When you move away from home, you are exposed to a plethora of new people and new experiences. Some become the memories we absolutely cherish and ruminate over, while others we hope we never have to witness again. Shared living is one such experience that either makes you forget home or it makes you want to run back to it.
Now personally, I have never really lived with roommates who weren’t family, so I don’t know what it’s like. But if the experience is anything like I hear from my friends, I would absolutely love to know its like.
That is until I saw this Twitter thread. Journalist Gene Demby asked people to share their most horrific stories and experiences with roommates.
This makes me wonder about your worst roommate stories. Go!
I’ll start: came home one Sat and had an eviction notice on the door. Turns out roommate had been taking my rent money — at that point, $5K — to pay for his dues to his Scientology-lite cult group. https://t.co/jAd1YfXAyF
— Lysol In E Flat (@GeeDee215) February 21, 2018
He started off by sharing his own personal bad experience with a roommate who practically stole his money and got him evicted from the house because of non-payment of rent.
The answers that followed his tweet have pretty much changed my mind about shared living and it will change yours too. Here, take a look.
1. Even if it was well-intended, this is horrible.
I had a roommate that would tell me i could eat anything in the fridge and borrow any of her clothes, but left notes on clothes saying “i wouldn’t wear this if i had YOUR figure,” or “don’t eat this, it’ll go straight to your big hips,” on the food.
— MJ 💲 (@lil_lumpiaa) February 22, 2018
2. I would have died of a stroke at the sight of it.
This was in college, but my roommate hid a 4ft bald python under our bunk bed for 4 days before I found it.
Our very first conversation involved my snake phobia so needless to say we were not off to a great start.
— 🔥Big Little 🅰️🅱️🅾️♌️ℹ️💰🏩 (@somuchbetter88) February 22, 2018
3. This landlady who stole the person’s passport. What?!
Mine was a landlady who also lived in the house: she wouldn’t let me use the washer/dryer because “people are dirty” (direct quote) and, several times, woke me up at 3am to ask me if I’d been cooking.
She also stole all my mom’s care packages…and my passport…
— Mallory Yu (@mallory_yu) February 21, 2018
4. Kaafi subtle, but ewww…
https://twitter.com/DavidSRudin/status/966418161074520065
5. God, it must’ve been awful.
I mean nbd but my roommate poured her leftover spaghetti (like half a bowl) into our shared bathroom sink and tried to just "wash it down the drain"
— (((Leah Donnella))) (@AskLeezul) February 21, 2018
6. Umm, that’s mild? Really?
WOW. This makes me so glad that my “worst roommate” stories are really mild. Freshman year of college, I roomed with a sleep-walker. Woke up to her sitting on top of me in the middle of the night on more than one occasion.
— Dianna E. Anderson 🏳️🌈 (@diannaeanderson) February 21, 2018
7. So regular and healthy sleep schedules are a problem because?
Two women roommates said I was "disrupting their lifestyle" by going to bed at 10:30pm/waking up at 6am. Tried to hash out the problem in person, but then they complained to the landlord. He "kindly asked me to leave" b/c he was "afraid of losing 2 tenants instead of one." 😑
— John Asante (@jkbasante) February 21, 2018
8. Whaaaaa?!
Ohhh! Let’s talk about the roommate who would let her sister come to our house every weekend from Morgan State, do laundry, have guests and eventually set us up to be robbed by said sister.
— hautemommie (@Hautemommie) February 22, 2018
9. This could’ve gotten REALLY ugly.
10. The Hogger! How I hate this kind of people.
i had this roommate who would binge eat all my nutella and bread. and then get really apologetic and buy me another nutella and loaf of bread. and then binge that again. and then apologize. i would hide it in my room but he'd sneak in and ate it again. and then apologize, again.
— ahmed ali akbar (@radbrowndads) February 21, 2018
11. Six months without paying rent is an awfully long time, bro.
My then-roommate's then-girlfriend came to stay overnight once after it got too cold to sleep in her tent at Occupy Boston. Cut to six months later and no rent paid, we finally got him to kick her out
— Danny Lewis (@dannydoodar) February 21, 2018
12. She was cool with it, but what about the other dudes?
roomie's gf also had major boundary issues. not to be a prude, but she would walk around naked proclaiming it was totally fine and not uncomfortable because she was cool with it. made bringing dates home an exciting kind of roulette!
— Danny Lewis (@dannydoodar) February 21, 2018
13. This one had had a really bad experience.
14. There are so many things wrong with this one.
https://twitter.com/atsinha/status/966425747563991042
15. She actually managed to track down the parents. *applause*
I had to sublet my room and the new girl's check bounced and she sent all my calls to voicemail. So I channeled my inner auntie and called everyone with her last name (which was Irish) in her home state (Massachusetts!) until I found her parents and they paid me.
— Lakshmi Gandhi (@LakshmiGandhi) February 21, 2018
There is no doubt that if you find the right kind of people, roommates can be your second family. They can make your house seem like a home away from home. And you’ll definitely find people who tell you some really good stories about roommates.
But looking at these, it is safe to say that not all roommates are a joy to live with. some can even turn out to be nightmares.