20 Moments When Roommates Crossed Every Possible Line

Sharing a room with another person can be a wonderful experience... or the beginning of your villainous origin story. Because no matter how much you sign a contract, what no one tells you is that you also sign a pact with the unknown: strange habits, uncomfortable silences, habits that defy logic, and moments that make you wonder if you are not staring at a hidden camera. In this article, we gather 20 true stories that prove that living together is a box of surprises and that sometimes what comes out of that box is not exactly a good partner... but a story you will tell at every social gathering for the rest of your life.

“My roommate moved out in the middle of the night and left this behind.”

• I was on vacation. When I got home, I walked in and the carpet was soaked. I looked to my roommates for an explanation, but they were sitting around watching TV as if nothing had happened. It turns out that three days before I returned, the water heater had exploded, ruined the carpet and flooded my room, which was right next to the heater. They just decided to ignore it. © CtrlAltDeleteS*** / Reddit
• My roommate had a room with her own bathroom and constantly clogged the toilet with napkins because she didn’t want to buy toilet paper. After clogging it, she would resort to using other people’s toilets in the hallway with no intention of fixing her own. But one day she clogged ours as well. So while she was out, me and my other roommates went into her room to see what was wrong with her bathroom, and what we found turned our stomachs: there were months of feces still in the toilet, along with piles of clothes all over the floor. She also had two dogs that she neglected and was always trying to keep the money from the community recycling. She was the worst. © snowlin / Reddit
• My friend’s roommate staggered into her dorm room a little disoriented (freshman year of college). She started yelling, “I NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM,” which woke my friend up. She saw her roommate stagger out the door, but stayed in bed because she didn’t know how to react. Important fact: Before her roommate came out, she had placed her white laptop on the chair next to her desk. The reasoning here is that we think the white laptop on the seat made the chair look like a porcelain throne in her roommate’s mind. So she walked over to the chair, pulled down her pants, and sat on the laptop. My friend braced herself, realizing that this situation could only go one way. As she braced for impact, her roommate let out a sigh of relief that unfortunately coincided with the release of her bladder and bowels. And even though the evidence was there for all to see, her roommate denies that this ever happened. © storefront / Reddit

“When your roommate doesn’t understand the concept of personal hygiene and you’re tired of telling him to wash his stinky body every other day.”

• I used to live with a magician. Of the many strange moments I lived with him, the one I remember most vividly was when he was about to leave the country for about 2 months. Before he left (hours before he went to the airport), for some strange reason, he opened the freezer and filled it with whole chickens. Then he got very angry when we ate them to make room. © superfrankii / Reddit
• It was literally the first night we slept in the same room with my roommate, so it was a little awkward since we only knew each other’s names. But night came and we went to sleep. Suddenly I woke up to the sound of her screaming “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOO” and then she threw all the blankets off the bed onto the floor. At that point I freaked out and asked her if she was okay, but she didn’t answer. Instead she sat up, looked around, saw the window and whispered, “No, not the window...” Then she got up and went to the window. At that point I realized she must be sleepwalking or really crazy. She got to the window, grabbed the lock with both hands, and closed and opened the window over and over again while whispering to herself. She never opened it, but after about 3 minutes she let go and said, “Yeah, that’s it.” And then she started to walk back to her bed, but when she passed my bed she stopped and turned to me. Then she fell asleep (I hope) and looked at me for 2 minutes. She started whispering to herself again, walked past her bed to the door, shuffled through the middle of it, turned around and walked back to her bed and went back to sleep. I was scared, but I never told her. She never did it again. © Unknown author / Reddit
• The first night in the new shared apartment I was renting, my landlord slept on the living room floor on a rug. I thought it was weird, but I was in no position to argue, as I needed a place to live. Then, in the next two months, my landlord moved in and brought 8 relatives from Turkmenistan, including a newborn baby, and they all lived in 2 bedrooms (and by bedrooms I mean one was the living room!). When I complained, I was kicked 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. © LauraPa1mer / Reddit

“My roommate keeps turning on the heat in our apartment. It is literally 72 degrees outside right now.”

• My roommate in college wanted to clean the silt stains out of our shared bathtub, so he poured bleach and vinegar (not even sure why we had that in the dorm) for a “super strong cleaner.” After using the bathroom and getting dizzy, I asked what was in the bathtub, and when he told me, I didn’t think it sounded right, so after a single search, the first result said it was deadly. It produces chlorine gas that can kill within minutes. © Guy_with_big_truck / Reddit
• My roommate (the owner of the house) asked me to switch rooms with her. She was moving out in a month and was using a lot of my closets for storage, so (apparently) it would be easier for her to pack if she stayed in my room (it turned out she really just wanted the better room for when her boyfriend came to stay.) I told her I’d rather not, that the thought of having to go through everything and change rooms to move back in a month was too much. But I told her that I had no problem with her coming in and out of my room to pack, as it would be a lot less hassle, and she agreed. The next day I went out with some friends for a few hours and when I returned she announced a “surprise” with a big smile on her face. She had switched our rooms. © Zinzidec / Reddit
• My roommate came into my room while I was out and left her curling iron on my laptop, melting the top right down to the screen. The screen was completely ruined. When I got home I noticed it and asked her if she did it because I don’t even have a curling iron, my roommate denied it and said it must have been, quote, “a ghost or a burglar.” © bdonn / Reddit

“My roommate constantly yells at his game and takes up all the space in the freezer.”

• In college, my roommate had a girlfriend who lived in England (we were in the US). He used to talk to her on the phone and everything while we were both in the bedroom. My roommate was of course FB friends with her and some of her friends he had “met” while visiting. He used to talk all the time about how much he missed her, how much he loved her, etc. But then, after I moved in, I found out that this girl NEVER existed. Fake profile, fake name, fake photos... He didn’t talk to anyone on the phone (except himself). I have no idea why he would go so far for this lie, but I felt very strange about the whole thing when I found out. © nonchalantpedestal / Reddit
• I had a roommate who was easily distracted by things. Anything. He might have a thought about why the stars are certain colors and then go on a mission to find out why. Or it might be a curiosity about the air pressure in his tires. The problem was that when this happened, he would simply walk away from whatever task or activity he was doing. As a result, we had a lot of burnt dinners and clutter all over the house. © Unknown author / Reddit
• I had a roommate in college who used to play Bittersweet Symphony on repeat all day, every day. From the minute I moved in, to even after I moved out (I moved down the hall to another kid’s room because that’s just one of the super weird things he used to do, and I still heard it playing constantly whenever I walked by). I used to really like that song too, but it’s ruined for me now. © pm_me_b***_stuff_rn / Reddit

“I’m going to lose my mind.”

• She took a fork to work every day with her lunch. But the forks never came back. We mentioned it because it had never been a problem before she moved in. We bought a box of more forks...just forks, and they started disappearing too. She denied it until we caught her eating lunch one day and asked to see her purse. She apologized and bought us a box of plastic forks. We asked her to move out soon after, as she was weird and not a good catch anyway. Oddly enough... we never had the fork problem again. © wlane13 / Reddit
• While my roommate was abroad for a semester, his brother lived with me. One thing I noticed was that he bought a lot of butter. A lot! We always had about 3-4 sticks in the fridge, and it was not always the same few sticks, but he was always buying new ones. One time I asked him what he was doing with so much butter. A little nervously, he said it wasn’t his (which was very strange because we were the only two people living there and none of my friends brought the butter and he never had friends over). When he moved out, the butter also disappeared. To this day, I don’t know what he needed it for, and I don’t think I want to know. © MariaCP86 / Reddit
• My roommate has a cat and for some reason he keeps buying it potatoes. The cat doesn’t eat them or anything, he just gets them for him to play with. I usually come out of my room once a week to find shredded potatoes and plastic all over the floor, carpet, couch, you name it. He cleans it up when I get on him so I guess it’s not a big deal but it’s still weird; just buy him a stuffed mouse or something lol. © G0ats1ayer / Reddit

Now that you’ve finished reading, you might want to change the lock. Or at least look twice before entering the kitchen. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. We all have a story like that.

Still want to be amazed (or scared)? Check out this article with testimonials from people who also thought they had lived the worst... until they met their neighbor.