Roommates are a part of life, and chances are you’ve had a roommate at least once.
Sometimes, your roommate is a family member — perhaps you shared your childhood bedroom with a sibling. Sometimes, it’s a friend. It’s likely you shared a dorm room with a friend in college. And other times, it’s a complete stranger who you only shared a living space with in order to save on rent.
Whatever the case, having a roommate is sure to make for some interesting experiences. Some of these experiences are good, and some are bad, but one thing is for sure: they’re all unforgettable!
Curious about some of these interesting experiences, Redditor chee-koo asked:
"Redditors, what are your most interesting roommate stories?"
Video Game ASMR
"My South Korean roommate in college played StarCraft (2? not sure) welllll into the night. We're talking like I'd be getting up to go to class and he'd be logging off."
"It cured my insomnia. Listening to a game in a language I didn't understand was very soothing, apparently, and I went from taking 3-4 hours a night to fall asleep (if I would at all) to falling asleep within 30 seconds of laying my head down."
– truthinlies
"Are you saying that to cure my years long insomnia all this time what I needed was not melatonin, plants or all the weird sh*t I've tried, but a South Korean online gamer in the next room?"
– blackd0nuts
"It's weird how sometimes you find something that just WORKS."
– Wolfie_Ecstasy
I'm Jealous!
"I’m pretty sure I used to live with a hobbit."
"-Man about 5'1", curly brown hair, constantly cheerful demeanor"
"-Never wore shoes, inside or out"
"-Literally slept on the floor in what can only be explained as a nest of blankets"
"-Started a garden and encouraged me to eat his tomatoes all the time"
"-Would bring home samosas and other goodies, always giving me half just because"
"-He and his wife had a dream of living off the grid in a tiny home on a truck"
"I hope he’s doing well"
– Opposite_Lettuce
"Tall for a hobbit, otherwise checks out!"
– GielM
Poor Little Rich Girl
"My freshman year roommate was an international student from Dubai. She had maids and help all of her life and didn't know how to do a goddamn thing! Once she ate an apple and tossed the core behind her onto our carpet! I told her I'm not her maid to clean up after her!"
– Turbulent-Mind7128
Killing In His Sleep?
"I used to cook dinner and always made enough to offer to our room mate. He paid his bills and rent always but sometimes he didn't have enough for food so I would cook and say "hey man, wanna have dinner with us?". He would usually say he didn't like whatever I was making. Fastforward to morning...all the leftovers were gone."
"His explanation? He must have been sleepwalking and ate it in his sleep. This happened 15 to 20 times over a year period. Minimum. He would make these big song and dances about how what I was making was gross, so I would put up enough leftovers for two (my boyfriend and I) then go to bed. What was to be lunches for work gone and often dirty utensils in the sink."
"Fast forward another 5 years and he called me at 3 am after not talking to me or my partner for 3 years, and told me my now husband (aforementioned BF)was doing Crack in front of our 4 year old. I called my husband, who was asleep. Neither of us had talked to him in years...what was this?"
"Fast forward another 5 years. He's on death row for killing his roommate. His defense? He did it sleepwalking."
– dissapointingsex
These Things Belong In The Trash
"My roommate once create a whole new lifeform by leaving beans in the fridge until they molded so bad they became pure white. Then she got mad when I threw it away because she was going to use it later."
– Shadow948
"Use it for what? Giving people botulism?"
– Bob_12_Pack
"I had a roommate do that with lasagna in a casserole dish. I eventually tossed it after lifting the lid and looking inside. I didn’t want to touch it and I knew she’d never clean it, so I threw the whole thing in the dumpster, dish and all. When she got home and saw it was gone, she told me I might as well throw her lifeless body in the dumpster too, if that’s how little I thought of her. I was like, “I’ll buy you a new casserole dish, damn.”"
"Neither of us did what we’d said we’d do."
– Calexcia
...Huh?
"Senior year of college I lived with 8 other students in a house, girls upstairs and boys downstairs. One time the boys were really rowdy so I went downstairs to check it out and this girl from my literature class was beating in their fridge with a fire extinguisher. I think I’ve lost the ability to be surprised after that year."
– Mirrorflute88
"I don't understand the meaning of "was beating in their fridge". Was she beatboxing? Was she getting beaten up? Was she attacking the fridge?"
"It would be really cool if somebody could help me with that :)"
– umhassy
Laundry Troubles
"My wife had a roommate who's clothes smelled bad all the time. But they would do laundry together, so they knew that she washed her clothes, but they smelled like they weren't."
"Until one day when they were shopping together, and the roommate said that she had to buy laundry detergent, and then picked up some Downey Soft fabric softener. My wife asked her if she was also going to get detergent, and the roommate replied, "I just did.""
"My wife tried to convince her that fabric softener is not soap, and wouldn't clean your clothes, and the roommate was adamant. "This is what I've always used, and it works great." My wife tried to be nice about how it didn't work, and that her clothes didn't smell good after a day (when the Downey scent would wear off), but nothing she said made a difference."
"I hope that when the roommate got married 12 years ago, her husband was able to convince her to use actual detergent for her clothes.""
– WalmartGreder
Middle Of The Night Thoughts
"My freshman year roommate would think way too much when he was trying to fall asleep and wake me up all the time."
"Like, “Hey man, a lot of people find the person they marry in college. What if I never find that person!!”"
"Me: “huh? It’s 2am, dude, I have class at 8.”"
"“Oh sorry to wake you up, go back to sleep”"
"Five minutes later, he wakes me up again “Unless you’re on fire, then that makes sense.”"
– ThinkIGotHacked
Whoops!
"My flatmate was using the speaker in the living room for playing music, he said he was gonna go shower so he left.
2 minutes later we heard moaning and slapping. He forgot to disconnect from the speaker."
– Terrible-Cost-7741
Thw Worst Mom
"(This is gonna be long, because there's a fuckload to tell.)"
"Ah, my last roomie, J. How to explain her... J was an an*l-retentive b*tch for whom things could not be clean enough. She wasn't a germophobe; she was just a controlling c*nt. For example, she had a glass table near the kitchen where she ate all her normal meals. She had a little boy who was 4ish and a girl who was 7ish. They were not allowed to eat meals with their mother because they might get fingerprints on the glass. Instead, they had to eat on a small wooden kiddie table away from her. One day, her son accidentally knocked over his juice, and she full-on screamed at him while he sobbed and tried to mop it up."
"Other sh*t she pulled:"
"- I accidentally left, no joke, one fucking pinpoint of spaghetti sauce in the microwave one night. She banged on my door at midnight on a work day. And when I answered, she grabbed my arm and marched me downstairs and yelled while I cleaned it."
"- I accidentally forgot one day that I was supposed to take the outdoor trash can to the street. On my way back home from work, I found out my brother was dying, so I was sobbing by the time I got home. When I got there, she had placed the trash can so that I could not get into the garage without moving it to the street. And when I got inside, she was waiting for me. She physically blocked the stairs up to my room and just screamed and screamed while I cried and tried to explain that my goddamn brother was dying."
"- Her (very sweet, no idea how she got such great kids) daughter was in Girl Scouts, and J was the troop's cookie mom. She was SCARY about it. One day, she left an envelope of cash from it on the kitchen counter, and there was NO way I was touching that. Tried to tell her it was out there, but got nowhere. Quite a few people came in and out of the house, including a few contractors, and next time she looked, the cash was gone. Of course (/s), it had to have been my fault, so she threatened me with throwing everything I owned on the lawn and changing the locks. So that I had somewhere to sleep, I just paid her the $80, even though that meant a couple weeks of ramen. Guess where it was? Her kiddo took it to his room and was playing with it. And no, I got zero apology."
"- Did I mention she was a nightmare stage mom? Because she was. She forced her shy daughter into doing a made for tv movie, and then ran around watching her toddler son wrecking the whole set while cooing about how "adorable" he was on "HIS movie set.""
"- She'd found photos in a property her family owned where some asshole early paparazzo had hidden there and taken shots of a very famous and well-regarded, inspirational person's private funeral. For some reason, the pics were left in that property. Her immediate decision? If she can't get at least a few hundred k from auctioning them off, ransom them to the family."
"Biggest lesson? When your roommate's family comes over for dinner, and several of them pull you aside to voice concern for you and ask if she's treating you badly, that's when you spend every waking moment from then on finding a new goddamn place to live, even if it's a street corner."
– ChaoticForkingGood
Faking It
"My first roommate as an adult faked ovarian cancer. Just.... How could someone even DO that?"
"When I was looking for a new place, she waited until I took a shower and got into the computer in my room. (That one's partially on me, because I didn't log out of it before I went off.) She found out I was emailing the person who would be my next roommate, noted the email address, and then sent a bullsh*t-laden email to that person trying to get them to kick me out before I ever moved in."
"She was in-f*cking-sane. By the time I left, I'd have been willing to bet everything I owned that she was on meth. Couldn't prove it, but she 100% acted and looked like it."
"Oh, and did I mention that she turned on a goddamn dime one Saturday and told me that my dog, who she'd previously loved, had to be gone by Monday or else she'd kick ME out? All because my poor baby girl had been abused before I had her, and when that woman yelled at the top of her lungs one day, my little girl peed. So, yeah. I had to call rescue organizations and shelters and give my sweet girl up."
"Also - last one, I swear - she invited a homeless couple to live with us for a bit in return for doing some painting. Please note: I have no problem with this. What I DID have a problem with was that she never asked or even told me about it (and I'd have said yes if she had). She just did it. She also told them that they were welcome to keep anything in the third bathroom that they wanted... Which was my goddamn bathroom. Finding out your makeup is all gone and that someone's pubes are on your soap? SO much fun."
– ChaoticForkingGood
Morally Compromised
"In college, my roommate was majoring in criminal justice, and it threw me for a loop when I found out she was in a gang. (Weird combo.)"
"One day, she asked if a friend of hers could stay with us for a little while. Her friend had just been evicted from her first apartment for not being able to pay. She was 8 months pregnant, and it was winter, so I was alright with it."
"Now, this roommate and her friend would sit there and giggle and gossip from when they got in bed until about 2 AM, juuuuust loudly enough that it kept me up."
"One night, I overheard 80% of a whispered convo between them where they talked about how easy it had been to steal some furniture for the pregnant girl's new place. They started talking about how shitty the books in the bookshelves had been and how they were glad there had been room in the dumpster out back for them. They thought I was asleep."
"Our dorm had a "dorm mom" who was a very sweet 80yo lady whose job was to live with us in the good-sized apartment in the dorm for that use and to make sure we were abiding by the (stupid and outdated) rules. She was a total sweetheart. She actually furnished our common room with her own stuff, out of the kindness of her heart. Bookshelves, books, a sofa, and a TV."
"So when I got up the next morning and headed out, and I saw everyone milling around the now-empty common room, my heart sank. Everyone loved our dorm mom. I checked the dumpster out back, and yep... all of her books were in there. My roommate and her friend had stolen everything in that room in the middle of the night."
"I went straight to the dean. She got at least booted out of the dorms. Don't know if she got kicked out of the college altogether or not, but I still caught hell from the rest of her gang. Fun times."
"Sorry, roomie, not sorry. She made that lovely dorm mom cry."
– ChaoticForkingGood
I Didn't Do It
"My morbidly obese roommate fell in the shower and went through the wall. Sounded like a bomb going off and scared the shit out of me."
"That would be whatever, except a minute later the useless bastard came limping out bleeding and tried to pretend the shower/wall had always been like that. Even when we pointed out he had done the damage, he refused to really acknowledge it."
"Our other roommate was crazy, and refused to get the landlord involved. So, she instead cleaned up the mess and left the hole, saying she'd fix it later herself. When we left (about a year later), she just gorilla glued some cardboard up over the hole and then glued the tiles back on over it."
"I'll admit it actually didn't look terrible. You probably wouldn't notice unless you really looked."
– Broski225
If Only She Could Sleep
"One time I woke to two voices in my college doom room."
"I saw that my roommate had a guy with her in bed. From what I remember, there was kissing but I don't know what else. I had no idea when he got there."
"I didn't know what to do so I just pretended to sleep until they were gone. They finally left close to noon. As they were heading out, the guy goes, "wow, your roommate sure is tired." My roommate: "yeah, she sleeps a lot.""
"Couldn't help but feel a little peeved by that."
– purplealchemist
Duck!
"My roommate threw a meat cleaver at me because I told her I didn't want to talk to her because we were fighting."
– livetimefe
I'd Run
"I moved in with a couple. She was VERY obviously pregnant but denied it. They had 7 pet rats, which I was chill with. Their bed was on the floor so the rats could sleep with them, cool. Whatever you’re into, not for me to judge. The rat poop that was EVERYWHERE in the house was an issue. In the tub, in the wash machine, outside their room in their shoes. My final straw was when I baked 15 DOZEN butter tarts for Xmas gifts cuz I was a broke 20-year-old and they ATE THEM ALL in one evening and that night she went into labour and had the baby she definitely wasn’t pregnant with and demanded I give up the home office I paid extra for each month to do my work from for her new not baby But keep paying for it."
– notanaltaccount88
Yes, roommates are a part of life, but some of these experiences make me glad that part of my life is in the past!