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I'm in school right now (Professional Military Education, they call it), and my family is back home--so I live with two other officers in military housing. While the building is a four-plex, it's essentially a group of cells consisting of one 10 x10 room for each of us, and a common kitchen and bathroom. I haven't had a roommate since I got married (10 years now), and I honestly forgot how hard it is to live with relative strangers.
At one time or another, almost all of us have lived with friends or strangers (who hopefully became friends) for a certain period, whether in college, or getting out on our own for the first time, or even as a matter of course.
What are some of the most awkward or frustrating roommate-moments you've experienced?
I live with 3-4 other people (someone's moving out but hasn't found anyone to take over their part of the lease). The first weekend I lived here, the toilet overflowed all over the bathroom floor while I was out for the night. I stumble home half drunk, dying to take a leak and there's a floor covered in water and excrement. One of my roommates comes out and says,"Oh, didn't you get my email? The toilet overflowed. I'll clean it, but I'm not planning to get up until around noon tomorrow, so..." So I made a bridge to the toilet with plastic bags and did my business, then got up the next day and cleaned the whole mess up. Threw out the bath mats and everything, sprayed down each and every surface with disinfectant. I basically told them: "I cleaned it up, you're buying a new bath mat, plunger and, for good measure, shower curtain because the one there is f!#*ing disgusting." Way to get off on the right foot, huh?
Never mind that one of my roommate's girlfriend moved in with him in the front room, so I overhear them going at it if I make food late at night. I've started bringing my headphones whenever I want to keep my appetite.
I can't wait to move out of this dump. Some of them are nice people, but I can't do this for much longer. "Nice person" and "good roommate" are sometimes completely separate things.
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Only ever had two roomates so far in my life. A good friend of mine and his horrible, b!*+@y wife (girlfriend at the time, though).
They had a dog that they refused to discipline. They didn't want to 'hurt his feelings' even when he ate entire plates of my food left up on a 4 foot counter 2 feet from the edge, woke me up early in the morning barking at passers by, et cetera.
She also constantly criticized me for not 'pulling my weight' by cleaning up after their messes. I kept my room, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the corner of the front room with my desk in it clean. Didn't concern myself with the rest.
I'm pretty tidy and easy to please, but god that woman was unbearable. It wasn't so bad at first, but she got more and more bold with her criticism and harshness, until she finally crossed the threshold of what I would silently tolerate. That's when the arguing began, and within a month I had moved out.
Had a blast living with my friend, we did a lot of fun stuff when she was at work or out for the night, so I don't really regret it, but I do feel sorry for him having to deal with her.
There is a reason why I do not have roommates... anymore.
I've had some intresting roomates.
I have gotten along with most all of them because it was single guys living together but the one mistake I made was moving in with really good friends that were married.
She wasnt a total B at first because like I said we were all friends but after we started living together and she didnt have her and hubby alone time then she changed.
She never said anything to me about could you stay gone for a few hours, she just thought I should know. I learned my lesson about that situation, women wont say anything to the 3rd roomate if hes a guy because they think the hubby should do it, the hubby wont say anything because he doesnt see it as a big deal or he doesnt want to hurt roomates feelings so nothign gets resolved and then it all blows up and friendships are lost.
Most recent roomate refused to eat vegtables. IN ANYTHING. if he could taste anything but meat and pasta he wouldnt touch it. We had alot of hanburger helper.
I'm living by myself now and love it.
Living with others can be awkward. I remember when I was in college, long long ago in the halcyon Eighties, I moved in with a very good friend from high school (In fact one of my original gaming buddies). We shared a room, and there were several others involved in the larger appartment, all of whom were his friends previously (we attended the same college, but it was a large school and we hadn't been travelling in the same circles for a few years).
First off, I found that my buddy had changed quite a bit, from a fun-loving geek to more of a pretentious smug superior know-it-all. I rode with that, and I must truly say I wasn't easy to live with either.(I was an active binge drinker and all around slob at the time). Despite our issues, I had thought we were getting along OK, when he dropped the bomb on me two days before I was leaving for the summer that he didn't want me as a roomate anymore. Needless to say I was pretty pissed, as it had already been agreed that we would room together the next school year, and I had planned accordingly.
Then, someone in the house stole his Sony CD player. Remember, this was 1988. A Sony CD player at the time was cutting-edge, and cost about $700. Someone came into our room and lifted it, and nothing else, right in the middle of our falling out. Naturally, he blamed me. I was even MORE pissed then, as if there is one thing I cannot abide is a thief, and being accused of being one made me literally see red.
We parted ways pretty acrimoniously. Since that time, we have seen each other at reunions and weddings, and we can be civil, but I have heard from mutual friends he still believes I stole his precious CD player. Our relationship has never got past the cool acquaintence stage, despite nearly 20 years of distance.
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Back in my college days, my fraternity brother John and I shared a house for a year with a guy we had met in the dorms. This guy was really weird - sat home most of the time ) watching TV. Almost every time we came home, he'd be laying on the sofa, with a blanket pulled up to his chin and watching TV. We'd invite him to parties at the fraternity house, but he never came. We eventually gave him the nickname of Fern.
The funniest was one time when John and I were late coming home because of some fraternity business that ran overlong. We get back to the house and he was sitting at the dining room table looking pissed. Turns out he had expected us home hours ago and had cooked this big meal. Needless to say, he began to lecture us like and angry housewife. We both just laughed our asses off.
The next year, John and I moved into the fraternity house.
Director of Game Development
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I always had great luck with roommates and always lived with good friends. And we stayed that way.
In my experience, the best roommate situation you can get is living with a musician in a frequently touring band. "Adam, we're going on tour up the East coast, so here's my half of the rent and bills for the next two months. Can you feed the cat while I'm gone?"
Absolutely.
aaah my best room mate story. In college I was living with somewhat of a friend from high school. Another girl from our high school who lived in the next dorm over had a tremendous crush on him. He waffled back and forth on dating her, stringing her along for months. He instead was chasing after a girl I dated years ago that went to the next college over. Well the two girls were friends and were frustrated with his games so I came up with a little idea for some good old fashioned revenge. They called into a local radio show that had a segment called Lesbian Tuesday and professed their love for each other. The reason named for them turning their back on men was of course none other than my roomate. Well the bit aired on the radio and the stoners next door to us decided to tape and then play it on constant loop for hours. The whole affair ended in a shoving match in the hallway.....aaah good times.
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Hmm... no real bad roommate experiences, had some interesting ones. My favorite was when I was rooming with a 50 year old Drag queen called Emerald. "Hey Jeremy can you zip up the back of my dress I can never reach and I'm afraid the press on nails will fall off if I try". Like I said it was an interesting yet entertaining experience.
I actually prefer to live with room mates much of the time and choose to live in a rooming house instead of taking a small condo for my digs mainly because I like being able to wander out of my room and often find some one to hang out and chat with.
One thing that works really well for us is a cleaning service for the common area's - make having a cleaning lady come in every two weeks part of the rent. That keeps the common areas from ever getting too messy and means less fighting over who is or is not responsible for the dust build up.
Also I live in a situation with a land lady so that means there is some one at the top of the hierarchy which results in their not having to be to many sessions of trying to come to some kind of mutually agreed on X or Y. Everyone has to play by her rules and that keeps conflict down.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I've had good roommates and bad as well. There's really only a few simple principles that if everybody would observe, roommate situations would be much better.
1. Be considerate- put yourself in the other person's shoes.
2. Don't mess with other people's stuff.
3. If you are tidy either a) don't room with someone messy or b) develop patience.
4. Never ever ever ever ever room with a married couple (or girlfriend/boyfriend) under any circumstance.
My first roommate in college worked out great because we were both observant of #1. A roommate disaster occured because of #2. Dude kept using all my bathroom products. Srsly buy your own toothpaste guy and quit bogarting off mine.
Here's a few of my favs:
1. If it's clean when you walk in (like the stovetop or counter, for example), it's clean when you walk out.
2. If it doesn't belong to you, don't touch it, or eat it, or drink it, or use it.
3. If it's a reasonable time to be quiet (like 10 PM), be quiet.
4. If you stand up, don't piss on the rim, the floor, the seat, the baseboard, the tub, etc.
5. Flush the toilet.
6. Community property means community replacement.
7. If your room stinks, keep your door closed; if you stink, take a shower.
9. If no-one else in the house salts their language when they speak to you, keep all the f*++s and cocks to yourself.
10. Walk down the stairs at 0430 and 2300--don't run, in boots, while belching and farting.
11. If a bedroom door is closed, knock and wait.
12. You like football and you like to coach the teams from your easychair, in your loudest voice. Everyone else likes to read quietly, or sleep, or study, etc. Watch your game in decibels that do not escape your closed door, or use headphones; coach-at-a-distance in your mind or under your breath, or go to a pub and yell with all the other champs who had the decency to leave the house.
Not any actual horror stories, but just one little detail that I'll never ever forget about. My first dorm roommate in college was a nerdy, quiet little guy who mostly kept to himself (Engineering Major - big shock, I know). The thing about this guy, however, was that he had a full-on skinny little Hitler-mustache. I never really had the heart to ask him just what the Hell he was thinking.
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1) My ex and I had a cat named Havoc. One annoying waste of space was fond of launching the cat from the stairs while intoning in The Annoying Fanboy Voice "Cry Havoc, and let slip the cat of war!"
2) While living with above-mentioned-ex, her daughter's abusive waste of space was threatening to show up. We LITERALLY armed ourselves for such an event, waiting for him to bring the door down. Two weeks later, we invite him in with open arms just because my ex's daughter made pity eyes at us and lied about being pregnant. And yes, he really deserved the Armed Response.
3) "Could you play Xenosaga again? *I* already beat it 4 times, but I want to watch someone else play it."
4) 13 people in a two bedroom duplex in South Austin, most of whom were LARP'ers. Need I say more.
5) A person so cheerful and heartwarming that we nicknamed him "Dramadeus"
6) Six month couch surfer who brought illicit substances into our home because he was 'trying to move them'. And we're not talking the green stuff.
7) A cohabitant who had serious diabetic issues, but wouldn't monitor or care for his condition. Went into a diabetic shock/coma at least once per month.
And I'm stopping there, 7's a good number.
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only one horror story really, all my other roommates were good situations, including rooming with a couple.
The horror story was a former friend (we had been friends for over 10 years at that point) who moved in with me years ago. He started off pretty good, but then started chowing down on my food, paying less on the utilities, etc. Also got ticked because of the hours I worked (800am - 400pm and then 600pm - 200am five days a week at the time) and he would wake him up when I got home from the night gig (I tried hanging a heavy blanket over the hall entry to muffle any sounds I would make, set the TV volume to barely audible, play video games without the volume on, even if I would sit in the living room and read ... all was too loud apparently).
Finally ended up with him going off on me because the only food I was buying was stuff to make sandwiches ... this was the last straw. I decided at that point to move to the other part of the state and gave him about two months of forewarning. He stopped giving me any cash for the rent for the last two months and when I was loading the last of my stuff, it was two days before the end of the lease (which was in my name) and he had not moved anything anywhere.
A coupe years later, I went back to my home town and ran into a couple who were mutual friends who asked me if I felt guilty for what I did to him. I had to hold back from flipping out on them completely, but managed to bite my tongue and limit it to a simple "Hell no. Why should I? Is he feeling guilty for screwing me over?"
Not any actual horror stories, but just one little detail that I'll never ever forget about. My first dorm roommate in college was a nerdy, quiet little guy who mostly kept to himself (Engineering Major - big shock, I know). The thing about this guy, however, was that he had a full-on skinny little Hitler-mustache. I never really had the heart to ask him just what the Hell he was thinking.
I had a drill sergeant with one of those. I sure was too chickensh!t to ask him WTF he was thinking. Mostly because he would probably end up making me do pushups until my arms fell off.
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Right now I'm listening to the football game going on in my roommate's cell at the end of the hall. I have no idea how he fit two teams and a crowd-filled stadium in his 10' x 10' cloister.
His sudden outbursts of " and "Fuuuuuu_ _" the last moaned in a drawn-out, frustrated tone, are equally annoying and amusing.
His running commentary is actually funny...for about the first ten minutes. Three hours later, it tends to lose its charm.
Thank God for the tech of noise-canceling headphones :-(
I really can't stand football.
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I went to the commissary and picked up a ton of candy this morning for the trick 'r treaters tonight. My roommate, when I walk in the front door, "F&+* man--are you giving out candy tonight? I guess I get to listen to the doorbell go off all night, huh?"
I sat on the front porch until 9 PM, handed out treats by myself, then headed off to the "Haunted Leavenworth" walking tour.
I'm enjoying school; I dearly miss my family (especially tonight), and I can't stand my roommates :-(
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While there are plenty of horror stories about paranoid roommates waving guns around in drunken rampages, the one that sticks in my mind as creepiest was the dude who would sit on the couch with his hand down his pants.
Dude. It's *attached*, it's not going anywhere. You don't have to hold on to it.
My first year in collage, in 97-98, I had four roommates. Not at once, mind you, in a row.
My first roommate was pretty good. He was in band and they had band practice early in the morning so we went to bed at around midnight every night. He moved out to move in with one of his band buddies. He had a little TV that I think we may have watched once while he was there.
My second roommate was an insomniac manic depressive that listened to Pink Floyd all the time. I would wake-up in the middle of the night and he would be sitting on his bed reading a book with a reading light with a blue lightbulb. (He thought the blue bulb made it easier for me to sleep. I don't know if it did or not.) I used to keep loose change under my mattress and I'm pretty sure he was taking my change. My mother insists he stole a pair of my pants. I honestly don't remember if he did or not. Maybe I didn't have as many pairs of pants as she thought. He failed out of the first semester so I didn't have him as a roommate second semester. As I said, he listened to Pink Floyd all the time (except when he was sleeping all day through his classes) so he actually had a stereo.
My third roommate was pretty good too. He was a friendly guy and a computer science major. He had lots of friends and he would introduce me to them when they would stop buy. He had his own computer which he allowed me to use as long as I didn't change his settings. He had a big scantily clad poster of Jenny McCarthy over his bed and used to complain that he had broken up with his girlfriend had hadn't done the deed in X amount of time. At the time I had a steady girlfriend so I tried to be compassionate. He moved out to move in with a buddy whose roommate had moved out.
My fourth roommate was from Mexico. He had been in a dorm room with a Spanish speaking roommate but he wanted to learn English so they put him in with me so he would have more regular exposure to English. He already had a bachelor's degree in accounting from a Mexican college so he literally was just there as a language student. He was a pretty good roommate. He kept hours I liked and was gone a lot of the time. He had a girlfriend in Mexico that called once or twice. If he wasn't there, he told me to just tell her that he was out. He was out from Wednesday evening until Sunday evening because he would leave and go to visit his American girlfriend that lived 50 minutes away, and stay with her for the better part of the week. He and I got along really well but he basically failed out of his language classes because he was gone half the week and spent the other half going out to bars every night. He told me he was going back to Mexico because he had learned to speak English and he didn't need to stick around for the end of the semester. He seemed to feel that he got more education in English in the bars than in his classes. He invited me to go to the bar with him on multiple occasions but I was 18 at the time and had never been to a bar, and didn't think it appropriate for me to go to one, so I declined.
Throughout all these roommates, I was usually gone on Friday evening, and Saturday and Sunday because I also had a girlfriend 50 miles away and I'd always make arrangements to get to see her. Her sister was also a student at the same college, as was a cousin of mine, so I could always find someone to hitch a ride. (I didn't, nor do I now, own a car.)
All that, and I still had a month where I was by myself at the end of the semester. During that month, I decided to read Stephen King's It again and I started watching Gargoyles the cartoon show at 7 am. So I started going on all-night binges of getting hot fries and a slurpee from 7-11 and reading in IT until it was time for Gargoyles, then going to bed.
I withdrew from the second semester on the last day to withdraw before finals.
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When I went back to college for a semester 7 years later (2005), I made sure I got a single room. The dorm with the single rooms wasn't air conditioned, but I made due, and my neighbors were awesome. If I wanted to see or hear them, I would just leave my door open while I was there. The resident adviser for my floor was another guy who was returning to college and his room was near mine, so we hung out a lot, and the guy across the hall used to play World of Warcraft some with his door open while I played Neverwinter Nights with my door open.
I was on the honor roll (is that the same as the Dean's List?) that semester but I didn't have enough money to keep going full-time and I don't qualify for student aid because of the number of classes I had dropped in the past. After that semester I moved back home and picked up classes piecemeal for awhile. As it stands right now, I need to complete 9 hours without dropping any hours before I qualify for financial aid again. That's 3 courses. I'm hoping it won't be too long before I have the money and means to sign-up for another class. I could have done it last year, but I decided to use that extra cash to buy an Xbox 360 instead, and I don't regret that decision.
Ultimately I would rather be in school than doing anything else, and I'd be a professional student if I could get away with it. But if I ever do go back to school full-time, I'm definitely not going to have roommates.
I kind of got off topic there, but that's fine.
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WRT:
Right now I'm listening to the football game going on in my roommate's cell at the end of the hall. I have no idea how he fit two teams and a crowd-filled stadium in his 10' x 10' cloister.
His sudden outbursts of " and "Fuuuuuu_ _" the last moaned in a drawn-out, frustrated tone, are equally annoying and amusing.
His running commentary is actually funny...for about the first ten minutes. Three hours later, it tends to lose its charm.
Thank God for the tech of noise-canceling headphones :-(
I really can't stand football.
Well, I finally had enough of Sunday, all-day, football. My roommate is loud, obnoxious and despite my repeated engagements with him regarding his volume--both TV and voice--while I'm studying on Sunday afternoons, he continues to watch and comment at unbearable decibels.
None of us actually have a TV--we all use the internet to watch programming through network sites or services like Hulu.
I am the only automations-saavy person in the house, so I manage our network.
Today, I managed it in my favor, as unethical as that is, and changed the password to the router.
His connection immediately dropped off, and after several shouts against his computer he came down the hall and asked me to help.
I showed him that the connection was fine, and I guessed the problem was on his end. I promised to take a look after I finished my essay and readings for the day.
He promptly left for a local sports bar, and I re-changed the password.
Wrong? Sure.
But I finished my homework.
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I am the only automations-saavy person in the house, so I manage our network.Today, I managed it in my favor, as unethical as that is, and changed the password to the router.
His connection immediately dropped off, and after several shouts against his computer he came down the hall and asked me to help.
I showed him that the connection was fine, and I guessed the problem was on his end. I promised to take a look after I finished my essay and readings for the day.
He promptly left for a local sports bar, and I re-changed the password.
Wrong? Sure.
But I finished my homework.
+1
WRT:
** spoiler omitted **Well, I finally had enough of Sunday, all-day, football. My roommate is loud, obnoxious and despite my repeated engagements with him regarding his volume--both TV and voice--while I'm studying on Sunday afternoons, he continues to watch and comment at unbearable decibels.
None of us actually have a TV--we all use the internet to watch programming through network sites or services like Hulu.
I am the only automations-saavy person in the house, so I manage our network.
Today, I managed it in my favor, as unethical as that is, and changed the password to the router.
His connection immediately dropped off, and after several shouts against his computer he came down the hall and asked me to help.
I showed him that the connection was fine, and I guessed the problem was on his end. I promised to take a look after I finished my essay and readings for the day.
He promptly left for a local sports bar, and I re-changed the password.
Wrong? Sure.
But I finished my homework.
No not wrong, we who control the network make the rules. It's just that simple.
1) My ex and I had a cat named Havoc. One annoying waste of space was fond of launching the cat from the stairs while intoning in The Annoying Fanboy Voice "Cry Havoc, and let slip the cat of war!"
2) While living with above-mentioned-ex, her daughter's abusive waste of space was threatening to show up. We LITERALLY armed ourselves for such an event, waiting for him to bring the door down. Two weeks later, we invite him in with open arms just because my ex's daughter made pity eyes at us and lied about being pregnant. And yes, he really deserved the Armed Response.
3) "Could you play Xenosaga again? *I* already beat it 4 times, but I want to watch someone else play it."
4) 13 people in a two bedroom duplex in South Austin, most of whom were LARP'ers. Need I say more.
5) A person so cheerful and heartwarming that we nicknamed him "Dramadeus"
6) Six month couch surfer who brought illicit substances into our home because he was 'trying to move them'. And we're not talking the green stuff.
7) A cohabitant who had serious diabetic issues, but wouldn't monitor or care for his condition. Went into a diabetic shock/coma at least once per month.
And I'm stopping there, 7's a good number.
#4 made me shudder. How long were you in THAT situation? #5 on the other hand, made me bust a gut laughing. I want to hear more of your roommate experiences.