Dishes piled high in the sink. Drunken visitors stumbling in at three in the morning. Valuable items mysteriously vanishing, despite your roommate swearing that she’s never seen them. Oh the joys of sharing a living space!

College is a transformative time for many people, and students are expected to deepen their understanding of themselves and the world, in addition to what they’re learning in the classroom. But it’s also the first time many people move away from home, and apparently, lots of students could use a lesson on how to coexist peacefully.

Redditors have recently been sharing their “roommate from hell” stories, so we’ve gathered some of the most shocking ones below. Enjoy scrolling through, and be sure to upvote the ones that sound like nightmares!

#1

Had a roommate who got diagnosed with colon cancer part way through the year. It was a roller coaster of emotions as his treatment progressed throughout the school year. I supported him as much as I could and couldn’t believe he chose to stay enrolled and on campus through it all.

At the end of the school year he broke the news to me, his cancer was terminal and he didn’t have much time left. We said goodbye as we left for the summer, me thinking it was the last time I’d probably ever see him.

The next year he was around campus again. Turns out he made it all up. Never had cancer.

Image credits: _thepet

#2

Freshman year. Told me he was going to cut my throat in my sleep.

Image credits: ImpressiveWaltz7038

#3

Competitive LoL player, would stay up til 4 AM yelling into his headset and playing on the world’s loudest controller. I asked him multiple times to keep it down, and he’d immediately go back to yelling.

Image credits: IrishRoyalty

#4

This was my buddy’s roommate. He would get drunk every night and would be very belligerent.

He would wake up my friend at 3am with a knife and say s**t like “you know I could’ve [ended] you right now?”

That guy ended up getting help and has been a total saint since.

Image credits: gogi_apparatus

#5

Had a roommate that was an absolute slob. Clogged the toilet one day and we (other roommates and I) hounded him to take care of it. He let it sit for a couple months and refused to fix it. Finally we called our landlord and he pulled out coffee filters. Dude was wiping his a*s with coffee filters and flushing them, or at least trying to. Was the worst smelling bathroom ever.

Image credits: CryptographerGood925

#6

The Young Republican prodigy, double majoring in Math and Business. He came from a household where maids would clean up after them. He expected his three college roommates to double as maids.

Image credits: aotus_trivirgatus

#7

My now-husband had a roommate he would always complain about and to my chagrin, I thought, surely it can’t be *that* bad. We were long distance, so I never met the guy.

Over winter break (so, while my husband was gone) the guy kidnapped his girlfriend and locked her in their closet for several days.

Image credits: diffyqgirl

#8

Roommate as a freshman was very clearly super duper sheltered his whole life and had no clue how to function independently. I and the guys on my floor noticed after about a week that he started to smell. A couple of us approached him as gently as possible to ask if he had deodorant. He quickly said yes…then whipped out the still unopened free sample of soap that was in the welcome packs the RA had prepared. So that showed that not only did he not know what deodorant was, he also didn’t know what soap was. We kind of took him under our collective wings and started to teach him general life skills like that. He was making lots of progress. Then one night I woke up and he was sitting next to my bed staring at me. I asked what he was doing and he said every night he just liked to sit and watch me sleep. That was the end of that. I requested a new roommate pretty damn fast.

Image credits: HoopOnPoop

#9

Not roommate but more of a floormate. Had this one gal that was really friendly with everyone on the floor (boys & girls). She was always in someone’s room hanging out and would eventually go to someone else’s room to hang out. Did this routinely every day after classes.

Welp…turned out she was the resident closet junkie and would go to everyone’s room being really friendly, to steal all their s**t. Watches, jewelry, wallets, laptop….anything worth money. Everyone found out after a mid-term party when she was out in the parking completely blasted on whatever she was taking. She got arrested and expelled and when it came time to clear out her room, that’s when everyone’s stolen s**t starting popping up.

Image credits: h1r0ll3r

#10

Not a roommate, but a floormates. This person was absolutely brilliant, like doing grad research at one of the largest research universities in the world during their freshman year brilliant. The thing is… they had no concept of hygiene. Would not shower for months on end. It was nauseating.

Image credits: AltFocuses

#11

Everyone else wins.  my first one wouldn’t wash dishes, let it pile up.  she would cheat on her fiancee, and would made “mmm” noises when she ate 

anyways I had enough so I told her fiancee.  he gave me two months rent, and paid for breaking lease.  pretty good profit.

Image credits: anon

#12

She stole my towel and got s**t or blood on it, idk and I don’t wanna know, then denied it when the towel was literally in front of us.
She ate our food.
She lied about the most random and stupid things.
Was literally caught in the act of eating one of our snacks and said “I’m just eating an apple.” It was a pretzel.

Oh, and she lied about having ovarian cancer for years And took people’s donations for treatment.

Image credits: AggressiveYorkie

#13

I once woke up at 2am and saw a ghostly figure sitting in my computer chair and heard the sounds of rushing water. Initially thought I was hallucinating, but turns out my roommate was stone drunk, mistook my chair for a toilet and pissed all over my floor and belongings. I confronted him about it and he denied everything, maybe didn’t even remember.

Image credits: WhyTheHellnaut

#14

Stayed with this one guy in my dorm who was super friendly, but never left his room the whole year. We shared a five bedroom apartment and everyone had their own room.

Our unit developed a mouse problem, and my roommates noticed a bunch of their dishes went missing. Turns out my roommate had a hoarding problem and was the source of our mouse infestation. When summer came and we had to move out, we saw inside his room for the first time – piles up to the ceiling of trash, garbage, used mouse traps, and dirty dishes.

Image credits: threadbarefemur

#15

My roomie left period panties crotch up on the floor. Every month. And would just have clothes EVERYWHERE.

Image credits: SomethingClever2022

#16

Well when we moved into the apartment style dorm in the fall, he’d been there all summer doing summer classes. His food in the fridge and pantry were literally rotting. He wasn’t there to help, so my friend and I spent a while just getting the cleaning done ourselves. Now when I say rotting, I mean with actual maggots and whatnot. Just nasty stuff. It wasn’t our job, but we were gonna have to live there, so we scrubbed it all with bleach and made damn sure the place was f*****g clean. Later that day he came back and cussed us out for us having thrown away all his food. That was just the first day. It didn’t get any better the whole semester, after which he moved off campus.

Image credits: KnuteViking

#17

She had a baby over summer break (did not tell us she was pregnant), babies were not allowed in the dorms so the baby lived off campus with her mom. But she would bring the baby to stay in the dorms if we annoyed her. Asked her to clean the bathrooms = infant in the dorm room crying all night. Asked her to stop eating our groceries = she brought the baby to the dorm for finals week. Didn’t sleep and did terribly on my exams and two different job interviews.

Image credits: oneeyedtoni

#18

Had a roommate that played Happy by Pharrell on repeat the year it came out. I’m talking back to back on a loop. It was insane he just would not stop, even by my pleading. It didn’t stop until every other roommate got fed up enough as well.

Image credits: GodAwfulFunk

#19

We were friends in high school, with her being a year above me. When she suggested we be roommates my freshman year, I figured it was better than rooming with a stranger.

Turns out she saw me as her BEST friend and became very jealous + possessive when I started making new friends on campus. She demanded a “best friend day” (day where I spent it all with her and only her) when I got into a relationship to prove that I wasn’t abandoning her.

On top of that she was extremely sheltered and babied. She would only wash her hair once a week, so that her mom could visit and straighten it for her (no one else could do it right apparently). Which, okay, yes some people just wash their hair once a week… but I’m pretty sure this girl only showered her whole body once a week as well, based on, erm, smells. She claimed she showered everyday, just when I wasn’t there.

That roommate situation lasted a year before I couldn’t anymore lol.

Image credits: osnapitzbrit

#20

My sophomore year roommate started a “compost” in an uncovered bucket in the kitchen. It wasn’t really compost, though; it had no dirt, no mulch, NOTHING. She was just letting her food rot in the kitchen.

She essentially drove all of us out of the apartment, and when we moved out, the vacuum broke, so the carpet wasn’t as pristine as we had hoped. So then she texted us to chew us out for leaving the apartment “dirty.”

10 years later and I still get phantom smells of the compost.

Image credits: Lobster_Necessary

#21

Oh she was awful, constantly with a new guy, one time she didn’t tell me or even lock the door and I walked in on them…everything was always a competition and she always had it worse, she had meds and never took them. Living with her was hell and she was just so toxic. There was more, but for anonymity I’ll leave it at that.

#22

Had a dormmate who didn’t shower, not great, but we didn’t share rooms.

One day she sat down next to me, didn’t ask, and without a word, unfurled a plastic bag of loose pills. Took a handful and then acted like I insulted her.

The first week of the semester, she told us it her birthday, so we went and got a cake for her, and put up streamers. She walked in, took them all down, and yelled at us for thinking she wanted to celebrate it.

Knocked on my door in the middle of the night and told me her mother [ended] herself. When she was a child. But wanted me to know.

She threatened my roommate with her knife collection, because she was watching tv in her room, and “any” noise made her want to kill my roommate, and herself.

The knives were the final straw, she got moved to another room, where she threw a frying pan at her new roommate.

I Google her name, just to see if she’s in jail (not yet).

#23

My roommate didn’t shower or do laundry for the entire semester I lived with him. He and everything he owned (and subsequently everything I owned) smelled like raw beef. .

#24

At Uni I lived with two girls from out of town. They were heavily into their Class A, but weren’t interested in cleaning, tidying, or being decent room mates to anyone else in our house.

One of them had a seriously powerful Yamaha amplifier mated to a pair of 350W tallboy active cabinet speakers. Pricy setup.

Queue the obnoxiously over-loud music blasting through the house most nights of the week, while they would get crazy high and essentially rave out with s****y trance music all night.

One day when I had the morning off uni, she went out and had left her door open.
I seized the chance – went in, took the metal case off her amp, and removed the glass fuse. Reassembled, put everything back as it was, and left.

Peace and quiet for the rest of the term. She couldn’t figure out what had happened to it, but I played dumb and said she must’ve blown the amp. Unsurprisingly, both her and the idiot room mate she came with both failed the first term and left.

#25

Freshman dorm mate. We lived together in a 20 x 10 space with bunk beds.

We were both introverted and hung out outside the room regularly first semester, but second semester I started hanging out with other friends and she didn’t like that. Whenever I would be back to the room ‘late’ (like 10pm) she would be pissed at me and talk about how I wasn’t her friend anymore. When I said I’d been hanging out with so-and-so she’d give me silent treatment. At one point she freaked out so bad she mentioned [self-harm] and I had to get the RA involved.

She also never left the room except for class or food, so I never had a moment to myself, and when I did come back to the room she was usually pissed at me for something. She also let so many dishes pile up, I saw mold in cups and bowls regularly.

She wanted to move into apartment-style dorm sophomore year and tried to convince me to go in on one with her. I said I wanted to live in a different building and that set her off crying and another round of silent anger. But I was glad to move building and get away from her.

#26

Had a roommate with whom I shared a room in grad school. That guy used to trade stocks in India during US night time and insisted on keeping all the lights in the room on. I ended up sleeping in the living room so many nights.

Eventually found out that the person who sublet his place had left for the adjacent apartment after getting frustrated by that jerk. No one else in the apartment spoke to him either. I was so glad to leave that place.

#27

I shared a dorm apartment with three other people (me, Sarah, Carol, and Daniel – fake names), we all had our own rooms with a bed and a desk and two bathrooms shared, plus a kitchenette and living space. It was great. It was me, two other girls, and a guy. The guy was… A lil odd.

You see, me and Sarah shared a bathroom and Carol and Daniel shared the other. We each provided our personal toiletries and then took turns purchasing toilet paper. Daniel never provided any for his bathroom. Carol asked that he do so because that was the agreement. He waffled and didn’t. She ended up taking a roll back and forth between the bathroom and her room because she didn’t want to pay for him anymore. So he started to go into her room (only when no one else was there) and snag it to use. So she started to make sure her room was always locked. So he just, um, showered after every bathroom use. Whether we were home or not. He’d go in and after a few minutes, you’d just hear the shower running for a while, then he’d come out with wet hair and clean.

There were definitely weird vibes from in general and I ended up moving home over winter break for many reasons, including my roommates being less than great.

#28

I could do a 1 man show about this guy. I have so much material but am pressed for time. Maybe I will come back to add to it. 

He was out of his mind most of the time. He’d be up at 3am pressing buttons on the microwave for minutes on end. Opening and closing cabinet doors loudly. He passed out in the bathtub with the water running and flooded the on campus dorm TWICE. 

 I walked in on him passed out fully nude on the toilet. I closed the door, knocked and he jumped up and hit his face on the door and bonked his head on the tub and bled across the bathroom. 

He left a pizza on the common room table for a week. It started to smell so I covered it with an entire container of Morton’s salt. Like a pound of salt. Not long after he got drunk and ate it. ALL of it. His face was so swollen and red that night from all the salt. 

Eventually by the second time him passing out in the tub I told the RD that he was going to [end] himself. I meant by accident. I think they took it as he was suicidal because half a dozen cops came to our room the next day. 

He then started threatening them and demanding their names and badge numbers. “My dad is a lawyer you can’t make me go to the hospital!” 

“Get out of my way I have to go to class!”
“What time is your class?”
“It’s at 9:30!”
“Well, it’s 3 pm so you don’t need to worry about it.”

Once they told him he was going to be arrested he turned very nice and apologetic. 

They took him on a voluntary hold eventually. The next day his mom saw me randomly on campus and recognized me. She hugged me and told me I saved his life because he was mixing alcohol and opiates. His liver was failing. 

He moved out the next week. 

That’s just a fraction of the s**t he did. HE WAS THE WORST!

#29

Oh my god.

David.

David was such an insane, insane freak of nature while being so horrific and annoying but doubly adorable and kinda of laughable. Like, he was so naive and stupid that he reminded me of a puppy.

I need to go to sleep so I’ll tell 3 things

A.) David was a drummer. Not a rock drummer, or folk drummer. A marching line drummer. David practiced “free styling” the drums, outside, facing the central acoustic space of our entire apartment complex while playing EDM remixes to Justin Bieber songs.

B.) A lot of college dorms are in lower income areas because Slumlords know they can prey on financially illiterate college kids. One morning, I (on the second floor balcony) was smoking a blunt when I noticed a homeless [addict] rummaging through the bushes downstairs. He looked up and saw me and kept trying to talk to me / convince me to let him upstairs to smoke with me. Instead, I tied a second blunt to a lighter and dropped it to him saying I had to leave soon. Weeks later David texts me and says he wants me to meet someone. I walk into our living room and see him with the homeless dude and 8+ of his friends. They were going to “throw a party” in our apartment.

3.) David was getting kicked out? Or not paying rent? I imagine kicked out for not paying rent. All I know is other people were coming by to look at the apartment / his room and he didn’t want to leave. I only discovered this information when I caught him taking stuff out of our trashcan and COVERING THE LIVING ROOM IN IT to “make us look like slobs”. David then tried convincing me to “play music really loudly” and “smoke weed inside” so nobody would move in.

I did none of those things.

The guy who came to see the apartment was Chris. Ended up moving in. He was super sweet and I adored him. I hope he is okay, and I wish I never lost contact.

F**k you David.

#30

Pot luck roommate my freshman year.

Brought up a fact from the news about Oprah being influential and wealthy. My roommate refused to believe me then genuinely said, “black people don’t have a place in our society.”

I immediately walked out the door, to the students affairs office, and requested a change. Moved out two days later.

#31

Off the top of my head, various roomies:

1) pi polar alcohol who started partying at 2am in our 4 br apartment. He managed to get the cops called on us 6 times for noise. 1 of which was for his girlfriend screaming and I answered the door.

2) his girlfriend would bring home pets. Dogs. Rabbits. Which I gave away because they didn’t care for them (oh, and we weren’t allowed to have pets!).

3) poop boy. Back in the days of s****y internet when you had to reset the cable modem daily, it was in his room. We took turns running into his room and holding our breath to reset it so we didn’t have to breathe in his sweet aroma.

4) cops called because his girlfriend broke the sliding patio door since he wouldn’t let her in. When people learned where I lived in the complex, they were full of horror knowing I was with the “lawn screamers”.

The best roommate I ever had… we said like a total of 6 words to each other all semester.

I always had dreams of moving to NYC…. But I’ll never have room mates again.

#32

Senior year. I took 20+ units a semester to graduate a year early and avoid another year of loans. No time for dorm roommate BS. Charming roommates smoked a month’s worth of speed in a week and spent the next several days strung out, shrieking, caterwauling, yelling at each other, ditching class and terrorizing the kitten they adopted without my consent (who I then had to take care of because it was terrified and kept s******g everywhere). One night, a couple of them burned a foot-wide hole in the carpet in their room while smoking speed. I reported them to housing so I wouldn’t be charged for any damage at the end of the year. When they came down, they started whining about weird clicking noises on their phones (landlines; it was the 90s) and were paranoid they were being tapped. Maybe they were. At least they stuck to pot, and beer the rest of the time. They were pissed that the cat liked me better than them.

#33

I dated a girl that had a roommate from China, that had horrifically bad teeth, and no sense of space or humor.

I went over one time and she was screaming at her bc she had divided the sink in two, and you could only use your side, but the water from her side got the other side wet.

She really needed professional help.

#34

Stayed with a guy that was my roommate in the dorms the year prior and was an overall good guy and moved off campus to save money. I found the house to rent, signed the lease, and had him added after the fact. Regretted that one very quickly for multiple reasons:

1. When we took over the house, we had agreed that I’d take the master bedroom and he’d take the guest bedroom. He lived in town and I didn’t, so during the summer he lived in the house (we had prepaid the summer rent to avoid any hassle). The week before the semester starts, I come back to find he took over the master bedroom and put the few things I had there in the guest room.

2. A week after the semester starts, he asks if a friend of his could move in with us and said we’d split rent and bills 3 ways. Like an idiot, I agreed since it would be cheaper and we got him on the lease as well. I can count on one hand the number of times his friend paid his part of the rent, not to mention he was a band student that practiced during the night and got grumpy if you made noise during the daytime (he took online courses).

3. Neither of the two would clean their dishes at any point, leaving a kitchen sink full all the time. Not only did they refuse to clean the dishes themselves, but my first roommate got annoyed with me leaving my pizza pan on the stove when I finished using it (read: waited for it to cool off before taking it back to my room). I had to keep my dishes in my room and also hoard my food in my mini fridge and a tote since they kept the kitchen fridge/freezer full of their stuff and left me no room.

4. My roommate would invite a number of his friends over all the time (many of whom I had no problems with since we hung out too), but would get annoyed with me if I had any friends come over. We never were allowed to mingle in the living room while they were there.

5. Last but not least, when the end of the year rolled around and I said I was going to look for a place to be by myself for the next year, he just told me “No, you’re not.” His reasoning was that we “were good friends, and our setup is perfect.” That infuriated me considering I complained about the problems constantly and was always told they’d do better. Spoiler: they never did.

I wound up talking with my landlord and got a 1-bedroom apartment for the following year. I prepaid for the summer as well as covering one month of the summer for the house (essentially my 1/3 of the rent for the summer), got my deposit changed to the apartment, gave my roommates a month’s notice (which they ignored and assumed I was joking), and moved my stuff out the week of finals.

#35

One of my best friends from high school was my freshman dorm roommate. Turned out he was a slob and would stay up til 2am watching TV or listening to music when I had 8am classes. Terrible roommate, but as soon as I moved out mid-year to my own room, we got along great again.

#36

Me. I was the roommate from hell.

No, but seriously I had a roommate straight up punch me in the face because I told everyone any dishes in the sink I will wash and put in the dishwasher. I was never taught about cast iron skillets so it was in the sink for like two days and I thought I was being nice washing it for him. He physically assaulted me.

#37

Mine wasn’t in college but shortly after, I bought a house and my buddy at the time needed a place to stay. After dropping a bunch of money on this house I thought it would be a good way to make some money back. Plus he was a nice guy. It was a small 1,000 Square foot house. The first month was good but after that it was downhill. He never paid me rent/utilities again after that, He came home one night hammered one night and ran into my garage door completely knocking it off the rails and bending the shaft the spring is on. He told me he would fix it. He never did.. his girlfriend who I didn’t even know would come over when I was at work and eat my food I bought and leave the dishes and the food she didnt eat in his room so there was rotting food/drinks all over his room. He invited his 2 sisters and Mom over to stay with us for a week without asking me. Which was just 3 more mouths for me to feed, they pretty much took over my house I was confined to my room. After 4 days I finally told them they had to go. His sister put a hole in my drywall, the house was FILTHY! I spent 2 days cleaning while he disappeared only to come back at like midnight. The final straw was coming home and walking in smelling something burning, I ran upstairs and noticed it was coming from his room, I walked in on him smoking pills off aluminum foil. After I evicted him, he asked if he could come back and get his stuff he’d just leave that night. I told him yes to get this nightmare over with, but he was only to take his clothes, TV and Xbox. That was all he came with that was all he needed to take, everything else was mine. I came back he had taken my change jar I had in my room that had probably $300 in it (he was the only one who knew where it was) some collectible action figures I had. He took a lot of my clothes straight out of my closet, My new Bowflex I had just bought 8 months before. and to top it off he took my bed! My whole a*s bed out of my room. I had to spend about $3,000 to fix the problems he caused at my house. Tried to get ahold of him and he blocked me on everything. Haven’t seen or spoken to him since.

#38

It’s a little tough to describe because no one thing this guy did was ever really noteworthy, but the accumulation of s***tiness really made him a roommate from hell.

Dude straight-up yelled at me (not super loud or angry, but definitely yelling) for ordering food without seeing if he wanted to join the order. I asked him everytime I ordered after that, and then he got upset that I always asked. He also never joined an order before or after. He also never asked me to join one of his orders or invited me to anything for that matter. I guess he expected me to be psychic and know when he wanted to be included. Super weird.

The guy literally never took out the trash. I once said “I’ll take it out this time, but can you please take it out next time” and the dude blew up on me.

The next people he lived with also never took out the trash so they just threw trash on their enclosed side porch, which was… disgusting.

He got upset when I watched a movie or played video games in our apartment’s living room with like 3 other people in the middle of the day on a weekend.

The crazy thing was, outside of his roommates, he seemed like a pretty decent guy, but anyone who lived with him was never a roommate for more than a year.

#39

*I* was the roommate from hell. It was innocent and not conflict-y at all but looking back I feel bad for the guy! My roommate lived on the beach in Florida and made the decision to go to college in DC. What a culture shock! This dude, in a hurry, moved at a half-speed. He was a lifeguard with a resting heart rate of like 47. And yet he was a metal fan. Not me. I’m from Philly and high strung. I loved the Dead and classic rock and played guitar. This means I had an acoustic AND an electric plus two amps and pedals in our tiny dorm room. I was not great at the time. This guy slept maybe 16 hours a day. 10 at night and a couple of naps. I always had people coming by. I’d play the Dead or my guitar and this dude would come from class to go to bed and there would be 2 extra people in there or I’d be playing guitar or whatever. He lasted the whole year but he didn’t come back. I’ve never seen or heard anything about him since. I hope he turned out alright…

#40

In my third year, I was paired with a paranoid schizophrenic. He was one of those “fine line between genius and madness” types.
We certainly had some really interesting conversations, but eventually he started stealing things from me (like my mp3 player) and leaving them in the common room of the dormitory that the girl he was stalking was staying at.
The university tried making me and the other two guys we shared the apartment with change to a new dorm because they “didn’t want to be seen as discriminating against someone with a mental disorder.” But once I pointed out that all they had to do was discriminate against him for stealing my s**t, they eventually relocated him instead of forcing the rest of us to move.

#41

She was religious and didn’t think animals had souls, or any kind of feelings, and would try to pick arguments about it with me. I volunteered at a school for mentally challenged teens and she said unbelievable things about them, like when we were paired up with students for activities she asked how it was decided who would pair with who and I said it just depended on everyone’s personalities. And she goes, “They have personalities?” Lol oh and she claimed I smelled (I bathed I swear) and she insisted on these Glade stick ups I was allergic to but refused to get rid of them. And she ran the heater every day, I would be literally panting in front of a fan.

One time I had a bad reaction to hair dye and had to go to the ER. She’d never been to the ER before and asked to go because she was curious. The hospital was trying to figure out how to treat me, I’m on a bed in this South Central LA hospital surrounded by like gunshot victims and the lady next to me having a miscarriage and here comes Susan, “When will you be done? I have homework.”

F*****g Susan. I got a bill that summer from the uni because she took my bed’s mattress cover after I left.

#42

Many nights she would wake me up by watching kiddie shows (like LazyTown) at full volume and weeping loudly in her bed as she crunched on chips because she was homesick. She lived 30 minutes away and could have commuted instead of dorming.

Towards the end of the year, her boyfriend was pledging a frat and on the last night they made him run some sort of obstacle course and covered him in things like flour and hot sauce. She told me he would be coming to sleep over because he was finally finished pledging and I agreed. He showed up as I was falling asleep, sweaty as f**k and covered in smelly food. He said he was going to take a shower and disappeared, so I fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later from the sounds and the godawful stench of them f*****g, and he had not showered. They fell asleep and he never showered that night. I didn’t speak to her for the rest of the year (only a couple of weeks, luckily) or ever again after that.

#43

My first move off campus, we needed someone a little older so the other three of us could get a place that was on the border of walking distance to campus. Enter Adam. Adam was a “teacher in training” and seemed like an ok guy im the months I knew him up til then. Within a month of living with him I wished we had just gotten another place further away (or solo).

Adams main issue was a crippling WoW addiction, coupled with his job being 3rd shift. So he slept most of the day, and when he wasnt at work he was up playing WoW for 5 hours daily at least. On days with no work, it was 11 hours usually. His admission, not me timing him. He bragged about this.

Because he was glued to WoW he never cooked or cleaned. So his entire diet was cheap pizza and chicken tenders. He never cleaned and hardly ever did his laundry despite us having a washer/drier in our unit. He never talked to us so rent was always late, and anytime anyone did anything he was never interested or told. Because he slept all day, we couldnt be loud in our own place. Nobody could come over, couldnt use the tv too loudly or play music.

Anytime I tried to talk to him his response was always “that sounds like a personal problem”. Initially I agreed, but thats not why Im talking to you about myself. It was to get him to open up and connect with us back. I realized later it was him saying he wanted to be alone. So we left him alone as he wished.

Eventually he became angry about being left out from things (his choices), so he became a pain to be around. Then complaints about others behaviors started rolling in. He didnt like what we cooked, he didnt like us laughing loudly, he criticized our majors and hobbies, he thought the tv we liked was boring.

Over time I never brought my gf over. And the handful of times she was brought, he wasnt there. One of my roomies (two other guys) also refused to bring his gf over too. It was just he gave off vibes of intense jealously and making side comments on their bodies and choices too. They didnt like how he looked at them and they didnt feel comfortable being around him alone.

There was a lot of other minor things that happened, and a couple of major events, one of which got the cops called by neighbors because he was screaming so loudly at me that our neighbors thought he would kill me.

Anyways the year was up and I moved out with those other roomies to somewhere a lot better.

#44

Stole and lost a hand woven garment from a relative that was irreplaceable. Stole my phone and a saucepan, too. Offered me a threesome with her and her girlfriend while I had a committed partner. She was secretly dating her gf while openly dating my male boss who just happened to sexually harass me. .

#45

When I went home for the weekend, she would borrow my clothes and let her friend sleep in my bed. I know it doesn’t sound horrible, but her friend had crabs. So I’d have to change my sheets as soon as I got back, every time.

#46

I had a foreign roommate from south america (cant remember which country, I’ve honestly tried to block out all memories of my time with him). he moved into my dorm room in the spring semester of my freshman year, and he was so loud for no reason. he would be up until 2 or 3 in the morning on facetime with friends from back home, i dont mind being up kinda late, but that is ridiculous. he would make bowls of ramen and he would eat so loud that i could hear it in the dorm hallway. i ended up having an anxiety attack because of the constant slurping. he would get bowls of ice cream and leave them sit on his desk for a day and then eat them. he wouldn’t clean up after himself and my room got several demerits because of his messes. i talked to him, nothing changed, i talked to our ra, still nothing, i went to the deans and still absolutely nothing changed! i ended up just sleeping in my room. all other waking time was in class, the library,  or out studying or hanging out with friends. it wasnt all bad tho because i made some really good friends because i was forced out of my dorm lol. i actually got to know my now wife better because of me spending less time in my dorm.

#47

It wasn’t anything they did while conscious. We got on fine when they were awake, but they had a HORRIBLE snoring problem. We slept in the same tiny room of my college apartment, like literally 2 feet apart maybe, and they would sleep through my headphones if I didn’t have soundproof on. I didn’t have a restful night sleep for the entire academic year we roomed together.

I started to hate seeing them come home. They were totally nice and when they did other annoying stuff, like game until 1 am they’d always stop if I asked them to. But the snoring never got better and I can’t believe I lasted as long as I did. F*****g hell.

#48

She convinced our entire residence that i was bullying her and went behind my back and reported me to our Warden. I started being treated badly by strangers and rumours were going around about me. Anyway i was called for a meeting with the warden but when yhey heard my side they were enraged on my behalf and asked why I put up with all the things my roomate would do. (Switch off my alarm, leave dirty dishes on my side, uncleanly in general,take things from my food draws without my consent etc).

In all fairness it was my first few months of college and I didnt really know how to stand up for myself properly/ self respect. Roomate and the warden and i eventually had a meeting together and Warden helped the roomate reflect on their actions. A statement i never forgot when they apologized was that they didnt realize they had become the bully that they hated growing up too.

In anycase it took a few months but i eventually forgave them (they apologized multiple times) and all things are good now [i only lived with them that year]. In retrospect, I am kind of grateful that i was able to learn what it meant to have self respect and grace for others. It hurt a lot at the time especially when i just told myself to stomach everything now, a good couple of years later , i’m a better communicator and have more empathy.

#49

Not currently a college student, but when I was, my college roommate purposefully blew snot on me during an argument. Like, covered one nostril with her finger and blew out as hard as she could.

When I said that I would be contacting our advisor, she said, “Well, I thought we could handle this like adults, but obviously, you feel like you need help.”.

#50

My freshman year roommate was a treat!

– she frequently used my things, one being my laptop because hers broke. I was ok with it for a bit and one time I was like hey I kind of have to do my homework and she asked if I could go to the library. I said no, you’re going to have to do that.

– she lied about be SA’d. We BEGGED her to tell authorities or even our RA because until we knew it was a lie we felt terrible for her and a little scared ourselves.

– she always had different dudes in our room. She made a “love shack” underneath her bed, so you didn’t even know if she was in there or not.

– random dudes use to knock on our door all hours of the night. One night I had a literal group of men knock at 1 am and then ask if they could wait for her to return.. hard pass on that one.

– she’d smoke weed in our room all the time, which whatever, but she’d do it an know my parents were coming that day to visit.

– she stole things constantly. We went to the mall together once and she probably stole $500 worth of perfume from kohls.

She dropped out after the first semester and I got a room to myself the rest of the year. We’re still friends on Facebook and it looks like she’s doing well now, so that’s good.

#51

He made SO much noise, all the time. He would come back from visiting his girlfriend at 3 in the morning and make an ungodly amount of noise. Just clattering around, dropping things, even turning on the lights.

He would regularly loudly masturbate in his bed that was about 3 feet away from mine.

He had his own teddy bear, but laughed at the fact that I had one as well. (This is a minor one, I know, but Still.)

I also found out a couple months in that he was very transphobic. The weirdest thing was that I matched with him because I had applied for a trans-friendly roommate, so he had to have purposefully signed up for that despite being transphobic. That worried me for a while, but he never actually said anything bad to me directly.

The good thing about him was that he decided he missed his girlfriend (who attended a different school) too much, and dropped out 2/3s of the way through the year, so I got the room to myself for the last semester.

#52

I never went to college (I have the big dumb). My brother did though, and his first roommate was a hardcore weaboo. There isn’t anything wrong with loving anime, but when you blare hentai loudly in the middle of the night and have your weaboo wife (he was legit married) living in yalls shared closet to avoid the cost of housing, I’d say that would qualify as a roommate from hell.