18 Stories From People Who Had Roommates From Hell

Kasia Mikolajczak
woman sitting on a kitchen counter eating pizza while the other one is hunched over the counter
Pexels | Pexels

I have to say that I've been lucky that I've never had to share my living quarters with a roommate. A romantic partner doesn't count, lol. But you know what I mean.

Once I moved out of my parent's home, I wanted to just be on my own, and it's a good thing because I've heard stories from my friends about some roommate nightmares they have experienced. And as it turns out, so have other people. Here are a few stories from folks who posted on Reddit.

This Bad Match

hands holding pot buds
Pexels | Pexels

"Probably the girl who dated the homeless drug dealer. He ended up moving in (without my permission) and started dealing out of our apartment (definitely without my permission). He also had the rankest boots I've ever smelled that he would leave in the living room."

Oh my goodness, ha, ha.

This Crazy Story

South Park character arriving at a door with eviction notice on it
Giphy | South Park

"Got a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue for my birthday from a friend. I went out of town. Roommate proceeds to drink half the bottle and then fill it up with water like I wouldn't notice. And then had the audacity to lie about it and continues to until this day. I do believe he doesn't remember though. He got laid off after getting a DUI. Proceeded to drink himself stupid for eight months and was eventually taking our rent money to pay his car bill. Didn't realize until we had an eviction notice. Forced him to get his parents to pay for our three months of rent he didn't pay but I still have an eviction on my record. I have a copy of the notice that says I was not evicted so wherever I go I have to show that to future landlords or when I buy a house so we don't get denied."

Yikes!

This Passive-Aggressive Behavior

post it notes hanging on a wall
Unsplash | Patrick Perkins

"I had a roommate who would (attempt to) leave unjustified scathing, passive-aggressive notes for just everyone: our apartment neighbors, cars parked outside, and even our landlady. The kind of notes with overly-polite language underlines, and randomly capitalized words. Always written in red marker. Always rude enough to get the [crap] beaten out of her. Always signed from both of us. I spent that year following her around and removing the notes as quickly and quietly as possible."

How random, huh?

This Convenient Lie

text messages about no smoking allowed in home
reddit | u/half_a_cup

"One of my housemates caught my bad roommate smoking in the house and he lied and said I told him it was ok."

Well, that's not cool at all. So convenient that this person doesn't have the message as proof, huh?

This Total Slob

egg cooking in a frying pan
Unsplash | Nathan Dumlao

"My old roommate always used the same pan for eggs and never cleaned it. For an entire year this pan was caked with eggs and just sat on the stove (which was also covered in egg splatter.) Even if I cleaned it for him, it would be back on the stove the next day."

Um, yuck. That's nasty.

This Disney Obsession

scene from The Lion King where the kings holds up young Simba on the cliff
Giphy | Walt Disney Records

"I had a roommate in college who could only fall asleep if he watched Disney movies at night. I had to listen to them every night for hours trying to sleep. And I now hate the Lion King with the passion of a thousand burning suns."

Ha, ha, that would ruin Disney for anyone, right?

This Party Girl

laptop sitting on a desk
Unsplash | Kari Shea

"My first roommate in college was a nightmare. She'd party all night and then wake me up at 4 am when she got in to see if she got any phone calls (this was before cell phones were common, but our college phones had voicemail). It was a dry campus, and she would drink all the time in the dorm and leave bottles and cans all over the place. I drank too, but I at least had the common sense to hide the bottles! She'd come back from sorority parties trashed off her ass and expected me to take care of her."

Again, so glad I never had roommates. Unbelievable, huh?

This Exchange Student Nightmare

woman saying "what did you say?"
Giphy

"I lost the random roommate lottery freshman year of college. She was a foreign exchange student from China, and we had NOTHING even remotely in common. Here's a list of my favorite things she did to me:

She would wash her clothes in the sink, not the washing machine downstairs. She would hang the clothes up to dry, even on my side of the room. I finally convinced her that she couldn't hang her wet clothes on my TV. I came home one afternoon and she had hung a wet dress over my closet door. It was soaking and had ruined all my pictures from home. She came back to me crying on the floor and she patted my shoulder and said 'It's OK. It's only photos.'"

Wow, what was her problem?

This Toilet Paper Issue

woman holding toilet paper
Unsplash | Hello I'm Nik

"I had a roommate who absolutely refused to buy toilet paper. After weeks of her stealing ours, the other 3 of us started hiding it so she would be forced to buy her own. Instead, she started taking heaps of napkins from restaurants and stealing rolls of our paper towels. One night we all went out to dinner, came home, and the entire basement was flooded because she backed up the toilet with god only knows how much [stuff] that shouldn't ever be flushed. That and she would keep piles of old food laying around her room...never did laundry...most disgusting human being I've ever met."

What is it with people refusing to buy toilet paper, huh?

This Odd Hygiene

woman brushing her teeth with red toothbrush
Unsplash | Diana Polekhina

"She had this cup full of 'liquid' by her bed. There's no better way to describe it, really. She kept her toothbrush in it — bristles down in the liquid — and when it came to brushing time, she'd basically just take the toothbrush out, brush her teeth, spit into the cup, and shove her toothbrush back into her cup."

Okay, I'm confused AF.

This Vengeful Act

fridge with stickers on it
Unsplash | Squared.one

"A roommate and I had (what I thought was a minor) falling-out and when she left (with no warning, in the middle of the day while I was at class/work), she took the fridge. Not because she needed it, but because she didn't want us to have it. We had to pay out the ass to get one from the Rent-a-Center for the rest of our lease."

Oh, that's just not nice.

This Toilet Fix

clothes' hanger against an orange background
Unsplash | Andrej LiĊĦakov

"My girlfriend's brother lived in a quad with three other dudes. They all met through Facebook before moving in. Everyone was pretty normal until about a month in. This one guy would never leave his bed and would only eat pizza. He would leave the empty pizza boxes in his bed and either sleep with them on top of or under him. He never threw them out. The real nail in the coffin was when he apparently clogged the toilet. The plunger wasn't getting the job done, and after 15 minutes, he panicked. He walked out of the bathroom, took a wire hanger out of his closet, fashioned it into a stick, and went back in. The toilet flushed. He came back out, fashioned the hanger back into a hanger shape, rinsed it off, and PUT HIS SHIRT BACK ON THE HANGER AND IN THE CLOSET."

Oh, boy!

This Runaway Roommate

woman acting shocked
Giphy | Colette Baron-Reid

"He was responsible for collecting our individual rent payments and turning in the rent check to management. Instead, he spent two full months' rent ($4100) on cocaine and take-out, then disappeared when the eviction notice was posted on our door."

I guess somebody learned a hard lesson here, no?

This Clean Freak

bowl of popcorn
Unsplash | Georgia Vagim

"I had a clean freak roommate who was crazy. She'd literally FREAK OUT and scream and clean up after you while you were cooking. I'd cut vegetables and be putting the first part into a pan, and she'd walk over furious that I'd left the cutting board out and messy for her to clean up. I'm literally still using it! I'll clean up when I'm done using the cutting board! She however only ate two things, chicken nuggets, and popcorn WHICH SHE NEVER CLEANED UP AFTER."

Okay, that's pretty odd, no?

These Roommates From Hell

toilet paper roll against blue background
Unsplash | Claire Mueller

"Not actually my story but a friend of mine had a pretty rough time on her first week of living in a new place with a bunch of guys. She originally wanted to rent with her friend but unfortunately her friend pulled out of the university course at the local university they were attending together, so she ended up having to find somewhere to rent alone.

She ended up renting a room in a house share with 4 other guys (also students). After the first week she informed them she was going to the shop and they asked her to pick up some toilet tissue for the house. Unfortunately, she forgot and they were pretty upset about it.

So the next day, after being out of the house all day she came home to find her bedroom walls and bed sheets smeared in [expletive]. It was their idea of teaching her a lesson about forgetting to get toilet tissue."

I can't even!!!

This Drunken Accident

woman laughing and saying "it's all gone wrong."
Giphy | AsmodeeGames

"First year of college, my friend's roommate came stumbling into their dorm room one night. It was blatantly obvious that she was drunk beyond reason. She started shouting, 'I NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM,' which woke up my friend. She saw her roommate staggering back and forth through the doorway, but stayed in bed because she really didn't know how to react. Before the roommate left to go to the party, she'd placed her white Mac laptop on her chair by her desk. So, what we think happened was that the white from the laptop on the seat made the chair look like a toilet in the mind of the drunken roommate. She approached the chair, pulled down her pants, and sat on her laptop. There was only one way this could go. Although her laptop was covered in piss and [expletive], she denied that this ever happened."

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse — it did!

This Invasion Of Privacy

man in a red polo shirt making a shocked face
Pexels | Pexels

"My first college roommate hated doing laundry, so he wore my underwear (without asking) when his were dirty. It never felt like my underwear again after he'd been in it."

OMG, what? Who even does that? That is the grossest thing ever. Case closed.

This Weirdo Couple

couple running together
Unsplash | sept commercial

"I used to live with [roommates] who I've decided were one of the most disgusting couples ever. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. They would use my dishes and leave them in their room, unwashed, usually with food in them. They didn't want to buy a litter box for their cat, so they took a plastic gallon tub and just dumped litter in it. Their cat constantly peed on their shoes in their closet, and they'd just continue wearing them as if nothing had happened. But the worst: When we moved out, I had to clean everything or I knew we wouldn't get our deposit back. They had cleaned out most of their things, and I let them know I was going to clean their room. They said 'cool' (they were never going to do it), so I went in, armed with gloves, a scarf covering my mouth, and a bottle of bleach. Boy, was I unprepared."

This is the craziest story I've ever heard.

OMG, did I even exaggerate?

woman saying "Dirty dishes in the sink. I hate it."
Giphy | TV Guide

I think not. I can't even believe these crazy roommate stories here. Where do these people come from, huh? As I said before, I'm so glad I chose to live solo. I rather have a piece of mind instead of a constant worry. I don't envy these folks who got stuck with nightmare roommates at all.