20 Stories About ‘Roommates From Hell’

In our journey to adulthood we move from our parents home to living on our own, which can be sweet bliss because everything happens your way in your own place. But what about the in-between time, when due to fiscal reasons or other you end up sharing rent-space for some time with someone else, either a previously known individual or a stranger. Either way, it’s only when you live with someone that you really get to know the person and their habits inside out.  Of course, it is acceptable that no two people are alike so there are bound to be differences, but what about those extreme situations? A reddit user inquired from the online community ‘what made your worst roommate ever such a bad roommate?’ The responses led to startling revelations of just how questionable some individuals can be. If your interest is peaked, scroll below for a selection of sordid tales about the 'roommates from hell' and don’t forget to share your own ‘monster’ roommate experiences in the comments sections. More info: Reddit 1 | Reddit 2

#1

Image source: basicallyasleep, Jennifer C. Had a weekend getaway planned, confirmed a couple of weeks in advance that she could take care of my cat while I was gone (side note: she had a cat too.) Before I left, re-confirmed that she would be around and could take care of them. Wasn't uncommon for me to do all the kitty duties, which I didn't mind at all, but because I was used to being on top of it I wanted to make sure she had it under control. Got back after 3 days and clearly no one had been in the apartment for at least a couple of days. Cats had no water or food and had been clawing at the door enough to chip a bunch of the paint off of it. I texted her and asked if she had watched the cats, she replied that she decided to stay with her boyfriend for the weekend, completely oblivious to the fact that she had abandoned two helpless animals. I asked if she realized the cats hadn't had food or water in a few days, she replied "oh, they're just cats, they are fine." I asked her to move out and also if I could keep her cat because I was worried about her ability to take care of another creature, both of which she agreed to. Some next level loser a*****e s**t to do that to creatures that are dependent upon you to survive.

#2

Image source: Shadow948, Adriani Zulivan They left beans in the fridge so long it became a sentient life form. Then got mad that I threw it out because "they were going to still eat that".

#3

Image source: Spiritual_Fee_1428, Sonja Lovas I wasn’t allowed out of my bedroom when she was with married men :/ still mad I allowed it to happen.

#4

Image source: Antidumbthoughts, Keira Burton Best friend had his girlfriend come live with us. She was constantly coming into my room to ask me to explain some sort of emotional bit about my best friend. Id give her advise and she would never take it. Then she started started fights with him, tried to get me involved. I eventually had to start climbing out my window to go pee because she was such a nut case. Then after he dumped her she started calling my mom to try and force him to talk to her. Yeah she was aweful. She apparently has cancer now. And has tried to contact me. I dont feel bad saying Ive blocked her, cause i dont believe for a second she has cancer.

#5

Image source: Abahu, Rex Roof He was filthy. He would make spaghetti, eat it, and then put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher. He wouldn't scrape anything off. But he would never run the dishwasher unless it was *completely* full, so I would open it for once after three days and see mouldy spaghetti on hos dishes. It smelled awful. When I would point it out, he would be like "Huh? What happened? I don't understand what is wrong ?". Bruh Bonus, he would play the same level of the same PS2 game in the living room every single day and laugh very loudly at the same lines.

#6

Image source: Burrito_Loyalist, Karolina Grabowska He had severe undiagnosed OCD. He had a laundry list of rituals that would consume his entire day and p**s me off. One of his rituals was to play a movie and music at the same time on his laptop and then go take a 2 hour shower. We shared a room so I would close his laptop when he left the room and after his shower he’d come out and ask me, “Why did you touch my laptop?” I would tell him because the noise was really distracting and he would tell me to just use headphones. This happened every Tuesday and Thursday night.

#7

Image source: Weenaru, noricum Whenever he ironed his clothes, he would leave the iron on the table. Without turning it off. Next to hanging towels. 4 times in a 2 week span.

#8

Image source: oneofyrfencegrls, cottonbro studio She made us Patient Zero in a campus wide bedbug infestation. And this wouldn't have been that bad, everyone makes mistakes, but the reason why it was campus wide was because she saw 3 separate doctors over a period of 3 months, who all said the same thing, and then she ignored medical advice repeatedly before finally checking, at which point, she'd been all over campus. Then she had the nerve to sit all 8 of us down for a roommate meeting where she told us that we all needed to be "serious" about the bedbug protocol, and get to the laundromat to clean our clothes and stuff, because she just couldn't take anymore stress and she needed this situation resolved. MONTHS I'm still really irritated by it, because she really presented it as though she was the victim, like someone had broken in and put bedbugs in her bed. But she has absolutely no sympathy or empathy for anyone else on campus dealing with this, nor for any of us, her roommates, who were forced to grapple and deal with it out of our own pockets. She had no apologies or even kind words for us. She wasn't a great roommate to start with, but she was living in the same room as two girls who were dating, so I gave her some leeway. This just took everything over the edge.

#9

Image source: SaTan_luvs_CaTs, bgwashburn She let her bunny s**t all over her room including her bed and then wondered why she got a rash

#10

Image source: dingbatyokel5000, Micah Sittig Made his own low-grade wine in the bathroom (which created a stench) and had bi-weekly mental breakdowns in the living room because he was convinced he had contracted AIDS.

#11

Image source: crimsonelf, Karolina Grabowska She would invite people over with no notice even during covid shutdown or when we were sick (I didn’t have an issue with people coming over I just didn’t want to be surprised by it) She would meal prep for the week always on the day that I had deep cleaned the kitchen She never cleaned any shared spaces and rarely cleaned her room Found dishes with moldy food in her room often She would leave and not come home for days at a time leaving her meal prepped food in the fridge for us to clean (made even worse by the fact that we were vegetarian and she always cooked with meat) Found coffee that had been in the fridge for so long that it actually had moving organisms in it Brought home a fish that she didn’t know how to take care of. It was bloated and we had to nurse it back to health with no help from her Brought home a kitten from a stranger at a jack in the box without talking to us about it or taking into account that we already had a cat and a dog that don’t do well with other animals Then after I told her that a kitten requires a lot of attention and she actually needed to be home at the very least 60% of the week, she followed that advice for approximately one week before deciding that she could go back to her old habits of not coming home for 4-5 days at a time So consequently that cat became horrible. It constantly attacked the other cat and dog, ripped up the carpet in our apartment that I had paid a deposit for by myself when we moved in and caused me to lose that deposit (though she did eventually pay me back for that so I guess that earned her some points) And then when we moved out left a ton of her stuff in the apartment for us to get rid of. Also told me that she cleaned her room before moving out when she clearly hadn’t. I spent three hours cleaning her room after so we wouldn’t get charged a cleaning fee She also complained multiple times that the apartment didn’t feel like her home and blamed me for that. I tried multiple times to get to know her better and hang out with her and she was never interested. When we moved in she refused to put any of her decor in any shared space even though I asked multiple times if she was sure. And when we was actually home she shut herself in her room and wouldn’t come out

#12

Image source: CosplayWrestler, Wade Simmons TLDR; My Alcoholic roommate stole money I had hidden in my room and drank a bottle of expensive scotch given to me by a deceased friend and lied about it. When I was 21, I got a bottle of Macallan 18-Year Sherry Oak Scotch Whiskey (he came from a very well-off family) from my best friend of almost 15 years who was battling cancer. My friend and I made a pact when we were teens, that whenever either of us got married, we'd be each other's best man. My friend had gotten married to a wonderful guy that he had met in college, and the two were my closest friends that helped me get through a lot of bad things in my life. When he gave me that bottle, he gave it to me not as a birthday present, but as a promise to be around to be my best man when I got married, like I was when he got married to his husband. Sadly, the cancer spread and got out of control, and he passed away a few months after my birthday. After he passed, I planned to never open the bottle. I tried to give the bottle to his husband, but he refused to take it and told me that my friend meant the bottle to be for me, not him. I kept the bottle tucked away in a steamer trunk in my closet. I tell you that, to tell you this... One day, I come home to find my drunken roommate passed out in his recliner. The bottle of Macallan next to him was on the table, completely empty! I thought that maybe he bought himself a bottle. But with a gut feeling, I checked my room. The trunk in my closet was wide open, the box the bottle came in was open, and the bottle missing. As was the envelope of cash hidden inside the trunk. About $2,500 that I had saved up over the year from working a side bartender job on the weekends. I woke my roommate up, asked him if he took the bottle of out my trunk, and he said "No, I got this from the gas station." He sat there, staring at me, expecting me to believe him. I was furious. I told him that I was moving out. He didn't understand why. I confronted him about the missing money and the bottle of scotch he clearly stole. He said "Bro, relax, it's not like you can't buy another bottle. You clearly have the money for it." I left the apartment, went to the rental office, and informed them of the situation. They helped to get me off of the lease and even helped me find my own townhouse in one of the other property neighborhoods they had. I returned to the apartment, packed up my belongings, and moved out the next day while he was at work.

#13

Image source: Mezame_Drgn, Dru Kelly We had a shared kitchen, the 3 of us, we had cleaning schedules but they never followed it, they just piled it up until it was my turn. After numerous complaints that i was the only one cleaning i stopped cleaning, 3weeks later there was rotten food and fungi all over the kitchen and even a cockroach infestation. a cleaning company had to be hired, the costs of which spread over the people living there, i objected the bill on grounds of my earlier complaints, they didn’t argue and i did not have to pay, i even got compensation for eating out every night, they got kicked out a week later. Was a win for me eventually but a horrible time before that.

#14

Image source: cerart939, cottonbro studio My favorite: She would come in drunk at 2am, turn on all the lights, leaving either her keys in the front door lock, or just leave the door wide open and then pass out in the living room. Good times!

#15

Image source: blackday44, Jeff She would brush her long hair, and clean out the brush. Then to dispose of the hair she would stuff it in the *sink drain.* Normal people throw it in the trash. She clogged the sink constantly.

#16

Image source: O_vJust, Jonathan McIntosh Found out the dude was keeping his webcam running when he was out. Being secretly filmed was kinda f’d up.

#17

Image source: apocalypticradish, cottonbro studio It was five of us in a house and rooms were rented out on an individual basis. One guy was pretty awful. He claimed he used to be in the national guard at some point and had this weird sense of entitlement about it. Like, he genuinely believed he shouldn't have to do any communal chores or clean up his own messes because of that. He was also the biggest victim I've ever met. Nothing could ever be his fault and he'd deny any wrongdoing, even with the evidence literally in front of his face. The entire time he lived in the house, he was supposed to be looking for a job but all he did was smoke weed, cook instant ramen (which again, he never cleaned up) and watch Netflix on his phone. We'd hear him getting in loud arguments with his parents about why he was still unemployed and it was always some new excuse that they clearly weren't buying. He eventually left because his parents stopped paying his rent. The worst part of it all is that this dude was 41 at the time but had all the maturity of a spoiled rotten 10 year old.

#18

Image source: Gonzostewie, NeilsPhotography Hoarded/hid food and ate everyone else's, would leave dirty q-tips laying around, refused to do any dishes, and one time I caught him spitting on the floor. I backhanded him clean out of his shoes for that one.

#19

Image source: LeatherHog, Ellie Burgin In the middle of a 100F heatwave in August, not only turned off the AC, but turned the heat on To **90F** Even at the coldest days of winter, has no one turned the heat to freaking 90 Came home to a sauna, and she didn't even stay after she did that

#20

Image source: KennethPatchen, Alena Shekhovtcova Called me at a friend’s house and told me that my father had died - he hadn’t and was perfectly healthy.

#21

Image source: JustSomeDudeItWas, Sarah Cooper As a child I had to share a room with my brother. If I was snoring, he'd hit me in the face with a pillow from the top bunk.

#22

Image source: retief1, John Benson She repeatedly peed on the floor right in front of me while making eye contact. She was also a cat. She had multiple clean litterboxes, but she apparently preferred to pee on the floor in front of the litterboxes. My human roommate (her owner) did their best with her, but such is life.