My roommate's name was Rebecca, and the college housing lottery had thrown us together. She seemed nice at first — and then things got weird. She never cleaned. She set 17 alarm clocks to wake up for classes but slept through them all. She pulled all-nighters, and her mom would drive two hours to help keep her up. I've never had a relationship that went from friendly to hostile quite as fast as ours did.
The reality is that roommates can be either awesome or awful, and it doesn't seem like there is much in between. So whether you are still living in roommate hell or just want to reminisce about those days, read on for some of the most horrifying roommate stories we've ever heard (#8 is a DOOZY). You might just realize the roommate who always stole your food wasn't that bad after all.
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The Hot Mess
"My roommate slept with my boyfriend. She had a ferret that she let poop all around the apartment. She left drugs on the coffee table when she knew our landlord was coming over to show the place to prospects. Fun stuff." — Samantha C., Wheaton, Illinois
Cereal Offender
"I had a college roommate who used to leave her cereal bowls (with residual milk in them) all over the apartment. At one point she had EVERY BOWL — including mixing bowls — in various stages of milk/mold scattered around the apartment. So the rest of us gathered them up and put them on her bed, thinking she couldn't ignore them there. She came home, pushed that nastiness over, and SLEPT IN THE BED WITH THE CURDLED/MOLDY MILK BOWLS. This same person then slept with another roommate's boyfriend in that gross bed two days after they broke up … to say it was tense in that apartment would be an understatement." — Kate W., Washington, D.C.
The Infection
"I had a roommate who had an ingrown eyebrow hair and was SO TERRIFIED that the infection from that hair follicle would go to her brain that she made me take her to the ER. She was sobbing hysterically and wouldn't let me just pluck the hair. I've never been so embarrassed to be in the ER. They plucked the hair, swabbed the area with alcohol, and sent us on our way." — Beth A., Baltimore, Maryland
Burn Baby Burn
"I once had a roommate who was so scatterbrained / clinically depressed that she nearly burned our apartment down multiple times making popcorn. She would heat oil on the stove for popcorn and forget about it. For HOURS. Also, she kept rats and they smelled bad and when they died, she kept them in the freezer for some reason until she could figure out where to bury them." — Emily P., San Jose, California
More from The Stir: 20 College Roommates So Crazy They Make Living at Home Sound Like a Dream
Toilet Paper Problems
"I had a housemate who left passive-aggressive post-it notes constantly, stole people's kitchen gadgetry, and insisted on each person in the apartment having their own toilet paper. I'm not even joking about the stolen kitchen stuff. Mine magically reappeared once I said something to him about it." — Emily P., San Jose, California
Fish Killer
"Oh! Let me tell you about the roommate who poured bleach in my fishbowl and would take the phone off the hook and lock her door for days. Her parents came, paid for me to break my lease, and took her home. I moved into a studio by myself for two years after that." — Marianne C., Nashville, Tennessee
Dolphin Baby
"[My] roommate would only refer to her mom as Mommy Dolphin and her mom would only call her Baby Dolphin. Her name was Kym. I wasn't allowed to touch her dolphin magnets on the fridge. Because they were sacred, you see. Even though they were purchased from THE AIRPORT." — Ellie C., Wheaton, Illinois
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Really? A Week Later?
"Mine dated my ex. We broke up at the start of the year. They started dating a week later. She asked me for condoms for their first time." — Meaghan M., Cleveland, Ohio
Trashy Roommates
"I once wrote and illustrated a four-page instructional guide to taking out the trash for my Disney college program roommates. I posted it on the wall. It was NECESSARY." — Kate W., Denver, Colorado
Purple Rain
"Rhonda! She only watched Prince content she taped from TV. She worked at the Prince kiosk at the Mall of America. She only ate pot pies, and even though I totally liked her when I met her for my initial roommate interview, SHE NEVER SPOKE TO ME AGAIN. She always had headphones on too! Only listened to Prince, obviously." — Elizabeth L., Los Angeles, California
The Speeder
"Roomie got pulled over and had a suspended license. Gave MY name and driver's license number to the cop. I found out when I got a speeding ticket in the mail. Had to have memorized my license number in case of being pulled over." — Leah M., Oakland, California
Must-See TV
"My roommate brought the TV. Big, HUGE TV. She insisted on watching Melrose when me and other roommate had to study, so she carried the TV down the hall to another room so they wouldn't miss the show." — Allyson K., Brookfield, Connecticut
More from The Stir: 10 Male TV Actors From the '90s Who Are Hotter Than Ever (PHOTOS)
The Slob
"Laura wasn't just messy. She was a complete and total slob. Clothes everywhere, dishes going moldy in her room, always lighting candles because things smelled funny in her room. We ended up having a huge roach problem. So gross, and she cost us our whole deposit when we finally moved out." — Jessie M., Santa Fe, New Mexico
Liar, Liar
"I lived in an apartment long ago with a woman who was a pathological liar. She worked for a national retail chain as a store manager, and I worked at a different location part-time. She always had the newest released clothing hanging in her closet, thousands of dollars of clothes.
"Well, one day I was taking out our trash and I ran around the apartment collecting it from all the cans. I grabbed the can next to her bedroom door and dumped it on the floor, totally missing the bag. As I was picking it up, I noticed it was cash register receipts proving she was stealing from the company. Being the honest person I am and realizing that this woman was a big fat liar to everyone that she came in contact with, I called the employee ethics line and reported my findings.
"The next day, the security people were at her store and she was fired. She never told me she was fired; she got up and dressed for weeks and 'left for work,' all the while sitting in a coffee shop and meeting with attorneys to represent her should the company press charges.
"She was absolutely crazy. Finally after a month, she said that she quit her job and proceeded to throw out every piece of clothing that she stole from the company. I got the hell out of that apartment and moved to my own place. I haven't seen or heard a word about her since." — Juli P., Saint Paul, Minnesota
The Procrastinator
"My first-year roommate in college was great. Her mom called and visited constantly. At a certain point, roommate stopped answering her cell phone when mom called, so mom started calling our room phone — at 6 a.m. every morning. And my roommate wouldn't wake up to answer it, so it would ring and ring or I'd have to get up and deal with it.
"She also tended (as most students do) to procrastinate and pull all-nighters to write papers. Unfortunately, she also had a really shitty printer that was constantly jamming. Her response to this was to hit the printer repeatedly. This usually happened at 3 a.m." — Rachel W., Saint Paul, Minnesota
Dating Her Attacker
"In my senior year of college, I was sexually assaulted at a party. A 'friend' of mine started dating him a couple of months after the assault. She told me, and told me it wasn't serious. She also told me she was raped by an uncle at 14, and so she thought it was just trying to gain power back from that rape.
"We graduate and get apartments — me with her roommate from college, her in a cooler part of town. In fall, 'friend' decides to quit her job, so she needs a place to stay for a couple of months. So we let her stay with us just until she gets back on her feet. She moves into our dining room. Guess who she is dating long-distance? Yep, assaulter is calling our home phone." — Name withheld by request
Clothing-Optional Roomie
"Roommate junior year of college was an exchange student from Germany. She had a strong personality, very flirtatious and sexual. Naked. A lot. Lots of sex in our room. Sometimes had signs up outside asking not to be disturbed. Sometimes not. She was also very loud and did not get along well with her parents, meaning lots of yelling in German into the phone at odd hours of the day. Needless to say, I didn't spend much time in my room junior year." — Lindsay P., Saint Paul, Minnesota
