We asked Anteaters for their worst roommate horror stories

Do you think you have the worst roommate ever? You’re not alone. Unfortunately, terrible roommates are all too common here. We all hope to be buddies, maybe even best friends with our roommates, but let’s be real, people are weird. Here are the most horrific roommate stories from UC Irvine:

The one with no boundaries 

The first time I realized I had a problem with my roommate was in the middle of the night. I was asleep on a Saturday night when I woke up and heard weird sounds in my room. I looked in the direction of my roommates bed and saw not one but two bodies in it. “Oh my god, they’re going to have sex”, I thought to myself. “Maybe if I move around make sounds they’ll think that I might wake up and they’ll move the living room”. I proceeded to make all of the “sleeping” noises I could, but all attempts failed. They kept going. When I realized that things weren’t going to stop I was like a deer caught in headlights, I couldn’t speak or move, all I could do was sweat profusely and freak out inside.

Another night, a similar thing happened. This time I wake up to stumbling and giggling in my room in the middle of the night. It’s my roommate with a different guy. I heard the shower turn on accompanied by stumbling, thumping, and even moaning. I covered my ears and managed to fall back asleep. I woke up an hour later to the shower still running. At that point I didn’t even care that she was having sex with me there again, my only thought was that I was going to have to pay for the water she was using to have sex. Thirty minutes later, they stumbled into her bed and fell asleep. Stay classy.

The one with too many boundaries 

I lived in a triple bedroom with two other girls my freshman year at UCI. On move-in day, all three of us moved our stuff into the bedroom. I thought everything was cool until one of my roommates “Cindy” started saying that only two people could be in the room at a time and that it was too crowded. When the other roommate and I tried to come to a solution with Cindy about solving her feeling of being cramped, she told me that I had to move all of my stuff into the living room and sleep/live there from now on. I refused.

I told her that we were splitting the rent to the bedroom three ways and were all paying to have access to that room. She continued to insist that only two people could live in the room that I was paying for and made it clear that one of those two people wasn’t going to be me. Cindy even threatened to call the cops on me and tell them that I was forcing her to live in a cramped home. I came back that weekend to find all of her stuff gone. She had moved out without telling anyone. She then began texting us pretending to her mom and demanding all the money she had payed in rent to be returned to her and threatened to call the cops again. It took us a month to find another roommate and we didn’t return any of Cindy’s rent money to her.

The one with control issues

First off, I’m a guy. My first year as a transfer I had the bright idea of living with this girl, we will call her “Mary”. Mary had an awesome condo and seemed really chill at first. Things got bad when I discovered that Mary’s boyfriend lived in the apartment and she was letting people sleep in my bed when I wasn’t there. She also had weekly fights with her boyfriend which involved her screaming at the top of her lungs, slamming doors, and the whole entire block wondering if someone was being murdered. After this, I decided to go to Home Depot and buy a new lock and key for my room, which caused her to have a few screaming matches with me. When it came to the last few weeks of the school year she started insisting that I pay her $500 for damaging her “property”, being the door, or she was going to sue me.

I decided to call our maintenance guy to come up and look at the door to see how much it would cost to fix. Mary was in the shower when the guy showed up and she immediately jumped out and came out in nothing but a towel and started yelling at me. She was screaming at the top of her lungs that I had no right to call someone into “her house” without her knowing. She began to threaten me and I pulled out my phone to record the threats and verbal abuse she was throwing my way in case she did intend on taking me to court. She knocked the phone out of my hand and then called her boyfriend to tell him that I was chasing her around the house while she was naked, trying to take pictures of her……trust me girl, I wouldn’t look at a naked picture of you if someone paid me to.

She told me if I moved my things out that day, then I would be spared of owing her any money, going to court, and getting an “ass-kicking” from her boyfriend. I got a U-Haul and slept on my friend’s couch for the last two weeks of classes.

The one with major FOMO

My roommate had a severe case of underlying FOMO which I clearly didn’t know about. I was invited to a party by one of my other roommates and being friendly I accepted the invitation. I went to the party on Saturday and had a great time. I posted some pictures of the event on Instagram and Snapchat. The next day I got a text from my roommate saying that she hoped I had a great time at the party, which I thought was very sweet.

About an hour later I received another text from my roommate, but this time it was in a group text. The text said that she would be moving her things out THAT DAY and leaving. It was later revealed that she had decided to move out with a few hours notice due to feeling left out. After this, there was lots of talk of “teaching” me “a lesson” and even telling my parents, who’s names were on the lease, that I had attempted to ruin all of her things in the apartment. Don’t worry I got a new roommate and everything turned out great. Word to the wise, FOMO isn’t a good look.

The one who likes to sabotage 

A girl got reassigned to my hall last year after having the misfortune of being assigned to room with someone who decided to sabotage anyone she didn’t like. I’m not exactly sure why or how it all went wrong but it was this girl against two crazies. The leader of the two crazies decided one day that it was time to unleash a little bit of friendly roommate sabotage.

On this day, my new hall-mate decided to take a shower and when she picked up her bottle of shampoo, she noticed that the weight of her shampoo bottle was much different than she remembered. She unscrewed the cap and smelled the contents of the bottle. Her shampoo had been replaced with Nair. She also found her clothes covered in pancake batter and syrup. Needless to say, she was reassigned to my hall right after.

The one with the fish heads 

Last year I lived on campus with an international student from China. At first we got along ok, or as ok as the cultural barrier allowed. Things slowly started going downhill after I realized that we were on a completely different page when it came to cleanliness and security. Once I came home to find that she had left the front door unlocked for the entire weekend.

With all of the campus robberies that happen, I was incredibly surprised that it hadn’t happened to me. Then came the wrath of the fruit fly infestation. She would cut up meat, fruits, vegetables, basically anything that was incredibly perishable and throw it in the trash can. Have you ever heard of a garbage disposal? I lost it when I came home to a fish head in my sink. The fish head that she refused to throw out for over a week. A week. My other roommate and I went to our community assistant for help. She wrapped her fish heads in paper towels and threw them in the trash can for the rest of the year.

The one that likes your boyfriend 

When I was a freshman I met my roommate “Stephanie”. That year I also met my current boyfriend “Nick”. Nick would come to my dorm and hang out with Stephanie and I, the three of us always had a great time together. This went on for months until one day one of my hall-mates pulled me aside and asked me, “How are you and Stephanie doing?”. Apparently, my entire hall knew that my roommate wanted my boyfriend. Even my boyfriend knew that Stephanie wanted him. I was mortified and couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed. For the rest of the year my living situation with Stephanie was painfully awkward. Anytime my boyfriend came around she would hide in her laptop and look at us or speak. The only good thing I can say is that at least she didn’t keep trying.

The ones that try be your psycho stand-in parents 

When I was 19, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment with two other girls that we’ll call Jenny and Francine. I shared a room with Francine, with Jenny getting her own room. Things were rocky right from the start. I was the youngest of the three, making it easier for Jenny and Francine to bond. I was the outsider, but since I really only used the apartment as a place to sleep it didn’t matter that to me that much. It only started mattering when they decided to gang up on me in an attempt to fill a parent role that I never asked for or needed. Some choice examples of this included:

– Jenny chastising me for my room being messy, even though she did not share that room with me and Francine never complained

– Them sitting me down and giving me “advice” on why my boyfriend wasn’t “good” for me

– Criticizing me for what I eat, especially since I had a habit of eating fast food (in my defense I was working the night shifts at Disneyland and Taco Bell is one of the only things open at 2am) So, that was fun.

However, Jenny and Francine’s friendship slowly started to disintegrate. They weren’t hanging out as often. They were getting into loud screaming matches in the kitchen. Eventually, it reached a boiling point towards the end of our lease. I came home one night and Francine angrily told me about something Jenny had done. I don’t really remember what the exactly sparked everything. All I knew was that the second Jenny got home, it was going to be a shit show.

Jenny came home on crutches with her mother not trailing far behind her. Jenny had recently had surgery on her leg and her mother had been staying with us to help her heal. Jenny and Francine started arguing, with Jenny’s mom in the background defending her daughter. Just as I thought this argument couldn’t get any worse, Jenny made some crack about the medication Francine was on and Francine grabbed the can of soda water that had been on the counter and splashed the drink in Jenny’s face. Jenny responded by taking one of her crutches and throwing it at Francine’s head. Francine responded by calling the police. I responded by freaking out, hiding in my room and calling my mom. Anyway, the police came and no charges were pressed. You would think this would be enough for all three of us to go our separate way, but we had to ride out our lease.