These days, having roommates is pretty common. And while some roomie situations can be a wonderful arrangement with absolutely no problems, others can be an absolute nightmare with seemingly no escape.
So when Reddit user u/Jman1994678 asked, "What’s the worst experience you’ve had with a roommate?" people had PLENTY of stories to share. Here are just a few of the responses:
1. "First year of college, she came back drunk on Night 5 and peed on our carpet and some of my clothes. Then, in the morning, she denied all of it despite the room smelling like piss."
2. "I lived in a house with a guy who let his friend hide from the cops in our basement. The friend had shot and killed two people in a robbery."
3. "The dude kept falling asleep while smoking cigarettes. I got mad every time and woke him up. He bought me a fire extinguisher at a yard sale one day. He thought it was the best joke ever. He fell asleep one night on the couch. The cigarettes rolled off onto the carpet. Carpet caught fire, couch caught fire, and his shirt caught fire. He never woke up. I woke up, having smelled it. I grabbed his gag gift and put it all out. His shirt and hair were GONE. He was okay. Never even went to the hospital, but he absolutely would have died if I hadn't been there and had that fire extinguisher beside my bed. I moved immediately."
4. "The first night in the new shared apartment I was renting, my landlord slept on the floor in my living room on a rug. I thought that was weird, but I was not in a position to argue, as I really needed a place to live. Then, over the next couple of months, my landlord moved in and brought over eight family members from Turkmenistan, including a newborn baby, and they all lived in two bedrooms (and by bedrooms, I mean one was the living room!). When I complained, they locked me out of the apartment. I called the police, who let me in and scolded the family. It was a nightmare. I finally got out of there and never looked back."
5. "You know Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory? Exactly like that guy, but nowhere near as smart. Condescending, insulting, with boundary issues. I was there for two months and had to get out or I would have ended up with assault charges."
6. "He played League of Legends all night. If the game didn't go his way, he would scream in frustration and beat his fists on his desk, no matter what time of night it was. It was difficult to get a full night's sleep with him roaring and pounding every few hours. He would also eat at his desk and broke several of the dishes I had bought for the apartment during his little tantrums."
"It gets worse, though! Eventually he decided that he needed to be more alert during his marathon gaming sessions. Most people would invest in coffee or energy drinks, but no, he decided he needed to buy meth. He told us he was 'too smart to get addicted,' but at that point I decided I'd had enough and noped on out. I took what remained of my dishes with me."
7. "She never cleaned dishes and would leave them until they got REALLY moldy — like, multicolored colonies that were 4 inches tall. Everybody used to do her dishes, but then we stopped and kept putting them on her bed. To which she put the fucking dishes on the ground next to her bed."
8. "One of my roommates worked for a lawn care company; we lived in a house, and there were four of us. Somehow he got the bright idea to steal some of my information and sign me up for service without my knowledge. I owed hundreds of dollars to the company, and they sent me to collections. I was pissed. I called and told them what happened. After weeks of me trying to get the problem solved and talking to multiple people, they finally closed my account and fired my roommate. Then he lived there freeloading for months. I finally moved out of that place and never had a roommate again."
9. "I shared a quad in college with a girl named Monica. She was fine in the beginning but then began doing things like hiding the toilet paper, trying to limit how much time we spent in the shared living room, allowing a homeless man to sleep on the sofa, and hoarding cutlery. She decided she wanted to be a vampire and had her teeth filed into points. At the end of the year, we started referring to her as 'Demonica.'"
10. "A family of three came to my apartment and told me that the other roommate had invited them to stay in our small apartment for an undetermined period of time. Roommate didn’t discuss this with me beforehand. She was away on a monthlong vacation."
11. "One roommate brought home two rats as pets, and we ended up with 29 rats in what felt like no time at all."
12. "She poisoned my food. She started out with 'harmless' pranks like putting salt in my jello before it set. Then she put bleach in my pasta water, as if I wouldn't fucking smell bleach noodles. She would steal my underwear, wear them during that time of the month, and put them back in my underwear drawer, unwashed."
13. "I lived with a guy who had skin issues and refused to get help and shed flakes everywhere: shower, sink, toilet. They ended up in the washing machine, too, when he did his washing, which ultimately ended up in everyone else's clothes when they did washing."
14. "I was in a motorcycle accident and spent a month in the hospital. My roommate took my rent money and spent it on cocaine. I came home, barely able to walk, to find an eviction notice on the door."
15. "One of my college roommates tried to have sex with her boyfriend while I was on the top bunk. It was creepy. At first I kinda coughed and rolled over, as a gentle reminder that they weren't alone. But they started up again after a few minutes, assuming I'd gone back to sleep. I guess they didn't realize how much the top bunk shook, or they would have known it was impossible to sleep through that. Eventually I made some comment like, 'I thought that's why you bought a van!' She was embarrassed, but I was past caring at that point."
16. "He allowed his homeless friend to move in without my permission and didn’t tell me. After several weeks, it became clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. This man would be super loud on Xbox Live playing video games until 4 a.m. He would leave awful messes in the common area. Eventually I said something to my roommate, and he said, 'What do you mean? He does pay rent!' Apparently he thought it was fine to let his friend move in and split their part of the rent 50-50 without even talking to me about it."
17. And finally: "I roomed with a couple who hid their pregnancy from me until I signed the lease. They knew they were expecting but also knew that nobody wanted to live with an infant. It was another five months of living there after the baby was born."
Do you have any roommate horror stories? Share them in the comments.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.