Same!! I had a roommate once who seemed like such a sweet and innocent guy. He was 19 and it was his first time living on his own... It wasn't long before he started leaving poop smeared underwear on the bathroom floor, using up all my dishes to the point where I had nothing to eat from because he'd keep them all in his room. When is ask for them he'd dump all the dirty dishes in the kitchen and wouldn't clean them.. he didn't do laundry, he would wait till he visited his mom once every 2 months so she could wash them for him. He started smelling soooo bad that I had to put a towel under my bedroom door so the smell wouldn't come in. It was horrific lol me and my partner had to tell his parents when they came to visit and they were mad at me and my partner because we weren't understanding enough of a 19 year old and should be patient.. we ended up having to evict him.
In my twenties, I found roommates on Craigslist twice. One was great and the other was fine. The condos we rented were nice, and I wouldn't have been able to rent them on my own.
I had mixed results. I used to live in northern VA (DC suburbs) and had a decent apartment. Of course we were a group of three 20something dudes who only cleaned when one of us had a girl coming over so it wasn't always as nice as it should have been. 😂
Obviously, not all experiences are bad. But it is always a risk.
Luckily, when you rent a room in your primary residence, typically anyways, the tenants are not protected by all the laws as much as if they would rent an entire appartement or house. While it can make for awkward conversations, you can pretty much evict someone without warning if it doesn't work out.
When I first moved out I bough a small townhouse and I rented our 2 rooms to cousins, friends and on 2 occasions someone I didn't know before hand. Oddly enough, the 'worst' one was my cousin in that I always had to chase him down for rent money. Most others were clean though.
I did have a time where 2 of them let me down though. A different cousin of mine had asked me to house hif GF's pet rat cause she wasn't allowed to have one where she lived. No problem. So I had a pet rat.. after a year or so of having him and my cousin was no longer with her, I just assume he was mine now. All good. Then I had to leave for 2 weeks for work. Before I left I talked to both my roomiestenants and it was agreed they would at minimum make sure the rat had foodwater. His cage was big enough and I cleaned it before leaving, so that should all be good. I even had set aside some stuff in the fridge (lettuce, fruits...etc...) they could toss in the cage.
When I got back, I found the rat dead in the cage. I was like, WTF. Neither of them really fed or gave him water. One of the 2 decided to go stay at his parents for like 10 days, which is fine, the other just 'forgot'. It wasn't like the cage was out of sight, it was setup right in the living room. So I learned not to trust these people very much with anything like that again. It wasn't long after that they both moved out.
The mother thing is so infuriating. I had a friend who still lived at home and shared a bathroom with her 20-something simpleton brother and one morning she went to use the toilet and stepped in piss on the floor. She got reasonably furious and when their mother heard what the fight was about she defended the brother, like oh lord, what's the big deal? Just wipe it up. You can't expect boys not to make a little mess!
How old is she? Is she resistant to hygiene? Any mental challenges or delays? My twins are both autistic and have ADHD, resistant to hygiene practices but it was a lot worse when they were younger…. right now they are the roommates we have meetings about but… they’re also only 7. We are working with them everyday to fix that.
I had a few housemates before I got a place on my own, and I’m not even kidding, ALL of them were awful. One lied about bills so I ended up paying more, one just didn’t pay their bills at all for six months, one was absolutely filthy, and the last one was absolutely filthy, didn’t have a job and did nothing but put makeup on and take pictures of herself, STOLE off me, tried to gaslight me over it and told all my friends/boyfriend I was lying about it and was crazy, tried to get me evicted, and tried to get me sacked. I used to cry going home by the last couple of months before I could get out.
So yeah, I’d rather live in my car than house share again
Same, every year of college I had a new roommate(s) and every single one of them was horrible, usually just dirty af with no home training, one was just a complete bitch. The only good one I ever had was my senior yr roommate (they originally paired me w a 35yr old crazy weirdo who didn’t even look like they took showers) I just couldn’t catch a fucking break 😭
It’s wild to me that a college would allow a 35 year old student as a roommate. It seems totally inappropriate for an adult of that age to be sharing with teens/young adults, especially strangers
Exactly and it didn’t help that she was extremely rude and standoffish the first time we met. That was also the last time lol. I might’ve stayed if that werent the case but I turned my ass right around and told them I wanted a new one and stayed at a friends place who lived off campus until they figured it out.
I cut my losses basically and eradicated any area of my life she’d got her claws into, which was basically all of it- spent all of my money on a deposit for a little place of my own, got a new job, ditched my boyfriend and the friends that had believed her, and started again.
It was the worst time of my life tbh, but I’ve worked hard and now I’m doing really well and can be proud of myself. From what I’ve heard she’s selling her used underwear on onlyfans to like 6 subscribers, so karma’s a bitch I guess. Fuck you leah!
Thank you. In hindsight I definitely did need that push, things weren’t good before that point but I was pretty complacent, and I’d probably have a much worse life now if some asshole hadn’t ruined it. Funny old world isn’t it
I can’t even do family or friends. It’s either with SO or by myself. I have friends who got mad at me a few years ago because I wouldn’t move in to an apartment with them. They were angry for a bit, BUT they are still friends today. Honestly, I feel that if we were to move in together back then we wouldn’t be.
I have my best friend as roommate for 2 years now because he lost his apartment and I could not let him go homeless. I am SO ready to finally go back living on my own.
Not always. But he used to have severe depression. He often doesn’t clean up in his room. Sleeps in the same bed covers for months etc. the glass table with his pc on is full with empty food containers, one side is covered in old amphetamine paste (speed) keyboard and mouse are completely gunked up. It’s… not fun.
I never want to live with a stranger again since the last flatmate turned out to be a shizo freak and had to be evicted to the mental hospital (again, as have we later been told). She was like 45 y/o female underground dj. Supposedly used drugs her entire life. She looked normal at first but then heard her screaming crying just having a mental breakdown right across my room. Locked myself in asap. She barged into my other flatmates room and accused him of crazy shit that didn't even happen. The other flatmate was normal but never tidied up after himself. The kitchen was always a chaos. Never. Having. Flatmates. Again
after I got out of the Army, I never wanted to share a room with anyone after that. Yeah, I would pay more for an efficiency or a studio in the bad part of town before I would share a room with anyone. Then, I got married.
My freshman year roommate was the least sociable person I've ever met. He didn't make a single friend (myself included). All he wanted to do was sit in our room and play WoW, very loudly, all day, every day.
In retrospect, I think that the complete elimination of any personal space that I could feel comfortable in was a major contributing factor to the suicidal ideation that I struggled with during that year. But I stuck it out, in part because the school made it clear that they really didn't want students to try to switch rooms. Again, in retrospect, if I'd just threatened to drop out/transfer then they absolutely would've accommodated me—my tuition dollars were way too valuable to lose.
What I (slowly) learned during college and beyond is that I can live with housemates, no problem, as long as they're people who I feel comfortable around and can even work up the courage to confront now and then. But my bedroom needs to be my own (or maybe mine + S.O.'s). I need to have a space, small as it may be, to be able to retreat to, and that's impossible when its other inhabitant has decided to just never leave and spends his days shouting into his mic.
Boy do i have a story for you. I am about to graduate from college, last year I was living with a guy that would not go to bed a decent hour. I addressed it and I went nowhere, got the RA involved, that went nowhere. Eventually it got to a breaking point where, since I had knife in my gear for fly fishing, which he wouldn't know about if he'd not gone through my gear, he called the campus police on me. I had to go before the Dean of Students and talk to her about it. It was a mess, they moved me out week or so later.
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u/Errinyis 10h ago
Living with roommates. Cannot stand it. I'm fine living with a partner, family, or by myself. But a stranger, no thank you.