Sharing a space with a roommate can be a very interesting experience. You never know what sorts of odd personalities or habits people have until you live with them. Below, Reddit users share their most interesting roommate stories, from funny to wild to heartwarming.
1. Gollum, Is That You?
I woke up around 5:30 am and made my way to the kitchen, groggy and barely awake. As I turned the corner, I stopped in my tracks.
My roommate of three months was crouched on the counter, wearing a speedo. In a Gollum voice, he said, "My precious!" He mimicked Gollum's weird movements. I refused to react to it and just made breakfast. It's been 10 years since that strange encounter and we're still great friends.
2. It’s Getting Hot In Here
I once had a roommate who kept cranking the temperature way up, I'm talking like 28 degrees Celsius or 85 Fahrenheit. The landlord kept coming over to turn it way down, as he was paying the bill. This meant we had the landlord coming over every day for a month. Finally, he turned the temperature to a very generous 22 Celsius and set up a lock box to cover the thermostat.
My roommate came home, got plastered, and grabbed a hammer. That's when he did the unthinkable.
He smashed the box to pieces and turned the temperature up to 28 degrees again. This alone was not amusing. But, he was also stealing my stuff, borrowing money without paying it back, and hosting late-night dance parties to Nelly Furtado music. He claimed he had never used a vacuum in his life and didn't know how.
One time, he put a frozen pizza in the oven with the cardboard still around it. I smelled something burning and raced downstairs to remove the smoldering paper from the oven before it caught fire and burnt our house down. I asked him what he was thinking and he said, “That's the way we do it in Spain". No shame, no apology.
3. The Real Hobbit
I’m pretty sure I used to live with a hobbit. He was a man about five feet tall with curly brown hair and a constantly cheerful demeanor. He never wore shoes, inside or outside. He literally slept on the floor in what can only be explained as a nest of blankets. He started a garden and encouraged me to eat his tomatoes all the time.
He would also bring home samosas and other goodies, always giving me half. 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.
4. Good On Paper, Bad In Real Life
I own a house and rent out rooms in it. Right after I first got it, I was pretty strapped for cash and needed to rent out both of the rooms as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, it didn’t align with the usual lease start dates in town (January, May, and September are the usual in a university town). I had a lady come, mid-30s, who wanted the furnished room. But I felt it was a little off.
Why does this grown woman have no furniture? My friends basically scolded me for being judgemental. Maybe she just got out of a bad relationship, maybe she is new to the city, and so on. So, I rented to her. Turns out she had just gotten out of prison for dealing. And honestly? She was better than the other one.
She did her business away from my home, in hotel rooms. She paid cash on time. She wasn’t home a lot. One time she left her little scale in the living room, and it inspired me to get a food scale which was a game changer in my weight loss journey (a serving of spaghetti is pathetically small and I had no idea until I weighed it).
I ended up making up a lie to get her to leave when she brought a strung-out friend home in the middle of the night because that’s a little much for me. Meanwhile the other looked good on paper, she was an early childhood educator on the supply list. Except she was drinking heavily. She also never went to work because she never woke up on time.
As if that weren’t bad enough, she never paid rent on time, she brought home a random group from the bar in the middle of the night on a Wednesday, she would take three-hour long baths in my only bathroom, and was just not my type of roommate. I finally kicked her out when she started taking my personal drinks. I caught her and warned her.
She did it again a few days later. I called her out on it again, gave her a month’s notice to move out, and she had the nerve to ask for the rest of my drinks! So comparatively…the first tenant was better.
5. Bubbles Everywhere!
My college roommate didn't know how to do laundry before we started school. We had a community washer and dryer on our floor. During the third week of school, I went down to get a soda from the machine and I walked in and there were bubbles four inches deep on the floor. My roommate walks in behind me to check his laundry.
He had put three full scoops of Tide in the washer with his load. I had to take him to an off-campus laundromat to wash all of the excess soap out of his clothes.
6. The Chef And Dish Hoarder
This is my only roommate story. After this, I swore never again. My roommates were a childhood friend and her boyfriend. He was a "chef" (line cook at a chain restaurant) who would cook mediocre meals when the urge took him. They would take nearly every pot and pan in the kitchen to make meals, and he would not clean up after himself.
He also had a cat, which he never bought food for, so I had to feed it because I'm not a monster. On the other hand, my childhood friend was an unemployed student, who would use the cups from my dinner set as ashtrays. She would load up a single plate of food, take it to her room, eat from it throughout the day, and keep it.
This would continue every day until we were out of plates. I said I'd clean them if she just brought them back to the kitchen, but nope. I'd have to wait until she was out, then go get them, complete with moldering food remnants. Eventually, my boyfriend joined our happy little household, and I started setting boundaries.
The setting of boundaries eventually led to a blow-up screaming match, and resulted in me and him moving out. My only regret is that I didn't take the cat.
7. They’re Watching
I had a college roommate who was obsessed with CSI. She had a CSI pillow and blankets. She refused to turn on any lights and kept all blinds shut. She hated light and would sigh loudly if I would turn the lights on to do anything. She would tell me that Facebook is how they spy on you. She said she would never have a MySpace or anything of the like.
She would always say I was a sheep and that I would have my identity stolen by “them". My other roommate (we were four with two bedrooms) was extremely loud at all hours, and if you ever asked her to keep it down, even very politely, she would purposely start doing cartwheels and banging on things and singing. She claimed to be Jay Leno’s niece.
8. Deadly Cleaner
My roommate in college wanted to clean the silt stains out of our shared bathtub, so he poured bleach and vinegar for a "super potent cleaner". After using the restroom and getting lightheaded, I asked what was in the bathtub.
When he told me, I didn't think it sounded right, so I did a quick online search and my stomach dropped. The first result said it could be fatal. It produces chlorine gas which can kill in minutes.
9. Not A Lightbulb In Sight
I had to work abroad for three months. I came home to discover the bathroom light bulb had blown just after I left. My roommate felt she couldn't change it herself, so she called an electrician. The electrician laughed at her and told her she could save a fortune and do it herself. She still hadn't done it by the time I got back.
Needless to say, I fixed it in about five minutes. It would have been quicker, but I couldn't stop chuckling at the thought of her using the toilet in the dark for months.
10. The Painted Volvo
My roommate decided to repaint her car in the garage one night. So, she proceeds to hand sand back the silver paint on her old Volvo and then whips out cans of red spray paint. She spent ages free-hand spraying that car with the garage door closed and without any ventilation.
After she’d moved out, I was visiting a friend in another city and I noticed a spray-painted red Volvo parked at the flat below. It turns out she’d ended up moving in with my completely unrelated friend for a while and managed to convince the old guy downstairs to buy the badly painted car. The same roommate worked shifts and would vacuum and stack dishes at 3:00 am.
11. Almost Burned The House Down
My roommate heated up frozen macaroni in a pan over our gas stove when he'd drank too much. He went to his room and passed out on his bed. I woke up around 4:00 am to the smell of smoke in my room.
I found the entire house filled with smoke. There was a pan of charred black, macaroni still on the stove (which, by the way, was stolen after I had put it outside on our doorstep for a few hours).
12. Friend Of The Pigeons
A few years back, my former roommate and I let our downstairs neighbor move in with us because the guy he was living with had taken up a new habit. He’d befriended the pigeons that hung out on the rooftop outside his bedroom window and eventually started taking them inside and caring for them like pets. Things got real dirty really quickly.
13. Sleepwalking Psycho
I used to cook dinner and always made enough to offer to our roommate. He always paid his bills and rent, but sometimes he didn't have enough for food, so I would cook and ask, "Hey man, wanna have dinner with us?” He would usually say he didn't like whatever I was making. Fast forward to the 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 songs 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 were gone and often dirty utensils were in the sink.
Fast forward another five years and he called me at 3:00 am after not talking to me or my partner for three years. He told me my now husband (aforementioned BF) was doing substances in front of our four-year-old child. I called my husband, who was asleep. Neither of us had talked to him in years...what was this? And then this horror story took an even darker turn.
Fast forward another five years and he's now behind bars for taking his roommate's life. His defense? He did it while sleepwalking.
14. Air Vent Escapee
My freshman-year college roommate was a random pairing. This kid partied all night and slept all day (he legit wouldn’t wake up until 5:00 PM). He went missing for like a week. I called my mom because I wasn’t sure he was even alive. She searched to see if he has been taken in by the authorities. Before she called me back, officers were knocking at our door and asking if we’d seen him.
Mom called me back a few minutes later. He had been booked for robbery at a convenience store which was in our dorm building! But that's not the craziest part.
He tried to hide in an air vent! He made the front page of the campus newspaper, was expelled, and I got the whole dorm to myself for the rest of the fall and spring semesters.
15. Mafia Business
My roommate in college claimed he was involved with the mafia. He was constantly sweaty, was very jumpy, and always had a lot of cash in his car. He was never around on the weekends, and I never saw him drink. Strangest of all is that he never once slept in his room. He was always on the couch by the door. He eventually told me why.
It was because if someone ever broke in looking for him, he wanted "them" to find him right away, so no one else would get hurt. I still don't know if he was telling the truth but nonetheless, I always locked my bedroom door at night.
16. No Boundaries
In my freshman year of college, I got a roommate who had absolutely no boundaries. The night before classes started, she asked if she could have one of my granola bars and a K-Cup for coffee the next morning and I said yes. BIG MISTAKE.
After that, she just kept eating my snacks without asking. I didn't realize until I got really shaky from not eating and went to get a granola bar and noticed they were all gone. She constantly went through my stuff and would stalk what I did, so she could talk to me about absolutely everything I do.
Eventually, she told me she would only stay in the room overnight on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday so her boyfriend could give her a ride to class. But, she would randomly barge into the room unannounced.
In December of that year, I went to the ER because I sprained my knee falling off a skateboard and I left the paperwork on my desk when I left for winter break. I got a call from her that night and she basically told me she read the papers and she read everything they prescribed me for my knee. I put in a room change request form right after that.
Then the week before we got back, she called me and told me she dropped out, or in her words "taking a semester off" cause she missed so many classes that she received a warning from financial aid. I had the room to myself for the rest of the year.
17. If It Looks Like Roast Beef...
I was roommates with a buddy and had flown home for a couple weeks. When I got back, he drove my car to the airport to pick me up and we are just chatting about things we did over the past couple of weeks. He said, “I hope you don't mind, but I ate all of the roast beef that you had in the fridge". I look at him, horrified.
I told him that I have not once in my life bought roast beef for lunch meat. He had eaten ham that was well past expired before I left and had gotten so bad that it resembled roast beef apparently. Thankfully, it didn't make him sick, but it was pretty funny.
18. The Moth Whisperer
My roommate painted his room completely black. He left the window fully open all year round with a bunch of different containers filled with a homemade paste to attract moths. He would walk out of the house barefoot, in a black hoodie, and not come back for days. He wrote a 500+ page manuscript about a guy that started a cult and asked me to proofread it.
One day, I came home to a bunch of kitchen blades left on the counter and I thought it was weird but just washed them and put them away. Turns out he had used them that morning to hold up a liquor store at the end of our street. The camera footage showed him walking back to the house and he was taken in the next day and put behind bars.
19. The Oddball
The university cycling team had its own floor in a dorm during my freshman year. Cyclists can be strange and my roommate ("John") was no exception. He grew up Quaker. His parents had recently divorced and his mom was in the process of building a house in the immediate D.C. area next door to her ex-husband, and the houses were identical.
They were filthy rich and he got whatever he wanted. I should mention, he specifically came to this school to race mountain bikes, but he'd never raced bicycles at all, or even owned a mountain bike. He showed up to school on the first day with a $5,000 road bike and a $7,000 mountain bike. Anytime he went shopping, he almost always used cash.
He had the largest jar of change I'd ever seen. When I say he was odd, he was just not quite there. He was taking 70mg of Vyvanse, but he couldn't pay attention to anything for an extended period of time. So, he'd always interrupt conversations with some out-of-this-world thought and he frequently left the room having forgotten to wear something (like socks or a shirt).
It’s kind of hard to explain because there wasn't really anything wrong with him; he was just never quite there. As an example, on a team trip one time we went to Cracker Barrell. He was very quiet for 45 minutes or so as everyone else was talking. All of a sudden, in a manner that everyone in the building can hear, he articulates the most random thought that has occurred to him.
"Everyone here is old except for us". Certainly true, just no need to say it out loud. While writing this, it has occurred to me that the amphetamines he'd been prescribed since childhood probably took a toll on his brain. Anyways, he was honestly pretty fun to have around because you never quite knew what was going to happen.
We roomed together off campus again sophomore year with two other guys on the cycling team. The summer between sophomore and junior year, he was supposed to study abroad in Austria for two weeks. The other roommates and I joked, somewhat seriously, that it very well could be the last time we see John. If anyone was capable of getting lost abroad, it was him.
A few weeks before the trip, he confided with us that he met an Italian girl online and he was hoping to meet her while abroad. As he was beginning to pack, he showed us a selfie she just sent him. She appeared to be a passenger in a car and wearing a seatbelt. Showing us this, he was terrified.
He was certain that, because she was looking out the window, it was a desperate plea for help and he needed to save her. On his second day abroad, I received a call from his mother. I knew exactly what was on the other line. I put the phone call on speaker so the roommates could receive the same information that was certain to follow.
She asked, "Have you heard from John?" "Uhhh, no. He's in Austria," I replied. She said, "The school called and he's gone missing. They can't find him". So we told his mom about the girl.
The mom ended up hiring a PI who was able to track him down five days later roaming the streets of some small town on the Italian border. He was expelled from the university and I never saw him again. They hired movers to get his stuff from our apartment. He had totally ruined the study abroad trip for everyone.
We asked him what happened, but we never got a meaningful response. He's sent me a couple of incredibly random Facebook messages over the years. Once, he messaged me, "What degrees did you achieved?" I responded and he messaged me back six months later, "That's really cool that you are successful, who else do I know that is successful?"
20. Marilyn Manson Fan
I had a roommate during my technical schooling for the Navy. He was quiet, worked the night shift, and was always just a little odd. He was super nice, though, so we didn't have many problems. One day on my lunch break, I went into our room to grab something and I heard music.
I was curious as to why Marilyn Manson was blasting at full volume at a time he was usually sleeping. I stepped inside the door and saw him laying on top of his blankets with his arms folded over his chest Nosferatu style. After taking a moment to register just how weird this was, I stepped over by his speaker and turned the volume down a tad.
That’s when his eyes shot open and without turning his head, he just asked, "What are you doing?" I meekly responded, "Oh sorry, I thought you were asleep. Was just turning it down". He paused a moment and just replied, "Oh... sorry," and shut his eyes again.
The dude was an oddball, but over time, he opened up to me a little bit and we started gaming together. Wherever you are man, I hope the Navy worked out for you.
21. Missing Roommate
When I was a college freshman, I had a random roommate. She was hardly around, usually out partying and staying in friends' rooms. One Monday morning, I think around Halloween, she left a confidential report lying in the middle of the floor.
It detailed her underage disorderly behavior. With it, was a letter from the school. The letter mandated that she attend Responsibility Classes and write an essay on why what she did was bad. She was gone that whole day, but showed up around 11:00 pm.
She threw some stuff in a duffel, said I could take anything of hers if I wanted it, and left. At the end of the week, someone from the school called me to ask if I had seen her. I detailed the last time I saw her. He asked why I didn't report her missing and that was the end of the convo. I didn’t report her because she left on her own accord.
I eventually found out through the grapevine that she had run away to California (school was in PA) to stay with her brother, and neither she nor her brother told their parents she was out there. I had the room to myself for the rest of the year.
I piled all of her stuff in a corner, enjoyed the extra space, and sat through a very awkward, completely silent 15 minutes when she and her mother showed up on move-out day to collect her belongings.
22. The Man Child
I had a 'friend' who turned out to be a man-child. Not just immature, but at 32 years of age, he would not do basic things for himself. Things like brushing his teeth, cutting his nails, cooking, cleaning, showering, etc. He tried to cook once, which involved him dumping three boxes of pasta into one pot and tossing in ground beef and shredded cheese.
He smacked his food, his hair was matted because he wouldn't take care of it. He moved in with my partner and I because he wanted to find opportunities for education and a better job. He was with us for eight months and in that time, maybe sent out two job applications. I told him to stick to community colleges, but he insisted on some overpriced proprietary school.
He asked if he could stay with us for the year and a half it would take to finish the program. I said absolutely not. He was also incredibly immature. He definitely peaked in high school for a reason. And if you look up "incompetence," I'm pretty sure his photo is next to it. Every time my partner or I cooked, he'd stare until we offered him some of it.
He ate our food and never replaced it, wandered around in his boxers, and never left the apartment. If you tried to show him simple things like how the coffee maker worked, he'd freak out and say he couldn't do it. When he moved out, and back in with his mom, we celebrated.
23. Hole In The Wall
One time, my roommate and I went to a party. He got plastered, saw some people he didn't want to be around, and walked home. About an hour later, my other roommate and I headed home, too. When we pulled into the driveway, we saw lights on in the living room, which quickly went off. When we got inside, we couldn't believe our eyes.
There was a massive hole in the hallway wall. Our roommate was pretending to sleep and when we asked him what happened. He said someone "broke in," didn't try to steal anything, but just busted a hole in our wall (from inside of the bathroom), then slipped out the locked back door. They didn't see him laying on the couch at all either, apparently. Dude was a compulsive liar.
24. The Hypocrite
I had a clean freak roommate who was crazy. She'd literally scream and clean up after you while you were cooking. I'd cut vegetables and be putting the first part into a pan, and she'd walk over furious that I'd left the cutting board out and messy for her to clean up (while I'm literally still using it). But that was only the beginning of the nightmare.
She only ate two things—chicken nuggets and popcorn. She cooked the chicken nuggets on the same baking sheet every day. And when it was caked in nugget residue, she'd put a layer of tin foil over it and cook on that. And then when that layer was gross, instead of removing the tin foil layer, she'd add more tin foil over the top!
When she moved out, she left the pan in the drawer under the stove covered in six layers of greasy burnt crumbed chicken nuggets. She couldn't stand me not cleaning a cutting board halfway through cooking, but apparently, a baking sheet covered in three months of chicken grease and crumbs can go back in the drawer.
She also made herself popcorn every night and then left the uncleaned pot on the stove all the time. That pot was never cleaned. She did all of this before she'd go to bed at 7:00 pm. She's had the same bedtime since she was a child. She never went to bed after 8:00 pm. She was a sound sleeper and noise wouldn't wake her.
She would also invite her nieces over with no warning. So, I was working retail at the time and had just worked an inventory until 4:00 am. I got home and at 6:00 am, she and her nieces (aged six and nine) started playing games that involved shrieking.
We'd never have any idea children were even in the apartment until the morning activities and she would get furious at us for implying we'd like them to keep it down until 8:00 am or 9:00 am. However, if we had anyone stay for more than two hours, she'd ask us to pay a higher share of the rent because they now counted as an additional resident.
She'd watch TV in her room with the door open, and get mad if you made too much noise in the living room on the other end of the house while she was watching. But, she would never change the volume or close the door. If she couldn't hear, she'd lecture you about respect.
She also made a big deal about how the cleanliness of the kitchen was of the utmost importance. I got off work two hours early one day, walked in, and almost screamed.
I found her cutting someone's hair in the kitchen! There was hair all over the stove, counter, and floor. Vegetables are a kitchen abomination, but she cuts people's hair in there twice a week and doesn't think it's a big deal at all. Finally, she was moving out. She let us know about a month ahead of time that she'd be leaving.
Her last and greatest slap in the face was that she charged us for the last month's internet service....and the first thing she moved out was the router, which was hers. She refused to reimburse us for the month's internet, and hadn't let us know ahead of time she'd be taking the router. Then, when she was upset, we asked for our money back, she exacted revenge.
The table and chairs we ate at were hers, because she insisted they be the common furniture since it was the only furniture she trusted. We couldn't fit our table and chairs in until she moved them out and she knew it. So, she left the table, our only place to eat, and she left the chairs, but she took the cushions off the chairs!
She had her brothers unscrew the cushions on all the chairs and take them, but left the unusable chairs and table for 29 more days, out of spite. We tried to move her chairs to put our usable chairs down, and she hid all of ours in a closet in her room and set the chairs with no seat back at the table. I still hate her guts.
25. It’s All Downhill From Here
My first-ever roommate in my freshman year of college was one of the most impressive people I had ever met. He had a great job that covered his cost of living and tuition, had his own place, was getting great grades in a tough program, and was with an amazing woman. I was super stoked when he offered to let me rent the second room.
Over the next year, I watched all of that fall apart due to a sudden and overwhelming World of Warcraft addiction. I can still remember the time when I was trying to get him to log off because he was about to miss this long-standing, fancy night out with his girlfriend. He looked at me with genuine remorse and said, “I can’t".
26. A Gem Of A Roommate
I once had a roommate for about five years who was literally a genius and also an insanely good person. She built a 3D printer from scratch in our living room before 3D printers were a thing anyone could purchase, and she did it just for fun. She also built a “Hackintosh” for me because I needed more bandwidth and space than what other computers offered at the time.
She also made traditional bagels from scratch at least once per quarter in our kitchen, and the best cheesecake I have ever tasted in my whole entire life. She is a unicorn, and we are still the best of friends, though we no longer live together. I have absolutely no regrets. If people still exchanged friendship bracelets or rings, the gems I would put on hers would be huge.
This Earth, universe etc. doesn’t deserve her. Not sure what dimension does, honestly. I am just proud to call her a friend. What do I bring to our friendship? Not enough. That’s for sure. First and foremost, upon our first meeting, I was honest and kind. It is amazing how often people discount and write off people because they don’t fit an archetype.
My dearest friend, the genius who is also an amazing baker, is one of the kindest people I have ever met. We are both word game nuts and I demolish her in word games quite often. I have also helped her via my areas of expertise and we make each other laugh uproariously. We’ve been friends for about 15 years.
27. A Happy Ending
I had a roommate for several years who was a decent guy. He was quiet, cleaned up after himself and was respectful. But the poor guy's life was terrible. He dropped out of high school at age 17. Then he started selling substances, which he was arrested for by an undercover officer. Being uneducated, he ended up with a permanent record.
On top of that, he had a child and things did not work out with his baby’s mother, so he owed child support. This guy was working as a dishwasher at restaurants for $10 an hour (probably less). He had no car, and the closest bus route to where we lived was a mile walk (uphill) from our apartment. He did this every day.
One day, I was talking to my dad, who loves to ride bicycles and has many. I asked him if one could be offered to my friend. He put some new pedals on a road bike of his and I gave it to my friend. On the third day after he had been given the bike, I was awoken randomly to knocks on my bedroom door and some mumbled speech.
I open my door and there's my roommate, with his hand up to his face, covered in blood and maybe a tooth in there. He had placed his bag of clothes on the handlebar, and the drag from the front tire pulled the bag in and caused him to faceplant on concrete. I remember taking him to the hospital, and he asked me to look at his mouth.
Believe it or not, this has a happy ending. After this injury, he'd had enough of walking to the bus, so he got a second job, and began saving up to buy a car. For the first few weeks though, this guy was walking to the bus, and then working a 16+ hour day. There was a gap between jobs, where he couldn't rest much, so was probably getting four hours of sleep a night.
He was saving funds and due to his child support, he could only eat Banquet $1 frozen dinners…all day. That's all he had was one of those. He eventually got the car and his quality of life got marginally better before we parted ways. He ended up moving in with family and closer to bus lines.
It may not be the most extraordinarily interesting story ever, but what that guy went through, I can't imagine. He used to tell me when he was walking home at night, he often contemplated stepping into oncoming traffic. Thankfully, he never did. After we both left the apartment and went our separate ways, we kept in touch.
However, he frequently had phone issues when we lived together. I reached out to him to check in five years ago and never heard back. I hope he's ok.
28. The Not-So-Great Trumpet Player
I lived with a guy who drank like water and played the trumpet. But, that's just the beginning. He couldn't really play the trumpet. He would play the theme to "The Flintstones" but always got stuck on one note. I wanted to take a shovel to the trumpet right at the moment he would mess it up, to put us both out of our misery.
In addition, he had a saltwater fish tank. No fish could live in it because it was a green algae cesspool of filth. The smell was that of a soggy swamp sneaker in a hot gym locker. He would stand and stare at it and chuckle to himself. He also cooked pounds and pounds of kale then would try and get the stalks down the garbage disposal, which always broke it.
On top of that, he would wear a purple robe with no clothes on under it. Granted, the guy meant no harm, he was just so annoying to live with. I still wonder to this day where he is. He went by a name other than his original, so I don't know how to find him.
29. Soothing StarCraft
My South Korean roommate in college played StarCraft well 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. I went from taking three to four hours a night to fall asleep (if I would at all) to falling asleep within 30 seconds of laying my head down.
30. Sleeping Shakespeare
There are plenty, but one of my roommates used to sleepwalk and sleep-talk almost every night. I was the only one who'd be awake whenever it would happen. I'd witness her cleaning our fridge, sealing our opened bag of chips, and I'd hear her quote Shakespeare in her sleep. What made her go back to bed was my asking her to sleep.
She'd look at me and close her eyes. Whenever I ask her if she recalled any of it, the answer was always no.
31. Quirky Roommate
When I lived in a dorm, I had this roommate who was a mostly normal and nice guy, but he had a few quirks for sure.
He would frequently pace back and forth while making gestures with his hands and would whisper and laugh to himself. It was a little creepy because I’d be playing video games or watching a movie at around midnight on the weekend and I’d see him out of the corner of my eye, just pacing back and forth in the dark.
I never had a “bad” experience with him though and he was alright to live with for the half year or so that I did. I’m relatively sure he had some undiagnosed condition.
32. Too Quick To Call The Authorities
My roommate called an ambulance on our other roommate in the middle of the night because she thought our roommate was cutting. Her evidence was that there were red spots on a towel. What actually happened was that our roommate dyed her hair red, which she showed off the day before to everyone. She didn’t even tell anyone what she found; she just assumed the worst.
33. Moldy Beans
My roommate once created a whole new lifeform by leaving beans in the fridge until they molded so bad that they became pure white. Then, she got mad when I threw it away because she was going to use it later.
34. Friends Forever
We met when we showed up for dorm room assignments during our freshman year of college. Almost 50 years later, we're still the closest of friends. I recently attended his daughter's wedding. A grand affair, because he happens to be uber-wealthy. At one point, I found myself choking up, and it wasn't for the bride and groom, it was for him and me…how far we've come.
35. Pumpkin Permit
My roommate wanted to buy a giant pumpkin for Halloween. I convinced him that he needed to go to city hall and apply for a pumpkin permit. But here's the kicker. He actually went and tried to apply.
36. Disney Dreams
I had a roommate in college who could only fall asleep if he watched Disney movies at night. I had to listen to them every night for hours while trying to sleep. I now hate The Lion King with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
37. Recharging
My old roommate (who is also my best friend) would put out crystals or rocks on the fence outside during full moons to get recharged. This is insanely out of character for him. I thought it was hilarious, but I never made fun of it or questioned it.
38. The Forger
My roommate forged a work check for a restaurant I was running while I was away. He used the proceeds to buy airfare to the Caribbean. This was in the fall of 1999. Nobody has seen or heard from him since.
39. The Everlasting Turkey
My former roommate cooked a turkey on Thanksgiving and left it there for a month, picking and eating at it. I threw it away and she took it out of the trash and told me she’d sue me if I touched her stuff anymore. She continued to eat the turkey after getting it out of trash (and yes, it was uncovered just sitting on the stove this whole time).
40. Can’t Boil Water
I taught a roommate how to boil water. Iced tea was the first thing that she had ever made, other than sandwiches and salads.
41. Burnt Beans
I roomed with a platonic female friend in the early 2000s. One day, she took it upon herself to microwave a burrito. Unfortunately, for some reason, she set the time to the conventional oven time. Which meant 40 minutes instead of three. The place smelled like burnt beans for days.
42. The Ghost Did It
My roommate went into my room while I was out, and left her curling iron on my laptop which melted the top through to the screen. The screen was totally ruined. I got home and noticed, and asked her if she had done it since I don't even own a curling iron. She denied it, and said that it must have been "a ghost or a burglar".
43. These Books Don’t Belong
I had a roommate who yelled at me for reading my own books because it messed up the decor. The books were sorted by color and not subject, but reading them apparently made them look not as new. Yeah...my own books.
44. Who Ate My Food?
I had roommates who were Seventh-Day Adventists. They would always eat my food. They said they were not allowed to eat pork, so I started buying only lunch meats that obviously contained pork, but they still ate it anyway.
45. Seldomly Showers
I had a random roommate that showered once a week. Yes, you read that correctly. Thankfully, he was too lazy to go to class as well, and lasted only two semesters.
46. Clowning Around
I lived with two clowns. I woke up to them practicing their routines on many occasions. It ranged from them laying on a bed of nails while chainsawing a watermelon to sword swallowing. It was great.
47. Some Things Never Change
I had a roommate who was not really good at keeping his stuff clean. He had a white bedsheet. Three months later, I noticed his bed sheet was different because it was brown this time. I told him, "Wow, you finally changed your bed sheets!" His response sent a shiver down my spine.
He replied, "What are you talking about? I haven't changed it". I cringed. The worst part? It's been eight years and he's still like this.
48. The Exorcist
I had a very religious roommate once named Mike, who thought I was religious, too. He would often exclaim things like, "Oh my gosh! There are so many people outside! We should be evangelizing!" He would never read any books except the Bible, literally, and he would often pray right in the middle of the common space on his hands and knees.
He was a weird guy, but he always paid his rent on time, kept his dishes clean, and it's hard to find roommates. Anyway, one day while I was reading a book in the living room, Mike came out looking very concerned and asked to talk. The first thing out of his mouth made by blood run cold.
"I think there's a demon living in this house," he said. I'm the kind of person who likes to ask for detail, so I asked him to tell me more. "Well," he started, "Last night I had a dream…no, not a dream, a nightmare. A snake was choking me, and I was fighting with it".
He exaggerated hand movements a little aggressively to demonstrate his wrestling. "Finally, I threw it off of me, but then I realized I was awake, so I sat up". He continued, “I looked over at your side of the bed, and that's when I saw it". I asked him what he saw, and I became more excited.
He said, "The demon. The dark cloud man was just standing next to your bed, watching you sleep. He was like a cloudy shadow with white eyes. I think it's possessing the house". Amazed by what he was saying, I asked what we should do about it. "Have an exorcism," he responded. I almost spit out my drink.
"Well, I've never done that before," I told him. "I have," he interrupted. So, I agreed to it. Anyway, basically, he had blessed holy water (from the tap) and was walking around the room tossing it here and there yelling, "IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST, I COMMAND YOU TO LEAVE, DEMON!"
Meanwhile, I was trying not to laugh for the whole 30 minutes until he finished. He was literally sweating in prayer, and finally stood up to say, "It is done," and walked to his room. We never talked about it ever again.
49. Opposites Don’t Attract
In my freshman year of college, I was randomly assigned a roommate to share a tiny room. I was a quiet computer science student from the San Francisco area, who liked video games and D&D. My assigned roommate was a huge Mechanical Engineering major from the South who liked his lifted truck, dip tobacco, and getting wasted as often as possible.
Needless to say, the next six months were not fun. He constantly left his garbage everywhere, played loud country music, and messed around with my stuff (including scratching a nasty slur into my good stapler). As the year went on, he seemed to get worse, probably due to finding a group of like-minded people in the dorms.
Long story short, he was kicked out of the dorms about two weeks before spring break. He and another guy went on a rampage through the dorm with Airsoft guns shooting the little whiteboard on everyone's door. For some reason, though, he was allowed to stay until the break. I stupidly left for home before he did, and when I got back my very nice gaming PC was missing.
I reported it missing, and told the police exactly where I thought it was (at his new place). They apparently searched it, and though they didn't find my computer, they found enough other stolen goods to get him expelled from school. Thankfully, my replacement roommate was a very nice, quiet guy, and the rest of the year went well.
50. Foreign Behavior
I lost the random roommate lottery freshman year of college. My roommate was a foreign exchange student from China, and we had nothing in common. There are a few odd things she did. For example, she would wash her clothes in the sink, not the washing machine. She would hang the clothes up to dry, even on my side of the room.
I finally convinced her that she couldn't hang her wet clothes on my TV. I came home one afternoon and she had hung a wet dress over my closet door. It was soaking and had ruined all my pictures from home. She came back to me crying on the floor and she patted my shoulder and said, "It’s okay. It’s only photos". Oh, but that's not all.
On top of that, she liked the room hot. Not warm, hot. She would turn the thermostat up to 85 degrees. I tried to talk to her over and over about a compromise, but finally, I got fed up. I ended up opening the window when it was 15 degrees outside. We both got sick, but at least I wasn't so hot. She also told me I had to take my room decorations down.
She also hated my boyfriend. He would come over, and we'd sit on my bed and play X-Box. When she would come back from class and see him there, she'd take all her clothes off, turn the lights off, and go to bed. Didn't matter if it was 3:00 pm or 9:00 pm. Then she hit a new low.
Instead of talking to me about my boyfriend, she told the RA I was bullying her. She would also blow dry her hair while I was doing homework in the room. Furthermore, she refused to take medicine for things. I get that it was her culture, but she would lie on the bed and scream from menstrual cramps while chewing on a ginger root. In short, she was evil.
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