So Your Roommate Is Crazy

Current staff is here to help you survive

Does your roommate make you so crazy that you want to gnaw lead paint off of a fire hydrant? The good news is it’s not your fault; they’re the crazy one. Sometimes it takes an insane person to drive someone else insane. (It’s psychology, HELLO!) We’re here to let you know that you’re not alone; this has happened to us too! To help you deal with your crazy co-habitor, here are some anecdotes about how we survived personal roommate Hell ourselves.

For when YOU are the unstable roommate
by Elle Kay

You know that roommate that drank a little too much at the party, came back to the room a little too late on weeknights, complained just a bit too often about money, and dated people right on the edge of driving you crazy? That was me, freshman year. With the newfound freedom of dorm life after strict curfews and chaperoned evenings, I felt like I could cut loose…in my own pseudo-rebellious way. I spent exorbitant amounts of money on organic snacks and cigarettes, subjecting my friend and roommate to the perma-stink of rotten fruit and stale smoke. I tried to creep silently into our room at 4am, but inevitably shined my cell phone directly into her eyes. One morning, about halfway through the year, I crawled into bed after my then-boyfriend shouted at me through the door to “quiet down.” I left a trail of my shoes, sweater, and gigantic purse with its contents strewn across the floor. My roommate sat up in bed, looked at me, then the floor, and just said, “seriously?” Mortified, I apologized. Something about her exhausted, annoyed expression reminded me of my mom, and mom-induced guilt can really halt any bad behavior.

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For when your roommate is terminally unemployed
by Sonny Forrest

One of my college roommates stayed up until 4am every night blasting fist-pumping EDM amid trips to retrieve his noxious pizza rolls from the loud-ass ancient microwave. He wasn’t in school. His dad paid his rent. I had to be awake at 6:30am each morning for a 14-hour day while he slept in until 5pm. We had several talks about the noise, the colon-clogging late-night snacks, and the fact that he didn’t do a thing all day, every day. It was unhealthy to live like this, I told him. I offered to help him find a job. I started explaining the contents of my day to him, how much energy it required to slog through each day. He stopped cranking that ear-splitting EDM noise before approaching our housemates about subleasing his room a month later. Make your lazy-ass roommate understand that everyone else in the house needs some semblance of calm, which may require them to stop being such a solipsistic jackass.

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For when your roommate has an inhuman sleep cycle
by Jacqueline Bull

My sophomore year, I lived in a house with four other girls. I soon discovered that the girl that I shared a room with was depressed. And by depressed I mean, a mountain of trash and empty pop bottles in her room at all times, and I almost never saw her awake, usually sleeping with Harry Potter tapes playing aloud. I wondered what she did with her waking hours, or if she had any, but as it is with roommates it is often better to mind your own business. One night, I woke with a start and looked at my phone to discover it was 4am. All the lights were on in the bedroom and she sat upright furiously tapping on her computer and blaring music. I actually shouted her name and she didn’t notice. Turns out she did this every night and took advantage of my inhuman ability to sleep through anything. Her sleep cycle was sleeping in intervals from 6-9am, a brief nap at 1pm, and 5-8pm. She moved out a couple months later and left her trash bags and pop bottles behind.

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