So, one of the many hazards of American Universities is that of the nightmare roommate. And all through the course of this semester I have felt particularly lucky to have a very low-maintenance roommate who is unopposed to weird posters, webcam conversations and my entering the room at 2 in the morning most nights. But Friday night I felt even luckier to have the roommate I do, because I was witness to a nightmare roommate of disastrous proportions. My story begins back in September. My good friend on the floor below mine, Evan, was informed by his roommate Miles that there was now a gallon of milk in the fridge. Miles drank about two glasses worth of milk and then left the bottle to its own devices. The milk expired on September 29th. Evan made several points of mentioning to his roommate that this milk should be thrown out, but Miles was not particularly bothered by the prescence of bad milk, doing nothing to remove it. Then on Friday night -- Friday November 3rd to be exact -- after enjoying an evening of watching Fight Club and eating leftover Halloween candy, Evan and I went into his room to return his laptop to its rightful place. As I entered the room I was hit with a most horrifying smell. We were unsure as to the source of the smell, but as Evan went to his fridge to retreive a soda, he discovered a puddle dripping out of it. Turns out the milk, which had expired over a month beforehand, had exploded all over the fridge and leaked out of the door. The bacterial gases had caused the bottle to expand and thus go nova. Then Evan had an explosion of his own. In a nutshell, Miles was yelled at accordingly, was forced to clean it up, and was then nearly murdered when he walked by Evan and cracked "no use crying over spilt milk." Which tells you all you need to know about him. The smell of rancid milk was gone by the end of the weekend, but that evening the entire floor reeked of it. And now, Miles has lost the right to use a capital letter in his first name -- Whenever I see him I call him miles the malignant malcontent. And Evan hopefully will be trading roommates with someone. There's a kid moving out across the hall (due to a completely unrelated incident). miles is officially the Worst Roommate Ever. And he makes me so grateful that my roommate is a calm, friendly, studious pre-med student. She may think I'm odd, but at least she knows expiry dates are not to be trifled with. Anyway, anyone else have any nightmare roommate stories? They are definitely entertaining... I couldn't laugh at the time, but I spent the rest of the weekend giggling about it!
Hmhmhmh.... LOL! I have stories, and plenty, and probably there are some people out there with stories about me. I should explain first, though, that there is no such thing as "roommates" in Germany. The universities have no living facilities of their own, and every student has, theoretically, look for living space on the private market. This usually results in flatsharing, and flatmate stories, but no roommate stories.* Beware. Long post. A lot about destruction, drugs and murder though. I once had a flatmate who smoked so much dope, I think I must have inhaled quite a few joints passively. Even though I was not fond of getting stoned myself, I can still tell the quality of the stuff from the smell, just from living door to door with him for two years. Said flatmate also topped everything I have ever seen in personal as well as flat related hygiena. No, wait, he did shower... But he horded so much junk (empty pizza cartons, beer bottles, whatever) in his room, that you had to swing on the lamp to get to the balcony on the other side. Other people are known and feared for never changing their blankets. He just never owned one. When he had household duty, I went, from some point, into bitch routine precautionary, just to see it getting done within the next six weeks. We used to wash our own dishes but had common plates and such. We installed a plastic container where we put the dishes in he had used and not washed, and collected them either until he did wash them, or until the mushrooms started growing out of the container and we would wash them. One afternoon I bitched around because almost all our plates where turning green in "his container". The next morning I got up and found the kitchen empty and clean. I was pleasantly surprised. Then I wanted to take a plate for my breakfast out of the kitchen cupboard and found it empty. There was not a single plate left, of surely 30 plates we owned at the time. I stormed his room and found him passed out on the bed, and the container with all our plates, most of the cups and whatnot parked amongst a lot of other stuff outside on the balcony. I then yelled him out of his coma. I don't quite remember what I yelled, probably the ...smell in the room made me all gaga and it came out as "Braaaaaaaaaaaaaargh-argh-killya-aaaaaaaaaaargh-dodishesnowordie!!!!". Well, he was so stoned he wouldn't have heard anything else if I had been perfectly articulated anyway. Yes, yes... It did rub off after a while, though. I should not be too judgamental, actually. There was Gonzo, you see. I had a thing for experimental cheeses. I tried everything at the time. Once, I brought home a french mold cheese from the market. It stank so awfully, that after an hour with it in our fridge, we agreed it could not stay. The whole kitchen-livingroom started to stink. So, we put it into a plastic bag, and because I didn't want to throw something that expensive away, we hung it out of the window, at a window knob. Then we started sillying around about the stinky, hairy thing in the bag, and decided to give it a name. We called it "Gonzo". Then, we all forgot about it. It was winter, and that particular window was not opened very often due to its odd positioning in a corner of the room. In March, we sat at the kitchen table together, and suddenly, someone kept staring at the window and then asked: "Gonzo?! Is taht THING still out there?" And we all went: "Oh... my... God...FIVE MONTHS!" I cut off the bag, went down onto the lawn with a barbeque fork, and carried Gonzo away. Again, I don't remember details about where I put it, again the ...smell might have been the cause, but this time there was noone to yell at. Studying is such an olfactory experience. Ah yes, he also fell asleep one night when sitting on the toilet, and we found out about it in the morning (when he was still... sitting there.) The roommate one day played a small trick on me, because I was the one that was easiest set up about the hygienal conflicts. I had bought a large glass of pickled cucumbers at the supermarket, as a cheap snack. I hadn't even opened it, but the next time I opened my kitchen cupboard, I found it half empty, and richended with dog ends and ashes, and one used handkerchief all swimming amongst the cucumbers in the pickle. Uaaaaaaagh. I threw a hissy fit, and he just gave me back my unopened glass and took his own glass of the same brand back into his room, where he had happened to have it when he discovered mine in the kitchen. It stayed there for quite a while. Did I mention that one night shortly before Christmas, he burnt down our kitchen? I wasn't at home, he was... well, no guessing here. Noooooooooo. The fire destroyed the kitchen and went out all on its own, unnoticed until my other flatmate returned home from his girlfriend the next morning. I think had I been at home that day, I would have suggested we just put a cushion on his face and pretend the smoke has killed him. With what he had collected in his lungs until then, no autopsy could have revealed anything else. All that said, he was actually a nice guy, and the only one in the group who wasn't spooked out by my manic laughter fits. *There are large facilities owned by the student unions, who rent out flats to students only, to relatively good conditions. This can range from 8 m² rooms on floors as you know them from everywhere in the world, with one kitchen for ten persons and group showers, to 4 room apartments (for 4 students obviously). Imagine whole regular quarters, often far away feom the campus, inhabited by students only. Yes, imagine.... That's where I spent my actual studying time, before I founded a family.
As a first year college student, I've heard my share of roommate horror stories. My boyfriend's roommate talks on the phone all the time. It sounds like an exaggeration, but its not. He complains about never getting any work done, but he never stops talking on the phone, so its not exactly surprising. My boyfreind periodically tries to work in there and gets into furious fits of anger because there isn't three seconds of silence before the boy is on the phone again ("Wouldn't It Be Nice" is the ringtone, I think everyone in the dorm hears it in their sleep). My other friend, on the other hand, has the grumpiest roommate ever. I have never seen him smile. I don't know how my friend does it, because after being with him for ten minutes I want to slap him silly. The worst, though, is this very nice young man from India who never sleeps, who is afraid of spirits, who talks like a machine gun, and who is quite simply absolutely crazy. Anyone in my dorm would gladly donate an organ to his poor roommate.
Heh .. Hsing's story reminded me of my flatmate who smoked grass regularly in his room. Once I woke up at 3:30 am with the fire alarms going off ... turns out this chap came home, put a frozen pizza on the small grill, and then passed out in his room. He didn't even wake up when the fire alarm was ringing.
I think Evan should have been more proactive in getting rid of the milk, before it burst, like putting it in Miles' bed.
[quote:dd9ac299e0="Hex"]Then Evan had an explosion of his own. In a nutshell, Miles was yelled at accordingly, was forced to clean it up, and was then nearly murdered when he walked by Evan and cracked "no use crying over spilt milk."[/quote:dd9ac299e0] LOL, that is SO brilliantly funny & cheeky at the same time. I just burst out laughing and everyone in the computer lab looked at me!
[quote:62b17a26a3="Maljonic"]I think Evan should have been more proactive in getting rid of the milk, before it burst, like putting it in Miles' bed. [/quote:62b17a26a3] You know what? That's what I said. :roll:
This Miles fella seems to be a master of puns. I personally think I'd be a terrible room-mate, but then again I'm probably never going to be one.
For the most part in my younger years I was a very bad roommate. Then as I got older, I was the good roomamte who payed rent and lived with a string of people who couldn't keep a job. I think that's my major gripe about roommates, you can't depend on them to actually pay the rent. At least the ones I lived with. I will never, ever have a roommate again. Ever.
In my first year at uni, I lived with six other people in a flat originally designed to be the top floor of a house with 4 bedrooms. So we had no living room, and we all had bedrooms the size of cupboards with flimsy partition walls. So, I didn't really see much of them unless in the kitchen making food. But I heard them, oh yes. Aaron played Kanya West at full blast late at night. Carys played Dido at full blast very early in the morning. Carys also invited a load of people back one night who she had met just that night. These people left at about 3 in the morning and thought it a funny prank to set the fire alarm off as they went. Our criminal landlord (who was charging around £80 a week for this hellhole) didn't tell any of us how to turn it off, so we had to call the handyman Alan (a dodgy bloke who frequently sported black eyes) to come and turn it off. He took his time. In my second year I lived with a loved-up couple. My room was directly below their bedroom. Lets just say I got used to getting up at night and putting [i:ac240d53c6]my[/i:ac240d53c6] stereo on full blast. Out of necessity. My third year was ok. I lived with 5 other girls, so the bitching was sometimes a bit extreme. One of the girls used to let the shower curtain hang over the bath as she had a shower though. Our carpet attracted slugs after a while. "No use crying over spilt milk." Lol Edit: Oh also, Aaron put a garlic bread, still in its plastic packaging, in the microwave, and then went off and left it, assuming it would be ok. The flat stank of garlicky plasticky smoke for days afterwards. Oh and, not really flatmate related but: in my second year house with the couple, our heating broke for over a week over the coldest period of winter. The windows weren't double glazed, the doors were breezy, we wore full clothing and coats to bed and had no hot water. Wow, what a rant. Student living isn't all getting stoned and eating pizza in the morning, apparently.
The summer before my senior year in high school I moved in with a friend of mine of the same age. The house belonged to his grandparents so we barely had to pay rent. They were just happy we mowed the lawn. The friend I lived with is a bit odd. Okay, completely insane. We had mice in the basement so for fun he'd go down there and chase them down. Sometimes he used tools (ie: hammer, not mouse trap) For a while we had a possum that kept digging through our garage and messing stuff up. One night we heard it and my roommate got up mumbling curses under his breath and walked into his room. He walked out with a big replica sword he owned and went into the garage. I tried to tune out what happened next, but he came back inside with a dented sword and blood spattered on him. I didn't sleep well that night.
