes. The missing ones were in the hospital.
Apparently, Joe did have some pretty big brothers after all. They all moved out the following week.”
Her Roommate Better Have Been Kicked Out Of School For What She Did
“My sister can be a bit much, so I can see why people don’t like her sometimes. However, she had a roommate who legitimately tried to murder her.
My sister is deathly allergic to bananas. She cannot be in the same room as a peeled banana or she’ll start breaking out into hives and her throat will swell. In college, she had a roommate from somewhere in the Caribbean who grew up eating plantain bananas. She liked to eat a lot of bananas. All my sister asked was that she eat them in her room and keep the peels in the trash can in her room.
Nope.
She would leave banana peels all over the kitchen and make a big deal about touching all the doorknobs all the time. My sister told her resident advisor. The roommate said my sister was faking it and just being racist. My sister wound up moving out of there in about a month.”
Her Best Friend Became Her Biggest Fear
“She is my best friend, but living with her was complete torture. I am a very easy person to scare, so she would constantly try to scare me everyday at least five times a day for her own amusement. The worst one was on Halloween one year.
We were having a party at our house. Naturally, I was so wasted when I went to bed that I just pulled the covers off and passed out on the bed. A few hours later I woke up. In the corner of my eye, there was a bug in view. I looked around more and saw loads of them.
I screamed. I got up so quickly that I tripped and fell off my bed and into my nightstand, then crashed into the wall. I was still very inebriated. Then, I sat on the corner of my dresser for a solid three minutes before I figured out that the bugs were not real.
Earlier in the evening, she had snuck upstairs to my bedroom while I was mingling with friends. She laid a bunch of fake rubber bugs in my bedsheets and covered them up with the duvet. Living in constant fear is the worst.”
His Hypocrisy Drove His Roommates Up A Wall
“One of my freshman year roommates was an inconsiderate imbecile in every way possible. He was openly racist in the presence of other white people, but around black people, he was sunshine and smiles. He was on the school’s basketball team, so my other roommate and I were curious about why he was friendly with the black players when he was racist as crap.
‘It’s different when you know them,’ he replied.
This drove us up a wall. It was the closest I have seen a person come to a realization, but just come up short. He just never finished the realization that black people are people too and not what cartoonish stereotype he thinks they are. When we first moved into the dorms we were talking about our RA who is from a SE Asian country and the thought entered his head that the RA just might be a Muslim so he bolted out to confront the man who is a very very devout Catholic.
On top of that, he bathed maybe three times a week, which was an issue because he was on the basketball team. My other roommate and I took the greatest glee when his mom, an employee of the university, called the coach and told him how disrespectful her son is to her. He had to sit on the sidelines in his suit and tie instead of dressing out because of it.
I recently contacted my other roommate to see what’s up as obviously I try to cull toxic people from my life. He became a white rapper, and turns out that his rap career flopped like a fat man in a cruise pool and he became a high school basketball coach instead. He had to delete all his stuff because the district has a lot of black kids and there would have been an issue as the whitest kid on the planet loves to use soft-A in his music.”
Conflict Behind Bars
“I had a horrible cellmate. We were in prison in a unit waiting to do AODA treatment. He did not shower at all. He smelled like a freaking dead animal. Then, he would listen to his radio without headphones in, so I would have to listen to it. I finally told him I would pull him off his bunk and beat the living crap out of him if he didn’t stop.
He was always kind of shuffling around like he was out of it. As it turned out, he got transferred out for mental health issues. A few months later I saw him on the prison yard and he asked me ‘What’s up?’ like he was a normal dude.
I did have another cellmate who put contraband in my bunk. I found it as I was making my bed after breakfast one morning. I started thinking about what I should do.
Do I confront him?
He seemed kind of smart, but he was about 20, a gangbanger, and a lot bigger than me.
If he tells me to back off do I fight him? Do I take my radio, wrap the cord around my hand, and freaking brain him when his back is turned? Then, we might fight, but he’ll be dazed. Or, he won’t do anything and know not to mess with me. Regardless, this dude is not hiding his crap in my property.
Suddenly, the squad came to our cell and told me to go sit out on the flag. As it turned out, out he got into some crap and had to go to the hole. They were there to pack his stuff up.
Holy crap, there is a God, I thought.”