Roommate Horror Stories – Part 1

By the time November has come, you have learned about most of your roommate’s quirks. Some roommates are lucky and get along great with each other, others are not as lucky. Not getting along with your roommate is a common issue and that is nothing to be alarmed about. It’s also an issue most students overlook until they experience a roommate nightmare themselves. Many college specific apartment complexes will help you find a new place, if your roommate situation isn’t the best. Here are a few roommate horror stories that should give you pause before rooming with someone you’re not familiar with.

1. One summer for three months, I had the worst roommate ever. She absolutely refused to purchase groceries and as a poor college student, I was having trouble affording groceries for both of us. I began to hide snacks in my drawers under tons of clothing and somehow they would still disappear! She always denied it and tried to make it seem like I was out of my mind. It always seemed like she was chatting with guys on her webcam and I often had to leave the room so she could hang out with these strangers that she met online. Suddenly, she began knowing everything about me and what I did when she wasn’t there. One day when she was out of the dorm, I did some snooping of my own and discovered that she was constantly recording me with her webcam! I was so freaked out that I had campus life switch me to a different room that day. I didn’t think it was possible to pack up all of my stuff in 20 minutes, but in this instance I managed. Turns out that she had done this to roommates in the past too. The university made sure to notify her that she had to pay for a single room or move off of campus during the upcoming fall semester.

2. My second college roommate, Sara, was a nightmare to live with. She seemed nice enough when we first were matched up, and I was relieved not to have a roommate who was insane. As the first month passed by, I noticed she was beginning to act very passive aggressive. I felt as though her stuff was expanding, even though she had originally arranged her furniture so that it took up 3/4 of the room. After using up every available storage space on her side of the room, she told me she was going home for the weekend to bring shelving units and boxes for under her bed. She returned empty handed, and discussed how she felt it would be beneficial to both of us if we had bunk beds, that she already put in the request with the RA and she would be taking the bottom bunk. I had no say in the matter. To make it even worse, once our beds were bunked, she did not let me keep any of my stuff under the bed, claiming that she lived farther away and had more belongings, and I could just go home to get stuff if I needed to. I lived just as far away from the college as she did.

3. My college roommate horror story started off innocently enough. To tell you the truth, I thought I had it good. I was paying for the standard dorm room — the one where you have a roommate (literally sleeping in the room with you) and you share a bathroom with another room (and the two guys in that room). Much to my amazement my roommate never showed up. I don’t know if he didn’t enroll in college, changed his mind about his living situation or died. Whatever the case, I was left with a room of my own. Ahhh.. heaven. At least that’s what I thought, until I met my new roommate. (No, I wasn’t lucky enough to be able to stay in a room by myself for more than 24 hours. The university had to get their money, right?!?). His name was Stan and I smelled him before I saw him. Great. Perfect match. Me, someone with a super sniffer nose, and Stan, someone with an utter disregard for hygiene. I remember the first day I had to clean up his vomit from the bathroom floor. He had gotten drunk that night, vomited and as often is the case with drunk people, he wasn’t too concerned with cleaning up the mess he had created. Imagine to my surprise when my feet stepped in something warm and gooey when I woke up in the middle of the night to urinate. That was the first of many discretion’s. His smell never got better, but my cleaning skills sure did. For that, my wife, I am sure – is thankful.

4. My college roommate liked to eat pickles, which is fine- I enjoy a good pickle. What was crazy was instead of dumping the pickle juice in the bathroom sink, she would pour it into cups and leave it in the room. Our room smelled like a pickle factory. I would occasionally dump the cups, but she would yell at me. I guess she saved the cups to drink when I wasn’t there. Very weird and smelly. Crazy pickle lady!

5. When I was in my second year of college, I had to find a new roommate. When I found  [name removed], she seemed cool, into the same stuff as me and liked my cats. We signed a 2 year lease and she promptly began refusing to do dishes, clean anything, turn her lights or music off at night and became utterly antisocial, getting meaner and moodier until I finally confronted her and asked what the hell her problem was. She informed me she was just so depressed, but would do better. Things were fine for a week, until I came home from work an hour early and caught her just finishing packing all of her stuff, intending to bail on me and the remaining 7 months of our lease. I informed her that wasn’t happening, she could live where she wanted, but I was not paying her half of everything. I gave the landlord her mother’s address to make sure they could get the money out of her.

Check back next week for more “Roommate Horror Stories”. Have any of your own roommate horror stories? Share them with us and they might be featured in next weeks “Roommate Horror Stories” post. Try using collegerentals.com for your next apartment search, if you have a bad roommate!