We’ve all had arguments with people that make us want to bang our head against a wall. But the most difficult arguments are the ones with dumb people or people who always think they are right, when they clearly are not. These Redditors have stories about the most idiotic and painful arguments they’ve had, from parents or bosses who don’t listen and people who can’t be proved wrong, no matter what.
1. No Other Place To Nap
When I was working one day, I had to reprimand a guy for sleeping in a freezer. He moved all the food off the shelf and took a nap. I woke him up, pulled him into the office and he denied it over and over again. Finally, he said, “Why would I sleep in a freezer?” And I just yelled, “I don't know!”
2. Find The Fan File
MacBook Pro turned onPhoto by Andras Vas on UnsplashMy cousin said that her laptop was overheating and making a buzzing sound. Her friend piped up and commented that it was most definitely a virus and that she should take it to Geek Squad to have it removed. I said, "No, it's not a virus. It's probably your fan. Your fan is messed up. It's probably just dusty, try cleaning that out."
This girl got righteously angry and told me that no, it was a virus, and she knows because she had the same issue with her laptop a few months ago and Geek Squad fixed it. This went back and forth for a bit with me insisting that a virus doesn't affect the fan function, it was literally a hardware issue, and she was talking to me like she couldn't believe how stupid I was to not realize that a virus was making my cousin's laptop fan bog down.
I finally explained to her how viruses work. Her reply was so idiotic, it’s unforgettable. She stomped her foot like a child and exploded, "It’s still a virus! The virus just deleted the file that runs the fan!" I stare at her in disbelief. "The file that runs the fan? What is that, fan.exe?" and she said, "Finally, you get it!" She was so convinced that this was the case that my cousin believed her and said she would just take the laptop in to have it checked and cleaned.
Whatever, if you want to pay out to have some smug jerk at Geek Squad "fix" your laptop, that ain't my business.
3. Mr. Know-It-All
My best friend married a partner at an investment firm. His arrogance and smugness have only intensified since I met him. But that’s not the worst part. She’s scared to leave him because he will destroy her. It’s difficult to even talk to him because he can’t grasp simple concepts and thinks I’m stupid because I didn’t go to an Ivy League school. He didn’t either, but his excuse is that he’s not from the US.
I tried explaining to him once that as long as the R estimate for COVID was above 1, then the number of cases would keep increasing. It’s exponential growth, which is something you would think someone in investing should be able to comprehend. He didn’t understand so I dumbed it down and said for every 10 people who have Covid, if they infect 11 people then the infection rate would go up even though those first 10 people got better.
I tried to explain sixth-grade math and he was looking at me like I was the stupidest person he had ever spoken to. He tried to argue that for every one person who had Covid they would have to infect at least 10 people before the infection rate increased. He was flabbergasted that he had to explain such a simple concept, even though he was incredibly wrong.
For background, I have an advanced degree in a statistical field. I have peer-reviewed publications of mathematical models I’ve developed. I’m known as one of the two Bayesian specialists at my university. He had a beginner’s Bayesian book sitting on his table when I came to visit once. He saw me eyeing it and he grabbed it and said he was trying to learn about what “his data people were doing.”
I said I had a pretty decent concept on the topic if he had any questions. First, he did this insulting laugh. Then he said something so rude, it made me see red. In a super condescending tone said, “No offense, but this is way too hard for you, you wouldn’t understand,” and then walked out of the room with the book. Last week he overheard me talking to his wife about a project of mine.
He told me I didn’t know what I was doing and then tried to explain my project to me even though he didn’t actually know what I was doing and he has the statistical capabilities of a kindergartner. I finally stopped him and told him that what he was saying wasn’t correct and that stats don’t work that way. He told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and that I would never be able to find a “real job” anyway because I didn’t go to an Ivy League school.
I work for an R1 university and have government contracts and am not looking for a new job. I just turned my back to him and started talking to his wife again. The absolute arrogance of someone truly thinking they are the smartest person in the room. The worst thing is that is how he got rich. He started his first job at an investment firm bringing in clients and worked his way up.
He talks with such conviction that he sounds brilliant…if you didn’t actually know your stuff. He’s also very attractive and has made it into a Buzzfeed article because of his appearance, which he’ll never let go of, and a smooth talker, which I think makes people want to believe him. But darn, he’s so stupid it’s painful!
4. Ignorance Is Bliss
red letters neon lightPhoto by Simone Secci on UnsplashI was having an argument with my aunt and she said something which I asked her to define what it meant. Her response was utterly insane. She told me to never ask questions because it was a stupid thing to do. I rolled my eyes, left, and never talked to her again besides the obligatory exchanging of pleasantries at family gatherings.
5. Can’t Argue With A Flat Earther
I met a flat earther. He said the whole thing was a conspiracy. I tried asking him where the edge was and he said it was a ring of ice. I tried explaining that for his conspiracy to work, literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world in various space agencies would need to keep the secret yet not one has come forward with the "truth."
It didn't work. I also tried telling him we have literal photos and clips of the round earth spinning and he said it was a lie. No matter how much logic the rest of us threw at him he just refused to accept it. We all came away thinking less of him because he was being so stubborn.
6. Miss Know-It-All
woman in white crew neck shirt smilingPhoto by Jake Nackos on UnsplashI used to have a friend who would legit argue with you about your own experiences, tastes/opinions, and pretty much anything else. Some examples include: Insisting that neither my husband nor I could possibly remember September 11 because we were only 11 years old at the time. Also insisting that no one could possibly remember anything from before the age of 10.
She said that I was lying about the fact that I can remember every teacher I ever had, and have memories from as young as three years old. They tried to start an argument that polio isn’t contagious. If you liked some piece of art, clothing, home design or another purely opinion-based thing that was simply not her taste, you were wrong.
When I expressed an interest in living abroad for some of my life, she tried to sit me down and lecture me that she knew better than me about whether or not I would enjoy it. Her conclusion was that I wouldn’t. She refused to acknowledge that professional Adobe products are now only available by subscription, and insisted that I must be wrong in telling her so.
She began explaining why pattern making for clothing would be too hard for me to learn, moments after I explained to her what it was. She had never heard of it before and had no idea how clothes were made. She started an argument with me that my nephew is not adorable and that no one really finds children cute, they just pretend to.
She wouldn’t hear of the possibility that someone could go to Iceland and enjoy themselves just because her brother had a stopover at the airport there and was very bored. Sure, it was all annoying—but it was nothing compared to her worst moment. She got upset when our friend group didn’t approve of her brother calling a Black man the N-word because he “needed” to make the guy really angry. There were so many more but I can’t remember them all.
Every interaction with her was an exercise in frustration. Her only tactics for debating or arguing were repeating the same stupid points over and over again after they had been combatted, making you feel like you’re emotional or unreasonable when she said something incredibly hurtful and offensive, and talking over everyone while being very condescending and rude.
7. Difficult Times
My friend's boyfriend didn't observe daylight savings time. He understood that the rest of us did. He just didn't. I said, "Ok, but if we agree to meet for dinner at 5 o'clock, we're both using my 5 o'clock, right?". I tried explaining that I observe daylight savings exactly twice a year, once when I set my clocks back and once when I set my clocks forward.
The rest of the time it's a non-entity in my life. However, by not observing daylight savings, he has to observe daylight savings at all times every day, as he constantly has to worry about converting his internal time to whatever time the rest of the world is using. I was unable to convince him of that logic, however, as he is a stupid person.
8. Phones Are Stupid
selective focus photography of man wearing blue and white striped collared topPhoto by yerling villalobos on UnsplashAnytime my father-in-law tries to start a discussion which is a thinly-veiled attempt to have a "gotcha!" moment against me or my wife, as soon as he starts losing, the actual specifics of the argument go out the window and he starts character attacks or makes wild accusations about what is or isn't allowed in the discussion.
He tried to support the claim that Kamala Harris can't be president because her parents weren't citizens so I pulled up the US Constitution on my phone and read the amendment for presidents and rather than engage with that, he said I was wrong and the paper that his sister read was right, and I don't really know anything, I just know whatever my phone knows.
9. Stubborn Child
In school for my new job, at the beginning, there was a woman sitting next to me. I was like 22 or 23 years old and she was easily 40 years old. At the beginning, we got along well but then—things changed. She started to desperately search for similarities and it got annoying. Then she always asked me about stuff the teachers said while the teachers still talked.
She basically wanted a live translation from me but without changing the language. Of course, this resulted in both of us not being able to listen anymore. No way to explain to her that she should just listen herself and at least try to understand. I would've happily tried to help her afterward when I had time to hear it myself.
First clue was that she was not so bright. I was incredibly over her but still stayed nice. Then we were supposed to work in pairs on a small but not easy task. Of course, she didn't understand a word. I explained one thing to her for the umpteenth time. Sometimes it's cursed, you just don't get one thing. But then she proceeded to tell me I was wrong.
Which was fine if she could only tell me why. But no, it was a matter of, "I have no clue what's up with that. I don't understand it in the slightest but I just know you're wrong about it just because". I was not wrong. I re-read it 10 times in our sources, found different sources, and tried to break it down to basically elementary school levels.
She stopped listening to me and just continued to argue that I was wrong. Remember, that woman was more than 15 years older than me and around 40 years old. I lost my patience, stopped talking to her, and just presented the task by myself. She did not admit anything after the fact. Shortly after, she changed seats after a different incident, and not long after that she dropped out. Surprise, surprise.
10. The Apple Guy Who Discovered Gravity
person holding green applePhoto by Jony Ariadi on UnsplashBoth my friends were incredibly smart but one of them refused to believe that gravity actually exists. He was convinced that if "the apple guy" didn't discover gravity we as a society would have the ability to play with brainpower. I stopped trying to talk him out of this but the other friend was almost foaming at the mouth with rage over this conversation.
11. Fly Out Of My Life
I have a lot of birds, budgies, cockatiels, lovebirds, cockatoos, canaries, hummingbirds, etc. I study birds and I built an aviary for each species of bird on the second floor of my house. Each bird has its own aviary and I take care of them. Most of the birds in my aviary are tamed. All of my budgies are tamed, all of my cockatiels are tamed except for the really young ones.
Half of my lovebirds are tamed, the majority of my cockatoos are tamed and my hummingbirds and canaries are in the process of being tamed. So three months ago my mom wanted to visit me for my birthday and went to my house. I cut her out of my life three years ago for protecting a man who had assaulted me, so I tried to never talk to her again.
She found out where I live because of my brother and went to my house. She came inside my home and we talked for a bit, then I showed her my aviaries and my birds and she started telling me that I was maltreating them and that these birds should be on the streets. Keep in mind these are budgies, canaries, cockatiels, and hummingbirds, animals that probably wouldn’t survive due to cats, especially budgies and cockatiels.
I calmly explained to her what would happen if one of my birds escaped and we kept talking. Later she brought up the discussion again and started calling me an animal abuser and a piece of trash. I told her what would happen if a cat saw a budgie and thought of attacking it. We started arguing and she said I should let them go. But the worst was yet to come. She then ran to my budgies’ aviary and opened the doors.
I just watched as half of my birds flew to my arms, some flew towards my room and got inside my bathroom and half of my birds just freaked out and stayed inside the aviary. I stopped her when she tried to open the cockatoos and the hummingbirds' aviary and I kicked her out. All of my budgies were like, “What in the world just happened?”
I spent an hour and a half finding everyone and getting them back to the aviary. She never contacted me again. The next morning the authorities showed up saying a woman had called telling them I was mistreating my birds and they went inside to look at my birds. They ended up covered in bird poop, because I opened my budgies’ aviary door and they had the birds all over their head and shoulders! We got a good laugh and they left.
12. Unforgettable
blue and green peacock featherPhoto by Milad Fakurian on UnsplashAfter talking to a stoner friend about how having weed impairs your brain's formation of memories, he had the perfect one-liner. He said: "That doesn't happen to me, I don't remember forgetting anything."
13. Veggies Will Cure It All
This was so infuriating, I’ll never forget it. I opened up about my inability to have children and how frustrated I am with people recommending things that won’t work for me because the problem isn’t infertility. A woman started up about how I should try going vegan to cure my infertility. I reminded her that wasn’t the issue.
She pressed on, saying she didn’t believe in miracles but for her, it was like hitting a switch. She’s had two babies since going vegan and she couldn’t be happier, maybe I should try it. I said no. She got offended that I refused to even consider. I’m not infertile. Trying to carry a baby would destroy my body Breaking Dawn-style.
Plus, I’m on two medications that corrupt my eggs like a computer virus, so I really cannot have children.
14. Know Your Math
red and white brick wallPhoto by IGOR SECHINOV on UnsplashI had an argument with my garage door installer. He was installing the motor and I noticed that it was 1/4 horsepower. I immediately told him that I had ordered the bigger motor. He said that this was the biggest. I then proceeded to tell him that I ordered the 1/2 horsepower engine. He told me that one is too small and this one is bigger.
What in the world?! I asked, “How do you figure that?” He said everybody knows that 4 is bigger than 2 in the most sarcastic voice. There was no convincing him that 1/2 was bigger than 1/4. I finally just had to call his boss.
15. Living In A Castle Is Hard
My mom’s reasoning is that if every room is open, the hot air has places to circulate so it will be hotter. Now keep in mind we only used about five rooms in our 12 room house, so my logic was that if we close the rooms we aren't using then we would only have to heat the rooms we use and then we don't have to keep it in the mid-60s during winter.
Well one week she went on a vacation and left the house to me so I decided to test that theory and wouldn't you believe it, not only was the house warmer but the heating bill was also lower for that week. She of course was having none of it, so she opened up all the rooms again, then it got cold and the heating bill went up.
16. Their Loss
black and gray corded telephonePhoto by Wilhelm Gunkel on UnsplashI have a dumb relative who always thinks she knows better. Years ago she wanted me to help her with some sort of device that lets her call long distance without paying for long-distance on landline using the internet. But the problem is she had a dial-up connection, which is super slow. I tried explaining to her several times how she would have to upgrade her internet first for anything to be effective.
But she kept saying she heard this product will fix all of that and insisted on buying it. I even told her what will happen, which is, it's probably a scam and they'll give some useless part like a router and you would have wasted your time and mine, and money. She didn't listen and went through because she always thinks she's smart.
Well, a few weeks go by and she gets the device and of course, it's just a random router when she wants me to install it. Everything I said to her earlier comes true. She just ignores what I say and moves on to something else that will work better. Rinse and repeat. This is how dumb people usually are in my experience. They think they know better than you.
When things don't go according to plan, they either make an excuse and it's never their fault, and/or move on to another thing with the same stupid thinking.
17. Being Respectful
Someone told me she deleted pictures she took of a tree because she had a feeling the tree would be offended by having its picture taken out of fear its soul might be taken. Even if we assume souls exist, that trees have souls, emotions, memory, thought, the ability to communicate and eyes to see what you are doing, how would they have any idea what a photo is?
Or know that your phone can take photos? Or a religion and complex thought to believe in souls? Like just what?
18. True Sparta Fan
a statue of a man riding a horsePhoto by Nikos Vlachos on UnsplashA friend of mine and I were having a fun argument about classic history. We were talking about Alexander and whether or not the western Mediterranean was ever going to be a possibility. We're knee-deep in the discussion when our co-worker comes up and starts spouting off that Alexander only conquered as much as he did because of his Spartan army.
Everything we said after that just fueled this man's love for Sparta and his need to tell us about his romanticized version of the place. Sparta wasn't a part of the Macedonian army? That doesn't invalidate his point about Alexander's conquests, no, it just meant that Sparta was so badass that they couldn't be conquered.
Sparta's regular army dwindled by a factor of ten between the Peloponnesian wars and the days of Alexander? They just got ten times as tough, haven't you seen 300?! The conversation slowly devolved until we were just talking about Sparta. It became him trying to defend his bizarre utopia for nearly the rest of our shift.
He stayed firm through boy love, economic recession, lack of army technology, and religious fervor. Only the fact that Sparta was de facto run by a small group of wealthy women seemed to disturb him. I feel like I was gaining some ground with my buddy, but to this day I think Sparta dude still gets off to 300 as a nightly ritual.
19. Bad Influence
I had a dad in a skatepark go on an extended rant and attempt to fight me because I lost my cool and swore loudly when his son, who didn't know park etiquette and was getting in everyone's way for two hours at this point, cut in front of me at high-speed causing me to nearly break my wrist. The most irritating part? The guy was drinking in broad daylight, smoking, threatening assault, and not paying any attention to his son at all prior.
Somehow I'm the jerk because "you're supposed to be a good influence on the kids." Mate, I come to a skatepark to skate, not babysit every kid there because their parents haven't taught them how a skatepark works. You’re supposed to be a good influence on the kid, you're his freaking dad. Bringing him to a park he has no idea how to use, not taking steps to help him learn, drinking in public, and trying to start fights is not being a good influence.
20. I’m Done
smiling girl in black and white striped shirtPhoto by Julien L on UnsplashA customer presented a coupon from a franchise store that had, "Franchise location ____ only" on it very plainly. Cue, "Sorry, this is a franchise coupon, we're corporate-owned and can't take it, but I can give you this very similar deal that is only two dollars more." She didn't understand. After three or four attempts of saying it in different ways, I finally told her "I'm sorry you're not understanding what I'm telling you, but I can't do this. Do you want the option I mentioned or not?"
She started again with, "Why can't you-!" and I just walked away.
21. Flushed It Down
I watched Michio Kaku give a speech at a conference. He was talking about technology and how cheap and easy things are getting to make. He talked about how we will someday in the not so distant future have technology as thin as a sheet of paper, that will have all the workings of some of our most advanced technology of today, but that we will just basically throw away like it's actually a sheet of paper.
He went on to talk about how our toilets will someday collect information on the waste that our bodies produce, eventually getting to a point where we can detect cancer. I got back from the conference and was over at some friend's house making some dinner and I was talking to a girl I was dating at the time. I was telling her about the conference, what Kaku was talking about and eventually explained the toilets. Her reply was unbelievable.
She said, "That's freaking stupid. Cancer won't be able to be detected from your waste by a toilet." I was like, “so you don't think that in another 50 years, with the rate that technology is progressing, that we won't have toilets that will be able to tell us if we have cancer cells in our bodies?” She told me that if I believed that, that I was a stupid person.
And went on further to clarify that I was not just being ignorant in this situation, but that I was a stupid person, incapable of intelligent thought. I don't get set off by much. But this led to a screaming match over the phone that ended with me hanging up my phone. My humiliation didn’t end there. I then remembered that I'm standing in my friend's kitchen, with him and his wife staring at me from the living room, me fuming, and holding a wooden spoon in my hand.
I just looked at them and said, "She wouldn't believe that toilets will be able to detect cancer."
22. Can’t Decide
gray sedan beside pizza storePhoto by Matthew LeJune on UnsplashMy parents and I decided to go out to eat, so we stopped at our favorite pizza parlor. They also served sandwiches, which I really liked, and pasta. Well, I wanted a sandwich, my mother wanted pasta, and my dad wanted pizza. In the end, we had none, as we got into a heated argument at the table before storming out, leaving the crowd there quite perplexed, I'm sure.
Why we all didn't just get what we wanted rather than force everyone else to get the same things, I have no idea.
23. Paint It Red
I was making paint at a hardware store to pay for college. A co-worker completely messed up a customer's order by making the wrong color. Me being the competent one, I take a glance at the color and notice that there is still room in the can to make it the proper color. I manually shoot the remaining tint into the bucket and the idiot co-worker walks by and notices I'm fixing her mistake.
In front of the customer, she states that I do not have the authority to manually operate the tint machine, which I mean, at that point we had been coworkers for two years so I have no idea where she got that notion. I nod and say “I got it” and assure her that everything is fine. She continues being belligerent in front of the customer and I continue stating “I got it” with various levels of screw off and eye glare.
The paint comes out of the shaker perfectly fine and I reassure the customer that his wife won't see any difference in color. I leave the paint booth and my boss is walking towards me and I mutter, "Have fun with this one" while I use the restroom. My boss chews us both out for arguing in front of a customer, which looking back I don't disagree with. But at least I got some form of retribution. She got demoted to cashier.
24. Didn’t See That Coming
gray concrete statue of womanPhoto by Egor Myznik on UnsplashIn the long-ago times before smartphones, I was working on a school project on Marco Polo and mentioned some random Marco Polo facts to a friend. She agreed that they were interesting and added, "It's extra impressive because, you know, he was blind." I felt like, at this point, one of my books probably would have mentioned if he was blind so I asked her where she heard that. Her explanation was so hilarious, I still laugh to this day.
She told me that he must have been because why else would we close our eyes when playing the game? It started out gently as I tried to explain that Marco Polo was not blind but I didn't actually know why we closed our eyes while playing Marco Polo. I have since looked it up and allegedly it's because Marco Polo didn't have a freaking clue about where he was going.
It escalated into a full-on screaming match about whether or not Marco Polo was, in fact, blind. He wasn't, by the way.
25. He’s A Bright One
I had an argument about how light travels through space. It seems like a scientific argument on the surface. While the context was scientific, the content was far from it. My younger brother was arguing about the age of the universe with me. I told him it was 13.8 billion years old and he told me it was 6000. I explained to him that if the universe was only 6,000 years old, we would not be able to see stars more than 6,000 lightyears away.
And because we can see stars billions of lightyears away the universe must be at least that old. Now I expected his argument to be, "How do we know those stars are billions of lightyears away? How do we know they aren't closer?" and I had a good follow-up for that. But no, he went with, "well that's because the light from those stars was placed closer to Earth when it was created, so we could see them." I had no follow-up for that.
He took my speechlessness as a victory. You might think by "younger brother" I mean a boy who is 10 or 11 years old. No, he's 24.
26. A Pass For Free Stuff
white windows envelopPhoto by Liam Truong on UnsplashWay back when I was a phone service advisor for a credit card company, this lady called in confused about a piece of mail we had sent her. She said, "I don't understand why you sent me a bill. I paid for the TV at the store with my card." I replied, “Yes, ma'am. Now, this is the bill for using your credit card.” “But I used my credit card. Why would I have to pay again?"
This went on for about a good hour. This poor excuse for an adult believed that a credit card was just an all-access pass to buy anything you wanted for free. That was a devastating job.
27. That’s A Hard Shell To Crack
My friend was convinced that selfish was pronounced shellfish. I wrote the word out, sounded it out and it was like I was saying the sun was blue. She just wouldn't have it. I don’t know if she was screwing with me, but 2-3 years after that whole argument we got in a different argument about her basically being a brat and she has the most jaw-dropping reply.
She said: "Sorry, I was being shellfish." I couldn't stay mad at that moron.
28. Put A Brake On That Thought
man driving a car wearing wrist watchPhoto by why kei on UnsplashMy brother made the statement that when you pressed the top of the accelerator pedal, you went faster, as opposed to the bottom. It took me four hours to explain to him that it doesn't matter where on the pedal you press, however far down it is determines what speed you're going to be traveling at.
29. Mr. Hobbit The Science Guy
I had an argument about whether or not Lord of the Rings is a sci-fi movie. There were 3-4 people out of 10 vehemently claiming that because the laws of physics were mostly obeyed, the movies had scientific elements and are to be considered sci-fi films. We were practically screaming at each other for the better part of two hours.
30. Phone Stuff
black corded telephonePhoto by Alexander Andrews on UnsplashI had an argument with someone about whether or not electricity runs through phone lines. After a while, I asked her, "Well then, what do you think runs through phone lines?" She replied, "Phone Stuff."
31. Like Mother Like Daughter
I had an ex argue with me over which would weigh more, a pound of bricks or a pound of feathers. We went back and forth forever while I tried to explain it to her. It did not help when her mother chimed in with, "What about a pound of wet feathers?!" The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
32. Light Show
white microwave oven turned offPhoto by Erik Mclean on UnsplashA friend tried to put aluminum foil in the microwave, I, and literally every other person we asked, from friends to complete strangers, tried to explain that it does not end well. They strongly believed, and I quote, "It just makes a little light show in the microwave." My friend wanted to put food on top of aluminum foil, then put it in the microwave for 30-60 seconds.
33. The Animal Whisperer
I was vegan for a few years and joined a club-type organization. We would swap recipes, talk about new products and just hang out. Most of the people were pretty awesome, but like everything, some were a bit loony. There was this one girl, who thought all animals could choose to be vegan. In her opinion, a wolf could just decide one day, "I want to avoid animal products."
So she would talk about wanting to go speak to wild animals about the benefits of a vegan diet. I tried to tell her that animals really couldn't just go vegan and she suggested that we feed them soy-based meat alternatives. We all tried to help her understand that animals can't and she refused to believe us. She eventually stopped coming to the get-togethers.
Thankfully, she refused to own pets, so no animals directly suffered from her beliefs. They just had to listen to her talk when she went out converting.
34. Challenging Authority
grayscale photo of man and woman holding their handsPhoto by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on UnsplashI'm a union leader so I have had my share of arguing with stupid people and it's not always the employer. Though I've had moments with the employer the most memorable are with my members. I have a couple of members that I like to refer to as having the "what if" personality. When on their back foot they'll ask you what if this happens or if that happens.
Do they have a policy for this or what about this? It's like you're talking to an adult version of the two-year-old child who is constantly asking why. They turn what could be a five-minute conversation into a two-week-long conversation. My best experience of this was with a guy who would constantly come up with an extremely unlikely scenario and wanted the employer to have a policy written up detailing how he should respond in each case.
I kinda just gave up arguing with him as each item turned into a multiple-hour session of me patiently trying to explain to him that the employer doesn't have to tell you specifically how to do your job as a tradesmen. That the earthquake has a 1 in a billion chance of happening here is not an OHS issue and that a generalized emergency response plan is an acceptable level of planning for that event.
You should know how to do your typical work tasks that are related to your trade safely. I informed him that if he's concerned about it then he has to follow the OHS process. In Canada, we have a process for handling OHS concerns. Essentially it starts with the supervisor, then it goes to a local OHS committee, and then it goes to the site manager, and then if there is still no resolution it goes to the federal/provincial level for their final say.
This guy pushed it all the way through, with each step denying his concerns, only for the federally-appointed safety officer to inform him that his employer was going above and beyond. That my member's concern wasn't valid. He didn't accept that as an answer but he couldn't take it any further other than them to just keep rephrasing his question.
The employer eventually found a way to lay him off because of lack of work. I wonder why they did that? In Canada, you also have the right to refuse to do unsafe work but this guy wouldn't refuse to do the work because he felt safe enough to do it. But would still push his concerns up the chain.
35. Not The Right Fit
I had a computer science teacher who didn't know anything about technology. We got into arguments because she insisted that a degree in creative writing would be the best way to prepare yourself for an IT job rather than a degree in computer science.
36. One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Trash
gray metal tool cabinetPhoto by Tania Melnyczuk on UnsplashMy family has this deceptive maneuver where they slowly change the argument to something they can make you wrong about, picking the one detail they know can turn the argument in their favor and slowly pivot the conversation away from what the real argument is about and into a situation where now they’re right and I'm the one who’s wrong for asking them to stop trying to give us their junk.
All I want is for them to ask before dropping stuff off in our house because we don’t have room for their old flower pots. We don't want them, but just ask us first. Well, that got out of hand. In that situation, they make you feel like a jerk because beggars can’t be choosers and we should just be happy that we’re getting stuff for free.
But we didn’t beg for anything and they just brought this trash over because they didn’t have the room for it. What makes them think we do? Their house is twice as big. Ok. I’ll stop.
37. A For Effort
A friend of mine in school was convinced that he could find a triangle whose angles wouldn't add up to 180 degrees after learning the rule in class. I just couldn't get him to understand that if he finds some shape that doesn't fit the definition of a triangle, then by definition he has not found a triangle.
38. Two-Faced
a woman covering her eyes with her handsPhoto by Jussara Paulo on UnsplashMy mom yells, "But there's two sides!", quite literally like a toddler whenever you defend yourself. If you're always advocating for the devil, you might be the devil.
39. Temper Tantrum
I know someone who legitimately stood up in the middle of a meeting about her child harassment, in the child protection offices, and yelled at everyone that the child deserved to be jabbed because she did not know how to play the game Operation. At that moment in reality, there wasn't anything I, the child protection officer, her boyfriend, brother, and sister, or the grandparents or father could say to her.
I don't think there are words in existence appropriate for that situation. I could only say, "What the actual heck?"
40. Work Harder, Not Smarter
large warhausePhoto by Ruchindra Gunasekara on UnsplashA conversation with an OPS manager went something like this, "We should reorganize the warehouse racks so that the cases with the greatest velocity are at the top." The reply: "Excuse me, but do you perhaps mean 'mass' or even 'volume'?" Their retort: "No, I mean velocity. Don't insult my intelligence again." The argument continued: "Okay, but none of these boxes are moving at the moment. Their velocity is 0 - across the board."
It finished with: "You and I are going to talk with HR." The same ops manager a couple of weeks later said: "What do you think you're doing?" "Just moving boxes. It's the only thing that we do in this warehouse." The manager said: "You're not on process. One Best Way is that we pick up, label, then move one box at a time."
I said: "You're saying that if I label 5 of these boxes, each of them less than 1lbs., then move them to this cart all at once, I will be performing my job at a slower pace than if I did each and every one individually?" They said: "Yes. You are expected to be on process and this is the best process." I replied: "I don't quite see how the wasted energy of turning back and forth between the pallet and the cart more than necessary results in more efficient work. Could you give me a demonstration?"
They said, "No. It's your job to move boxes, not mine." Finally, I said: "I... Fine. In my honor, I will henceforth move every single box with the exact process you just detailed." A few days later he and my area manager pulled me aside because my production had dropped by 43%, which honestly is a testament to how hard I was trying to actually make his "process" work. Walmart is a horrible place to work.
41. Fight Like An Adult
My mom’s entire argument tactic was to interrupt the other person as soon as they open their mouth. It didn’t matter if you were calm, reasonable, and respectful. The moment sound came out of you, she would come in with greater volume. She usually didn’t have much to say, so she would literally repeat herself just to interrupt you.
Even if you paused and let her speak, if she was out of stuff to say, she would wait quietly until you try to talk again then interrupt you with something she already said. She wasn’t even subtle about what she was doing. She was prideful about how great of a debater she was. She thought this childish and disrespectful thing actually made her strong and respectable.
I don’t think she ever realized that she didn’t actually win any arguments but simply wore the other person down until they gave up on a constructive adult conversation with her.
42. Human Repellent
woman sitting on bed with flying booksPhoto by Lacie Slezak on UnsplashI am dealing with a housemate with a wickedly bad temper. Her boyfriend is an old friend of mine and I wanted to help them out since they were living in her mom's house last year. I did not know her well at all. Everything she’s subjected me to has made me regret ever trying to help. She wields her temper like it's a weapon, and any time you try to express what you or someone else is feeling, she immediately argues and invalidates you.
She has told her partner she is going to kill herself in order to win arguments. Often times the things she is spouting as an argument are projections of her behavior or projections of her temper. She does not respect the boundaries of others, but demands that her boundaries be respected and any conversation to find compromise and even ground is met with anger.
Her lack of control over her words, once she's triggered, are some of the meanest, most vitriolic things I've ever heard from anyone. My partner, who was her friend and got her a job at her work, also had her own falling out with this person and now won't come over to my house due to fear of this person's behavior. I am exhausted. I probably have to deal with this for another 2 months.
43. Very Idiotic Person
I deal with entitled wealthy investors every day. The only thing worse than arguing with a stupid person is a stupid wealthy person who thinks they are important.
44. Can’t Let You Win
woman in brown sweater covering her face with her handPhoto by Dev Asangbam on UnsplashMy mom cuts me off when I speak and when I know I start to win she starts mocking me in a voice that makes me sound stupid. It's really degrading and hurts my feelings but I can’t do anything but just walk away. Now that I think about it, I really don’t have the best parents.
45. The Government Got Her Mind
Fresh out of college, I lived with a few people who I didn’t really know before moving in. One of the roommates was this slightly older guy who was dating a woman similar in age. She was over our place one day and somehow contrails came up, except she referred to them as chemtrails. You see, I was really minding my business watching something on the TV.
I had just graduated with a degree in atmospheric science and there’s no way I’m going to share living space with someone who refers to contrails as chemtrails. So I say, “You mean contrails, no?” She didn’t, she meant chemtrails because the government is spraying us all with some mind-controlling substances or whatever she claimed it to be.
So I explained to her the reason why airplanes produce a contrail, which was easy to do considering how much of my time and money went on learning about the dynamics of the atmosphere. She didn’t believe that some younger woman could possibly know more than her. That's when she pulled out her trump card: “I live right next to an airport, so I can see that when they first take off there’s no trail. It’s not until they get to a certain height that they switch it on.”
This was literally right after I had explained how pressure and temperature affect humidity and condensation and how pressure and temperature are much lower at higher altitudes. I realized then that I could not convince this person that they were wrong. Luckily he and she moved into another place together not long after.
46. All Began With A Bag Of Cheetos
orange and yellow plastic pack on white tablePhoto by Giorgio Trovato on UnsplashI had a massive year-plus-long argument with my old roommate over Cheetos. I bought a bag of hot Cheetos because I hadn't had them since elementary school and had a taste for them. So I put the unopened bag into my designated cabinet and went on my way. A few days later I decided that I'm going to eat my Cheetos. I open the cabinet and notice the bag is opened and empty.
Someone has eaten my Cheetos and stuck the empty bag back in the cabinet. So I confront my roommate calmly and say, "Hey man, could you please not eat my food?" Roommate blows up and starts screaming that he needs it and he's starving. He's unemployed at the time and I guess he ran out of food stamps for the month. I pointed out that he was welcome to share my cereal or fruit but eating all of my snacks was inappropriate.
Lots of screaming and door slamming ensues. Well, that was just the beginning of my nightmare. The rest of the time I lived there he would take my wet clothes out of the washing machine and throw them on the floor, purposely slam stuff while I'm sleeping, take my food out of the fridge and leave it on the counter to go bad, etc. And we would regularly continue these screaming matches over this $2 bag of Cheetos.
I don't even live there anymore and he still tells my boyfriend I'm controlling and he should break up with me. I also forgot to change my address for my bank after I moved and my new debit card got sent there and he keeps denying that he has it. I never even ended up buying another bag of Cheetos since then. A bag of Cheetos has caused the biggest ongoing argument I have ever been in.
47. Snap Back
Long ago, over 20 years ago, I had a lovely beat-my-head-against-the-wall discussion with a young lady who had no children of her own, and no experience raising children with disabilities. What she said was so chilling, it made my blood boil. She proceeded to tell me that my wife and I needed to be firmer and more strict with our autistic son so that he would "snap out of it" and start talking and stop "acting autistic."
I cannot remember how exactly I phrased my response as it was in Spanish, not my native language, but it was basically a polite version of "pound sand, you have no idea what you are talking about."
48. Someone Take Her On A Road Trip
waving Canada flagPhoto by sebastiaan stam on UnsplashSomeone argued that "You can't drive to Canada from New York because New York is a state and Canada is a different country!" She was quite insistent. However, I knew I was correct because at the moment of that argument I was in my car on my way to Montreal.
Living with someone isn’t always easy. It can take a fair amount of patience and consideration to get along with another person. However, there are some roommates and living situations that are so difficult—so toxic and bizarre—that the best thing to do is pack your bags and get out fast. Buckle up, these nightmare roomies are the absolute worst.
1. Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
My roommate seemed like a normal, nice dude. He was a student at the local university. I had no problems with him until one day, law enforcement busted in and apprehended him while he was sleeping. The reason was utterly horrifying. I had no idea he had taken two guys and held them for ransom. One was set free weeks later, while the other wasn't so lucky.
The body was eventually found in a basement buried in the ground. I quickly moved out of there.
2. Don’t Get Your Panties In A Pile
white textile on blue plastic laundry basketPhoto by Annie Spratt on UnsplashMy roommate was a bit of a nightmare. She was the kind of person who would come home at three am on a weeknight, bringing half the pub in tow. She was perpetually late on bills and useless at keeping the kitchen clean. She also had a bad habit when she went to take a shower. She would just drop/step out of her clothes, leaving them in a fabric pile on the floor in the bathroom, and not collect them for days.
One day when I got home from work, I went to take a shower. I encountered her usual filth pile. Still, something seemed...off. I recoiled in horror when I realized that MY underpants were in her pile. The fabric was unique, and they were now beyond ruined, caked with poo and blood. I confronted her. It turned out she was not good at remembering to do her laundry, so would regularly take my clean underwear out of the drier then eventually sneak them back into my laundry basket.
I went to get a health screening after that.
3. She’s Not Neat, But She’s A Freak
assorted-color disposable cup lotPhoto by Jas Min on UnsplashI was looking for a roommate when I was starting graduate school. I'm a guy, but I enjoy living in a clean apartment. I'm not a neat freak or anything, but I like things to be presentable. Most of my college guy friends were pretty gross, so I thought, "Girls are clean! I'll live with one of my female friends!" As it so happened, one of my friends was also looking for a place.
She told me that she was a neat freak, and loved to clean. I thought, "Great! This will work out well." Nothing could have been further from the truth...She turned out to be the most disgusting human being I have ever encountered in my life, and also a pathological liar. When she ate a banana, she would peel the banana and just drop the peel on the floor. When she used eggs to cook, she would put the broken eggshells back in the fridge.
Every day I would ask her to do her dishes, and four days later the same dishes were in the sink building up a nice layer of mold. The worst part of it all is that WE HAD A DISHWASHER! She didn't even have to DO anything! Just put them in the dishwasher! She also took two to three hour-long showers every day and would run through half a roll of toilet paper every day.
She would proceed to fill up our trash can with the thirty cans of Coke Zero that she drank every day, then make me take out the trash. Every day when she got home from classes, she would take an hour-long shower, put on a bathrobe, sit on the floor, and eat junk food in front of the TV. The bottom half of her robe was all grimy, and the spot where she sat on the floor got grimy too. There was a massive, circular stain left on the carpet.
4. Even The Garbage Collector Won’t Touch It
cars parked on street near buildings during daytimePhoto by Charlie Gallant on UnsplashOur garbage wasn't getting picked up. In the first week, I figured garbage collection had just missed us. In the second week, our can was full, so we left a bunch of bags next to it. They took the bags but didn't empty the can. When the third week came around, I chased the collectors down the street to see what was going on.
The guy told me that they won't empty the cans because they are full of two-liter bottles of urine, and they won't take the risk of one breaking and squirting on them. One of my roommates had been peeing in two-liter bottles because he was too lazy to walk to the bathroom, which was right next to his room. I had to pull them all out to get the trash people to finally empty our can.
5. We Do Not Seek Your Confession, Only The Rent Money
We had a guy who was your typical bad roommate. He didn't do anything around the house, and his room smelled, quite inexplicably, of salami. He set up his PC in the living room one day, essentially taking over our social space without asking anyone. He would sit there for days on end playing video games. Then he disappeared.
We realized that he had skipped out without having paid his rent for a few weeks. He owed us a few hundred dollars. Good thing for us, he inadvertently left his Warhammer figurine collection behind. It was quite a collection, all hand-painted. A friend of ours who knew about Warhammer stuff said this collection was easily worth three or four times more than what he owed us.
We started looking into selling it to cover rent, maybe fund a weekend of partying, and move on with our lives. One day about a week later, he showed up. He was blatantly looking behind couches and things trying to look for his collection while trying to act cool and pretend he didn’t owe us any money. We had a few minutes of awkward small talk before he asked if we had seen his black Warhammer chest.
My roomie who handled the bills said, “Nah man sorry. We've had a few pretty epic parties since you moved out. Hopefully, no one took it or something. Oh and hey man some of your rent didn't go through can we grab that off you when it's convenient?” The guy turned white as a sheet and gave us a line about paying us tomorrow, then left.
About an hour later, we finally got our revenge. We sent him a text saying, “General Anatole. Your army is in our clutches. Honor your agreement and we will be lenient and grant their freedom. Should you choose not to pay the reparations owed to us, we will slaughter them to a man. You have until nightfall, three days hence to meet our ultimatum. For good or for ill."
He paid us the next day and we gave him back his stuff.
6. She Spewed On My Suitcase
brown hatPhoto by Marissa Grootes on UnsplashMy freshman college roommate. One night, during finals period, she had one of her high school friends come to visit. They went out drinking and came back at 2:00 am or so. We had just been trying out this new bunk bed idea, and I was on the top bunk. She stumbled into her bottom bunk and tossed around a little. I thought she was asleep.
I heard her get out of bed and assumed she was going to the bathroom to puke or something. Instead, I saw her stumble over to my closet and sit down inside. I realized with horror what was about to happen. I tried to jump down from my bed, but she began to projectile vomit. She puked all over my stuff: my suitcase, my shoes, and all my clothes.
Then, she promptly went back to her bed, passed out, and ignored me the rest of the night. Anyway, I was seething mad, so I got the resident assistant so that I could handle it reasonably. I took all the quarters she had for laundry and started to do my laundry at three am. By the time I finished, it was around five am, so I went to bed.
I woke up two hours later to go to my 8:30 am class. I got back after my classes at 11:00 am, and promptly went back to sleep. I left a note telling her not to wake me up under any circumstances, and that we were going to have to have a real talk about the situation later. At around 1:00 pm, she woke me up and started apologizing.
I told her that if she wanted to apologize, then she should clean out my suitcase because it was covered in her vomit. She damp-sponged it once and said she was done. It still had puke in all the crevices and stuff, so I told her to actually clean it because I don't want her puke on my suitcase, to which she replied, "Ugh, I made one mistake, stop punishing me for it.”
I suggested she buy me another suitcase if she didn't want to clean this one, and she refused to do that either. On top of everything, she also told me that I had no right to take her laundry quarters without asking her the night before. We still don't talk, and that suitcase sits, puke stained and all, in my closet.
7. Out In The Cold
My significant other and I lived with his brother and another guy—but we had no idea just how horrible our roommate truly was. I'll never forget when the three of us left the apartment for a week, only to return to a total nightmare. While we were away, the city endured an extreme cold weather warning. When we got home, the house reeked of left-out food, and it was FREEZING.
The furnace broke right after we left, and our roommate let it go for two weeks. When it got cold, he just left and went to his friend’s. Our pipes froze then burst. We walked into a lovely situation.
8. Resale Racket
File:Seal of the FBI.svg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org
I had flown home to Texas to go to a family funeral. Two days into my trip, I had FBI Special Agents call my phone, and tell me they had confiscated all the computers in my house. Apparently, my roommate ran an eBay theft and resale ring out of my apartment. The agents said it was clear I had no idea what was going on, hence, I was cleared of all wrongdoing.
Lesson learned. If your roommate is cagey with you about how they pay rent, it's probably not good.
9. That Girl Is Crazy
It started with the four of us rooming together. My one roommate developed a weird clinginess to one of my other roommates. She would shut herself in her room and spew details of her personal hygiene at random while crying for no reason. She then obsessed over the guy living below us. She referred to him as her husband and would get very defensively jealous if I or any other female talked to him. Then things got worse.
She started vacuuming maniacally at 4:00 am, but she called law enforcement on me and another roommate at 11:30 pm for being too loud. Officers showed up and she lied, accusing of taking drugs. The officers found the whole thing crazy and left after we offered to let them search our apartment. Then the knives disappeared.
Weird noises began emanating from her room. On one of the most harrowing nights, she showed up in just a towel at my door, screaming at me because she didn’t wear makeup and her chest was real. She then pledged that she was going to off one of our other roommates. I started recording our interactions and my roommates filed a report. After showing the Dean the recordings, she got moved out.
It was by far the scariest and most bizarre interaction I’ve ever had with a person.
10. A Different Type Of Clogging
white ceramic bathtub near white ceramic bathtubPhoto by Martin Jaroš on UnsplashMy roommate had a room with her own bathroom. She would constantly clog her toilet by using napkins as toilet paper since she didn't want to buy toilet paper. After she clogged it, she would resort to using everyone else's bathroom in the hallway with no intention of fixing her own. One day she clogged the toilet my other roommates and I used as well.
While she was out, my roommates and I went into her room to see what was up with her bathroom. When I opened the door, my jaw dropped.There was month-old poop still in the toilet, along with piles of clothes all over the floor. She also had two dogs that she had neglected and she always tried to take our community recycling so she could keep the money for herself.
11. Free Bleedin’
I shared a 12x12 dorm room with a girl who would free bleed when she was menstruating and leave trails of her blood from our room to the bathroom and not clean it up. She would leave crusty underwear on the floor on my side of the room, next to my bed, while at the same time she insisted we divide the room with tape, and freaked out if anything of mine crossed that border. But that was only the beginning of the nightmare.
She was 18 and had a creepy 31-year-old fiance that she had been with for six years that would stay over every weekend, and watch her sleep over Skype every weeknight, while I was in view of the camera. She smelled so bad that other students in our hall started lodging complaints about the horrible stench coming from our room.
And to top it off, she had a bunch of plants in the room that I was allergic to that were making me miserable, and she refused to get rid of them.
12. Stop Following Me!
person playing guitar in close up photographyPhoto by Gabriel Yuji on UnsplashOne of my roommates in college insulted me daily, threw stuff at me from across the room, wrote mildly insulting music regarding me, and sang it poorly. However, what was even worse was his borderline stalking behavior. If I went to the library, so did he. If I left to go somewhere, he would hunt me down. He was good at figuring out where I was going.
He eventually stopped when he landed a girlfriend. I was about a day away from going to the room advisory office and demanding one of us be moved to a different room.
13. Notification Nightmare
Back during my dorm days, I had an apartment-style setup, so we all had our own rooms. One of my roommates had large speakers that he liked to use every morning at 3:00 am. However, he didn't use them for music. Instead, he used them for the notification sound Facebook gives you when you get a message, so there was a constant popping sound.
He also didn't like to do dishes or clean his room, so he didn't. We all had our own rooms, so it didn't seem like a huge deal, and it wasn't at first. However, his room soon started to smell really bad, as if something had expired in there.
14. An All-Around Dirtbag
apples and bananas in brown cardboard boxPhoto by Maria Lin Kim on UnsplashI had a roommate that ate all of my groceries ($60 worth) the day I got them while I was gone. He made a very nice meal for his girlfriend, and her friend as well, and claimed he didn’t have the cash and didn’t want to go to the store. He also drank all my beer, didn’t clean or do the dishes, and slept with my girlfriend when I was out of town.
15. The Imaginary Friend
There was one guy who had a rather interesting routine. He would begin by closing the door to his room and address some imaginary woman who had snuck inside when he wasn't looking. He would say, "Well, what are you doing here? Uh-huh. Oh, really? Well, I guess I'd better take my pants off, then." A few seconds would pass, after which he would speak again. "So, how about you get undressed too? I'll just lay here and wait for you to be ready.”
“Oh, you're ready now? Well, go ahead and climb on top of me, then." Several minutes would pass before anything else would become audible again, and then the next part of his messed-up routine would begin. He would open, then slam his bedroom door, then sprint down the hallway to the bathroom and slam that door. He'd be in there for a few minutes, flush the toilet, slam the door again, run down the hall, then lock himself in his bedroom.
He would do this every night!
16. Living In Oblivion
yellow fruitPhoto by Alex Lvrs on UnsplashI was living with someone when I came home from vacation and found thousands of dead fruit flies throughout our refrigerator and kitchen. There were roach carcasses in the bathroom, and my roommate's cat had either vomited or marked its territory in a number of other ways in every room of the house. She said she hadn’t noticed any problems.
17. Paranoia Will Destroya
One of my roommates and his girlfriend wouldn't leave the bedroom for weeks because they thought my other roommate and I had it out for them. As a result, they would go to the bathroom in empty paint cans, which they left in the closet. They were served an eviction notice due to non-payment of rent and nailed their bedroom door shut to keep us out because they were paranoid after the eviction notice.
They left two weeks later in the middle of the night. When they left, they locked the front door, then broke it down because they forgot something. I had to replace everything in the bedroom including the carpet and door, the walls needed to be repainted, and in some places re-drywalled, and a new front door had to be installed. I was out $2500 for rent plus another $3000 for repairs.
18. The Day The Xbox Died
white xbox one game controllerPhoto by Kamil S on UnsplashI had a friend of mine move in with me. He was a cool guy, I even introduced him to my friends. He was working for his uncle, until he got hit by a car, broke his arm, and ended up moving back home, about seven hours away. After a few months at home, he came back to visit. He was spending more and more time at my place and wanted to move back.
His uncle wouldn't hire him back, so he needed a job. About two months before he moved back, he came to visit and spent a week handing out resumes so he would have a job when he moved in. He told me he had six interviews lined up for the week after he got back. I was working 50+ hours a week at the time, so I didn't know what he was doing with his time, which was nothing. Letting him move in with me was a huge mistake.
I would get home from my shift at 4:00 am and he would be awake playing games on my Xbox. He played non-stop for most of the time he lived with me. I noticed he hadn't played my Xbox for about a week, which was unusual for him. I went to play it, and sure enough, it didn’t work. When I confronted him about it, he got angry and defensive, saying he didn't know what had happened.
He would routinely light up in the apartment when I wasn't home thinking I wouldn't find out. All the furniture was mine and I was not okay with this. Even though he was home all day, he never did dishes or cleaned, and denied making any mess, even if it was made when I was at work or asleep. Towards the end, he even stopped bathing and all my furniture smelled like garbage and smoke.
When he didn't pay rent and started treating my friends poorly, I convinced him to move back with his mom.
19. A Holiday Surprise
My roommate lost his job due to his drinking. I gave him the rent and bills before I left the state for Christmas. Looking back, I should've seen it coming...I came home to find I had no electricity, no gas, and notices of late rent. He spent all of the money on booze and had no money left to pay anything. I had to pay to get everything turned back on. But that was just the beginning.
He would regularly come home wasted and proceed to relieve himself in the kitchen, laundry, on the couch, and/or the bathroom floor. Finally, when I came to get my belongings to move out I found that he had pawned all my kitchen appliances.
20. Party Poopers
man in black crew neck t-shirt holding white ceramic mugPhoto by Jacob Bentzinger on UnsplashI used to work the afternoon shift, which meant that I'd usually get home around 1:00 am. My new roommate had just moved in a few days prior. One night I got home and walked in the door to find 50-odd people in our tiny apartment—and it was pure chaos. There were people punching holes in the walls, my TV was smashed on the ground, and a few people getting wasted on my couch.
The place was completely trashed. Not really knowing how to handle the situation, I went into my room to try to think. When I opened the door, I got hit with a stink that would outlast anything. My new roommate was getting busy with another guy in some rather messy way on my bed. There was poop all over my bed. So I went outside, called law enforcement, and watched the show unfold.
21. Something’s Not Right
We found him on Craigslist to fill a room. He moved in and seemed a little weird for the first couple of days as he was getting settled. Soon, a smell started developing, and we slowly realized it was him. We never once saw him go to a laundromat. Occasionally, he would camp out in the bathroom for over an hour, and we'd hear these wet slapping sounds from inside.
We figured he's probably washing his clothes in the bathtub. We thought he was a little different, but we were all pretty laid back and thought we could make it work. Then it got worse. First, he tried making us dinner. He placed frozen chicken on a cookie sheet to bake. When we got back, not only had he eaten all of it, but the bones were in the trash, red like cherries because he'd basically eaten it all raw.
Next, he told us that every Monday he MUST watch RAW wrestling. We couldn’t help but make some snide comments, to which he exploded, screamed in a rage, and demanded that we take back everything we said about pro wrestling being scripted. He absolutely, 100% believed pro wrestling was candid and real. We found it sad, but we lost any pity for him quickly thereafter.
He would stay up chatting online all night until sunrise. We asked him to stop, but he didn’t. It turned out, he was voice chatting with high school girls from his hometown. We were all in our 20s. Soon thereafter, he started getting packages from these girls, which were full of food and money, because they were his girlfriends. Our annoyance quickly turned to full-blown repulsion.
One day he told us that his 16-year-old girlfriend was going to move into his room. We put our foot down. That was it for us. He was STILL voice chatting all night, so we started to remove the splitter that allowed him to have an internet connection in his room whenever we went to sleep. It only took two nights before he started screaming at one of our female roommates.
This dude was over six feet, the roomie he was yelling at was only five feet. Inappropriate to the extreme. Then my girlfriend got into the mix. I intervened and reminded him that he was merely subletting, and had signed a document saying he has no right to any notice. We called him a cab and told him to get out. He was gone within the hour.
22. Keeping Track
person using MacBook ProPhoto by Campaign Creators on UnsplashMy college roommate freshman year secretly kept an Excel spreadsheet monitoring my study habits. She would count the number of hours she saw my nose in a book. Later in the semester, after I had returned from a party, she attempted an intervention. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and was thoroughly creeped out.
She said, “I'm concerned about your study habits," and brought out a spreadsheet from the entire semester, comparing my total number of hours studying to the number of hours that were "recommended by my advisor” for the number of credits I was taking.
23. There Are No Flowers In This Attic
I lived in a house with the girl who owned the house, my boyfriend, our six-month-old, and another friend. The owner didn't have a job and asked us all to move in to help pay the bills, so her parents, who bought her the house, wouldn't default on their loan. We had been there about a month when we noticed that the owner rarely left her bedroom in the attic.
The only time she left was to sneak down to eat my food. She never got a job, or contributed in any way, except to ask when we were paying her. She also owned three cats that she couldn't afford. I had to buy them food or they would have starved. She never even cleaned their litter box. It reeked of ammonia. I finally got sick of cleaning up her mess and told her that when I got back from work, that she had better clean the litter box.
I had a baby living there and didn’t like for her to be out of our room because it smelled. I went to work and my boyfriend took our baby in the stroller to the store a block away. He forgot to take his keys and that crazy woman locked them out and refused to let them in. The baby was screaming for a bottle so he broke a window to try to crawl in to get her formula, which she refused to give us.
He called me at work, told me what happened and that officers could only make her give us our baby things back. She swore we had NOTHING else there and that we were trying to steal from her. I managed to get some of my things back after paying her rent for all the time our stuff sat there while she was holding it hostage. However, she kept all my cool stuff.
24. Divided Lines
white wooden cabinet near bedPhoto by Shashi Chaturvedula on UnsplashShe was a nightmare. Her side of the room looked like a catastrophe, while my side was clearly divisible by this line of cleanliness beginning halfway between the beds. I was trying to get some alone time when she decided to watch a movie with four of her friends on her bed. Two of whom were proudly emitting the most noxious gas, and she had the volume on her bass-heavy speakers so loud that a neighbor came round to complain.
She also drank constantly and claimed a guy friend violated her when he hadn’t. She put the house through interviews and law enforcement went through my bedroom to collect evidence, only to break down and admit that it didn't happen. She vanished for four days, then moved out without a word. Good riddance.
25. Who Invited These People?
Our one roommate would throw parties in our dorm without telling any of us. The people who would come weren’t even college students. I remember once, I saw a woman who looked like she was 35. She'd brought her baby to one of the parties. These weren't low-key parties either. There was music blaring until 7:00 am on a weekday.
All night long, random people were getting busy on our couch in front of everyone, and the place would be trashed when we got up. He even had the nerve to refuse to clean up, telling us that the mess wasn't his fault, it was his "friends" and why should he have to clean up their mess? When he broke up with his boyfriend, his boyfriend spent the entire night crying and screaming outside this guy's door in our dorm room.
During the night our roommate slammed the door on his ex’s hand, cutting it, and his ex then went around our dorm smearing his blood all over everything.
26. Cable Watching Cousin
silhouette of 3 people watching show on TVPhoto by Aneta Pawlik on UnsplashI shared a house with two other guys, and we all shared the bills three ways. One day, one of the guys asked if his cousin who was backpacking around Europe could crash with us for a couple of weeks. My other roommate and I agreed, as we had met his cousin before and he seemed pretty cool. Oh, how wrong we were. After the two weeks were up, the cousin went on his adventures and a week later the dreaded cable bill arrived.
The cousin had sat on the couch and watched racy pay-per-view movies all day, every day. According to the bill, he would watch between 10 to 45 minutes of a movie before getting bored and starting a new one. The code for the PPV was the default 0000 as we all had agreed that we would never use it unless the three of us were there.
The cable bill was an extra $300 as a result of the cousin’s PPV habit. Our roommate refused to chip in extra to cover it. His argument was that we always split the bill three ways and we had all agreed that his cousin could stay. The bill was invoiced to me and I wasn't going to get a bad credit report as a result of movies I didn't watch.
After shouting and fussing, we paid the bill—but it ruined everything.After a few months, we all went our separate ways. Things were never quite the same after.
27. Too Many Bad Habits To Break
My old roommate didn’t present as dirty, but she had a couple of habits that disgusted me. She never cleaned the bathroom, not even so much as taking out the trash. She would clip her nails while in the shower and when I’d clean, they would all be stuck between the tub and the shower curtain. But the worst part of all?
She would have her boyfriend come over on the weekends. They would get it on but she wouldn’t throw out the used condoms until DAYS after he had left. It was gross.
28. The Epiphany
flamesPhoto by Benjamin DeYoung on UnsplashI lived with a guy who was a childhood friend for about six months. He suddenly told me in the middle of the night after I got off work that he had a religious epiphany. He was going to (the former) Yugoslavia to see the Virgin Mary and said he'd be gone for about a week. The next morning, he left, but all his stuff was still in the house.
He left an envelope with a gold and ivory rosary and $150 for rent and utilities. Two days later, a dude from Ecuador was on the porch. The guy barely spoke English. After about an hour it all fell into place. My roommate left, joined a religious order or something, and was now sub-letting his room to this kid. Well, this kid ended up being a huge problem...
I came home one night after about three weeks and this kid had set all my stuff on fire.
29. The Bearded Man
My roommate had very thick facial hair. The dude would actually shave it dry and would leave the shavings all over the bathroom counter. He would do this for weeks at a time. I would mention that it bothered me, and he would always apologize, but do nothing about it. I would constantly have to clean up his mess when it got too extreme.
30. Breakup Breakdown
man in gray crew neck long sleeve shirt standing beside woman in black crew neck shirtPhoto by Afif Ramdhasuma on UnsplashI made the mistake of signing a lease with two good friends that were dating at the time. I had gotten to know them my first year of college and they were both pretty good people. They ended up breaking up before we even moved in. I had to live through nine months of fighting, doors being broken, and holes being punched in the walls.
The neighbors filed noise complaints often, and law enforcement was called three times. To top it off, they didn’t pay their share of the last electric bill, and I ended up losing my security deposit of $250. But guess what? The joke's on me...They’re married now.
31. Roomie, Can You Spare A Dime?
The guy I lived with would play his music on full blast in the restroom, which was right next to my room. He refused to park in the street when the driveway was full, blocking the rest of us in. Even though he had a bedroom, he lived and slept in the living room and left his TV on all night. He would go around and ask each roommate to help pay his portion of the rent, and tell them to not tell the others. He still owes me $200.
32. Hey, Those Are My Clothes!
brown wooden 2-door cabinetPhoto by Rumman Amin on UnsplashShe started pilfering my clothes and went walking around in them to school. She seemed to be convinced they belonged to her until the day she left to move back home. She sent me the most infuriating text: "I found some stuff in my wardrobe that I think you might want. Bye." Sure enough, in her wardrobe, were my clothes, my socks, and even my bath towels.
I took one towel out and a vibrator fell out of it and onto my bare foot.
33. Craigslist Cash Cow
My roomie had given out the landline phone number, which was mine, for callbacks regarding stuff he was selling on Craigslist. I was taking a message for him and asked what it was about when the caller described wanting to buy "the bedazzled sidekick." I started looking through my things and figured it out. He had thieved my old phone and some other electronics to sell for rent money.
34. Ditched
man in gray button up shirtPhoto by Ludovic Migneault on UnsplashMy roommate and I had a nice apartment but had to move to a worse apartment in a sketchy part of town because he couldn't afford it after he lost his job. I agreed to pay the rent until he got on his feet. A month later, he moved in with his girlfriend, leaving me stuck with the lease in the cruddy apartment I only got because of him.
35. Gone Without A Trace
I've had some bad roommates, but I think the worst one was bad due to extenuating circumstances that were not entirely his fault. He would have manic episodes where he would freak out, yell at everything and everyone, including himself. He would pace the apartment at frantic speeds breathing super hard until I would finally get him some water and have him sit down long enough to breathe. One day, he freaked us out big time...He just disappeared.
This guy would disappear for days at a time, so for the first three or four days, my other two roommates and I did not do anything about it. At the time he was a sophomore in college and none of us knew what his class schedule was like, or if he possibly had a girlfriend. He was in a fraternity, and I was friends with one of his fraternity brothers.
After I told my roommates about the manic episodes they had me call his fraternity brother and it turned out that no one in the fraternity had seen or heard from him. After some discussion, we filed a missing persons report. He had been missing for about five or six days at that point. Officers showed up and we went through the normal motions.
About three hours later one of the officers came back and said, "We can't tell you where he is, but we can say he is okay."
36. Three’s Company
man and woman hugging each otherPhoto by Candice Picard on UnsplashI had a place that was just mine. I knew someone who was new to the city and needed a place to crash while he looked for his own place. Four months later, he was still there. He paid his share and was easy to get along with, but then his girlfriend moved in too. I did not want to share my place with two other people, let alone a romantically involved couple.
I started charging them two-thirds of the rent and utilities. They left in a hurry.
37. Grieving Nightmare
My boyfriend and I had shared an apartment with this girl. About four months into our lease, my boyfriend passed suddenly from a tragic accident and the roommate decided to sue our landlords. She threatened to mentally hurt my boyfriend's family through hate letters and the like, for letting my boyfriend, who was now deceased, out of our lease, while she was not allowed out of the lease.
After she was denied the ability to get out of the lease, she decided to make my life a nightmare in hopes of getting kicked out of the apartment. She would covet my, and my deceased boyfriend's things, eat my food, and break my and my deceased boyfriend's belongings. It made grieving for my boyfriend a lot more difficult.
38. Dude, Did You Forget Something?
russian blue cat lying on brown wooden tablePhoto by Milada Vigerova on UnsplashA guy I lived with would use chewing tobacco all over the house. He'd leave his water bottles full of brown spit all over the place—on the dining room table, the kitchen, the bathroom. The coup de grace was when he moved out and left his cat. It was this black and grey fat cat named Jordy. The first time I met her she was sitting on the stairs and I leaned out to pet her and she clawed me with her paw.
I kept the cat for four years until I got stationed overseas and had to give her to my wife's mom.
39. I’m Punching Out
I lived with an old friend who had become an alcoholic. The last straw was when he punched me in the face because it took more than a minute to answer the door in the middle of the night when he came home inebriated. I called law enforcement and he was taken in by the authorities. It seems he had already had a run-in with them in town after making a disturbance.
40. What A Stinker
woman in black crew neck shirtPhoto by OSPAN ALI on UnsplashI lived with someone who passed gas everywhere. He would sit in the kitchen watching Netflix on his laptop all day without headphones, wouldn't flush the toilet, wouldn't take out the garbage, and would let his food rot in the fridge. He would then put it in the garbage to stink up the apartment, and refused to keep the AC on because he was cold at 72F.
He would be obnoxious on purpose, used our stuff without permission, and slept on the couch all the darn time.
41. Lazy Loungers
I had three roommates that were the laziest people alive. I was the only one that did dishes ever. I saw one eating a bowl of cereal with a fork once because we had no clean spoons. One lived in the basement, and I went down there for the first time in a few months and all the lights were off. The light bulbs had burned out and he was too lazy to change them.
It was more convenient for him to simply sit in the dark. However, the biggest awakening for me was when I went out of town for a weekend. I used the bathroom Friday morning before heading to the airport and saw that we were out of toilet paper. I had to resort to using paper towels. I came back late Sunday night and walked into the bathroom to the same roll of paper towels.
All three of them were off the whole weekend and decided that wiping with Bounty was a better option than driving two minutes to the store to buy more toilet paper.
42. You’re Not My Mom
smiling woman in shallow focus photographyPhoto by Edward Cisneros on UnsplashThe worst roommate I ever had was a 56-year-old lady who let me stay in a room for free. She was somewhat of a family friend. I was a 20-year-old female who kept things clean, wasn’t too loud, and tried to be considerate. This woman told me that my boyfriend at the time had to leave before midnight. I agreed and abided by the rule. She then told me I was not allowed to keep my bedroom door closed anymore, for any reason.
Again, I abided and tried to hang out elsewhere. I came back one night a week later and found she had placed all my stuff on the curb and said I was acting inappropriately and irresponsibly. She lectured me about how my boyfriend was no good and a failure. Needless to say, I grabbed my things and never spoke to her again until she asked for custody of my siblings, should my parents pass away.
43. A Brush With Weirdness
Well, I had a roommate from another country who would brush his teeth as fast as anyone I have ever seen and would shake his head at the same time while shaking the toothbrush. He would brush with his mouth open so spit got EVERYWHERE. On top of this, he would make noises while doing this that sounded like a mix between gagging and a cat throwing up a hairball.
44. Do Unto Others...
shallow focus photography of orange Volkswagen BeetlePhoto by Dan Gold on UnsplashI had a female roommate who used my car for three years. She would put $5 in gas in it SOMETIMES. I didn't mind too much because the campus was close, and I wasn't the best at doing my chores. However, my car was stolen with only a few months left to go until graduation. I asked her ONCE to use her car, the one that she had gotten a few weeks before, and she told me her "insurance wouldn't let her." I'm still mad at her for it.
45. The Mysterious Case Of The Rising Utility Costs
My last roommate moved me in with him and his girlfriend. His dog peeled all the pleather off my couch one night in a panic attack. Over the next two months following, my share of the bills mysteriously went up dramatically. When he moved across the state, he nabbed some of my stuff, and I found that the oven was not working.
I stayed there for another three months after he left, and the bills went down by over half. To this day, I have no idea how he hiked the bills up so high.
46. Combative Creature
men's white topPhoto by Dmitry Vechorko on UnsplashMy current roommate is the worst. He has yelled or screamed at me multiple times over banal things, and overall has been nasty to all my friends. He once told my friend that he had to clean up after my friend had cooked us a big meal. The polite thing was for us to clean up since he had cooked our meal. He also keeps full bags of trash in his room just hanging out there.
Our bathroom is constantly full of his whiskers from his shavings, and his girlfriend is just as combative as he is! There's TWO of them.
47. Rabbit Ritual
When I was in college, my roommate dropped out of school and moved out without informing me a week before bills were due. I had to get a new roommate fast, so I did—but this one was even worse. She slaughtered my rabbit and used his bones to form some sort of makeshift Satanic summoning ritual on her bed. I didn't even confront her.
The next night when I knew she was working late, I got a friend with a truck and got all of my stuff out of there. It was the most stressful time of my college years.
48. What A Pill
a person's hand is holding a green cup with water coming out of itPhoto by Andres Siimon on UnsplashThere was a guy in the house I was living in that would get high all the time. One night he took something he described as a "yellow pill." He didn't even know what it was. I returned after having been away to find the kitchen floor covered in glass, poop, and toilet paper. He got so wasted that he crapped himself in our kitchen and smashed a bunch of glass into it.
He then tried to clean it up using toilet paper, which he left on the floor and in the kitchen bin. None of us could go into the kitchen to cook or even get food out of the fridge until he finally cleaned it up two days later. But it didn't end there. He also managed to forget about a tap long enough to flood the entire kitchen and leave the water running long enough for it to make a pool in the corridor outside.
It completely soaked the carpet in another housemate's room. The guy whose room it was was away for five days and he had locked his door, so the room stank like a swamp.
49. Strange Bedfellows
I lived in a studio apartment with three other people. One of my roommates would bring guys home from the bar, start getting intimate with them, then, midway through, freak out and start screaming, cussing, and beating them up. The poor guys would usually end up in the hallway still trying to pull their underpants on and frequently didn't get all their clothes.
50. The Blogger
man smiling and using MacBookPhoto by Jud Mackrill on UnsplashI found out I had the worst roommate ever after he had already moved out. A couple of weeks after he left, a friend of mine alerted me to an online blog my ex-roommate had. In this blog, he had logged every activity of mine, including going to the bathroom, sleeping, watching a movie, leaving the apartment, etc. He also explained in detail different ways he would "off" my cat if given the opportunity.
He even went as far as to lie about certain activities I was doing, like saying I was sleeping with someone when I wasn't, blasted me with horrible names, and described how he wanted to hurt me physically.