Dirty Underwear
Not doing the dishes, borrowing things without asking first, being late on rent…these are some annoying but unfortunately normal roommate issues to have when choosing to live with another human being. If you’ve ever wondered, “How could my roommate be any worse?” you’re definitely not alone. People can be rough around the edges.
With rent prices as high as they are, getting a roommate is usually a smart way to find affordable living. A lot of colleges require you to live in a dorm during your first year (at least), and if you’re like many other first-year college students, you’ll have to have a roommate. Getting random roommates is always a mixed bag. Some people get placed with random roommates and luck out with a bestie for life, but the people on this list didn’t have quite so much luck.
This girl took being messy to the next level. Freshman year, I had an awful roommate. She left the sink an absolute mess, and we had fruit flies and other bugs. She also left dirty clothes and underwear sprawled across the floor, and she brought guys back to our room while she had a boyfriend.
Our Entire Room Reeked
The worst was the (very) dirty underwear she left on the floor that my parents saw during Parents Weekend. Needless to say, I moved out before the year was up due to our differences. Reddit user: [redacted]
I lived in a tiny dorm with this crazy girl. She had gynecological issues, which was no biggie, but she refused to see a doctor about them. She only got her period twice a year, and when she did get it, it would be extremely heavy and last for several weeks. She would wear pads but would constantly bleed through them and onto her clothes.
She Had Over $10K
However, instead of putting her bloody clothes through the wash like a normal human, she would soak them in bowls of water on her desk. Our entire room reeked of blood. Reddit user: [redacted]
My college freshman roommate hated my boyfriend, but she always had her boyfriend over and fooled around countless times while I was still in the room trying to sleep. The best part is whenever we would go out to eat and she would “forget” her debit card, thus making me pay after we ordered our food.
Missing a Boyfriend
When I asked her about getting my money back, she always claimed she was broke. I saw her account open on her computer once, and it had over 10 grand from mommy and daddy. Reddit user: [redacted]
This girl was actually nuts, but I guess you can’t blame her for knowing what she wanted. She just might be jumping the gun a bit. My cousin’s first roommate when she went to college was very interesting. She bought an engagement ring and then asked my cousin to hide it somewhere in the apartment.
They Were Naked in Her Bed
Her idea was that when the roommate’s boyfriend wanted to propose, my cousin would give him the ring so that she would get the ring she wanted but still be surprised when he proposed. She was single. Reddit user: [redacted]
When I was about 20, I shared an apartment with another girl. We were both pretty mature for college students and not into partying. One night, I was out on a date and didn’t get home until the bar closed, around 4am. I came home to find a couple I’d never met before naked in my bed.
The Devil’s Spawn
They were listening to my radio, had used my computer, and things were moved around. Like it was their room. They said my roommate said I probably wasn’t coming home so it’d be ok. Reddit user: [redacted]
My roommate bullied me into anxiety problems and heart palpitations. Every time I ate, she would say, “Piggy piggy.” Then she broke up with her fiancé, who was fighting in Afghanistan, to date MY ex-boyfriend and would have him over every night. She would even use my TV without asking.
I’m Still Waiting on That $500
She treated her mom like trash, and I mean I’ve never seen anyone be so disrespectful to other people, especially to their parent who was offering her whatever she wanted. She was literally the devil’s spawn. Reddit user: [redacted]
I roomed with a girl that always slammed the door. It didn’t matter if she was angry or happy, she would always slam the door on her way in or out of the house. Second, when we moved into that place, she was short on money, so I paid the $500 security deposit out of pocket.
She Stole from Me
At the end of our lease, my roommate moved to Portland and didn’t pay the last month’s rent. The landlords withheld the security deposit, and I’m still waiting on that $500. Reddit user: [redacted]
I lived with another girl from a different country in a host family abroad. She proceeded to deliberately avoid me, steal money from me and my host mum, borrow things and not give them back, go inside my room and then deny it, and eat all the food I bought with my lunch money.
He Threw Up
Things started to disappear, but when we confronted her, she had no clue where the stuff was. Plus, she never showered or washed her clothes. She was 17 years old. I’m so glad that year is over. Reddit user: [redacted]
He was not my roommate but rather my suitemate. He once came into my room completely drunk, stood by my bed, and threw up, and not a little, a lot. So I was rightfully ticked off, and me and my roommate waited until he passed out and then duct taped him to the RA’s door.
She Doesn’t Even Go Here
He had no idea how he got there. When the RA questioned us, we just said we were cleaning up throw up all night. He, however, never talked to either of us again. Reddit user: [redacted]
My ex girlfriend at Cornell had a roommate at her dorm that turned out to not even be a college student. She was a drug runner, and there would be all sorts of junkies on this girl’s couch and hanging out in her room. They would go in and do illicit things in the bathroom.
Meat Chunks
We called the cops several times. She was arrested after we took tons of photos of all her drugs and called the police. We consented to them searching the house, including her room, when she was out. Reddit user: [redacted]
I had a roommate freshman year of college that had a rabbit named Meat Chunks. My roommate would let him run around the house and get on the couch. Cute for a while, until you find little rabbit poops when you sit down. My roommate’s response was, “He only eats grass, so it’s not gross.”
“Butterfly” by Crazytown
When we moved out, the couch was pulled away from the wall, and a rainbow of rabbit urine and hundreds of little poops were found. It took everything I had to not get myself some “lucky” rabbit feet. Reddit user: [redacted]
I somehow ended up living with 19-year-old twin undergraduate males as a late-twenties female graduate student through sheer bad luck. They were terrible roommates. They frequently got in fist fights with one another, and they lived off of ramen that stunk up the entire place. However, they did two things that were truly unforgivable.
Him and Three Other Men
One was played Crazytown’s “Butterfly” on constant loop for 3 days straight because he loved the song so much, and the other left his hair all over the bathroom for a few days after giving himself a trim down below. Reddit user: [redacted]
There was the landlord that lied about the house being for students. In reality, it was him and three other men, all 35+. I was 18 (female) at the time. Then there were the two wild party girls who always brought home a bunch of strangers from the bar. One of them also left her walls covered in black mold.
Poop-TP Mountain
Last, but certainly not least, the jerk who forced me out when he wanted to sell MY television. “I hold the lease on this property, so everything thing on it is mine.” Reddit user: [redacted]
My roommate would poop like a normal person, that’s fine. But when he wiped, he wouldn’t flush the toilet paper. He would put the crappy pieces of toilet paper in the trash can! It smelled the entire dorm room up. Not to mention he expected me to take the trash out.
Rotting in the Bathroom
The trash can was about a foot tall, and the poop-TP mountain was more than twice the size. It was just leaning against the cabinet under the sink. It was disgusting! Reddit user: [redacted]
My fiancé’s old roommate left her used pads and tampons on the bathroom sink for weeks. They rotted and attracted flies. When he or the other housemate asked her to clean that stuff up, she raged and ripped out the internet router. Lucky for them, one day she got in another rage…not sure if it was over the tampons or something else.
The List That Could Go On
She suddenly moved out, leaving several weeks of unpaid rent. I would gladly pay the several hundred dollars just to be rid of her. Reddit user: [redacted]
My old roommate was 23 years old. He would pee and not flush the toilet and didn’t brush his teeth in the year he lived with me (I even bought him a toothbrush). He took shoes out of my dead brother’s room and wore them. He constantly left wet towels on his floor and his clothes in the bathroom after showering.
The Spaghetti
He never cleaned his room once, and he constantly wanted me to drive him places because he was cheap on gas. I could go on. Needless to say he’s gone now. Reddit user: [redacted]
My roommate would always make spaghetti. He always made way too much and would have a huge pot of sauce left over. He would just stick saran wrap over the pot and leave it in the fridge for days until one of us would just dump it out. Eventually, we stopped taking care of it.
The Housing Assignments
It sat in our fridge for weeks growing the sickest mold I’ve ever seen. After that, we put it under our back deck and left it. I never saw it again and have no idea what happened to it. Reddit user: [redacted]
Sophomore year in college, I was assigned a random roommate. I came back to the dorm after spending a weekend at home to find all of his stuff gone and the cabinets cleaned out, along with everything worth more than $10 I had in the dorm (T.V., PS2, minifridge, games, electric toothbrush).
Scabies
I called the cops, and it turns out that the kid wasn’t even enrolled at the school but was the nephew of the guy who did the housing assignments; he had been giving young family members places to stay and quit the day before. Reddit user: [redacted]
I was put in a three bedroom apartment with 6 roommates. One roommate never owned a set of sheets for his bed during our 4 months living there. He also regularly brought girls back for sexy time on his bare mattress. One day, he started complaining about a rash that had developed on his chest.
The Towel
The dude had scabies. The rest of us were then required to go to the clinic, where they gave us all a special cream that we had to apply head to toe, “just in case.” Reddit user: [redacted]
My roommate showered twice a week with this one towel. He never washed his towel throughout the entire semester and used it to clean up messes. This included messes that were made during and after intimacy. Then he would also wipe his mouth after brushing his teeth. With the same towel.
The Baby-Obsessed Roommate
He also never changed his sheets the entire year after having unprotected you know what with his girlfriend. Other than that, he was a pretty swell guy. Reddit user: [redacted]
My old roommate was slightly obsessed with babies and getting pregnant. She would cut the heads and limbs off baby dolls and then sew them onto handmade “more lifelike” bodies. I would often wake up to random baby parts in bowls around the room. It looked like a horror scene most of the time.
The Tailbone Cyst
She also got obsessed with selling baby stuff online. Again, she didn’t have a kid. Our tiny dorm was stuffed full with boxes, random products, and doll parts. Reddit user: [redacted]
This story makes me gag. My freshman year roommate had a cyst on his tailbone, and every couple months, it would pop and get all over whatever pants he was wearing. The fact that it was so bad that I knew where on his body the cyst was…you know it was bad. There was just no hiding it.
Pee Problems
And this was some foul-smelling stuff, but instead of cleaning it up and doing laundry, he would just leave it for days. Reddit user: [redacted]
My roommate was a really sweet gal. However, whenever she got drunk, she had a heck of a time figuring out our doorknob. So one night, around 4am, I heard a rattling noise. I looked around and realized that she was trying to leave our room. She didn’t realize, however, that the door was locked.
He’s a Snooping Thief
A few minutes passed, and she walked over to our garbage can, pulled off her shorts, and peed into the trash can. The next semester, a similar situation, except this time, she flooded our entire room with pee. Reddit user: [redacted]
The jerk I’m living with now is easily the worst roommate I’ve had. He had women in my bed and our other roommate’s while we were away. He snooped around my room for my extra car keys and then took my car without my permission. He comes back home belligerently drunk every weekend, banging on the door and yelling.
The Smell of Black Ice
Doesn’t ever clean or help out with anything around the apartment. To top it all off, he’s now living in my room while I’m working in Europe. Reddit user: [redacted]
My roommate showered FOUR times in the two months he was living with us. We work together, and it’s a dirty job. I always have grease and grain dust/dirt on me, as did he. He would stink up the entire room he was in. I hung a few of those little tree air fresheners all around his bunk to give him a clue.
Stay Healthy
To this day, the scent of ‘black ice’ makes me want to vomit. The day he left, the other guys and I burned the sheets of his bunk. Reddit user: [redacted]
This awful, smelly one really takes the cake, but not in a good way! A housemate I had a while back had serious hygiene issues, although I think it was largely laziness. The guy’s room smelled awful right up until he moved out. To put it in perspective, he had problems with mold everywhere.
Flush the Toilet
Rather than clean his room, he started putting fungicide in with his laundry (because apparently that’s all that’s actually important). Reddit user: [redacted]
I had a roommate who would repeatedly fail to flush his crap down the toilet. The mechanism was a little wonky, so sometimes you had to jiggle it or flush it multiple times to get it to go down, but he never did that. When I complained, rather than apologize, he made excuses.
Volume Battles
“Oh, sometimes my phone rings while I’m in the bathroom so I go to answer it and I forget.” And he argued that it was unreasonable to expect him to check that his poop was going down the toilet. Reddit user: [redacted]
My first roommate drove me nuts. I’d try to play a video game and we would have volume battles. She would watch TV 99% of the day, and for my 2 hours of game time, she wouldn’t let me have my volume up just a little more. She wouldn’t sleep until 2am when I had to wake up at 7am for class.
The Menstrual Cup
She’d wake up at 4am and eat something with a loud obnoxious wrapper. I wanted to kill her. I moved in with my boyfriend’s family my second semester. I couldn’t deal with her anymore. Reddit user: [redacted]
I get wanting to find new ways to handle Mother Nature visiting each month. I’ve even heard really good things about menstrual cups, but this was so gross. My roommate used something called a menstrual cup. It’s basically a cup you use just like a tampon, but it’s used to collect menstrual blood, and it’s reusable.
Track Camp
Anyway, several times I caught her using my cookware to sanitize her cup, and on several occasions, she would leave a ring around the shower drain, because that’s where she would empty it. Reddit user: [redacted]
I was at track camp. I mean yeah, no one really wanted to be there, because it’s track camp and that’s not very much fun. The worst part besides the fact that it was track camp was waking up in the middle of the night to find my (perfect stranger of a) roommate standing over me watching me sleep.
Street Fighter Party
I sat straight up, and she didn’t say anything. She just acted like she was doing something and got back in bed. It was creepy. Reddit user: [redacted]
Last night my housemate had a Street Fighter party, with around 50 guys crammed into our bottom floor. They brought their own consoles and had money riding on the games. Interesting way to spend your time, but okay. All of that testosterone trapped in one basement was getting to just be too much.
Sounds Like a Healthy Relationship…
When you opened the door, you got hit with a wall of dude smell, and people three doors down could hear them. I dubbed it Virgin Fight Club. It wasn’t bad at all, but it was hilarious. Reddit user: [redacted]
My freshman year of college, I moved into a dorm, and my roommate seemed normal until I realized how many screaming fights he would get into with his girlfriend (and the constant weird makeup loving they would have, all while I was in the room). He would break his own belongings over fights he had with her, including his own hand once by punching a concrete wall.
Fresh Out of a Divorce
I then had to drive him to the hospital. After I completed my freshman year, I found out he got his girlfriend pregnant, in case you were wondering. Reddit user: [redacted]
I rent a room in a relatively wealthy man’s house. He’s fresh out of a divorce, and his young daughters are over a few days a week. But when they’re gone, he takes full advantage of having as many women as he can over. Then, he either blows an air mattress up in the living room or takes women into his children’s beds.
Unwashed Hippies
He has a big house and his own room. I don’t understand why these women don’t question his choice of location. Reddit user: [redacted]
I shared a dorm room with 2 other people. One of my roommates said, “Hey, some of my friends are coming through town, ok if they crash on the floor?” Come back from a late class to find ELEVEN unwashed hippies taking up every inch of floor space, including the balcony.
Homeless Couple
They stayed all weekend. Also with this roommate: told my mom that I was on academic probation during my first quarter. Reddit user: [redacted]
My girlfriend brought in random homeless dude and woman to help them get back on their feet. Not even a few weeks into it, I’d noticed a little bit of change gone here and there, but I figured I was just looking for a problem and didn’t have solid evidence against them.
Don’t Touch His Coffee Mug
I came home one day to my computer and PS4 gone, my entire fridge emptied of food, my spare room completely trashed, and my little piggy bank I’d been saving up busted and empty. Never seen them since that day. Reddit user: [redacted]
I lived with a guy who refused to wash (or let me wash) his dirty dishes. He believed that all he ever needed was one plate, one knife and fork, one glass, and one cup, and he would just reuse them over and over again. I once washed his coffee mug and he freaked out!
He Loved LOST
Then there was how he had all the labels of tin cans facing the exact same way in the cupboard. I drunkenly turned one of them one night for a laugh and he exploded in anger. Reddit user: [redacted]
It’s less creepy, just weird. My freshman year, I roomed with a guy, and one day I was sitting in front of my TV watching LOST, and he came in and let me know that he was a fan of the show. Then he proceeded to just stand behind me and watch the whole episode.
Didn’t sit. Just stood there quietly. When I invited him to sit, he just told me that he was fine standing there. When I turned on the next episode, he did the same thing again. Reddit user: [redacted]