It's back to school season, y'all! You know what that means — a bunch of you have just met (or are about to meet) the human you're going to be living with for the next 10 months or so. And TBH, it's either gonna be really fun or the pettiest, most passive-aggressive couple months of your life.
Regardless of whether you're rooming with your BFF or someone totally random, living with someone else is hard! Even if you think you know someone, you meet a wholeeee other side of them when you're watching them attempt to write the 10-page paper they put off for several weeks at 3 a.m. the night before it's due. And sometimes, you learn that when they don't get their way, they can actually be pretty awful.
Well, we asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share the moments they realized their new roommate was capital-T toxic. Here are some of the best (aka...worst) stories:
1. "My roommate would take my coffee tumblers to work, then leave them in her car for weeks, and they'd get all moldy. When I finally got about five back from her in one big haul, I cleaned them and kept them in my room. When she realized I moved them, she took the coffee table from the living room and put it in her bedroom because it was 'hers.'”
2. "My roommate got a dog without really telling me. She told me she was 'thinking about it,' and she was lonely because her family is out of state. Which I was on board with. She asked me to come meet a dog at a local rescue she was interested in, and when she asked, I said he was cute. She then told the shelter she would take him, and the dog came home with us THAT DAY. She got him, got him settled, and then left for her 12-hour overnight nursing shift. Turns out, this dog had major anxiety and whined literally all night. For the next three months, that’s what happened. She would leave for her 12-hour shifts and leave the dog alone where he would whine nonstop. I tried to talk to her about it, but she never believed me because, 'he never does it when I’m home!'
"I ended up sleeping over at my boyfriend’s house for pretty much the next three months, because the dog wouldn’t stop whining unless SHE was home. To make it worse, she never told our landlord about the dog like she said she would (found out AFTER we moved out), and he was so loud that if our neighbors had called our landlord, we could have been in huge trouble."
3. "I had a college roommate who constantly wanted to know my location and who I was with. If I came home before going out, she would assume she was going as well without invitation. Sure, I enjoyed her company — that’s why I chose to live with her — but it became an obligation unless I was in class or at my job. She memorized my schedule and got jealous when I spoke of other friends. She once exploded at me for being home 20 minutes 'late' after class, because I didn’t check in with her and she got worried. I literally had made a quick run to the store to buy tampons. Being possessive is always a red flag.
"You do not owe your roommate all your free time or an explanation of where and what you are doing. Our friendship did not survive us living together."
—Anonymous
4. "My housemate refused to let me have family or friends stay over in the days following a surgery I had on my broken foot, leaving me unable to walk for weeks. They said the extra people around the house made them 'uncomfortable.' They then proceeded to go on a several-day-long camping trip, leaving me completely alone in the house. I had people over anyway, because I genuinely needed the help. They told me once I could walk again, I needed to move out because I 'violated their trust.'"
—Anonymous
5. "Once, I brought a girl to our apartment — a girl that my roommate (and former best friend) had known I had a crush on for several months. We hadn't done anything yet; we were just watching TV and criticizing the special effects, when my roommate walked in with a smile and said, 'You got the bitch!' She looked at me and asked if I had ever referred to her as a 'bitch,' but before I could speak, my roommate started asking her what she was like in bed and said that I had a foot fetish. I asked that asshole why he did that, and he told me that she was 'too hot for me.' I realized that more than once he had indirectly insulted me, and I left after a month."
—Anonymous
6. "My roommate made a huge deal to point out that some other close friends had hooked up with my brother, who was two years younger than us. She kept saying it was disrespectful and pointed out that she was seven years older than him, so she 'would never do something so low.' Fast-forward to my birthday, and I find the two of them in bed together. She then tried to convince me I was drunk and wandering around the house aimlessly. I was dead sober."
7. "In college, I had roommate who used the kitchen almost daily to cook. I never used our kitchen — I preferred to eat all of my meals at the dining hall. She was the only one who used it, so I didn’t help with things like dishes or cleaning the counter because it was all her mess. One day, she posted a passive-aggressive Facebook status saying, 'No, it’s OK. I’ll just do everything. 😂👌🏼'
"It was very clearly about me not helping her clean the kitchen. So instead of talking to me about it, she just posted online as though I wouldn’t get that it was about me. It was the first of many other passive-aggressive posts like that, too."
8. "I had a roommate who was a scene kid in the early aughts and went to local shows a few times a week. She'd volunteer to promote the bands and got familiar with some of the band members. On more than one occasion, she invited these young men she called 'friends' to crash at our place, but gave us no warning. She never asked if our other roommate and I were comfortable with it (we weren't). She would just show up with these randoms and put her need to be liked by band guys over the safety of her actual friends more than once.
"And even worse — these guys were disrespectful houseguests. They'd use our shower products and eat our food without permission. One of them had clearly used my razor to shave his pubes and didn't even try to clean it after. She would go to work the next morning and leave us with these random guys who were obviously using her/us all day. It was the worst."
9. "My roommate was annoyed because I left some dirty dishes in the sink. So, he came into my room while I was asleep and hid my eyeglasses. I have very poor vision and was unable to leave the house the next day because of it. He thought it was so funny. Had I known he was that big of a dick, I never would have had anything to do with him, much less been his roommate. Even after I ripped him a gaping new one, he still didn't get why I moved out shortly afterwards."
10. "The first year, nothing really seemed unreasonable as far as rules or requests (it was her house, I rented a room). I followed every rule to the letter. Then, I walked her dog as a favor once, and she stopped doing it. Soon, it was JUST ME walking her dog every morning! She got nit-picky about every little thing and told me to ONLY WALK ON THE EDGE OF THE STAIRS when I came down to use the bathroom at night (my room was upstairs) because she was such a light sleeper. I laughed that off once she was out of earshot, but started looking for a new place that same day. Pro tip: If someone becomes increasingly more demanding over time, it will never stop, and you can't please them no matter how hard you try. Move out, and save your sanity."
—Anonymous
11. "I had a friend-turned-roommate who would pathologically lie about things that seemed minor, like what show they were binge-watching. This grew to lying about consuming foods and using products of mine they did not purchase, but when pressed, would claim they did. They also denied they were responsible for dirty pans and dishes, like I just didn’t remember making the mess myself. I had a box of Christmas decorations stored that I was going to donate, and she even went as far to cut through the tape (with my name in bold letters) before decorating our apartment and boldly stating that she purchased everything at Target and expected that I pitch in money to reimburse her. The ripped box of mine was STILL on the living room floor while she told this story."
"Lying, no matter how small, is red flag. They almost always lie about larger things, too. We haven’t spoken in over 10 years, and I don’t miss having her in my life."
—Anonymous
12. "One of my previous roommates routinely took advantage of my love of animals and constantly left me to take care of her pets without asking first. The worst was when she left for an entire summer (about three months) and left me to care for her bunny and cat. Not only did she not ask me, she didn't even tell me she was leaving them. I came home from work on the day she left to find her pets still there. I called her and asked her what the game plan was for them, and she TOLD me that I was watching them for the summer. She never once asked if I was available to. Then, to rub some salt in the wound, when I told her that I couldn’t do it, she asked another person to watch them and paid them $200.
"She then had her mom call and yell at me for being mean. Mind you, we were both 25 at the time. For me, it was absolutely never about the money or even watching her pets, but the blatant disrespect. I couldn’t deal with that. I ended up moving out before she got back. Wish her the best, but good riddance to that shit (and the friendship, honestly; this really opened my eyes to how one sided it was)."
—Anonymous
13. "My freshman college roommate took a huge dump in our suite bathroom, clogged the toilet, and then left it there for someone else to find. One of our suite mates stumbled upon it, and my roommate said it was me. Believe me when I say I would have admitted to it if it had been me (happens to the best of us), but I NEVER would have left it there. We had a plunger for fuck's sake!"
14. "My former roommate was a compulsive liar and manipulator who eventually got me involved in it. She had a girlfriend and pretended that she didn't hang out with this one girl whenever her girlfriend was at work. She lied that they were just Facebook friends. She eventually cheated with the girl. What sucks is that I had to lie for her and help her cover stuff up, because she owned the house, and I would have been homeless otherwise. I eventually told the girlfriend everything after moving out, but they are still together as far as I'm aware."
—Anonymous
15. "When I moved in with my friend from college, she had just reunited with her high school sweetheart and asked if it was okay if he came over for that weekend. This immediately turned into him being over every weekend — sometimes, the full week — for three months. And on her end, entirely ignoring my existence unless he was politely talking to me. My breaking point was when I got home from an extended trip to my parents’ (vacation turned family emergency, which she knew), I heard from a friend that she had her boyfriend to stay at ours for two weeks while I was gone. I politely and casually asked her if he could chip in for utilities just for those two weeks. She responded by listing everything I had ever done wrong in our friendship, saying she had never extended such an invitation, and how unreasonable I was being.
"The interaction left me in tears. That’s only the essentials of the nonsense I dealt with while living with her, but I moved out as soon as I could and have blocked her everywhere. Best of luck to the poor soul who took my room."
16. "When a potential roommate calls the last person who lived with them 'crazy' — that's a red flag. They said he did all sorts of bad things, so they kicked him out. They also talked mad shit about each other, to the point where I was confused if they were even friends. I joined the lease with eight months left on it, but toward the end, they started acting really weird — not speaking to me, taking the couch cushions away, and saying horrible things to and about me, including physical threats. I should've known it would be bad when they spoke so poorly about a former roommate/friend. It's like when someone calls all their exes 'crazy' — they are usually the bad person in the situation. I will never have roommates again because of them."
—Anonymous
17. "I probably wasn't the easiest roommate either, but my freshman year roommate was just...bad. She once threw my alarm clock at me 'in her sleep' because I didn't get up right away. She also one time invited a random guy to sleep in our room with her without consulting me because I 'was already probably asleep.' Also, she once accused me of purposely allowing her 'priceless anime DVD' to get stolen in the less than a minute it would take me to go to the bathroom to pee."
"The bathroom was maybe 10 steps tops from our dorm room, and since I wanted to be lazy, I didn't bother shutting the door. I was gone maybe a minute, but that was apparently enough time for someone to steal this DVD."
Now it's your turn! What were the red flags/wild things your roommate did that made you realize that living with them was going to be the worst? Tell us about it in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.