The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

[Big Rick Cook]

This is a topic inspired from Funk's dog chewing memory card topic.

I got to thinking about all of the crazy things that have happened as a result of me moving in with the particular person I did, some of them involving her dogs.

So here's a list of things you should Do or Don't:

1. Do remember to tell your new room mate that your parents are helping you move in, and thus all things considered 'immoral' by parents should be immediately hidden. This includes: a bong stashed in the top of the closet you are going to take, a cat o' nine tails hanging out on her computer desk, a mug with a man on it that becomes naked when you pour hot liquids into it, a book of witchcraft and sorcery sitting on top of the Holy Bible in the living room, and a baggy of the green butter just itching to be smoked.

I swear to you now, that every thing I just mentioned was to be found lying around my room mate's house the day I moved in, to the shock and dissolution of my mother and father.

2. Don't forget to close your bedroom door when your room mate has snoopy dogs that think they need to mark their territory on your freshly cleaned sheets.

3. Do hide all things you don't want found in places the dogs cannot get to. This is especially important of sexual paraphernalia. Case in point, my room mate had just gotten a brand new vibrator which she had yet to use. She set it on her dresser with intentions of placing it somewhere else safer minutes later.

Flash forward some odd minutes. A knock is heard at the door. I answer it. It's a friend of a friend of my room mate, with a friend of her own stopping by for a quick chat. I back away from the door to allow them entrance, and my foot brushes something on the floor. Looking down in expectance of a doggy toy, I almost laugh out loud when I see her new vibrator chilling on the living room floor, in plain sight. Thinking quickly, I place my foot in front of it so they will not see it, and discover that it is in fact in vibrate mode. I panic.

I am far too embarrassed to pick up a vibrating dildo in front of people I've just met, so I nonchalantly kick a doggy toy in front of it, hoping they won't see it until I can warn my room mate.

Long story short, her new vibrator has what you might call teeth marks in it, and I have a fun story to tell at parties.

4. Don't ever move in with an obsessive compulsive. My room mate is 100% guaranteed obsessive compulsive, but she's in denial. She prefers to be called 'meticulous,' to which I reply 'is a nice way of saying obsessive compulsive.' Everything must be 'just so' or she has a fit. Everything, even the tiniest of annoyances, are huge disturbances for her, and she lets it all get to her so bad that she cries nearly every day about stupid insignificant things.

5. Do make sure you have a camera or camcorder to record all the stupid things your room mate does in her daily life. I never have anything ready to capture her classic stupidity moments, but these are the ones I remember offhand.

She has, on more than one occasion, set something on the floor behind her (while cleaning, dusting, rearranging, etc.) only to back up onto this object moments later and fall backwards onto whatever's handy (usually a table). A real Stooge, this one. She has also backflipped over her couch trying to play chase with one of her dogs, spraining her ankle in the process. My favorite is the day she got out of her car, and somehow (I watched it happen and I still can't figure it out) managed to shut her own neck in her car door as it was rapidly shutting. It created a monstrous bruise on the side of her neck, and a great story to tell.

Another great one is the day she picked the flimsiest chair in the house to stand on and clean the bookshelves. Chair collapses while she's standing on one foot, and instead of allowing herself to fall two feet to the ground, she grabs hold of the bookshelf, and I watch as she falls over, the books slide out, and the shelf topples over shortly after on top of her and a mound of books. Fortunately, it was a cheapo Wal*Mart shelf and didn't do much damage. Again, a great story to tell.


In short, don't ever move in with a room mate who fits any of the following:

A. Obsessive compulsive.
B. More than five years older or younger than you.
C. Every list needs a C.
D. Extremely clumsy.
E. Has pets and you would rather not have pets.
F. Anti-social yet needs constant attention.
G. Treats pets as though they were children, often putting them before a room mate or real family member.
H. Pothead and/or sex fiend.


I think I'm done ranting now. The positive side to living with an obsessive compulsive is that the house is generally clean, and they don't put up with anything coming from outside their doors, ever. I've seen door-to-door people cringe and run in fright from this woman. She's had customer service people on the phone in tears from her *****ing.

Anyone else have horrifying/hilarious room mate stories?

[Funk]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

I don't really have much to say on the subject of roommates. They were pretty much geeks like me and all guys. We weren't allowed to have pets at my college outside of goldfish. I have one thing to contribute, though. I had this one roommate; his name was Gabe, and once in our Presentational Speaking class he didn't have his speech done, like usual. During the time in which he was waiting for his turn to give a persuasive speech, he wrote this, and read it aloud word-for-word. He allowed me to copy it afterwards. I was the only person in the class that laughed throughout the whole thing. Perhaps you won't find it as hilarious as I did:

"I’m here to speak to you of that which has no greater aspiration that to make us happy. I wish to exalt to you the one whose life goal is simply and only to make you smile. This personality is such that most willingly has it gone quite literally through the fire in hopes of pleasing us. That which embodies all that is good is none other than the Chocolate Chip Cookie.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie, though diverse, works in perfect harmony to teach us peace, to guide us on the path of love. Much like your hometown, and America in whole, the Chocolate Chip Cookie is mostly white. The black however is not suppressed. It is elevated and brings goodness to the whole. The rich is not set apart, but is distributed evenly to bring glittery sweetness to the complete cookie. The utter differences of the components of the Chocolate Chip Cookie kaleidoscope the most beautiful and aromatic of mélanges to bring us its nobility.

In gooey heat the CCC is the most succulent caress by which your tongue shall ever be enfolded. It’s steamy aphrodisiac enflames your veins to stimulate your entire being. But the Chocolate Chip Cookie is a jealous lover. Wanting, desperately…NO, NEEDING desperately to be wanted, to be touched, to be tasted. If it is not, it will first grow cold. Once the cookie has grown cold, it will not ever regain its original passionate heat, but it still has much to offer. If it continues to be ignored it will be hard and eventually brittle and stale. The Chocolate Chip Cookie, just like a personal relationship, requires immediate attention, constant maintenance, and sincere tender compassion.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie is a worthy idol, from which we would all benefit many solid lessons. The Chocolate Chip Cookie is the good citizen, living in peace and harmony with those around it. It is the kind heart, giving all for no reason other than to make you smile. It is the passionate lover, teaching us how to treat our loved one, both to please them and to inspire them to please us in return. Through the real and physical example of the Chocolate Chip Cookie we can learn all we need to know about every aspect of life. I will end with the appropriate words of my loquacious roommate Lucas, 'Oh Chocolate Chip Cookie, sure blessed of God art thou, for thou art dipped in milk.' I now encourage you all to go, eat a cookie and take its lesson to heart."

He only got 80% on it, mainly because it was too short. I gave a persuasive speech selling the show '24', and I think I got around 95% on it.

[Nixon]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

I had a roommate that played classical guitar. The thing was, he sucked and had no creative energy, so he would just play the same chords over and over as practice. On top of this annoyance, he also had the world's loudest metronome, which you could hear anywhere in the house.

Also, he was a neat freak- except when it came to taking out the garbage (I think he did it ONCE during his two year stay) or cleaning up the bathroom. He was a real jerk and we were happy to see him go.

My other roommate in college was just insane. She would strip right in front of me (we called this "Naked time") and even change clothes/get naked while Dave was around. He didn't know what to do, it was pretty funny. She would also let weird people sleep in my bed, which I didn't really appreciate, and she constantly raided my change jar for cigarette money. -_-

But overall, she was a really cool person and a good friend, and I wish I'd stayed in touch.

[MRevelle83]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

That speech about the Cookie is actually pretty good, for being a last-minute creation.

I don't have any roommate stories, but I do remember the horrors of going to a friends house. When I say he was a slob, I mean a SLOB. As in, I remember handfuls of chocolate cake and other assorted foods being stuck on the floor, which was dropped anywhere from 6 months before and beyond. About 4 feet of clutter (oozing with some sort of black, dirty substance) would be on every piece of furniture, including the dining room and kitchen tables, which is the only place to eat. Bedrooms were bare almost, and unknown substances were on the toilet. As in, unidentifieble chunks of food stuck right on the seat.

I hope he hasn't caught some kind of disease...

[Pandacon]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

This is why I choose to live alone.

[Rodak]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

My last set of roommates provided one of my favoorite stories.

I was going back to school as an adult and brought in to the house I was renting many people so I could afford to live and be a student. One of them had a beautiful and freindly black cat. We became freinds pretty quickly (me and the cat, not the people).

These people liked to mistreat the cat. They often chased him and tried to scare him just to watch him run. He was very fast, but that is no excuse.

One day I witnessed one of this guy's friends flick a lit cigarette at the cat. The cat started to bolt and I jumped over him, picked up the cigarette and flicked it right back at the person. It bounced off his forehead in a shower of sparks.

I was proud of that.

He had the nerve to get mad at me for this and asked why I did that. I told him that the cat lives here and he did not.

You have to realize, I am not an impressive physical specimen. I am in my forties and still weigh only about 130 pounds. I study Aikido so I can take care of myself, but anytime I try to stand someone down it presents an amusing image.

Anyway, after almost getting in a fight, but walking away claiming I was letting the fellow off with a warning, I went up to my room and shut the door.

Moments later there was a scratching at my door. It was Dummy (as I called him... his given name was Midnight). He wanted to be with me.

He spent the night in my room with me. Then every night after that he did the same thing.

A year and a half later it came time to part ways and the cat owner owed me a couple hundred dollars (I've got this fetish about keeping the utilities on) and I knew I'd never see him again, so I told him to just give me the cat.

He tried to argue that he wanted to keep the animal. So we did the old movie-scene thing where we each call the cat and see who he goes to. I was calling "Dummy" and he came to me.

He is now one of my best freinds and we have been together for over a decade. I still call him Dummy and he still comes when I call him (very rare for a cat). He still sleeps in my room and is always happy to see me.

I never liked cats (I grew up with big dogs) until this poor creature proved the old saying "You don't adopt cats, they adopt you."

So bad roomate situations sometimes have good long term consequences.

Hope that wasn't off topic.

If so, consider this: I have lived alone ever since and now actually own my own home.

Peace.

[John Mora]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

No Koreans.

[Nixon]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

One day I witnessed one of this guy's friends flick a lit cigarette at the cat. The cat started to bolt and I jumped over him, picked up the cigarette and flicked it right back at the person. It bounced off his forehead in a shower of sparks.

My respect for you just went through the roof. Nice move.

Cool story, too.

[Pitopito]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

my sisters roomate is a little slow.
i frankly think she has epilepsy. she always falls down. she trips on the stangest things (i.e. seatbelts, dogs, cothes on floor), and she falls down the stairs every now and then.

not to mention she thinks she was an ant in her last life, bimbo means lesbian, and george bush is the best president we've ever had.

[BlueSenshi]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

I've got one:

Don't move in with a sibling you don't get along with. I moved in with my sister and she was a constant nag. We had this agreement that I would buy the groceries and she would clean the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. I did my own laundry and cleaned my own room. Our groceries usually exceeded $100 every two weeks. I never limited what she could buy, and I never complained about the bill being high. So she was basically getting paid over $100 a month (half of the total monthly amount) in food to clean her own living area.

The problems started when she had her best friend over daily, while my best friend only came over once every couple of weeks. Her friend ate at least one meal a day from our food. Mine rarely ate at our apartment, and usually it was food he brought himself. Our grocery bill grew by probably $60 a month, but I didn't say anything. Then she started complaining that I never did any of the housework. I told her that if she wanted me to do housework, she'd have to pay for groceries. She thought this was unfair, regardless of the fact that we had agreed on it for several months.

She and her friend constantly griped that I never cleaned anything outside my room. I mentioned that I don't cook, so at least 80% of the dishes in the sink at any given time were theirs. And we had a dishwasher, so it required little effort on her part to clean them. I also mentioned that her friend ate the food I paid for on a regular basis, and that I wasn't going to pay for her to cook food and then wash the dishes for her afterward.

Any time they complained to anyone else, even their own friends, the response was always "So? I'd clean my own apartment for free food".

The best part was when they suddenly told me that they were getting an apartment together and that I had about a month to find a new place to live. Her best friend got a dog soon after, and it tore their apartment up constantly because she ignored it. My sister had to clean up after the dog and give it attention for almost a year, until she moved in with another friend. My apartment was consistently cleaner than hers for almost a year. My roommate and I keep the living area really clean, and we divide the housework and bills evenly. It's great.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

Yeah, my room mate and I have a great arrangement worked out that even makes it possible to live with her. Every day after work, I retreat to my room, and she doesn't see me with exception to times she needs something or has a question for me. We go out to eat about once a week, because any more than that and I get aggravated with her. We work together as well, but our jobs are always on opposite ends of the building, so we almost never see each other at all, and that's why it's possible to live with her. This woman will never get married.

Don't move in with your best friend. My sister tried this in college first semester, and they hated each other after that. My brother tried it in college as well, and he ended up hating his friend, too. I was going to try this with a friend of mine when I moved back to Ohio, but that's a slim chance now. The only reason I think it can work is because whenever I visit Ohio, I basically live with him and his family anyway, so we've experienced some of the 'best friends as room mates' stigmas, and surpassed them.

I envy anyone who's my age (around their 20's) who can hold just one job and pay all the rent and bills each month to live on their own, and still have cash left over for fun things. I could technically get a cheap apartment in a bad side of town that is run-down and dirty, but who wants that? I want a decent apartment, or perhaps even a house to rent or mortgage, all to myself. Sure, I'll have more housework to do, but damn, living on my own would be so great. I hate living in compromise of the other people living in the house.

[Magus]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

No Koreans.

Here here!

[Kefka Jr.]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

This is good info for me. I'll be starting college in less than a few weeks.

I have yet to call my roommate, though he's already left two messages. He sounds like a nice guy, and he seemed humble enough, but when I checked his Facebook, I found out that he likes SPORTS!

I gotta call him to clear up a few things. I'll have to tell him to get his own TV, so he can watch the Eagles and I can play Lunar.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

Having a college room mate is a lot different than having a room mate who has his own living area separate from yours.

I was cursed to have a 23 year old sports-loving Jesus freak as my first semester room mate the only year I went to college. We lived completely different lives, and completely different schedules, and we were constantly in conflict over everything, especially the use of the TV (even though it was my TV, he was adamant to watch his stupid Sooners games). I had a horrible experience when it came to room mates, and I was no better for his lifestyle, so he ended up moving out for his final semester.

I was too worldly for him.

But he was messy. And gross. He would hang around the room in his tighty whities with hash marks, or as I came to call them, runways.

Terrible terrible experience. Terrible. Nightmare-invoking. I'll take my pseudo obsessive-compulsive clumsy room mate over that guy any day of the week.

[The Toecutter]

Re: The Do's and Don't's to having a room mate.

Anyone ever scare off any roomates?

I've never had one myself, but I imagine if I did go to another college and move into a dorm, and brought my snake, my guns, my knives, and the 'sperm rag' that any potential roomate would run away in fright.

I once had an engine block sitting on my bedroom floor leaking grease and oil, which as of today its leakage still needs to be cleaned up. On top of that it a box and on that box rests about 20 books from my campus library I checked out over the summer. I also have about a foot thick of papers scattered about my bedroom that contain everything from drawings to poetry, to college assignments, to designs of random ****(hoists, forklift motors, ect.), to failed computer programs that I printed out. I'm rather fond of them and I refuse to throw them out. In the corner by my bed rests four broken and disassembled VCRs(Found them in a dumpster, assembled) stacked on top of a busted computer from the early 90s, with a soldering iron resting in its holder, and some flux and lead wire nearby. On the floor near the VCR pile and computer they're stacked on is a bunch of resistors, OpAmps, LEDs, and capacitors I snagged from the physics lab back in high school and make frequent use of. Above the VCR pile near the ceiling is my pretty light I made out of a cathode ray tube that can flash in three different colors. In the closet is my coffee table shaped like a coffin, with a ****load of cardboard boxes piled on top of it. In that coffee table contains some not so legal things. Under the bed sits an old remote control robot I made that has long since caught on fire from the battery not being charged properly, of which I may never fix. Often, the boa runs loose, sometimes I have to throw some of the papers lining the floor out because he craps on them.

Think anyone here could live with me as their roomate?