We all leave a little bit of a mess at times. I’m sure that even the biggest pedant on planet earth sometimes goes to sleep without washing that one stupid cup in the sink. And, in all honesty, being a little bit messy is not a bad thing at all, as long as it doesn’t bother anyone else.
Unfortunately, being roomies with someone can break up the strongest and longest of friendships. What seems like great fun at the start slowly turns into a cold war over shared spaces, just like in today’s story.
More info: Reddit
A roommate not picking up after himself no matter what you do could certainly drive anyone to desperation, if not anger
Image credits: Ali West (not the actual photo)
A woman picked up her keyboard and took to r/badroommates to vent about her roommate choosing to move out instead of clean up their shared spaces
Image credits: u/hcometmnm
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
The guy wouldn't clean up for months, no matter how nicely the poster would ask, leading to flies showing up at the place
Image credits: u/hcometmnm
After the woman was done picking up after him and asked him to pitch in at least a little, the guy hit her with "I'm moving"
Image credits: u/hcometmnm
For a start, the guy took the TV so she couldn't use it, leaving the woman at a total loss, as they had been close friends before the incident
Last Tuesday, a woman by the name of Hailey (which is far nicer to read than her username - hcometmnm) took it to the Reddit community for sharing all bad roommate woes and getting advice on dealing with them.
R/badroommates is a great way to take an introspective glance into your nostalgic days of living with roommates, hanging out with someone all day, going to sleep late and waking up even later. It only takes a couple of minutes to remember that the whole ordeal was less glamorous than your memory would like to tell you.
Hanging with friends is truly a double-edged sword. Kicking it and chatting all day is fun until… it suddenly isn’t. Most people still need their me time, whether it would be quietly reading a book, gaming, anything. And it doesn’t matter that the other person is just calmly sitting there, it’s still somehow irritating.
It gets exponentially worse when your personalities clash. One goes to sleep early, the other comes home from a rager party late at night. One hates the smell of fish, the other one microwaves a stanky tuna meal from yesterday.
And of course, the age-old disputes about cleanliness. It’s especially bad when you’re living in a small dorm room, because even a small mess can mess up the whole vibe of the place. Clothes tossed on a bed in a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home may not seem like a big deal, but when it’s in a place like that, it becomes the whole centerpiece of a room.
Such was the problem Hailey was dealing with. It’s uncertain where she is living, but even if it isn’t a small place, her roommate is generating enough mess for it to be bad nonetheless.
For this story, Bored Panda reached out to one of the members of the r/badroommates community and commenters on the original story - nomiras. Besides an interesting story, he had some good insights for why you should always spend a while living with someone before settling down with them for good.
Nomiras apparently lost a best friend in a similar vein to the poster. They were living together at that friend's mom’s house for a stint. He doesn’t exactly know, but he believed that he disliked him frequently talking to his mom (who was a gamer playing similar games to them), leaving cabinets open occasionally, and maybe some stuff that the nomiras doesn’t remember.
He was chatting with his mom once and said that his best friend probably hates him, seeing as they went from hanging out and playing games all the time to him avoiding nomiras as much as possible - and the mom agreed!
He speculates that the friend was jealous of the time he was spending with his mom, something in the “hey, that’s my mom, not yours” kind of deal.
There was also an incident with him going on a double date with two girls one time. “He got completely smashed and was saying really weird stuff. I may have tried to get him to calm down a little bit, as it was weirding the girls out. I have no idea if this was what pushed him over the edge, but it seems like the cold shoulder came shortly after this.”
After all this, he’d try to dodge him every time he met the guy in public or plainly ignore him.
Similarly to the poster’s friend, we can’t be sure why the guy snapped at him, but it seems that there are deeper reasons in both cases for that behavior.
This has led nomiras to believe that you must move in with someone before marrying them as it could be make or break. He hasn’t experienced many examples personally, but trusts his gut on this. He also mentions having a long distance relationship with a woman, who he moved in with after a year of dating.
“She was extremely messy, and it was one of the many things that caused me to no longer date her / kick her out (gave her one month to move out).”
This and OP’s story seem to certainly give credence to the idea that you don’t really know a person until you’ve lived with them for a good while.
Image credits: Malte Helmhold (not the actual photo)
The worst part of such conflicts is that the intense friction building up over weeks and months has no way to dissolve, only explode, if it’s not checked quickly enough, leading to shattering of long-term relationships.
Hailey had suffered her dear friend’s untidiness long enough. And although she worded her request politely and gently, she finally put her foot down, saying that things had to change. Even that was past the point when flies showed up to eat the refuse, which really does say a lot.
The roomie, instead of bending and somehow collaborating with Hailey to find some compromise, snapped. He threatened and actually even begun moving out, although for the start, he’s only taken the TV, so she can't enjoy it anymore.
Classroom has some good suggestions for what to do if you’re dealing with a messy roommate yourself.
For a start, you should discuss cleanliness as they move in or even better, before, setting down rules about food in the fridge, tidiness of common areas, cleaning schedules and the like. If you notice things that you do not appreciate in the home, you should call them out, describing why you’d prefer for things to be tidy.
You should also consider some kind of compromise like each person cleaning every other week or setting up specific dates for deep cleaning the home, so everyone in the home can set aside some time for it. What has worked for me, a lot of times in the past, was allowing roommates to choose what they want to clean - maybe one will choose to clean more area, but less messy work, like cleaning the halls, instead of the bathroom.
People are more likely to do things that they dislike less.
If things don’t get any better, you have to choose the nuclear option - landlord, dormitory admins or moving out yourself - you deserve to be in a clean home and if a person won’t meet you in the middle, you should take steps if they are available to you.
The post got over 1.3k upvotes in the community with over 150 comments discussing the issue together with the poster. Most people made jokes that they had very similar roomies and also supported the poster by way of mocking her old companion.
Share your own roommate horror stories and tips to make them pick up after themselves in the comments below!
The community shared in the poster's woes, saying that they had the exact same roommate, at least behavior-wise
