"She Seemed So Nice And Normal": 27 Roommates Who Turned Out To Be Absolute Nightmares
Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community to share their worst roommate horror stories, and they 100% delivered. Here are the ones you'll be thinking about later...and not in a good way:
1."She seemed so nice and normal. Then one day I get home from work early and see her hosting and being a VERY active participant in the wildest orgy I have seen in my life (and believe me, I have seen some shit). I’m talking a fetish smorgasbord — furries, old people, superhero/fantasy character cosplayers, baby outfits and pacifiers, BDSM, at least two women wearing clown makeup and wigs. I didn’t say anything, just silently and immediately moved out."
—Anonymous
2."In college, one of my three roommates was random. She did not tell us her name nor would she talk to us or acknowledge us. She would cook in the kitchen at 2 a.m. in the pitch dark as I’d be stumbling back from the bars. Her boyfriend (maybe brother or friend? Never got the confirmation of their relationship) moved in without us knowing. One night my two roommates and I heard a blood-curdling scream around 3 a.m. and agreed it was time to call the cops after some previous incidents. He was arrested and she was taken to the hospital to get stitches. She never acknowledged us or said anything to us even after that and he continued to come around leaving us all fearing for our safety. There was nothing that could be done about it, apparently."
—Anonymous
3."My last roommate ever staged a robbery in order to skip bills and move back in with her parents (at 25 years old). Stating our neighborhood wasn’t safe (middle of a suburb) when she really couldn’t manage her money."
"What else…oh yeah! I didn’t speak to her as she screwed me over financially big time, but I heard there was another reason she ran running home to mommy and daddy. She was pregnant."
4."Not a flat mate, but someone in the flat above would use the communal stair well as a toilet. Pretty much every week there would be piss, puke or poop (sometimes all three) on the stairs. Fortunately, this happened on the stairs going up from where I lived. No idea how people would get past it."
5."We once had a housemate who captured a wild rat and decided to keep it as a pet. She didn’t understand why we were furious at her. The same girl regularly used to boil chicken carcasses with random plants she had found out on walks then just drink the stock it made."
6."I lived with three other people in a dorm at one point. One girl never kept the door open and made it a point not to let anyone see inside. She was a very social person and was out all the time, but never had people over. I didn't think too much of it until the smell. Eventually the smell I can only describe as hot diarrhea was reported to housing. Turns out after a few write-ups she had been shitting in her trash can."
—Anonymous
7."My roommate claimed hand-washing dirty dishes that couldn’t just be cleaned off in the dishwasher was too much work. What did he do instead? Piss on them. I found out about this after we’d already been living together for three months. Ugh."
—Anonymous
8."She turned her room into a garbage can. After almost two years living together, she left the room floor covered in 50 centimeters (1.6 ft) of filth. Old clothes, crafting materials, dishes, her pet rat food...everything on the floor pressed to one big solid mass. I could barely open the door to her room. When you got in and got through the garbage, you could reach her nest. I suppose it was once a bed, but she turned into a filthy nest. Never changed the bedsheets, used to eat and smoke in her bed, after she moved out we found the ants and the colony of dead insects. Her nest was surrounded by dirty dishes (hers as well as mine, that she took without asking) and rotten leftovers. When she ran out of clean dishes, she used to put her food on the pieces of cardboard which she found in her room and then she left it again on the floor."
"She never cleaned shared spaces, usually came home very late at night, mostly drunk. Sometimes she picked up some guys and drag them to her dungeon. One of my favorite things in the morning was to watch these poor fellas how they realize the dirt and mess around them and then try to escape her room as quietly and quickly as possible. She always wondered why they never call her back."
—Anonymous
9."My sophomore year roommate was a nightmare. She did all the normal bad roommate things like use my contact cases and have sex while I was in the room but the worst is that she was prone to yeast infections. She had them like twice a month or more. Not really something I kept up with until I walked in on her scraping the yeast infection crust from her panties onto the floor. With a metal fork. That we used to eat food. When I asked her why she didn’t just wash her underwear in a washer she told me this was AFTER they had been through the wash but they were the cute ones so she couldn’t throw them away."
—Anonymous
10."In my sophomore year of college, I lived with two girls from VERY different backgrounds. A very religious, rural farm girl, and a trash-talking urban city girl. They were like oil and water. It started the day city girl walked into the living room in nothing but a towel and sat naked on other roommates desk chair. And proceeded to chat like nothing was wrong. This progressed to screaming fights, mediation by the housing staff...The final straw (for me) was when I caught one of them putting rat poison in the other's fresh-made casserole (we had a kitchen in our student apartment). I moved out a few days later…and they stayed. Both refused to switch rooms and resident housing said they 'couldn’t force them.' Apparently, they both finished the semester alive."
—Anonymous
11."My roommate for half a semester (Spring 2020) would not wake up to any type of alarm. So she thought she would just set her alarm to the loudest Broadway musical songs she knew and hope she would wake up. Three times a week, I would be woken up 1.5 hours early by LOUD show tunes that would play for a minimum of 15 minutes. She refused to change her alarm. I still flinch when I hear Hamilton songs."
—Anonymous
12."I (F) moved into an all-male residing house post-college. It was super grungy but I did find a free joint in my drawer so that’s a plus. One night one of my roommates asks everyone to go out drinking. Only I was free so we went out with one of his other friends. The whole night I’m playing wingman. Pointing out girls he could bring home trying to make it obvious it won’t be me. We got home and continued drinking. I asked if the punching bag hanging in the garage was his. He said yes and I asked him if he would teach me how to fight. He said yes and proceeds to get up and get into fighting position. He then does a move that brings me to the ground and he tries to kiss me. I just closed my eyes and was like please don’t. Thankfully he got up. I proceed to tell him that I really don’t want to be touched because I was just raped a few weeks prior."
"He responds by saying his only experience with that is one time he was having sex with this girl and she was like 'no stop.' He then proceeds to tell me he kept having sex with her because he knew she wanted it. I was in such shock I just left and went to my room. I moved out the next day and told all the other guys to keep an eye on any girls they bring around him. Creepy."
—Anonymous
13."I was living with two girls in college, both who I knew prior to moving in but was not close with. It all started when I wanted to get a dog and they wanted no part. The one roommate got over it while the other just couldn’t. She continuously would shut off the heat so I would absolutely FREEZE on the first floor. One day, I left a passive-aggressive note on the thermostat asking her to leave the temperature at a reasonable level. She got irritated and huffed off. Words were exchanged and she bullied herself into my room and poured water on my laptop."
"I proceeded to push and bite her (she was much larger than me) out of my room because I had a small rabbit who I was afraid she’d hurt. She put a waffle in the toaster (the kitchen was right outside my room) so I pettily ripped it up and threw it away. As I was changing over the laundry, she proceeded to kick me in the back of the leg so hard that I bruised. (The first time she assaulted me, she cornered me in the kitchen and flung my hot microwave dinner in my face. The police showed up, but she had skipped town by then.) She then started messing with dishes in the sink and yelled, 'I WILL CONTINUE TO TURN THE HEAT OFF BECAUSE I DON'T ASSOCIATE WITH TERRORISTS!!!' She dumped the entire trash bag onto the floor, smashed my cute matching cow cookie canisters, dumped all of the meat from the freezer into the trash pile, and flung cereal all over. At this point my other roommate was sitting on the couch watching everything unfold. We decided we needed to get her out of the house. We called the landlord and then called the police who proceeded to arrest her for assault. They asked her if she wanted to put shoes on before they took her out. She refused and screamed, 'I don’t need no shoes!' So they walked her out the door barefoot and in cuffs while she screamed on the top of her lungs, 'She bit me!!!' My other roommate and I went to the women’s shelter where they helped us with the restraining order papers. The arresting officer then called us to let us know that she was on a 72 hour psych hold because she was self-harming. There was a giant puddle of blood on her carpet when we got home. Being a big proponent of mental health, I really hope she got the help she needed. My other roommate and I never saw her again."
—Anonymous
14."To be fair, I needed a place and the sooner the better. And it was cheap — $300/month all included. BUT sight-unseen. I arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned hoarder's trailer house. The door was open and I could smell the inside from the driveway. I balked — [my new roommate] looked a bit uncomfortable but offered to show me the room. Fortunately, it was the unused end of the house, but the bed had actual rat shit sprinkled across it."
"There was a clear path through the multiple, used-only-by-his-two-dogs, appeared- to-be-found-on-a-curb couches stacked in the living room that went straight from the front door to his room — this left the carpeting in my end visually clean, aside from the rat shit, so there's that. There was a massive, new, rat shit-covered water heater, boxes of junk (his word), random chairs and stools in various states of disrepair, coated in — no exaggeration — a quarter inch of grimy dust. The sink and it's counter were stacked with dirty dishes (not plates, bowls etc. but colander, cake-saver, baking rack — odd things) caked with rotted, desiccated food....and rat shit. Massive, four to six foot cobwebs hung overhead like the best haunted house decor. Obviously this guy was in a deep depression for a long time, but I was stuck. Took him out to dinner for a chat where he did, to his credit, offer to pay for a hotel room while he cleaned up but I knew he didn't have the money to spare or the motivation to clean. We wrote up an agreement that I would help get the place right and hygienic rent-free until one month after the house and yard were done with him working twice as hard as me. ... This was in hopes of him powering through in a month or six weeks. Immediately cleared my room of everything, but I also immediately got a sinus infection after sleeping in the empty but not sanitized room for one night. He paid for the antibiotics. We cleared the garbage, couches, dishes and odd furniture, moved the massive water heater and he sold it, I used an exterminator-type pump sprayer to coat my bathroom with straight bleach three days straight (showering at the gym), we cleaned the carpets six times in two weeks, wiped all surfaces and cobwebs, replaced the defunct dishwasher and ran anything that would fit through with bleach. Scraped out the repulsive, reeking refrigerator and freezer. This all happened over two weeks during which he had weekends and a few random days taken off from his 8-4 plumbing job. Then he 'needed a break.' Two weeks of no movement until I pushed to get the patio unearthed — garbage, bagged and loose, tools, dog sh*t, random effluvia — he sat through most of this removal picking through each item, frequently asking if I wanted this or that. Then I unpacked what I was willing to put in cleaned areas. The snail-paced continuation dragged on for another month with the occasional successful completion of a task or area while I repeatedly got sick with sinus and lung issues which he dismissed as a weak immune system...It's now six months deep and while my living quarters and the common areas are livable, normal maintenance has to be requested three times at minimum to occur. While I'm still not paying rent, I'm also scraping by because I keep getting sick, missing work, paying for medical stuff and buying air cleaners (two) so moving is not yet an option. All work has ceased. We had a I-cook-you-clean arrangement but he first started hoofing half a 4-5 person meal, then stopped wiping countertops, then started 'wiping out' my pots and pans, then deteriorated into leaving the dishes for 12 days before I started cooking only for myself. Outside of halfhearted gaslighting attempts and Olympic passive-aggressiveness, he's mostly a decent person but refuses to get the fuck up and move forward. ... I've been looking at military tents and long-term camping accoutrements because I'm almost convinced that living in a tent is healthier and I'm probably more likely to recover financially if I'm not here."
—Anonymous
15."Had a roommate who never cleaned. They never ate their leftovers and just left food rotting on the countertops, directly next to my bedroom. Then, when I found cockroaches in the kitchen and politely asked them to start cleaning up after themself, they had the nerve to tell me the cockroaches were there because, when the weather was nice, I had left the back door of our third story apartment open for a couple hours once (the door was completely on the other side of the apartment, too). No, roomie, it's 'cause you live like a pig."
—Anonymous
16."In the military, I shared a tiny room and bunk with a maniac who eventually got kicked out. At one point, they bought some genuine throwing stars and used to throw them near me while I was trying to read at my desk. They finally quit when I had enough and pitched one back in their direction. To be fair, I warned them repeatedly that I would, if they didn't quit. Guess they didn't like having spinning blades thrown near them. Imagine that."
—Anonymous
17."I had a spare bedroom that wasn't being used so I offered it up to a coworker that needed a place to stay. He showed up with an air mattress as a bed and camping chair for his furniture. The first month was ok but quickly went downhill the second month. I had to wait for him to leave the townhouse so I could go into his room and retrieve the dirty dishes that he refused to bring back to the kitchen and wash. The amount of insects that were infesting our place due to his dishes was disgusting. I ended up paying an exterminator to come through and of course the coworker refused to help pay for it."
"Around month three he skipped town when the rent was due and told me his grandma passed away so he was at the funeral. I felt bad for him so I covered his half the rent with the expectation that he was to repay me when he returned. Never happened. The following month he skipped town again for a funeral and stuck me with the rent bill. I reached out to the landlord for assistance with his eviction and was told it was between me and him to figure it out. I figured it out by placing his crap on the curb and messaging him to come get it. He threatened to take me to court but his fancy bedroom set and inability to pay bills told me he couldn't afford court. Either his stuff was stolen or he showed up under the cover of darkness as it was gone by the following morning. Landlord changed the locks for me and I swore off ever having a roommate again. Found out through a mutual friend that he moved in with a different coworker and they were in the process of evicting him for skipping town when the rent was due...you guessed it...another funeral."
—Anonyous
18."Her parents gave me, directly, the initial money to move in (at 25 years old) and despite their relatively advanced age, helped her move in and reappeared with groceries shortly after. She never fed her cat in the first two weeks — there wasn't even a bowl for her — and very rarely left her room when home. I never saw her use the bathroom. Week three I heard a two-person commotion (sounded like a banging party but from two people) and the downstairs neighbors knocked on the door. I went to her door to ask her to keep it down because the neighbors actually complained. When she opened the door I saw her guest and a tray with I-don't -know-what powder and a syringe. I told her he had to leave now."
"They laughed. Thirty minutes later the neighbors came up again about the noise and I told her he had to leave again. They laughed. Ten minutes later I told them I would return armed and escort him out myself. They laughed. I returned armed (9mm) and they suddenly freaked out like I hadn't said anything prior and left. I changed the locks and called her parents (totally weird because I was 21 calling an older chick's parents to deal with her). They asked if I could be patient, I said not with IV drugs. They offered to pay me double (total rent) and all utilities to let her stay. Alarms went off in my head; I said no. They came to get her things. They left 14 used syringes, approximately 100 cigarettes butts, two trash bags worth of wet (??) garbage, a five gallon bucket that I assume was her toilet (I didn't open the lid, but it stank) and the elderly cat in the room. That was 14 years ago and I'd avoided sharing quarters until six months ago....I'm now in a less drug-induced but grimier roommate situation. I'm desperately scraping every penny to buy an RV or houseboat so I might never again shared quarters. God help me."
—Anonymous
19."In the barracks, we had suite-mates — not exactly roommates, but close enough. We had our own rooms and sinks but shared a room with a shower and toilet. First, she never cleaned it but once in the entire year and a half we lived there; I did it all. Second, and worse than that, she would drunkenly bring a different guy home every weekend (sometimes a different one on Friday and Saturday night), sometimes have sex in the shower, and forget to unlock the door for my room, so I couldn't use the bathroom. This was a huge deal because I worked shift work all weekend. I had to get ready to go to work while she was 'entertaining.' She made me late to work more than once, which is really fun in the military, let me tell you. Try explaining to your sergeant that you're late because your suite-mate was banging some rando in your shower...again."
—Anonymous
20."My roommates made me permanently hate bananas. They weren’t nice people. They bullied me about many things. One day, I noticed that we had rotten bananas in the fruit bowl. They had fruit flies and smelled gross, so I threw them out. They screamed at me for throwing out their bananas and gaslit me and said they didn’t smell. After that they purposely would buy bananas and let them rot to gross me out. I haven’t eaten a banana in ten years and I will not go near a ripe banana or anything banana scented."
—Anonymous
21."This wasn’t me but it was one of my friends; her roommate got alcohol poisoning three days into our first year and my friend had to drive her to the hospital at three in the morning. When the whole ordeal was over, she proceeded to ignore my friend and give her the silent treatment because she was (supposedly) a snitch for taking her to the hospital and telling them she was drinking (we were underage at this point in the year). This happened THREE MORE TIMES in the span of a month. My friend moved out after that."
—Anonymous
22."My freshman year of college, I had a roommate who we'll call Melody. So Melody had a sleazy ass of a boyfriend who hit on everyone who had a vagina. Melody was the type to believe her dumbie boyfriend over her roommate who had been around longer then this loser. Her boyfriend was over at our dorm watching a movie with Mel and I, and the second Melody had her back turned, he tried to touch me. I reacted as any rational person would by punching him in the face, and telling my roommate what happened and to get rid of her sorry excuse of a boyfriend. Not only did she not believe me, she accused me of being jealous, and she said I had seduced him!"
"I had a boyfriend (still together and have a kid now too) and I wanted nothing to do with their bullshit so I moved out. Guess what? Dumbass boyfriend did the same thing to the next roommate. They're married now."
23."My sister was once hanging out at her boyfriend's house when they witnessed his roommate lick his plate and put it back in the cabinet like it was clean. Yeah, they weren't roommates very long."
—Anonymous
24."We lived in a two bedroom house with no air conditioning in Southern California. Our roommate worked nights and would fill up the tub during the day and get in and out of it all day long to cool off. Then she'd go to work and leave it there. Had to drain Cheryl water every day before my home-from-work shower."
—Anonymous
25."Lived with a former coworker and then-friend. She was turning 40 and having an early midlife crisis and was so, so vain. She was 'dating' a married man who was a meathead with no personality beyond his lifted truck and the fact he was living in his friend's basement while he lied about filing for divorce. She also had a six-year-old kid that adored her but she didn't want to be a mom and shipped her off to live with her ex-husband. Even after she told her mom she wanted to come home and she was sad...her mom just told her to suck it up."
"Well, I lived in the basement apartment but I did not have a kitchen at the time and would have to go upstairs to get ice/water and cook food. Well one night I was thirsty and went to go up and found the door out of the basement locked with the childlock on the outside. I pounded on the door for a minute straight (think police banging on the door) and she comes down and flings the door open...buck ass naked. Not even a towel or a robe. She then had the gall to ask what I wanted and it took everything to just say 'ice water and food.' Found out the next day she was having sex in the living room and she locked me in the basement...*insert throw up emoji* She had the audacity to ask me if I was embarrassed seeing her naked and I looked at her and said, 'I was actually disgusted' which shut her up real quick. Thank god I moved out later that month and have never spoken to her since."
—Anonymous
26.My roommate was extremely filthy. There was garbage everywhere, rotten food on every surface. He never cleaned the bathroom. The ceiling was covered with flies. He also had a very annoying boyfriend who would be at out place all the time. One time while his boyfriend took a bath we noticed the kitchen sink was — once again — clogged with rotting food. Nothing helped, the obstruction was too deep down the pipe. So he had the genius idea to open up the drain pipe under the sink, cover the hole with a plastic bag to protect his mouth and blow into it as hard as he can. Somehow it worked, BUT: The pressure found its way into the bathroom sink pipe, shooting out the sink plug and spraying smelly, rotting food and garbage water out of it, into the tiny bathroom and hitting the boyfriend in the bathtub. He screamed, jumped out the tub, and naked as he was, covered in foam and rotten food debris ran back and forth in the hallway gagging and screeching."
"I laughed so hard I almost passed out."
—Anonymous
27.And finally..."She started dating a back-alley tattoo artist with six teardrop tattoos."
—Anonymous
What's your worst roommate story? Let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.