Roommate drama rages through students apartments
For many college students, leaving home and family may not be as difficult as what they find upon their arrival. Roommates – whether carefully hand picked or determined randomly – are in a unique position to aggravate and entertain.
Brad Carling, a senior majoring in accounting, said one roommate made a strong first impression.
“The first day I moved in, he comes walking in, introduces himself and took off his shirt, then flexed and said ‘This is your goal, this is what you want to be,'” Carling said. “He was an attractive guy, but he honestly thought he was God’s gift to women.”
Carling said he made an effort to get along, with mixed results.
“I would invite him to do stuff with me and my friends,” he said. “Sometimes he would come, sometimes he wouldn’t.”
Chelsea Howard, a sophomore majoring in statistics, said she had a roommate who ate fish every day and once attempted to fry sushi in the kitchen.
“For months afterward, our apartment was drenched in a grease smell,” Howard said. “Luckily it was before Christmas break. Better believe we took all our clothes home to wash the stench out.”
Tessa Brown, a sophomore majoring in English, lived in the apartment at the time of the fish-fry-gone-wrong.
“I swear I still get whiffs sometimes,” Brown said. “One of our other roommates dry cleaned all of her coats. The smell was bad, but the taste was worse. I went for a run right after I ate the fried sushi to get it out of my system as quick as possible. My other roommate made herself throw up it was so bad.”
Brown said the roommates would text the words “dead fish” to let one another know when seafood was being prepared in the apartment.
Brian Lee, a junior majoring in business marketing, said one of his roommates in particular caused him grief. Not only was he socially awkward, but he accidentally started a fire in his room and didn’t tell anybody about it for the rest of the year, Lee said.
“Room inspections caught us by surprise – we all got charged,” Lee said. “I’m guessing he had a little burner oven in there and it got out of control. I mean, his desk, bed, and the whole wall was black. We just assumed he always stunk, we found out why.”
Lee said rather than learning to live with his roommate, he spent more of his time away from the apartment.
Justin Peterson, a sophomore majoring in English and theater, said he met his strange
st roommate while working as a lifeguard in Disneyworld. Peterson said the roommate would make up stories about himself, saying – among other things – that he had trained in the martial arts as a Shaolin monk. Peterson said he was skeptical.
“He was like, ‘It’s true, I can break stuff with my head,'” Peterson said. “So we got a cinder block out and we called him on it. We called him on his BS.”
Instead of admitting he lied, the roommate set up the cinder block in the garage and slammed his head against it, Peterson said.
“Of course, the cinder block goes nowhere,” he said. “We were all just busting up laughing. But I guess he showed us because then he stole all of our money and left town.”
John Pence, a junior majoring in computer science, keeps a collection of hockey jerseys in his room. Pence said one day he walked into his room to find a shirtless roommate trying on a jersey.
“He had so much hair on his chest and back,” Pence said. “Not only was I incredibly offended by him being in my room and trying on my stuff without asking, but I never wanted to touch that jersey again.”
Pence said his roommate’s intrusion offended him, but the jersey wasn’t a complete loss. At the end of the semester, Pence sold the jersey to his roommate for $20. Along with the monetary compensation, he said in time the incident provided entertainment.
“My friend and I would actually make fun of him to his face, and he didn’t really care,” Pence said. “He was interesting.”
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