Roommates!

[Ryayukou]

I live in a 3-bedroom apartment with 2 other girls. Kim* is one of my good friends since sophomore year of high school, and Vanessa* used to live with me in another house when I first moved out. We get along pretty well, but lately I've been feeling very irritable, mostly towards Vanessa.

*Their names have been changed. I don't want them to find this forum and see this, as little of a chance as it might be, I'd rather not deal with a bitchfest.*

She does NOTHING to progress anything around here. When the dishwasher wasn't cleaning the dishes properly, she's like "We should have someone come look at it, why don't you do that?" Um, obviously you ask me because I'M on the lease and you're not, but go find out yourself you lazy butt. Our washer broke and she keeps pestering me "when are you going to buy a new washer?" Um, when was it my responsibility to buy a washer, since I DID NOT break it?

1.) Bathroom!
First of all, I'm GLAD I have the master bedroom and don't share a bathroom with her, because she leaves her brushes and makeup EVERYWHERE. Thank God we don't pay for water otherwise we'd be so broke with how many showers she takes a day.

2.) Food!
She also buys a shitload of groceries and takes up almost 3 cupboards and the majority of the fridge with all of her food. That leaves Kim with 1.5 cupboards and me with 1. Vanessa also has a VERY annoying habit of wanting to taste, pick at, or eat my food. It doesn't matter if its exotic like sushi or simple like a baked potato, she says "OMG I LOVE *insert food here*! Can I have some?" While I don't mind bite sharing a bite once in a while, she does it EVERY single ****ing time I eat! What, you don't have enough food for yourself? She came with me once to pick up a pizza, and she ATE two pieces of it the next day! WTF?! That was not your pizza! I now almost always eat in my room.

3.) Kitchen!
The kitchen is obviously the common area that the 3 of us share. Vanessa cooks almost every single day, and while of course there's no problem to that, she RARELY cleans up after herself! Either she leaves all of the dishes out or she stacks them all in the sink. She rarely runs the dishwasher when its full too. While I'm not a Nazi about cleanliness, I do think that everyone NEEDS to clean up after themselves. I'm not perfect and sure, I'll leave the kitchen a mess sometimes, but I pride myself on cleaning it up most of the time. She was cleaning it furiously one night because she had a guy coming over, and she has the nerve to say "We should all take turns cleaning the kitchen, and have a chore sheet or something." to which I replied "Excuse me? YOU'RE the one that leaves it a mess most of the time." Being the head of the lease and properties, I do NOT want an apartment with a ton of rules. I just want everyone to clean up after themselves!

4.) Everything else!
Vanessa recently got rid of her car; she said she was too broke to afford the payments and insurance. While I don't know what else she has on her plate, I have to scuff on that; When I first lived on my own, I had a car payment, insurance, 3 credit cards, school, AND living expenses to pay for, and yet I could still live comfortably. On top of that, she makes more money than I do. I'm willing to bet she spends all of that money on clothes and food. But that aside, whenever I'm home and off from work, she asks for rides. "I need to go to the mall to get a new outfit for tonight... wanna go to the mall?" "I'm hungry... let's go get some pizza." I just REALLY want to say "No, I'm not feeling very social, go take the bus!"

Don't get me wrong, she's really a good person and she pays her rent and bills on time and doesn't do anything stupid, but some of her manners drive me batty! She's not even on the lease, so if I really felt like it, I can ask her to leave and she would have to. But I have no reason to since she pays her bills and I really don't want to go roommate-hunting again.

</end rant>

Share your roommate stories!

[Chez Daja]

Wow, I feel sorry for you. Maybe you should actually ask her to clean up after herself because it makes trouble for you and your other roommate? Sure, she pays her bills, but living with people means doing your bit, and she's only doing half of her bit by supplying a portion of the rent.

Anyway, I don't have a roommate, but I do have a terribly annoying sister.

My GOD. For the most part, she lives at her boyfriends' house with his parents, but she insists on keeping all her shit in our old bedroom (where I still live, go figure.) I have no problem with her storing things here. But as soon as I say to her "look at all your stuff on the floor. Do you know how ****ing annoying that is for me to live with? You've got three of our ample shelves, put your things away. I don't neccesarrily HAVE to store all your stuff in my bedroom, you know." She goes insane. She complains that she has nowhere for her clothes because I use a quarter of the wardrobe. Well, MAYBE she should stop buying three shirts a day, then! I literally have to keep my extra clothes in an old bunkbed because she INSISTS on taking the wardrobe.

The problem is, my sister and I are really different. When we were kids, she had to have EVERYTHING, or she had to have the best things, or the most space, and I learnt to just accept whatever I got because it wouldn't be the end of the world for me.

Not only that but she makes loads of washing up and then asks me to wash it! I ask her "so when did you start putting cash in my hand to clean up after you? Do your own damn dishes."

For the most part, I can put up with her, just as long as she doesn't mention our bedroom. Because it ALWAYS esculates to an arguement. Truth be known, I'm not afraid to slap her on the hand and tell her to shut up and listen to both sides, but I'd rather not have to because she's so very needy.

I hope your situation improves. Vanessa sounds like a living nightmare.

[Govinda]

I have five female roommates, and none of us met one another before we all moved in here in September.

I'll just let you imagine what that's like and rest assured, Rya, you have my sympathy.

We do okay most of the time. That's a lie. There's always bitchy undercurrents in everything we say/do. 'That bit of the fridge is soooo dirty...whose food is that? Oh, right, hahaha, that makes sense then!'

You asked for stories, so here's a good 'un.

Two of my flatmates in particular resent me sometimes because I am a lot more intelligent than they are, and one of them's a thick bully, the other a weak follower. So, one night last year, I wander into the kitchen to make some tea. I find them sitting chatting, enthusiastically agreeing with one another on every point.

I go to the fridge to get the milk.

Bully: 'Hey, Heather, I don't think that's your milk.'

Me: 'I bought it last time. This is public milk anyway, isn't it?'

Bully: 'Fair point,' she says, making eyes at the weakling.

Weakling (attempting to change point as she likes me): 'Hasn't the price of milk gone up lately?'

Me: 'Yeah, I think so, they say it'll go higher. Apparently it's the East getting more money, wanting a higher standard of living, and milk and meat and so on.'

Bully: 'Nahhhh...I don't know. I heard it was our own inflation rate.'

Me: 'Yeah, but that goes up gradually with time, and increases in our earnings are meant to keep us from really noticing it. It's not like this.'

Bully: 'No, I don't think so.'

Weakling: 'Aren't all the Chinese lactose intolerant anyway?'

Bully: 'Oh aye, I heard that actually! They are. So it can't be them.'

Me: 'Wait, wait. China as a nation is not lactose intolerant. I'm sorry, they're humans just like us.'

Bully: 'No, it's differences in their biological makeup.'

Weakling: 'Yeah, I mean, we're intolerant to alcohol, but we still drink that, don't we?'

Bully: 'Yeah, yeah, yeah! See, Heather? It's not just they've got more money or whatever.'

Me: 'So the Chinese get drunk on milk and our inflation rate on milk in particular is out of control, yes?'

Bully and Weakling: 'Yeah, must be. You've got your facts wrong.'

Me: 'That's happening a lot lately, it seems, no?'

And with that I took my toast, and left any respect I may once have had for them in the kitchen. They say shit like that just so they can say they proved me wrong in a tagteam. And then they won't wash my cup because it's mine, they won't wash my best friend in this flat's mug either, they rewash cultery if we've washed it ('Oh, did you wash this, Bully? Then I trust it.')

Stupid ****ing little babyish crap that I have no time for. But it affects you if you live with it, in that kind of atmosphere. But we deal with this crap, waiting for the day when we will control the salaries of these idiots, and boss them around for fun.

[Polk]

3.) Kitchen!
The kitchen is obviously the common area that the 3 of us share. Vanessa cooks almost every single day, and while of course there's no problem to that, she RARELY cleans up after herself! Either she leaves all of the dishes out or she stacks them all in the sink. She rarely runs the dishwasher when its full too. While I'm not a Nazi about cleanliness, I do think that everyone NEEDS to clean up after themselves. I'm not perfect and sure, I'll leave the kitchen a mess sometimes, but I pride myself on cleaning it up most of the time. She was cleaning it furiously one night because she had a guy coming over, and she has the nerve to say "We should all take turns cleaning the kitchen, and have a chore sheet or something." to which I replied "Excuse me? YOU'RE the one that leaves it a mess most of the time." Being the head of the lease and properties, I do NOT want an apartment with a ton of rules. I just want everyone to clean up after themselves!

God. I hate when people don't have the common decency to clean up after themselves.

I've had one actual roommate in my life. Jake. Last semester, I lived in the dorms with him. I made the mistake of putting on my housing application (I think that's what it was called?) that I wanted a random roommate, as long as he was in my major. To make a long story shorter, we were exact opposites. Not like, "OMG opposites attract" good, but like, he was a douchebag, and I hate douchebags.

First of all, he chewed tobacco. Green apple flavored tobacco. When we talked, he would interupt himself mid-sentance so he could spit into his bottle. He went out and got drunk every night, and would come back at like, 3:00 in the morning. He would proceed to watch tv, rather loudly, until he fell asleep at like 4:00. I had Spanish 3 times a week at 9:00 in the morning. I imagine how you see this is a problem. Now I don't care if you go out. I don't care if you come back and watch tv. But, for the love of Xenu, be considerate of my schedule.

About mid-October, his girlfriend came down to visit him. I wasn't aware that she was going to spend the night in our room, but I kinda figured it out after she had put her bag in our room, and spread her shit all over the floor. I finally asked, "Hey, is your girlfriend spending the night here?" Which he responded to with a "Yeah. Is that a problem?" Why yes. Yes it is. That's when I decided that I was moving out at the end of the semester.

[Che]

Communication is the key to having roommates. Some things may be awkward, but it's your job as roommates to bring up issues and talk things out. Doesn't matter if it's a random college dorm roommate or your best friend.

If you pass by even one opportunity to communicate a problem, it just gets worse the next time something happens, and grudges get made. Living with your best friends is the worst because you find out how they actually are when you live with them - and it's completely different.

Even if you hate each other you gotta talk to each other about stuff.

[Andromeda]

Its funny you made a thread about roommates. I was talking about my roommates that I had at work today. I'm trying to remember how many that I had in a 18 month period before I got sick of it and picked my roommate and moved out.

I started out with me and three others, the places that the college leased apartments from were always made into a 4 bedrooms even though they always only had two bedrooms. So I start with 3 roommates. One I hit it off immediately and the other two seem alright, though one is a little worrisome. The one that I worried about turned out to be bipolar and liked to get drunk as well. So that is never good. The other one looked like they were trying to get out from their parents shadow and live things up. So with a roommate that you never know what's going to happen next and another wanting party. I tried to keep to myself a lot.

Well the bipolar one things only went from bad to worse. It varied from being extremely verbally abusive to anyone around to being almost physically abusive. I found my bed with water or beer poured on it one time. I found myself nearly on the receiving end of a air freshener in the face as one of the other unluckys did. So after having enough of this for like two months months and feeling alone. The roommate that I did get along with great left for closer apartments downtown. So I felt alone and cornered by people I could not get along with. I had enough of their problems and reported them. Well you know how they say it is anonymous, you know that it never works. They always know who it is. So they open the letter and then proceed to punch my laptop twice and then rip out my telephone cord from my laptop with enough force that the connect was left in the port. I then proceed to get the RAs and have him removed from the building. Needless to say I left two days later to the room that my previous roommate was.

I was free for a while. New roommates, two more and one I already know. They were perfectly fine and I had no problems until they graduated and needed to fill the room again. The roommate I had moved a room down to a single and I was forced again to leave with three new roommates. One stole things, stole someone's laptop and hid it in our closet. I get a knock on the door with a police officer, the RA and the person that they stole from. They come searching and I led them to where I saw them drop it off. The roommate was hiding out somewhere else in the building and was eventually arrested trying to escape. I found out later that they also stole food and clothes from other rooms as well.

One roommate came with their parents. The parents looked at the room and left with their kid. I think they said that they were going to get something to eat, but the next morning that promptly removed all of their things that never did get unpacked. And the others were fortunately unmemorable enough for me to recall. But I think that places me around 10 roommates and 3 of which were in a three month span of time.

After that I was fed up with it and moved out of college sponsered living to a single bedroom apartment with that roommate that I got along great with. We lived together for the rest of the term of 18 months and it all worked out great. Was the best roommate I could have possibly asked for. We ended up doing a lot of things together and still keep in contact after college finished. If I ever end up in California I would see about rooming again until I could live on my own.

That was just roommates. When I lived with the bipolar and partier I had to deal with parties almost every weekend. They would always get drunk and do stupid things. I could not stand it especially since it was part my place too. And they were all underage so I was always scared about getting reported even though I was just minding my own business. I hated it when I would see wine and beer in our fridge just knowing that if a RA came by I would never be able to explain it. Fortunately, nothing ever happened. But those parties got out of hand so often. I actually went to one party at the other place just to humor the new roommates and was completely and utterly bored. I think I left 30 minutes or an hour later. I never did understand the point of cramming 50 people into a tiny apartment.

[Walter Sobchak]

My first semester of freshman year, I lived in a dorm. I had to share a tiny room with a guy, and then we had to share one bathroom with the adjacent dorm. It was not a good situation. I almost never saw my roommate because our work and class schedules clashed. I didn't miss anything, though.

I managed to get kicked out of the dorms just in time for second semester. I didn't really have a place to live, so I floated between friends apartments. I spent most of the time crashing on a friends couch. Her roommates didn't like me.

Now I commute to school. I didn't like the roommate experience. Now, I don't have to worry about laundry or food.

[Sinister]

Oh great Tao... ><

I have been there. Last spring semester I had a roommate who had to be the single most untidy human. I'm not particular. I'm not anal retentive, as Freud might say. I like a decent room that can be successfully traversed. Not having stains all over the dorm is a plus. But we ended up having crap in there that NEITHER of us owned! It was a joke.

My current roommate, is quiet and tidy. Not much to him. He's a little weird in his own way. But then, I'm not calling him weird, I have no place to do that.


-Sin

[Ryayukou]

I was finally able to talk to Vanessa about some things, namely about picking up after herself. Everything seemed to go great.

And then.







And then...








I come home from work early, open the door, and Vanessa is in lingerie, on top of this guy (fully clothed), on the couch, and they're making out! What's Vanessa's reply? "What're you doing here? You're not supposed to be home this early?" Um yeah, I ****ing LIVE here, and yes I came home early! Have some decency and go ****ing make out in your rooms! GAWD!!!

[Rasler+]

I come home from work early, open the door, and Vanessa is in lingerie, on top of this guy (fully clothed), on the couch, and they're making out! What's Vanessa's reply? "What're you doing here? You're not supposed to be home this early?" Um yeah, I ****ing LIVE here, and yes I came home early! Have some decency and go ****ing make out in your rooms! GAWD!!!

LOL I'd probably swear that much or just ignore them out of irritation and go to my room. Though something like that'd probably haunt me in my dreams (like what happened when I first saw my parents having sex when I was 14 xD ...way out of topic)

Oh, btw what did they say afterwards?? lol

[Meier Link]

i had 9 people living in my old rent house at one point. it sucked. 3 of which (all girls not by age but by imuturity) stayed in the same bed as me! we looked like a half way house for a bunch of jagered out whine-os! the really bad thing was i was the one who had to clean up after EVERYONE. they ate all my food. drank all my booze and beer. wore my clothes, didnt help out at all. and the other 2 guys that lived there (that where actually on the lease) wouldnt make them pay rent and every time i asked the 2 guys would tell the other 6 not to worry about it and that i was just jerking their chains.

plus the worst part was the fact that 2 of the girls tried to bring other guys into my bed (there where some black and blue losers leaving my house after that one)

i finally got fed up with it and kicked everyone out but the 2 guys and one of their girlfriends/ fiance'

talk about abunch of hobo loser bastard!

BTW if hopper ever see's - your pimp **** lil sis, and the only person that i didnt want to kick out!!!!!!

if you want more detail i will give it later but dont have time to at the moment

[Yuki-onna]

When I first lived on my own, I had a car payment, insurance, 3 credit cards, school, AND living expenses to pay for, and yet I could still live comfortably.

Wow. By yourself? God, teach me. I suck at life. Seriously.


Well, I have a bunch of roommates. Mates in my room and mates all over the shelter.
I share a bedroom with two others. One of them is pretty quiet, real nice, neat.
The other's a smoker, so the whole place reeks of it (I quit months ago; now I can't stand the smell. It makes me ill). She snores. She eats in her bed. She talks on her phone while we're sleeping.

Actually I think she's shipping out. She missed curfew yesterday and you get kicked for that. Yes, there's a curfew. You're not in by midnight, you get sacked. They want you in by nine though, and if you miss that you can get write-ups. It's kind of like prison lock up procedures. Sort of.

Anyhoo, then there's the kitchen. Oh. My. God. I cannot buy food. There is so much crap everywhere, expired, donated food that normal people didn't want to eat. Soymilk from last summer. Gluten free protein bars in nutmeg flavor. Puffin cereal from january. That kind of stuff. I like to eat semi-real, unexpired food. I also like to eat semi-healthy. I try to get fruits, veggies, dairy, meat, etc. Anything you leave in the kitchen for 5 minutes is gone with the wind. Even stuff I've eaten out of with my mouth, man. Opened bottles of juice or containers of like, salad. Can I have some of that? I'm taking it. I'll be making a meal and people hone in on me...hey...you have some leftover for me? Can I have some? Looks really good. Mm. I'm SO hungry. You SO didn't pay for this, so f the **** off.

And almost no one cleans up their own crap. How hard is it to wash a bowl? Sorry, I'm not cleaning up the whole place after you made boiled over soup and scorched bread in the oven, and left it lying EVERYWHERE.

Living room...well, living. There is no privacy. There is one female constantly present in there, watching tv. No, you can't change the channel. Nooooo!

There is to be no food in the living room. There is to be no food in the bedrooms. You can only be in the kitchen between these hours. Do your laundry here, go to bed by then, be back by now, give us your meds.

Gods...yeah, they make me lock up my meds. I have to go ASK them to get my pills. Everytime. Twice a day.

You know, I'll be glad if I ever get a place 'o my own, even if I have to share it with one or two people who slightly piss me off, rather than a herd of females who are constantly in my face and messing with my shit.

Yeah. Stealing happens here too. I don't have anything of real value I leave lying around, but they seriously take things like t-shirts, they took my dirty laundry bag (WTF?), socks, writing materials, it never ends....

People are weird.

People in shelters...even more weird.

Never, ever, get to a point where you have to stay in one.

Trust me.