We've all heard the common horror stories about random roommates paired together their freshman year. However, sometimes the horror can continue through post-grad if you move in with a brand new roomie. Check out what some of the most patient people have to say about the most irrational things their roommates have ever asked them to do:
If You Have Working Arms, You Can Do Your Own Laundry
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“He wanted me to do his laundry each week while he was gone because of his ever-changing work schedule. If I didn’t do his laundry, he’d help himself to my underwear and socks if he ran out and just start wearing my stuff without asking until I did his laundry.”
Three Years Later, Her Old Roommate Called Out Of The Blue Saying…
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“I had a roommate who moved out without warning about two months before my lease was up. She pretty much disappeared and left most of her stuff in the apartment. She also did not pay up for her remainder of the rent. Three years later, I get a phone call from her. I am living 1,500 miles away and have been in several different apartments, in several different states, during the interim. She says I need to ship her all of her furniture and belongings to her immediately. She yelled at me, saying things like, ‘What do you mean you dragged everything out to the curb the week after I left? You are a terrible roommate. You owe me for the value of my things.’ I stopped answering her calls and eventually she gave up.”
He Tried To Put The Blame On His Roommate
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“About 15 years ago, I worked my second shift and got home around midnight to 40 or so wasted high school kids and two cops at my apartment. When I asked a cop what was going on I was told they were looking for the ‘sponsor of the party’ and I saw my roommate sitting quietly in the living room. I asked my roommate what was going on and he said he had been waiting for me to get home so I could take the blame for serving all of the minors present.
He believed I would take the blame for him because he was in the process of fighting a DUI and didn’t want to complicate that with these new charges. He had already given the cops my name. I told him no and I would be back in the morning to move out. He started screaming that I ‘wasn’t being a good friend’ as I walked out. The cop asked me what that was about and I explained the situation to him. I got in my car and rented a hotel room for the night and he went to jail. My stupid roommate wasted his phone call on me seeing if I would bail him out. I had all of my stuff moved out before he came home in the morning.”
It’s Crazy Jen’s Way Or The Highway
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“My college dormmate – we were arguing before we ever even did the roommate agreement. We lasted two weeks. Let’s see, what did that crazy Jen do? She decided day two that she didn’t like the room set up, so she started calling my cell phone about it. I had been at the beach when she called and there wasn’t service there. I had 3 voicemails demanding to know where I was and that I come back to rearrange the room. I decide to deal with this when I got back but wanted to grab a shower first. She literally burst into the bathroom to confront me about it. I told her to leave me alone and went to a club. Guess who followed and stalked me around all night?
The next day my boyfriend came by to walk me to class. That night she talked to me about ‘having boys in our room.’ The door was open and she was fully dressed at her desk. He literally walked in for 10 seconds since she was studying and didn’t want to bother her. Initially, I thought she meant at night and told her I didn’t have an issue with that. Nope, what she meant was no boys whatsoever. This was also a coed dorm so I don’t know how she thought that’d be possible.
She also demanded I take down my Edward Scissorhands poster since it scared her. I told her to take down her Notebook poster since it made me vomit. She refused. I refused. I put up my Clockwork Orange poster in its place.
I wanted the room for one hour each week to watch a TV show while it aired (no OnDemand back then) and she refused. She said I was putting stress on her and she needed more study time. We were in a residential college, the whole point is socialization. The library is across the street and open 24/7 with police escorts back to your dorm. Also, the show was at 9 pm.
She said I must sleep with a lot of people because I was friends with men and women. She had a photo of her and a girlfriend going to dirty town with a chocolate covered banana yet I was the perverse one. She said I was white trash because I knew how to shoot a gun and wore a tube top and short shorts to sit out in the garden to get some sun. She refused to go in 50-50 on the fridge (or at all) but was then pissed off that she didn’t get half the space. She claimed she didn’t know anyone but also refused to come hang and meet people the first night because only children played games (ok, have fun sitting alone in your room).
She ended up moving to an all girl’s dorm. She put thumbtacks in my bed before she left. Jen was insane.”
Aggressive Nighttime Awakening
“I had a roommate in college who refused to take his keys with him when he went out to the pub because he didn’t want a lump in his pocket. He would then come home after everyone else was already asleep and when the doors were locked. He would start pounding on the door and shouting, ‘THIS IS A SICK JOKE! I LIVE HERE!’ until he woke somebody up and got them to go downstairs and let him in.”
Serious Germophobe
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“He was a germophobe and a bit stupid. He wanted all the other housemates to completely scrub the tub with cleanser after we took a shower so he wouldn’t come in contact with butt wash water or something. We laughed at him and told him he could disinfect the tub himself before he showered if he was so worried.”
No One Wants Crazy Cat Lady As A Roomie
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“I moved in with an actual crazy cat lady who was housebound because of a spinal issue. Apparently, at the time of my moving in, she hadn’t been outside her front door in 2 years. In the ad, she indicated she was in a wheelchair (which she was not and could actually still get around fine just not quickly). She was very obese and I’m sure had some mental issues. The house was in a quiet suburban area tucked around a corner at the end of a row so it was not the easiest target for random break-ins, yet despite this she insisted I double lock the door every time I left the house, even to go to the corner shop for 5 minutes while she was sat a few feet away in the lounge watching TV.
She pretty much never left that spot except to haul herself to the kitchen to microwave another supermarket brand pasta pot or upstairs to bed in the early hours of the morning. One day about a month after I moved in, I was in a rush leaving for work and didn’t double lock the door. I came home as normal and as I walked in she abruptly turned off the TV and turned to look at me with a crazy look in her eye and said, ‘You forgot to lock the door today. I told you to ALWAYS lock the door.’ I said sorry and told her that I was in a rush and I’ll remember next time. She continued, saying, ‘I’ll have you know someone broke into the house and threatened me with a knife, tried to kill me and my cats.’
I questioned the details trying to figure out if this story was real or not and she kept throwing up vague answers about ‘a man’ and ‘Oh, well, the police were here but they couldn’t do anything, they didn’t bother writing a report’ and ‘Technically nothing got stolen but he could have easily done so. You’re lucky he didn’t, otherwise, you’d be paying for my flat screen tv.’ I pretty much threw a half-baffled, half-terrified laughed at her and she demanded I leave her house immediately for being disrespectful to her and her cats’ potential murder.
I refused so she threatened to throw my stuff out the window which I welcomed openly. I slept with a barricade in front of my bedroom door until I moved out 2 weeks later because all she did after that was mutter under her breath about hating my guts and I was convinced she was going to stab me in the night in revenge for her cats’ made up deaths.”
That’s The Last Time She Made Leftovers
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“I lived with a woman who was super tidy and organized. One time, I had leftovers. I put the food into a bowl, covered said bowl in plastic wrap and into the fridge it went. I came home the next day and she literally threw a full-blown fit. She said I was dirty and even asked who raised me to do such a thing. When I asked what had happened, she said the plastic wrap on the bowl was visible. What?! To her, if you use plastic wrap in her home, you need to stretch the top of it to make it basically invisible on the bowl. It shouldn’t be rumpled or have crinkles or anything of the sort – must be tight and invisible. After that, I stopped putting leftovers in the fridge because I wasn’t going to stand there and make sure my plastic wrap was perfect.”
The Coddled Mama’s Boy
“While I was subletting a room, I had a roommate that was terrible. The apartment was in a converted office, so his bedroom was as big as the rest of the apartment. He was a coddled mamma’s boy, so he didn’t know how to do dishes and would leave his dishes in the sink and would literally never attempt to clean them. For the first few months, his mother would come over every other day and do his dishes and laundry and clean the whole apartment, which was awkward when I was there. Eventually, she got fed up and stopped, so after 6 weeks we had slime and mold growing in the sink. I bought 2 storage totes and dumped all of his dishes in them and put them in his bedroom and bought paper plates for myself and kept all of my pots and pans locked in my room (though he didn’t cook, so they were pretty safe).
He also had narcolepsy and would constantly be asleep on the couch in the living room, which was terrible because he had both a nice couch and a better TV in his bedroom. My room was literally only big enough to fit my bed and desk, so him sleeping in the living room for 18 hours pretty much prevented me from using the living room in my own apartment. After a while, I just started pushing the couch (with him on it) into his bedroom and pushing the empty one back into the living room. That guy was the absolute worst. He also always blamed me for not waking him up, even though it was basically impossible and I quickly stopped trying. At the end of the year, when he flunked out of school, he tried to blame both his mother and I for letting it happen and I laughed and laughed and laughed and she cried and cried and cried.”
House Wars
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“10 years or so ago, my girlfriend and I decided we wanted to live together. We wanted to do it properly and spent a lot of time and money getting ready, buying furniture, appliances, kitchenware, bedding, cleaning supplies, etc. Towards the end of this process when we were actually house hunting, the idea was hatched that my girlfriend’s older sister and her boyfriend should move in with us. We found a house that we liked, applied to rent it and got it.
The day of the move came and it became apparent that both couples assumed that they would get the bigger, better, master bedroom. Their argument was ‘we’re older.’ Our argument was that we found the house, did the legwork, completed the application and the whole thing was our idea. Their counter argument was that we get to have the carport and they don’t. Our counter argument to that was that neither of them have a car or a license. Plus, we were supplying this house with all of its furniture, appliances, cookware, cutlery, crockery and everything else for us all to use. They had only brought a bed, their clothes and a TV for their room.
Six months later, we moved out after buying a house and they stayed – obviously we took everything with us when we left. They literally couldn’t believe that we would be taking our own things with us. They wanted us to leave things behind for them to have. In the days leading up to us moving out, we had our belongings packed away in boxes. They would go through the boxes, take out a knife, chopping board, pots, pans, plates, etc and cook a meal with it. Then when I come home and ask them why my packed boxes are all over the place and now need to be cleaned again, they would get mad at me for packing the things away!
After we left that place was basically empty. They didn’t even have the foresight to buy a fridge, let alone all the kitchenware needed to cook and eat food. We did end up selling them the dining table and chairs as we bought a new one for our new house, but they were the only chairs they had for a long while – no couch or armchairs, not even a cushion or beanbag. But of course this was all our fault for not donating half our belongings to them when we just put ourselves $220,000 in debt. They ended up breaking up. The missus and I are still together, in the same house we bought with our 3 kids.”
Not A ‘Fan’ Of This Situation
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“My freshman year in college, my roommate insisted on having two box fans placed in our open window: one facing in and one facing out in order to ‘circulate the air.’ Seems like no big deal, right? Until you realize that he insisted they be on full power EVERY. NIGHT. OF. THE. YEAR. It didn’t matter if it was August or January. It didn’t matter if it was 100 degrees outside or -10. My bed was also the closest to the window and if I tried to get up to turn them off he would get hostile with me. Crazy guy.”
His Ultra Religious Roommate Asked Him To Lie About Everything
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“A friend of mine who I lived across from in the dorms my freshman year of college had a roommate that was extremely Mormon. Their first conversation was if he (my friend) drank and how he’d rather my friend not. So my friend thinks, ‘Yeah, no big deal, I won’t have any drinks in the room, I’ll respect that you don’t want to get in trouble.’ No, guy full-on asked him not to drink at all, ever. He said it got super awkward and the Mormon kid said that if they were going to be roommates and close friends that his religion just won’t accept him being around people who break the rules.
My friend basically told him it wasn’t going to happen but he would promise to never bring it in the room or have people over drinking when he was around, which is more than enough. About a month later, the Mormon kid’s parents were coming to visit and see the dorm now that it was all set up. My friend told me his roommate asked him to tell his parents that he doesn’t drink if they ask. My friend agreed to help his roommate out. My friend is then asked if he will tell his roommate’s parents that he regularly goes to church, but to make sure that he says it’s a Christian religion. He also asked him to tell them he hasn’t had physical relations with girls but hopes to meet a girlfriend at church. He said the Mormon guy was super nervous. When my friend pressed him on why he should announce all this his roommate said, ‘Well, my dad will probably interview you about that and other things.’
My friend just said he couldn’t do that and left, which I guess his roommate was really upset about because his parents were expecting to meet my friend. He knocked on my door and asked if he could hang out for the afternoon and told my roomie and me all about the situation. We weren’t really friends at that point, but he started coming over to our room more and more to get away from his roommate and I made a good friend for life because of the Mormon kid. I was in his wedding and told that story which got a lot of laughs.”
Something A Serial Killer Might Do
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“My roommate wanted me to freeze all food trash. He literally wanted me to not even take it out so the can doesn’t smell – he wanted it piled up in the freezer until trash day in little plastic bags – some serial killer stuff. I even asked a former roommate of his I’m friends with about it and it’s apparently a new thing he does. My only theory is that he doesn’t really eat food- he’s the type to live off Oreos and six coffees a day, so actual organic food trash is a foreign concept to him. All his food trash for the week does fit in a single grocery plastic bag, so I guess he thinks that’s normal.”
Seems Like A Bit Of A Double Standard
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My freshman year of college was a hoot: I wasn’t allowed to get dressed in the room. I couldn’t make noise before 12 because it wakes her up. She demanded that lights are out at 11 PM unless she’s doing her homework. If she’s asleep, no lights can be on at all, not even a desk light. No phone calls in the room, unless it’s her phone call. I can’t be having dinner with anyone else when she wants to have dinner. I couldn’t have friends over at any point during the day or night. No locking the door when she’s out. The blinds must be closed between 8 PM-12 PM. I wasn’t allowed to keep my side of the room ‘clean’ because it ‘makes her feel bad.’ Needless to say, I moved out in the first semester.”
Oh, The Passive Aggressiveness
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“My awful roommate demanded the other roommate to immediately come home while she was at an event and clean the kitchen for her because her family was coming over once that event ended. She also demanded I throw HER trash away. She asked the other roommate to kill the bugs in her room because ‘it was her fault they were there since she suggested opening a window.’ The other roommate suggested opening a window after the awful roommate wouldn’t stop complaining about how hot she felt in her room since she works out in there – she wanted to turn on the AC when it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit and windy outside.
After the other roommate declined, she asked my boyfriend to do it for her because ‘she doesn’t do bugs.’ She asked my boyfriend to pay the electric bill because ‘he came over often’ even though she had a boyfriend who would spend the night for multiple days a week. She asked me to stop having my boyfriend over because she doesn’t like that she overheard him complaining about the note she left on the fridge directed to me to wash my dishes. None of the dirty dishes were even mine or used by me. My boyfriend simply read the note out loud and mentioned that all of the dirty dishes were hers. She waited until my boyfriend left to yell at me for his behavior.”
I Don’t Think Your Boyfriend Will Care
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“She told me I needed to stay somewhere else over night because her new boyfriend was staying for the first time. I said if she’d given me more notice then I could have maybe sorted something, but she’d told me 2 hours before I ‘needed to leave.’ I told her I’d go out for some food and when I came back I was happy to just stay in my room. She shouted a lot about how unreasonable I was being but that was still what I did.”
“We Never Heard The End Of It”
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“We had several rooms and one was huge, meant for two or three people. It had a sink and two walk-in closets. After signing the lease, she announced that she needed that giant room to herself because she had PTSD and OCD. She wouldn’t explain herself any further and threw a passive-aggressive tantrum for a month when we refused to cram ourselves into the two tiny rooms with 4 people so that she could have the big one to herself. We told her that she could be in the big room with another roommate but she didn’t want that. She just chose the small room eventually.
We never heard the end of it either. It was always our fault that she was late to school because she didn’t have a private bathroom and more. This person was in therapy but claimed she was in it because she needed to learn to be less selfless and put herself first. What?! She’d frequently use that as an excuse to be selfish.”
The First Bad Move Was Finding A Roommate On Craigslist
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“I met my first roommate on Craigslist. This was the first red flag. I wasn’t allowed to keep my music above volume 10 after 9 or 10 pm. She, however, loudly sang gospel songs in the living room until 4 or 5 in the morning. Every. Single. Day. I had to open my mail in front of her, otherwise, she’d open it because ‘it looked important.’ Aside from this being totally illegal, why the heck do you need to read my bank statements? She’d text me when I got an Amazon package saying, ‘Oh, your shoes got here!’ since she’d open it and dig around before I got a chance to. She also never cleaned; her mother still came over every weekend to clean her bedroom and bathroom.
She’d let her trash accumulate near her spot on the couch throughout the week. She clearly didn’t remotely care about her living environment, but God forbid I put the television remote anywhere besides the right arm of the couch. I wasn’t allowed to turn the heat on in the winter ‘to save money.’ We live in the mountains of North Carolina and winters are pretty harsh. She would rather freeze than pay an extra $15 per month. Over the summer though, I wasn’t allowed to open the windows ‘so no one breaks in.’ The apartment was either in the 50s, 60s or the 80s. She didn’t like when I used the kitchen to cook, yet she would hand wash her period panties in the kitchen sink even though we each had a private bathroom.”
The ‘Actress’ Who Brought The Drama Back Home
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I had an ‘actress’ roommate who on Saturdays or Sundays said she needed the entire apartment to herself to ‘study her lines.’ I rarely had anyone over to begin as I was usually out and about, but this particular Sunday there were around 4 of us in the living room watching Mythbusters (I only include this to show that it’s not like we were watching NFL screaming/shouting and drinking). She legitimately thought this was not okay and told me that everyone should leave to accommodate her. Anyone who thinks like this should live by themselves. I’ll never understand how people who want to split costs to save money still think people should accommodate them. When I have roommates I realize that if I want peace and quiet I sometimes need to remove myself and go to the library or something. That’s the price you pay to save money.”