Roommates From Hell (vanity)

Most of us remember the excitement of the BIG DAY. That day, after living in your parents' home for 18 (in some cases 25) years, we finally asserted our independence and moved out of the house!

Whether we were heading off to the "city" to work, or starting our college lives, joining the armed forces, or just finding a space so we could party with our friends, the sense of finally being an adult was intoxicating.

Then Reality set in. We quickly realized that the paltry money we were earning barely covered the rent. Top Ramen instead of Mom's potroast, generic Corn Flakes instead of Captain Crunch. The solution to this problem, of course, was roommates.....at least in theory.

Since we've all survived those crazy days between leaving home and getting married, it is time to share the tales of Roommate Horror!

The Threads you originate are most creative/unique/kinda zany :)
I've noticed that about you :)

When I left for college, it was like sending a baby out into traffic.

I was hopelessly uninformed, naive, an overprotected kid away from home for the first time.

My roommate was going to be my highschool friend..**We had already bought & coordinated our chintz bedspreads & matching pillow shams)**...

..But the school discouraged friends from the same town as roommates and wanted it mixed up a little bit :(

...So they assigned me someone else!----The new girl had written me nifty, happy letters to get acquainted...(the school encouraged this)...

..She sounded just about ideal in likes and dislikes ---a good match!....

My parents were happy and relieved.

Turned out new roommate was ...unfortunately...a teenage boozer, sad to say....and had misrepresented herself in a lot of areas I thought we had in common.

..and spent many nights either throwing up all over the chintz bedspread ....or having dry heaves.---I had never taken a drink, or drugs or ..anything!
She was very streetsmart and I didn't know how to handle any of this----I wasn't going to be a snitch!---but I was so homesick.

I did eventually get another roommate.

I had lots of roommates when I was younger. Many were slobs, but the worst one was on the opposite end of the spectrum. I'd known him in high school but had no idea he was a psychotic neat freak when me and another guy rented a house with him in our early twenties. For the most part, I stayed away from home and always ate at my gf's apartment and at work, so we didn't fight about dishes much, but he'd wake me up early to show me where the other roommate had left a cereal bowl in the sink. Like I cared... There was only one bathroom in the house, and he tried to institute a rule that everyone had to thoroughly clean the tub after we took a shower because he was disgusted at the thought of coming in contact with water that had washed someone else's nude body. Me and they other guy just laughed at him and told him he could clean the tub himself before using it if he was so concerned. He constantly sprayed everything with Lysol, over saturating all surfaces so that they stayed damp. Although there were no bugs in the house, he became obsessed that we would get them because my room wasn't as clean as his (I might have had some clothes on the floor, but no food was in my room). One day I came home and found he had thoroughly sprayed every inch of mine, and the other guy's room, with insecticide, and obviously way more than the recommended amount. The air was unbreathable and I yelled at him. The other roommate was home a lot more than I was, so there was a lot more tension between the two. It finally boiled over, and the normal roommate kicked the neat freak's ass and he moved back in with his mother. That was eight years ago, and he still lives with her.

During my senior year in college, I shared half a double with three other women. One was very cool. We shared each other's clothes and food and never fought over the remote.

The other female usually spent her time with her do-nothing boyfriend.

The remaining female, well...here goes.

The first thing she did upon moving in was to put a padlock on her door. Uh-oh. Those who can't trust can't be trusted. So we ALL put padlocks on our doors. Soon after, she accused me of stealing/drinking her chocolate Quik mix. So she proceeded to move all of her stuff into her locked bedroom in the attic. Whatever, Miss Anti-Social.

Once, upon returning back to the house after going home for the weekend, I find that the heat is turned up to 80 degrees in our poorly-insulated, oil-heated house. All the lights are on as well. I go up to the second floor and discover the bathroom window open. I proceed to question Miss A-S about it, as she is the ONLY one there. She comes out of her bedroom, wearing shorts and sporting a fake-n-bake electric beach tan. AARGH! Screaming ensued. We ended up going a month without heating oil during a particularly cold winter in College Town USA.

The kicker though:
We had a 12 month lease. I sublet my room for the summer term to someone and took off back home for the summer. My cool roommate calls to say that Miss A-S (okay, JAMIE) moved out, ran up a huge phone bill (in the cool roommates name) and left the place a mess. The cool roommate had to wait tables all summer to pay the enormous phone bill. We all ended up paying extra in rent.

Paybacks are a b*tch.

Now I'm not proud of this but...
At the end of the summer, my father drove me back there to retrieve my belongings. I discover upon arrival that one of the cane chairs I had refurbished went missing. Also, among the pile of empty pizza boxes and wine bottles, Jamie had also left a big pile of cat feces.

It just so happens, that during the summer I worked for a large student loan processing center. I was able to discern, accidently of course, the location of said Jamie's new apartment. Also got her social security number and a list of all the classes she was taking.

After my father helped me load the car, I asked him to drive me somewhere. He knew what I was up to all right and never said a word.

We get there, and I found her apartment. I had a nice helping of moldy tunafish she left in the fridge along with some of the cat poop. I am sure her neighbors, with whom she shared a hallway with, wondered why there was a pile of putrid food and feces left in front of her door.

After that, it was to a phone booth I went, a wry smile on my face. I dialed a number and got "Thank you for using the _____-State Telephone Registration System. Please enter your student identification number." Done. "Press 1 to add a class. Press 2 to delete". Hmm. Let's delete that class she needs for her journalism degree and add, oh, I don't know, how bout Heat Transfer 417? I still laugh at the thought of her running around campus (which is HUGE) back and forth to her advisor and waiting in line at the registrar to clear it up.

When I got home, I called my cool room-mate and told her about the events. Her response was "Wow. That's really cool that your Dad drove you".

A few years after college, I was still in the little studio I moved into after school. My mother would often tell me I should get a room mate and get a bigger place.
Why? All the extra money I would have saved on sharing the rent would have ended up paying for a weekly therapy appointment.

I allowed a friend to move in because his last roomate was a real screwup with booze and other illicit substances. Well, my new roomate proceeded to use metal in my non-stick cookware, never cleaned the sink. Smoked in the apartment, when I deliberately told him not to. It was great when I'd get home at night, and put the trash outside the door, knowing he'd be leaving earlier for work than I would. I'd wake up the next morning, and almost trip down the stairs b/c he'd left the garbage bag right in front of the door. Finally, I told him to clean the shower. He said he'd get around to it. I got fed up. He'd spend the night at his girlfriend's, and come home in the morning to shower..this went on for days. I decided to remove the shower curtain and throw it out. Do you think that stopped him? NOOOOO. My landlady wanted to know why the ceiling under me was leaking. Well, that S-for brains showered in the bathroom with no shower curtain, because he said "his girlfriend didn't like him showering at her place.", and had the gall to ask me when I'd be replacing the curtain. He got really mad when I said: "When you clean the bathroom." He left a few weeks later over a rent dispute. NEVER AGAIN!!!!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.