from “A”

The Case of the Kleptomaniac Roommate

Uhm, I don’t really need to dress up the narrative of my bad roommate–the facts are horrifying enough on their own. First semester, first year of undergrad. Fall five years ago. Am blessed with a car by my parents. One day I go out to run some errands and see that my car isn’t where I parked it; it isn’t in the lot at all. I freak out and make a police report. A few days later it shows up in the lot, in a different spot. Passenger side rearview mirror has a gaping hole in it and there’s a dent in the hubcap on the same side. It’s also out of gas. I go back to my room and see a single key lying on my bedside table. My roommate returns from Spanish and confesses nothing; instead, she has the gall to ask me to take her to the grocery store!

A month or so later my six hundred dollar diamond ring from an ex boyfriend turns up missing. I ask my roommate if she knows anything about it, pleads with her to help me find it. She says she hasn’t seen it but expresses concern and promises to keep an eye out. I tell her how much it means to me, in tears. A few days later she greets me with it, exuberantly telling me that she found it in my bed. “You big silly!” she laughed, “It must have come off in your sleep.” But I had checked my bed several times, stripping the sheets and such. My only guess is that she took it, pawned it, and then got it back.

One night I am fast asleep. I feel something pounce on my chest. A mangy, scraggly-looking cat peers down from me. I yelp. My roommate wakes and giggles. She let the cat live in the dorm for a week before I was finally like, no, it has to go. (I LOVE cats, but pets are forbidden in dorms!)

By the end of the semester, I have had it and am ready to move out. She is not pleased with this but I found another roommate and needed to leave for my health and sanity. Now, if one moves out of a dorm and leaves her roommate behind, she is required to make sure her space is tidy. Roommate had brought this awful, enormous rug to cover the bare floor between our beds. It attracted every kind of lint and hair possible. Even so, I went to the dorm housekeeper and asked for the vaccuum so that I could clean up the roommate’s rug. (Nevermind the fact that she had Never vaccuumed this rug.) I vaccuumed that mess carefully, as well as dusted furniture etc. My roommate came back that night and said that that the rug was still “f-cking disgusting”, covered with my “long gross f-cking hairs”. She told me that she wanted me to “get down on (my) hands and knees and strip the embedded hair up with a piece of tape.” When I refused this thoroughly insane demand, she lunged at my desk, grabbed my computer speakers and locked them in her closet, telling me that when I cleaned her rug like she wanted, I’d get them back. Further, she told me that as soon as I left the room to move stuff to my other one, she’d steal more of my things and lock them away as ransom for a tape-cleaned rug.

I called the campus police. They came over and, despite her screaming, forcibly removed my stolen stuff from her closet.

Less than a year later she was kicked out of the college for doing and having drugs on campus.

She was really a nice, interesting person and a fabulous artist. She introduced me to some of my favorite bands, like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Smiths. But she did a ton of drugs and was just kind of crazy. I have forgiven her but will likely keep these memories forever.

My Neighbor

I have plenty of roommate stories, kids, so don’t get all upset that this isn’t TECHNICALLY about my roommate.  I live on the first floor of a house.  A large, grumpy, harumphing, mentally ill racist lives above me on the second floor.  The only roommate I currently have is this:

 

 

 

And obviously he can do no wrong. 

So my upstairs neighbor, we’ll call him “John,” is horrifying.  He tells awful stories and drops lots of n-bombs and makes me very uncomfortable.  He has a radio above my kitchen that is on all the time.  And when he watches T.V. I can usually hear it, though it’s fairly soft.  He also loves. porn.   He loves it so much that when he watches it, he turns the volume up even louder than normal.  I am not a huge fan of pornography, but  even if I were, I would rather not know the exact times my upstairs neighbor is beating off (which is just about every morning, around 10am and sometimes in the evenings for those of you keeping track at home).

            It is often the case that I will be sitting in my living room, reading a book or knitting or watching TV, and the constant drone of John’s TV will get a little louder.  And I may not notice it right away, but eventually it breaks through my concentration and I begin to recognize that I am listening to rhythmic groaning and yelling and a very bad soundtrack.  It’s pretty horrifying.  But given that I don’t have a very good relationship with John, and that he scares me, I wasn’t sure what to do about it. 

I tried to obviously turn up my TV or music, and sometimes he would get the message.  I considered leaving a note that said something about his private movies being too loud, but I didn’t want to do that either.  So a few months ago, I decided to say something to my landlord about it.  Generally, we agree about not really liking this guy, as he has been an awful tenant and neighbor.  He smokes, which he is not allowed to do in the apartment, and it seeps into my craft room and smells terrible.  And the day he moved he got into a huge shouting match in the yard which almost came to fisticuffs with one of the guys helping him move. 

I should also mention that my landlords are Iranian, and they speak English but not perfectly.  They are also very religious and proper.  So when I went to pay my rent, I took a long list of things that John had done that were presenting problems for me.  And when I got to the last one, the exchange went something like this:

Sophie: Well, he likes to…ummm….watch…..pornography……….very loudly. And…ummm….I can hear it very…clearly….in my apartment and it makes me very…uhhh….uncomfortable.

Landlord: What?

Sophie: Um. Pornography. He watches it loudly, so I can hear it.

Landlord: What does that mean? I don’t understand.  What is pornography?

Sophie: Ummm….pornography……is these movies….that show……ummmm…movies of……people……..having….sex.

Landlord: long, horrified silence
                  Oh. 

                     translates for husband

 
Landlord’s husband: lots of gasping and grunting disapprovingly

 

Needless to say, this situation was very awkward for everyone involved.  It was almost more uncomfortable explaining porn to my landlords than it was to endure the loud, obnoxious cries coming from my neighbor’s TV.  I found out later that rather than confront him themselves, they passed that job off to one of his fellow Knights of Columbus that rented from them.  I imagine that didn’t go very well.  The porn was turned off for a while, but it still gets really loud every now and then.

first post

In honor of this blog’s first post I will dedicate this to my most recent bad roommate. I believe the actual decision to sit down and finally put this site up was sparked one morning around 4 am. It was then when I walked down the hall to go to the bathroom and was shocked (disgusted? amazed? stupified?) to see said roommate “S” drinking milk straight out of my milk carton. I remember vividly telling myself this isn’t happening and going about my merry way. But the next day it was undeniable and I had to ask my friend Joe to bring the experience to life. Here is to S, I hope his thirst was quenched: