posted 05-26-2001 00:01            

I would like to hear about the worst roommate you've ever had. What makes this person so bad? Why do you wish they would disappear?

As a subtopic: What is the absolute worst thing you've ever done to a roommate of your own? Perhaps you've even done something that would qualify you for the worst roommate title? Tell all.

posted 05-26-2001 02:31            

The worst roommate I ever had was when I first moved up to Oregon from Louisiana. He was a friend of mine since high school and wanted to move to P-Town just to get out of LA.

I knew the guy was troubled, but, for some strange reason, I thought I could help him. He had been basically smoking dope since birth (literally --- his dad would blow potsmoke in his face as a baby to get him to sleep), getting drunk since about 8, had been beaten senseless by his father a number of times, had lived on the streets of Austin for about 6 months selling acid-soaked SweetTarts --- just to name a few things.

But he really wanted to move. So I let him, and he came up here about two months before I did. When I finally got here, it was insane.

He would bring home street kids, dope dealers, homeless people he met at the MAX stops...they (there were usually 4 or 5 of them) would bring over about 48 Red Dog beers, consume them in about 3 hours, scream, yell, fight, jump, kick, rip, and puke at anything in sight. They would also bring over sizable amounts of pot and smoke it out of crushed beer cans. They'd play my CDs full blast, play my Nintendo, fuck with my guitar, etc.

Now before EOD says anything, what makes this so bad is that we weren't technically on the lease at the place we were staying. And the place we were living in is basically a brand-new complex, very quiet at night, for yuppies and such. It was a friend of mine's extra apartment, and if anything were to happen (i.e., managers finding out, police being called, etc.), not only were our asses grass, but so was my friend who owned the apartment.

What is also of note here is that this was a one-bedroom apartment. Technically, I had the bedroom and he had the living room, but they kept me up all the time. And once I started working at Stream, it was worse, since my shift started at 5am and people would still be up and drinking when I was getting up from trying to go to sleep all night. So I think I had many a fair complaint.

But roomie didn't see it that way. All he cared about was having fun and going to work drunk. I learned that during the two months he was here alone he lived off of selling plasma twice a week. He rarely paid rent, or bills, or groceries.

The good thing about him was his almost-queer tendencies to cook and clean house. My god that boy can make some world-class hashbrowns or red beans and rice. And when he cleaned, it was shining.

However, he never could clean well enough to get the large scrape/oil stain that he put on the wall when he leaned on and knocked over his bike during one of his drunken stupors.

When my girlfriend moved up here from Louisiana we kicked his ass out. He ended up living with a security guard from the strip-mall where he worked, but after three weeks of living there he was booted again (after said security guard took $400 rent from him). Then he moved all his worldly belongings, in a shopping cart, to another friends house, which was the last place I ever saw him.

And now he's back in Louisiana, how I don't know. But I do know, that through a mysterious coincidence, he get a job working with my brother in a pizza shop and was fired in under a week for coming into work drunk. Some things will never change...

And that bastard still has my Pretty Hate Machine CD and Star Wars tie!

posted 05-26-2001 07:38            

I was kicked out and moved back in with my parents... I didn't move out of my own accord, and I wasn't trying to find a new apartment for TWO MONTHS before giving up and moving out anyway.

Hmm... I wonder though if I could qualify as a bad roommate...

posted 05-27-2001 17:06            

I had one who was pretty good except she was dating a neanderthal, steroid-abusing, retarded chunk of beefcake. The boy had no redeeming qualities and we hated each other. He was taking care of her cats while she was out of town once. He came over while I was gone and I had apparently hit the button on the front door by accident and locked it. His key only fit the deadbolt. So his response was to break in my roomate's window and go through the apartment locking and hooking the chains on every door. Then he locked her bedroom door from the inside and went back out the window. When I came home, I couldn't get in since every door was chained and had to call the landlord and a locksmith to cut one of the chains. For some reason, I was the one who got in trouble for that one.

I also had a roomate who was an older woman, recently divorced and working as a nurse. She seemed nice enough on the interview. However, she would come home every night, take her glass of wine into her room and ignore me. She also had a ton of antique furniture with lovely nappy fabric and I have three cats. She was quite religious and would have a woman's bible study group over to our apartment on a regular basis. I'm your average 20-something heathen, so this disturbed me, especially when she kept asking me to join her little group. After endlessly waffling on whether she was going to renew the lease with me, she told me she would stay and then about two weeks before it expired, changed her mind and decided to move to Phoenix, AZ. I found a new roomate the DAY BEFORE I was going to get kicked out since it was a rent-controlled apartment and it had to be occupied by at least two people.

Now I live with a fairly standard male who cleans intermittently (but never the bathroom), sleeps too much and spends too much time on the computer. But heck, I can't pay the rent alone. :P

posted 05-28-2001 05:06         

{ edited because i need to learn to spell and type}

[This message has been edited by skeeter (edited 05-28-2001).]

posted 05-29-2001 04:26            

I may go through later and post up some of the more interesting ones.

posted 05-29-2001 05:52            

quote:

---

Originally posted by PeterWiggin:
He also had cirriasis (fuck how you spell that). And he would pick at his skin and shit and flick it on the ground.

---

FYI... psoriasis. And it's a terrible thing to have, makes you miserable. But that was inconsiderate of him to flick it all over the place. Did he expect the carpet to allow it to biodegrade? Sheesh!

posted 05-29-2001 09:53            

The (relatively few) other roommates I've had have been quite tame, and in those cases I might even be seen as the bad one

posted 05-29-2001 12:28            

Let's see, how can I make a really really long story somewhat short......

So my buddy Scott, who I met in college about 8 years ago, is the antagonist here. In those 8 years, we have lived together for about 6, including the last 4 years since I moved to San Francisco.

So, Scott has always been a weird guy, which was what made him fun. We did not necessarily connect deeply as one might think after being friends for that long, but hey, no biggie. Better than some random ass roomate.

About 9 months ago, his previously "weird" behavios started taking a turn for the not funny, but scary. He got more and more bizzare (twitching, making weird noises, nonlinear conversations, etc.) His .com company went down around the time he completely lost it. He was basically not able to take care of himself (ie: remembering to eat, drink water, take shower without prompting from us) and before his parents could get here he was basically catatonic.

So his parents arrive and take him away to do the "hey Doc, what the fuck is going on?" thing.

FF 2 months, and Scott is back. Not well, per se, but on medication and seeing a psychiatrist. Things seem to be improving, except when he decides to not take medicine or have a drink with the medicine. FF to 2 months ago through a series of ups and downs and I am tired of it all. Really tired.

So about a month ago, he decides he is well. Or something. He does not need to see his Doc or take medicine anymore. He pours all his medicine down the drain. He continues to become more and more psychotic. Accuses longtime friends of being "witches" who are "sending shocks to his brain." I have never been accused of this, or any of his other psychotic accusations, but since I keep telling him he needs to take medicine and see his doctor, he basically will not talk to me much at all.

So now, I am moving out. He refuses to take medicine or see a doctor or go to a hospital. Since he has not tried to kill himself or anyone else, YET, he cannot be taken away against his will.

I have to give up on one of my oldest friends, because he is broken and refuses to be fixed, by himself or anyone else. He now tells me this morning that he is moving away, to god knows where to do god knows what. I guess he will be one of the guys standing on the corner screaming at a mailbox. Until he hurts himself or someone else, he cannot be forced to get help.

posted 05-30-2001 01:32            

p.s.- I'm not being sarcastic- that's probably what I'd do if I were in your situation..

posted 05-30-2001 05:39            

If he just needs to cry on your shoulder, try to let him. I know it's hard to do, trust me, i speak from experience.
Do NOT tall him to "snap out of it". He can't.

Most people in his situation do not want help. Don't feel they need it. He sounds more like a Bipolar with schizo attributes, but without more info, I can't be sure.

Just listen. I am not saying hang out with him and try and change him, you have a life, too. Just be aware of what's going on, and if you think there is cause, CALL THE POLICE to have him Baker Acted.

Ask Cyd about Marchman-Meyer Act. i know it has something to do with drug use and the mentally ill, but if he is not using drugs a whole lot, then you wouldn't need to find info on it.

Still, Cyd may have better ideas.

posted 05-30-2001 06:21            

Boy was THAT gonna change.

I don't have any real super-duper psycho stories to tell about Jack... just basic "bad roommate" shit. This is gonna sound totally minor, but... he ate my fucking ice cream. Other stuff too, but it's the ice cream that really sticks in my mind.

We had this arrangement where we each bought our own food, except for milk and bread and sugar and butter, which we took turns buying. Only thing is, Jack was a total fucking liar about the arrangement. At the time, I was crazy into Breyer's ice cream... you know, the all-natural, no-preservatives, expensive stuff. And Jack kept fucking eating my goddamn ice cream and pretending he didn't.

This was really fucking retarded, because I had this habit of eating the ice cream a little at a time directly from the container with a fork - I'd shave a thin slice off the top, so that the top of the ice cream stayed level, but just went down evenly across the box as I ate more of it. When Jack got into my ice cream though, he'd take great big fucking globs out with a spoon and dump it in a bowl. So it's not like it took rocket science to figure out that monkey-boy had been in my ice cream the minute I opened the box, right? But he'd still fucking deny it - even when I explained WHY I knew he'd been in the ice cream!

After having this whole scene about, oh, FIFTY FUCKING TIMES monkey-boy got a bright idea one day - THIS time, instead of taking his usual enormous fucking gobs with a spoon, he used a knife to carve out a cube that went all the way to the bottom of the box. Now everything was still "neat and square" so I "wouldn't know."

Sigh.

While all this was going on, he would also occasionally bring home a bigass ten gallon tub of the super-cheap grocery store brand crap, making a big point of letting me know that HE bought ice cream and I was more than welcome to it, so that squared us, right? Nevermind that he's buying this shit that costs less for a ten-gallon fucking TUB than a pint of decent ice cream...

Keep in mind, there was a lot more little shit along these lines that I just don't remember because it's been ten years or so since then. But by the time we got to his last trick, I hated that monkey-fucker so bad that it just got brutal. Making things worse, Jack insisted on carpooling together to work - so I couldn't get away from that fucker for so much as half an hour a day unless I left my own house to do it.

Eventually, it got to the point that we were - literally - punching each other in the nuts at work. Yes, life was fun. Then one day that he drove, he decided that he wasn't going to let me in his car to go home - even though he's the monkey-fucker that always insisted on carpooling - so I ripped the blind spot mirror of his car on his way by.

After that, we quit carpooling.

In a later incident, he began eating my cans of Campbell's Chunky Soup and replacing them with "Thrifty" brand. He refused to admit he did THAT, either. After a week of that, I took his alarm clock apart while he was out seeing a movie and soldered a short across the speaker so that when the alarm went off, it caught fire.

He quit eating my soup, but the fucker never did quit eating my ice cream. I finally just quit buying it. Bastard.

posted 05-30-2001 07:32            

Whatsamattaforyou?

posted 05-30-2001 13:47            

I don't plan on abandoning my friend. but in a very real sense I feel like I have given up on him. He has been slowly forcing everyone who was close to him away. I am basically the last one still in his life.

Most of our friends are basically scared of him now.

He is not on any drugs, unfortunately even the ones he has had prescribed. Anti-psychotics and anti-depressants.

So as of yesterday, before I had even had the "I am moving out" talk with him, he calls the landlord and gives 1 month notice. Now HE is moving out. He has tried to bail more than once before, but has always come back. He has nowhere else to go. I was willing to move downstairs and keep an eye on him, check in on him every day or two and such. Try to get him to eat, etc. But who knows what is going on now. I can't be a live-in caretaker for someone who vehemently refuses care (and he can be a BIGTIME asshole about that when he gets in the mood).

And I am surely not going to follow him off in a moving truck somewhere, not that I think he is together enough to "move" especially when he has nowhere to go.

So yah, I know he can't "snap out of it." But he was always one to take things as far as they can go, way farther than most of his friends were comfortable with. So he is doing that now.

His parents live on the East Coast, and have no idea what to do with him, because he will not listen to one goddamn word anyone says to him. He either gets angry and psycho, or else totally condescending and placating. Neither of which gets anyone anwhere.

SO yah, let me know if you have any ideas. I'm well past the end of my rope with it all...

Zak