People Realized They Were Living With A ‘Monster’ And Had To Share Their 26 Stories With Folks Online
InterviewAlmost everyone has had a roommate that made their entire life hell, especially students. They can recount tales of horror about roommates that would invite guests at random times, would be super loud when they tried to study, or just refused the entire concept of personal hygiene. And the dishes, oh my God, the mountains of unwashed dishes…
Reddit users have come together to share their worst experiences with deeply awful roommates. Read on and have a chuckle or a shudder at their stories!
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In my last two years of school I rented a house split between 5 guys, one of whom was a last minute addition that I begged them not to let live with us, I even offered to pay the rent on his room while I looked for a new one. But I got outvoted, and so we had this guy, who I'll call Roger because he looked like Roger from American Dad.
Roger did not seem physically able to walk without stamping his feet, multiple guests commented on how f*****g loud he was. Oh and he wore his winter boots inside.
Roger said our wifi was too slow, he wanted to play Xbox live while watching netflix. So he ran an ethernet cable from our kitchen, through the front hall and up the stairs into his bedroom. He didnt tape it down nearly either, it hung low in several spots giving our house the appearance of a spaceship in disrepair. He loudly proclaimed how brilliant he was an how much faster the internet was now, not realizing someone had already cut the ethernet cable.
Roger frequently fell asleep with loud music or tv playing on his tower speakers, and would not turn if off unless his favourite roommate asked him to, yes, he would tell the other three of us to f**k off and then act all apologetic if Juan would tell him to be quiet.
One night it came to a head. He fell asleep during exams with some loud music playing and it woke the whole house up, all of us(his mancrush Juan included) knocked on his door for almost an hour trying to get him to turn it down. When he wouldnt answer, we decided to jimmy his lock and turn it down ourselves. He was fast asleep with noise cancelling headphones on.
All this time he was falling asleep to music and tv, it was just to antagonize us.
Housemate brought her mom and they tried to perform an exorcism on me.
I had a roommate in college who found out she had a tumor in her throat a few months after going into remission after her thyroid cancer was treated. After she broke the news to all of us, my other roommate decided to make up a story about she had had cancer as a child and almost died. The entire story was FAKE.
That is a miserable excuse for a human being. Absolutely disgusting. My best friend’s brother died of childhood cancer. It’s heartbreaking, and absolutely NOT something you should make up for clout or whatever.
My first college roommate never did laundry.
For dates, he'd "borrow" my clean underwear (even though I clearly told him to leave my junk alone) and return them dirty (unwashed) afterwards.
Right after college, I lived in a house that rented out rooms on an individual basis. Most people were completely fine but you'd get the occasional s**t roommate. Then there was Doug. Doug was about our age, unemployed, and an alcoholic who would drink himself to blackout almost every day. He was also a total slob and would make huge messes in the kitchen before going back to his room to drink some more and blast loud music. The next day, he wouldn't remember anything, see the big mess in the kitchen and whine about "people being gross." Of course when any of us pointed out that it was his mess, he'd always say he didn't remember doing it and that it couldn't be his mess. Yeah Doug, I can't imagine why you don't remember. I'm sure the handle of vodka you drank last night had nothing to do with that. He was eventually kicked out because his parents refused to pay his rent anymore. I genuinely hope he got some help because the amount he drank every day would kill an elephant.
Freshman year of college, I got assigned a roommate who was the antithesis of what I put on my roommate matching questionnaire. He was loud, smelled horrible, and had no concept of personal space/private property. A few times I caught him trying to use my computer or rifling thru my desk looking for stuff while I was in class.
He said he was supposed to be on medications (not sure if it was for ADD or some other psychiatric issue) but never took them which exacerbated the whole situation. Finally convinced the powers that be to let me switch rooms and it made a big difference. I heard that other guy ended up going thru like 3 other roommates after me in barely 1.5 years before he got kicked out of school.
For this story, Bored Panda got in touch with the story’s author with a couple of questions.
When asked how confrontations would look with the roommate, they said they would play it off as it was no big deal.
“I laughed it off the first time or two, but it just kept happening,” the poster clarifies that this was more than a two-off incident.
The positive takeaway from this experience for them was that sometimes you won’t get along with people, no matter what, and that that is okay.
Finally, the most difficult part for the poster is that the rummager wouldn’t respect their space no matter what, even if they tried talking about it or bringing in the Resident Assistant (RA) to mediate.
I lived with 2 other of my really good friends at one point. One was fine and dandy (minus the fact that he would cook for himself, not do the dishes, then complain that there was no dishes for him to cook because we stopped cleaning up after him). The other I am no longer friends with and this is partially the reason. He was a bartender and he loved to party. He would routinely bring groups of people back to our place after work, often around 3am. One time, I had to be up for work at 6. He brought a bunch of his coworkers back to our place and they started playing Rockband at 330am then got upset when I told them to f**k off.
Next, due to the fact that he partied so much, he would sleep in. He also had an alarm clock that would go off until he turned it off. You could hear his alarm clock throughout the apartment. For some reason it wouldn't wake him up, you could sit there and listen to it go off for like, 30 minutes. But the second you opened his door, it would wake him up and he would be like "oh sorry" and then turn it off. This happened almost every day. I would pound on the walls shouting at him to turn it off but he wouldnt until you actually went in the room. He would get mad if you came in to turn it off for him. Despite the fact that he worked nights, his alarm was set for early in the morning for some f*****g weird reason.
Finally, our lease was coming up. We all agreed to resign. We needed all 3 of us to afford it. We kept asking him over ad over if he was going to resign and he was always like yes yes yes.
The day we had to resign I left for work, and my other buddy left for work. We planned to meet later to go resign. A couple hours later I'm at work and my other roommate calls me and says yo man, I just got home, and all of our other roommates s**t is gone. I was like what? he was like yeah, all his s**t is gone, and there's a letter just saying sorry, not resigning. He then proceeded to ghost us for weeks. We eventually ended up confronting him at his work where he eventually admitted to us that he had never planned on resigning and that he felt the best way was to just wait till we left for work, and then move all his s**t out so he didn't have to deal with the confrontation.
This same guy had a crippling drug and alcohol addiction that we helped him beat, and then he proceeded to treat us, and tell us, that we were enablers despite the fact that we weren't the ones drinking and doing drugs, he was.
We don't talk anymore.
In my first year at University, I was randomly matched with my roommate. We were friends for the first three months. I went home one weekend and usually before I leave I clean my side of the room as well as any weekly chores. I came back to my room after the weekend and saw that my side of the dorm was completely messed up. My bed was distraught there was crumbs over my desk, my bins had been tampered with. I was confused because I knew I cleaned it. I asked my roommate at the time if she had people over and messed up my room. She denied it. That night I texted my mom saying that I’m pretty sure she used my side, which is fine- as long as it’s cleaned after. I was ranting to my mom about how it’s wrong and she should be a better roommate and own up to it. I then clean up the mess (because she refused to clean a mess she ‘didn’t’ make) and went to bed. For the next few weeks she stopped talking to me completely. Throughout the weeks I would text my mom and friends about the whole situation and how it’s weird. A mutual friend of mine and the roommate had asked me if we (my roommate and I) were still not talking. I had said no she stopped talking to me after I went home that weekend. He then told me the truth. My roommate for months had been waiting until I fall asleep, to take my thumb and use it to open my IPhone and read all my messages. He told me that she stopped talking to me because of the messages I would send to my mom/friends. The mutual friend only told me then because he witnessed it and she said “it’s fine shes a heavy sleeper” and thought it was wrong. I couldn’t believe it! One night after the mutual friend told me, I decided to see if she’d do it again. I had a coffee and ‘fell’ asleep. When she thought I was sleeping I felt her do it and snoop through my phone for 20 minutes. After that, I went to the residential office and switched rooms. She has denied this ever since. That was the last time I saw her, she ended up dropping out of school the following year.
Was in college living in a suite style apartment, (4 bedrooms with private bath, shared living and shared kitchen.) My friend rented a room, I had a room and we got two rando assigned to us. After a few months our places started to increasingly smell worse and we couldn't figure out what was going on. We deep cleaned, bleached everything, but could not find the source. Only thing we didn't do was go through the 2 rando's rooms.
One day one of the random's went home for the weekend. My buddy and I broke into his room and discovered the source.
This dude was s******g in plastic bin and keeping it under his bed. After a big WTF moment we disposed of it and confronted him. He of course denied it all and claimed he never did such a thing.
After several days the smell went away and never came back.
Poopbucket is now a cop.
The cheapest, most selfish person in existence. The one TV at our apartment was owned by him and it was at least 10 years old and on the verge of going out. One night, before bed, I switched it off because I seriously feared it was a fire hazard. I'm awoken at past midnight with him returning home, furious that "I broke his TV" because it would not turn on. Demanded restitution and became really aggressive. I went out to call the police (this was early 90s, so no cell phones). When I got back, he'd totally switched personalities and was calm and rational.
My mom bought a new TV, but it was mine, and this was one I let him use. One night I was watching Star Trek and he comes and switches the channel in mid-episode. I tell him that's not cool and to turn it back. He flips out, becomes violent, and we have a physical fight.
I move out and take the TV with me. Then, he has no TV at all.
Last I heard he was threatening to file charges against me for assault. This was 1993 and no charge ever came. A*****e.
Early in college, I stayed in the house with three roommates. In the eight months that I was there they washed the dishes about three or four times.
They would do the thing of letting dishes soak - for days, weeks on end - sometimes in bleach water, in lieu of actually washing them. It even got so bad that they would replace their pots and pans instead of washing them.
I had limited myself to a single cup, plate, bowl, etc (that I had brought with me and kept in my room) so to keep from adding to the horde. Even kept my groceries in my dorm mini fridge that I kept in my room
A couple times, I spent a couple hours washing all of their dishes just so I could have enough room to wash my own. Also with the naive hope that maybe once they had a clean slate, they would keep up with it.
It didn't take, of course.
Eventually, I just got fed up with that and washed my dishes in the bathroom. I ended up leaving and getting my place shortly thereafter. While I'm still friends with most of them nearly 25 years later, I never had roommates again.
Wow it sounds like I wrote this, when I roomed with someone I had to get a mini fridge etc. groceries would be gone within a day, so I kept one in my room with a lock on my bedroom door.
my roomates opened the door for a person with a knife at 12 midnight. I realized it when i walked into the kitchen seeing them talking with said person showing them their knife and how cool it looks. nobody knew him. they never understood why i had a problem with it and it boggles my mind how they can not.
Was dating a girl during covid. She ended up being nuts so I dumped her, but she started talking to my roommate to try to get information about me. She manipulated him into thinking I was abusive with her so they colluded and contacted all my dating apps and got be banned on pretty much every dating app.
When I found out, my roommate filed a false restraining order and made up some story that I cornered him, shoved him exe.
I had to hire a lawyer which cost me $5,000. When we wen't to court, I had so much evidence that he was lying that he didnt go through with the case and we both signed a mutral settlement agreement. I lost my TSA Pre and Global Entry and had to go back and forth with TSA for 8 months to get that back.
Worst thing is I still lived with the guy for a good 4-5 months because of financial reasons and because of the agreement, I could never speak to him about it.
Did the roommate honestly think they were doing the right thing and protecting op's ex, or were they just a jerk?
She failed to mention that she was an escort, there were strange men in our apartment at all times. She also had an OnlyFans that she would create content for in our shared living room, leaving her b******g out on our shared furniture. Needless to say I quickly got the f**k out of there after 2 months.
I think censored word is b******g edit: yup it’s b u t t p l u g
Dorm-mate in college set the room on fire while I was away. Dumbass thought it was a good idea to boil oil. Whole building had to be evacuated. When I came back, everything looked like it was covered in ash and we had to be given temporary housing for a week.
I had one roommate that punched my then husband at our after wedding party because he was drunk.
Also had a roommate that was a paranoid schizophrenic. He would constantly talk about people watching him and listening to him with his phone, (which I guess technically happens). He also showed up at my then husband's place of work, where he has also worked at one point in time, because he thought one of the coworkers was following him?
Another roommate believed in the 5G conspiracy. The wifi router for the house was in his room and he made a big deal about it saying he didn't feel safe with it there.
My sister let a co-worker move into her finished basement. They stopped paying rent for like 6 months. As my sister went to have them evicted, Covid hit. They stayed there rent free for two more years. My sister had to pay their electricity and heat, and they kept breaking into her cable and internet.
When they finally left, they unplugged their fridge with food still inside and left it there. And they poured a ton of kitty litter into the toilet.
My neighbor & her boyfriend whom I had only known for about a month talked me into moving in with them saying I could “save money.”
I was emotionally wrecked & in a weak state at the moment & I had gone to them for emotional support & someone to talk to, and they saw me coming a mile away.
They were lazy, narcissistic hillbilly trash who refused to work. He (we will call him Walter) was working on trying to get disability for a supposed “back injury” that only became apparent if he was going to court, going to the doctor or refusing to do housework. She (we will call her JoLynn) was on SSI for a learning disability, but her check went almost entirely toward movies & entertainment when it would arrive. The one paying the bills was Walter’s elderly father who had earned his social security.
They had a baby who was JoLynn’s crutch for getting her way on EVERYTHING. Every time life hit her hard, her argument would start with, “I have an xx month old baby…” The fear of CPS visiting the home would almost always be thrown in, as well as numerous threats toward anyone who might dare to call them.
House needed cleaned? My job. Unexpected bill? My rent went up to where I was paying these loons over $400/month by the time I moved out. Privacy? Not allowed, because JoLynn was afraid I would spread dirt on her family & (of course) get CPS called.
My room was busted into at any time of day or night, or whenever she felt like ranting. I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep, and I had to be at work at 6 AM with a 45 minute commute.
The funniest thing? I was the one doing THEM wrong. When I finally got out of there, they demanded money for ALL the food I had eaten, accused me of hurting the baby (absolutely not true) said my family had called them making threats & that I had cussed her out (also not true), and tried to hold all my stuff until I paid up.
I did end up getting most of my stuff out by threatening to bring the police with me to get it & that was my one victory in the end. I left after 4 months & never looked back. This all happened almost 15 years ago & I still have some residual PTSD from some of my experiences living with these people.
College roommate, Junior year. 7 years ago. We had an on campus townhouse.
I found a dingleberry of his in the shower.
He had a smell that followed him. Luckily, it was a cyst, so he went home and got it treated and the smell was gone after that. Unluckily, there was an instance of blood spatter on the wall right by our toilet.
He visited his parents one weekend and left his door open. You could detect a stench from down the hall. Me and another roommate poked our head in to see what was smelling. Roommate said "don't look down." I looked down, and there was browned underwear. We closed the door. Stench was gone.
The dude also used bar soap that stayed in the shower. That's fine. The problem was that we knew he wasn't using it enough because it stayed the same size.
He also cooked and never cleaned.
He was pleasant in conversation and literally in nothing else. Not fun to play games with. Not fun to do homework with.
My roommate moved out and left the state while I was at work two days before the COVID lockdowns. Both our names were on the lease so I was stuck paying the entire rent. She was also my best friend from college.
Living with friends is always a great way to make sure you'll no longer be friends
Had a roommate that was so long on the toilet i shat myself
In my second college year I was located to a residency with the two messiest people I’ve ever met in my life. They weren’t s****y people mind you, but that had zero consideration for basic cleanliness. It was the kind of messy you see on the stereotypical messy friend on a sitcom. I opened the fridge to move in my food and I swear it nearly [ended] me. I quickly requested to be moved to another unit, and was told by the residence association that they weren’t shocked, apparently these two already had a history with the residency.
Well, well, well, if it ain't another victim of roommate roulette! Let me tell you, son, I've had my fair share of bad roommates. One time, I had a roommate who thought it was perfectly acceptable to cook fish in our microwave, stinking up the entire place with that god-awful smell. And don't even get me started on the time I caught my roommate using my toothbrush to scrub the grout in the bathroom.
But let me tell you, the absolute worst was this dude who would blast death metal at all hours of the night. I'm talking 3 AM, 4 AM, you name it. And when I finally confronted him about it, he just looked me dead in the eye and said, "It helps me sleep." Can you believe that?
I'll tell you what, folks, roommates like that make me glad I'm a lone wolf. Ain't nobody gonna mess with my peace and quiet, that's for damn sure.
Sorry about my earlier comment. I find the writing style irritating, but obviously what I said was offensive to some.
I've had a lot of roommates., there is a clear winner for the worst. Police raided the house taking everyone on the front lawn pointing assault rifles at our heads yelling "where are the children!" They searched the entire house taking all forms of media recording and questioning everyone. Learned later that day the roommate was producing and distributing child pornography. He was only incarcerated for 1yr then released on probation.
I had a roommate not only charge me and another for 1/3 the rent, each which would be fine but we were paying for her, her two kids and her girlfriend while she didn't. I set up a great birthday party for her when we were friends. Money coming from everyone for a futon for her. I got woke up at 3am with her threatening to strangle me for stealing the money. As I slept on the futon we all bought her. It was twenty dollars that was late getting to me and since everything was already paid I used it with her two kids so they could get their mom a present. That was only one story so many more. Once I moved out I swear when I saw her again I ran and hid. She was abusive and I never realized till almost too late.
I've had a lot of roommates., there is a clear winner for the worst. Police raided the house taking everyone on the front lawn pointing assault rifles at our heads yelling "where are the children!" They searched the entire house taking all forms of media recording and questioning everyone. Learned later that day the roommate was producing and distributing child pornography. He was only incarcerated for 1yr then released on probation.
I had a roommate not only charge me and another for 1/3 the rent, each which would be fine but we were paying for her, her two kids and her girlfriend while she didn't. I set up a great birthday party for her when we were friends. Money coming from everyone for a futon for her. I got woke up at 3am with her threatening to strangle me for stealing the money. As I slept on the futon we all bought her. It was twenty dollars that was late getting to me and since everything was already paid I used it with her two kids so they could get their mom a present. That was only one story so many more. Once I moved out I swear when I saw her again I ran and hid. She was abusive and I never realized till almost too late.