As school gets ready to resume, Lobo readers are changing habitats faster than hermit crabs. And as we all know, with new habitats come new habitat-buddies, or “roommates,” if you will.
Many people find lifelong friends and confidants in their new roommates. More often, though, they find seemingly normal people who turn out to be certifiably insane. Which is why the Daily Lobo Culture section is bringing you a guide to terrible roommates, each with a bite-sized lesson on how to avoid these awful, awful situations.
Names have been changed to protect street preachers, public urinators, country-music fans and the occasional innocent, but all the content is real.
The situation: Emilia moved in with her best friend and her best friend’s best friend. She didn’t get along with the best friend’s best friend and decided to move out. After an awkward-breakup moment when she told her best friend she was moving out, Emilia discovered that both best friends had psycho sides.
The experience: “I get a phone call from (the bf’s bf:) ‘I will f*****g kill you …’ I called four of five of my friends to help move my stuff out. Then a couple of days later I’m like, ‘F*****s! They stole my Swiffer!’ I go back and find it and I took it back with me.” Emilia was at a coffee shop when she got a phone call from her roommates saying they felt threatened by her because she came into the house (that Emilia was still paying rent for) when they weren’t there. As soon as I get into my car, I see their car drive up and my roommate jumped on the hood of my car and started threatening my life again. We had to get the people from the coffee shop to come make them leave.”
Closure: “I had to go to the landlord, and the landlord kicked them out. But at least I didn’t have to pay the end of the lease. The landlord was like ‘That sucks. I’m really sorry.’”
The lesson: “This is why you never move in with your best friend.”
The situation: Jack had never lived with a roommate before and decided to give Craigslist a shot. He found an offer to live for free, on the condition that he worked transcribing spoken-word cassettes his new roommate had recorded. Things were going well with his new roommate, a street preacher, until a traumatic experience caused the roommate’s crazy side to come out.
The experience: “He claims he was drinking water out of a vodka bottle and he got arrested for public intoxication and was thrown in jail for three days. I guess he was kind of tormented and picked on a lot there. When he came back, he showed all the signs of schizophrenia. It was like he had broken completely … it just turned into a complete nightmare … there was random bottles of pills and, like, neck braces, just really strange stuff he started keeping around the house.
The closure: “I had to get out of there, but it was really difficult because he had it set in his mind that I was going to stay. It was like getting a child to let go of their favorite toy or something. It was really creepy, actually. I slept with a knife under my pillow because he had made death threats in times of mania … I got a friend to come over and distract him through, like, religious talk while me and a few other people really hurriedly took all my shit out of there, in, like, a 30-minute period. He started crying when he realized I wouldn’t be living there anymore.”
The lesson: “F**k Craigslist.”
The situation: Ian had originally moved into a triple-occupied dorm room during the fall. Initially, he hit it off with Stan more than the other roomate, so the two agreed to room together and let him move out.
The experience: “One random night I went to sleep, and I think it was around 4 a.m. I woke up to shuffling on the side of me. He was just sitting on the bed for a while. I thought he was just going to go to the bathroom, and I am just trying to go back to sleep. Then he starts approaching my bed … and then he decided to pull out his penis basically. I jumped back and thought, ‘What’s going on?’ He just basically decided to pee on my night stand, pillows, and I am sitting there trying to figure out what’s happening.”
The closure: Ian called his RA, who had no clue what to do. He then called campus security, who also hadn’t been trained for the situation. The police eventually got involved, but Ian said they decried the seriousness of his situation. Finally, the head of the building changed his room immediately.
The lesson: “If there’s any advice, it’s just to stay calm in those situations.”
The situation: Hans moved in with his roommate by accident. He had planned to live with another, but had to jump ship when that one wanted to live in a more expensive apartment. Things seemed fine to begin with.
The experience: “He turned out to be a football playing, hick jock, who obviously doesn’t fit my personally. The worst part of it was the country music every single morning. And he went to bed at 9 p.m., which just isn’t right when you’re sharing the same room. He’s in college. He should go to bed at midnight at the earliest. And he did ask me to leave a couple of times so he could have sex, which sucks because you don’t want to deprive the poor guy of sex, but you also don’t want to be kicked out of where you’re working.”
The closure: As it turns out, there wasn’t a lot Lee could do about it. He dealt with his roommate best as he could, and waited till the guy moved out the next semester.
The lesson: “It wasn’t so bad that I thought about moving out or switching roommates, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant in any form.” Which is probably what you’ll run into. College is all about dealing with people you can’t stand. Get used to it.
Do you have any roommate horror stories? Tell us about your habitation irritation below.
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