The Roommate

Could almost be a scary movie title, right?

Roommates...the biggest mistakes I've ever made. The biggest mistakes almost everyone out of high school makes. There are some that you can end up great friends with; but most of the time, we're just lucky to walk away from the experience with some good stories and most of our belongings (I'm still missing several books and pairs of shoes).

I used to talk to my best friend in high school about how we would make great roommates and we'd decorate our apartment in retro style and have bean bag chairs and posters everywhere. For some reason I had a thing for blow up furniture and decided I wanted to have a blow up chair in my room and possibly a bed. It seemed so awesome yet far away at the time. Once we graduated, things changed and we didn't even talk for a whole year afterwards, so I didn't experience the roommate thing with her. My first time with roommates was actually pretty awesome, and to this day I will always ask, "Why couldn't every roommate be like Jason and Beth were?"

My ex and I moved in with a couple he met through his job. They were several years older than us, with two Alaskan huskies and two kitty cats. Despite the fact that I'm deathly allergic, I figured I'd try it out, because I didn't want to live with my mother a second longer. It turned out to be the best experience I'd ever have with roommates. We split our chores between guys and girls: guys did the lawn and outside work, girls did the inside chores. We took turns cooking for each other and cleaning the bathroom. We never argued about eating each other's food, we never held grudges about one another being too loud at night, we never had a problem with each other's friends. It was the best living arrangement, ever. It helped that we all hung out together and liked each other a lot, and never had a problem with each other's significant other's. That would all change when the dream roommates decided to move to West Virginia, leaving us to find two new roommates to fill their spots. From that point on, I wouldn't have another good roommate experience.

The first two to move in were a brother and sister that were way too old to be living at home. The guy, Tony, was in my ex's band, and his sister was a cosmetologist. They both worked full-time and drove nice cars their parents bought them. I should have known it would be trouble. The sister, Jessi, was spoiled rotten. She was used to someone doing her dishes, her laundry, cleaning up after her, and allowing her boyfriend to stay as long as he wanted. The boyfriend was a problem. I came home one afternoon and found him watching TV in our living room, and Jessi wasn't even there. She gave him the key to let himself into the house. Big no-no. Second thing was, she had just turned 21 a few months before and was still going through the "I'm legal to drink so I'm going to spend all my money at the bar" stage. When the first electric bill was due, she didn't have it. It was two weeks late. It happened again the next month. However, she did have money to spend at the bar and on the shit ton of makeup she seemed to bring home everyday.

Tony was all right- the only problem was he took pity for his sister because she had never been on her own before. Well, sorry Tony, your sister has to go. We gave Jessi two week to get out at the end of the third month, when she had failed to pay her half of rent and bills the entire month, and kept letting her boyfriend stay there after we had asked her politely to limit it to one night a week.

I had several more roommates after that, but the worst was my own cousin, I'm afraid to say. My ex and I were making more than enough to cover our two-bedroom apartment, but she wanted out of her dad's house and so we made an agreement that she would pay us $100 a month for EVERYTHING as long as she just cleaned up after herself and helped us clean because we were both working so much. It was one thing after another with her. Her phone bill was outrageously expensive, she had to leave work early because she had migraines all the time, her car insurance went up after her accident; so she didn't have rent. The finally straw was when I found out she was trying to hook her best friend up with my boyfriend at the time, while we were all living together. I moved out for about a month, but I knew it wouldn't last, and as soon as I moved back I kicked her ass out and said good riddance.

This last time, though, was the straw: I told my boyfriend I didn't want any roommates when we moved into our new apartment. While I was in the hospital in April, he took it upon himself to move his brother Robert in because his wife kicked him out. He never asked me, he just did it. That made me unhappy. My boyfriend never asked him for rent or money for food, and he stayed there for a month and a half for FREE. Robert never offered, either. When we began looking at new apartments, I didn't want to move into the ones he liked because they were too far from my job and were way more expensive despite the fact that they are old. I relented and said, "Fine, we can get the one bedroom there for now." Next thing I know, he's informing me we're getting the two bedroom and Robert is moving in with us.

I about hit the roof. I gave him a chance, though, and maybe it was because I thought the worst to begin with, but it didn't work. Robert had told us he was getting a divorce, they just had to sign the papers. His wife is a drama queen, to say the least. They were constantly screaming on the phone and she was calling the cops on him every other day to report her car stolen, despite the fact that his name was on the title and registration. He brought her over here, along with his two year old, several times, and it was chaos. They had no control over their kid. Chris and I have two rabbits that are house trained and they are free to run around. Julien, their kid, was afraid of them, and kept screaming and crying until we put them away. Then he would hit their cage with all of his toys, scaring the poor rabbits to death. Neither parent told him to stop, so I took it upon myself and took his toys away, explaining to him why he can't do that. Apparently the wife was pissed about that, but this is my apartment, lady, not yours.

Soon after, she began bringing her stuff over, and they were staying the night. At the time I was getting up at 5 AM to open the store I worked at, and Julien would be screaming and crying all night because he didn't want to go to bed. I finally told Chris he had to tell Robert they can't stay there and most definitely were not moving in.

After that, the wife refused to come over and refused to let Robert have Julien over because she didn't feel comfortable. This whole time Robert was lying to us about getting a divorce; his sister-in-law kicked him out because he was immature and didn't take responsibility for anything, apparently, and wanted her sister out, too. Since they had broken their lease and owed their last apartment over $3000 in rent, they couldn't find another place to live, so they were trying to get Chris to let them live here!

Chris wasn't having that, either, so Robert didn't have his wife or kid over anymore. Suddenly the divorce was back on. He was home more often, and he tends to get up early. He started waking up Chris and I on our days off at the ass crack of dawn, and would come right into our bedroom without knocking. He didn't help clean at all. He never offered to help pay for his portion of food.

The final straw was when he started telling Chris that he couldn't believe Chris was choosing a "stupid bitch" over his brother. Chris had agreed with me on everything, after I told him I wasn't offering to feed Robert dinner anymore and I wanted him to do his shopping separately. He blamed the fact that his wife didn't want to come over anymore on me, saying I made her feel uncomfortable. I'm sure I did, but I wasn't about to let someone else run my apartment. I would plan dinners for Chris and I only to come home to her in the kitchen, making dinner with my own food for her family, too. I wasn't about to let it happen.

I told Robert myself that he was disrespectful and that he needed to grow up. Chris and I didn't expect much from him except to do his part in cleaning and to be respectful when we were home. He ended up moving out close to the end of the month without notice, therefore leaving us with a two bedroom we can't afford on our own and his part of the bills.

From here on out, I will never have another roommate. It makes me sad, because I still dream of having that retro apartment with blow up furniture, sans blow up furniture. But what fun would it be if I don't have the perfect live-in partner?

It makes me wonder if anyone else has better horror stories of roommates.