Do you think you need a roommate? Well, you may want to reconsider. Between the disgusting, disastrous, and downright toxic, these people call out their roommates for their horrible behavior. Content has been edited for clarity.
Table of contents
1. The Remorseless Roommates
“I had a good friend, ‘James.’ James was moving to New York City with his girlfriend, ‘Alyssa,’ and another friend from college, ‘Kayla.’
I had lived in New York City for a few years already, and I stayed in an old, but manageable, apartment. I traveled a lot for work and I was content with my living situation. Once James and Alyssa realized how high rent costs were in the city, they insisted I move in with them and split the rent costs. Since James and Alyssa arrived in the city, Kayla disappeared with her group of friends. However, she would occasionally stop by on the weekends and sleep on the couch.
Every bone in my body told me sharing an apartment with them was a bad idea, but I decided to give it a go anyway.
I never saw James and Alyssa much. I was on the road nearly every week, and I always arrived back home late on Friday evenings. During the weekend, I completed my expense reports for work, checked the apartment bills, then left again Sunday afternoon.
One day, James asked, ‘Hey, can you let me know if you have a rare week when you aren’t traveling? I don’t like Alyssa being home alone, so if you’re here, I won’t have to worry.’
‘Sure,’ I shrugged and replied.
I didn’t think much of James’ ask. For the first few months of living in the apartment, the bills grew and I was paying a bit more than I anticipated. But overall, everything seemed to be going well.
Little did I know, the situation would take a major turn when one weekend, Alyssa gave me a note with my share of the bills. She claimed all of the expenses were mine, and she and James only claimed about $80 of the bills. The expenses included multiple calls on the landline phone to California, and multiple on-demand movies purchased.
I told Alyssa, ‘These aren’t my purchases. There’s no way I am paying for all of this!’
Alyssa rolled her eyes and replied, ‘No, this is simple math. These charges aren’t mine, and they aren’t James’. So, they have to be yours.’
‘I was in Boston and Baltimore when all of these charges occurred!’ I asserted as I held up the bills, ‘There is no way I could have made these calls!’
‘Well, I don’t care what the papers say,’ Alyssa snidely replied, ‘It wasn’t me or James.’
The argument continued for about an hour, at which point I politely asked Alyssa to leave my room. Later in the night, James turned up, took Alyssa’s side in the argument, and tried to get me to own up to my side of the deal.
I tried showing James the dozens of receipts placing me hundreds of miles away from the apartment, and the argument loop started over again.
James argued, ‘Well, neither Alyssa nor I am responsible for these bills, either! It has to be you!’
Annoyed, I locked my door, left, and met up with my boss for dinner. Again, as I traveled often, my boss and I tried to catch up over dinner and a drink when I was back in town.
I explained my living situation to my boss, and he had a gut feeling something else was going on.
My boss asked, ‘Wait, are you on the lease?’
I replied, ‘No, actually I’m not. It’s just James and Alyssa.’
‘You need to keep all of your receipts showing you were out of town at the time of the charges,’ my boss explained, ‘If your roommates try to go after you in court, the receipts will be helpful. I would consider moving out, too. Your situation is only going to get worse. Take a few nights this week to see what apartments you can find and change the lock on your bedroom door.’
The following Sunday morning, I changed my bedroom door handle from a generic indoor lock to a keyed lock. The tension in the apartment was palpable as the bill situation still hadn’t been resolved. I didn’t talk to James or Alyssa for the remainder of the day as they weren’t home. During the evening, I sat in my room, door locked, trying to figure out what I should do. Then, the fun began.
Around eight in the evening, I heard my door handle jiggle and Alyssa screamed, ‘He changed his lock! What a piece of work!’
James and Alyssa didn’t know I was home.
James replied, ‘Calm down. I can try to pop the lock open with a butter knife.’
To my roommate’s surprise, I opened the door and asked, ‘What are you doing trying to open my locked door?’
‘Well, why did you change the lock?’ James asked.
‘It doesn’t matter why I changed the lock,’ I responded, ‘I’m paying rent, and it’s my room.’
James and Alyssa were furious. They began shouting all sorts of obscenities at me for the next few minutes. Then, the lock to the main door of the apartment opened.
In walked Kayla with a suitcase. As soon as she looked at me, her face turned pale. Then, everything came together.
Kayla had been staying in my room while I was traveling. The bills were hers, not mine!
I was livid, and honestly felt oddly violated. Alyssa shrugged and uttered something about me not using the room much anyway, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t right for my roommates to have someone else stay in my room without telling me.
I didn’t say a word to Alyssa, James, or Kayla, locked my door, packed up my belongings, and left. I made a few calls, and one of my cousins accommodate me until I figured out a new living situation.
Over the following week, James left multiple voicemails on my phone. He wanted to know when I was coming back and when I was dropping off my share of the rent and bills. I never spoke to either James or Alyssa again.
I have despised them ever since.”
2. “It Makes Me Cringe To This Day”
“My first year of college, I packed up and moved into student housing. I lived with six people, all of which were great. However, one roommate, ‘Jason,’ had a strange odor surrounding him almost all of the time. None of us said anything because it was awkward, and we thought he might have a medical issue.
At the end of the school year, we all decided to get an apartment together since we got along well. We moved in, but Jason’s smell slowly kept getting worse. It smelled like a mixture of mold, cheese, and body odor. It eventually became so bad that none of us could eat in the same room as him, let alone sit next to him and have a conversation.
The weirdest part? Jason always used to wear three pairs of pants at once. Joggers, jeans, and then another pair of jeans layered on top. Everyone in the apartment ignored the smell for another year until it became far too much to handle.
Everyone discussed the obvious issue, and after weeks of dropping hints to Jason, we decided that we needed to explain the issue to him directly. One of Jason’s closest friends confronted him about the matter, but Jason completely ignored him.
Then, another issue arose. Not only would mice appear in the apartment, but now, almost every room had a bed bug infestation. It was horrific. Our landlord called an exterminator who had to go inside all of our rooms to fumigate. Jason got pulled aside and spoken to individually by the exterminator, but none of us thought anything of it. He still smelled awful, but at this point, it was the least of our problems. The exterminator told us they would be back in ten days.
Suddenly, Jason disappeared. He claimed he went home on ‘break,’ but it was the middle of the school year. Then, the exterminators came back.
As my friend and I sat in the living room, an exterminator casually asked, ‘Have you noticed a strange smell about the guy who lives in that room?’
The exterminator pointed at Jason’s room.
I responded, ‘Yes, actually, He’s smelled strange for a long time.’
The exterminator replied, ‘What would you describe the smell as?’
‘Feces!’ my friend chimed in.
The exterminator replied, ‘Precisely.’
We all went pale and stared at each other in total disbelief. Not only did the exterminator inform us how Jason’s room was crawling with bedbugs, but he’d also been going to his bathroom in his room the entire time! Jason was using suitcases as a ‘toilet,’ and using his curtains as toilet paper. It was foul!
The exterminators proceeded to bring down all of the evidence and go through every item outside. They were also in shock because they couldn’t stop nervously laughing and gagging each time they found another suitcase filled with body fluids. In total, they found seven suitcases.
Since it wasn’t the exterminator’s job to dispose of Jason’s belongings, they left it all outside of the apartment. Jason never returned to the apartment, and he had to pay thousands in damages. We had to install new carpet, bedding, and curtains, and re-paint the walls.
Luckily, Jason’s mom showed up to clean on his behalf. She cried when she saw his room.
Thinking about it makes me cringe to this day.”
3. Pumpkin Spice Problems
“I always loved pumpkin and pumpkin-flavored foods and drinks. One of those things was pumpkin coffee. My roommate, ‘Christy,’ on top of drinking all of the regular coffee she never paid for, hated pumpkin coffee.
The other day, I simply wanted a pot of my coffee. Keep in mind, I also owned the coffee maker, plus all of the bags of coffee because Christy couldn’t buy anything for herself. So, I brewed a pot and poured myself a cup before sitting on the couch to relax.
Then, Christy came upstairs and saw the pot of freshly brewed coffee. It was still hot, and there was steam rising from the pot. I watched her smell the coffee, realize it was pumpkin, walk over to the sink, and dump out the brand-new coffee.
I immediately jumped up and questioned, ‘Um, what do you think you are doing?’
Christy looked at me, then the pot of coffee, and replied, ‘What are you talking about? I thought this was old.’
There was no way she thought the coffee was old! It was visibly hot still!
‘Well, I don’t like pumpkin coffee anyway,’ Christy continued.
She put the pot back underneath the coffee maker and began reaching for a different bag of coffee to brew.
I grabbed her wrist and said, ‘Nope, this isn’t your coffee. Not happening!’
Then, I unplugged the coffee maker, took it into my room and locked the door.
Christy got extremely angry when I explained to her, ‘You lost your coffee privileges for being an entitled witch!’
She cried in response, ‘You can’t just take the coffee maker into your room!’
I laughed and replied, ‘Actually, yes I can. It’s my coffee maker. I own it. Cope.’
Christy stormed off to her room afterward. I seriously couldn’t believe the audacity she had.”
4. The Greedy Gamer
“A while back, I shared a townhouse with two other guys. I was home a lot and liked watching videos on social media in my free time.
One of my roommates was either gone or asleep most of the time, as they worked the night shift pretty often. So, they didn’t use the internet too much. My other roommate was a hardcore gamer. When he wasn’t at work, he was playing video games online and streaming.
Instead of using the WiFi, which was mine anyway, the gamer roommate ran a cable through my room, to the router, through the hallway, and into his room on the opposite side of the house.
I wasn’t tech-savvy, so I never understood why the internet would randomly cut out. I didn’t think too much of it at first and thought maybe it was just a poor connection.
A week or two later, I asked the gamer roommate if his internet was working a few times. Funnily enough, he wasn’t having any issues using the internet. Soon after asking, my internet would miraculously work again. Interesting.
I knew something was going on, so I finally decided to confront him. As it turned out, my roommate was annoyed about how my internet usage would cause his game to lag while he was playing online. So, as a result, he disconnected me from the internet.
I was furious. Who was my roommate to decide when I got to use the internet? I paid the bill, and the WiFi router was in my bedroom!
My roommate then tried to reason with me, asking if he could exclusively use the internet on certain days of the week. I told him no, as it was my internet, and I could do whatever I wanted to with it.
Of course, the disconnections continued to happen.
So, every time my internet cut out, bam. I unplugged his Ethernet cable. It took maybe three times until he stopped messing with me.
This particular roommate also didn’t do the dishes and ate everyone else’s food. However, it didn’t anger me as much as the internet debacle.”
